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Stress and anxiety mean we can’t be the best we can be!
In the last couple of weeks, it has come to my attention that there are many students who are continually in a state of stress and or experience anxiety at school. Teachers, and as a school generally, we think we do as much as we can to ensure students feel safe and respected at school so they can apply themselves to their learning.
In classrooms, especially during work times, students appear quite calm and settled and ready to learn, but that’s clearly not the case. Some of the comments I’ve heard from students who say they are continually nervous or worried include:
- I just know they are always there …
- I don’t know where Mum & Dad will be after school …
- They do it when teachers aren’t looking …
- It’s a feeling I have all over, it’s not just in my tummy …
- They just always do something – like stare, jeer or make a rude face. I just try and ignore them.
Anxiety and the feelings that come from it can be extremely debilitating, particularly when the anxiety is felt for long periods at a time.
To support all of our students, I encourage parents to discuss these feelings with their child, empower them to come to school and share how they are feeling with a trusted adult. If this is too hard, maybe they can write a letter – it can be anonymous if need be, leave it on a teachers desk, slip it under my office door. Know there are things we can do to help you and your child – if we are aware of what is going on.
Discussions with students in the last couple of weeks tells me that there are a lot of students who feel anxious at school, that we don’t know about. Sometimes it’s about what’s happening at home, sometimes it’s about other students and sometimes it’s about the work or the expectations around work. Please encourage your child to come forward, even just share with us how they feel – we can’t help them if we don’t know it’s happening. Research is clear, anxiety impacts well being. Extended periods of high anxiety can even lead to significant developmental delays! We want the very best for every child – and that comes when the environment around a child is free from things that upset or bother them!
Our commitment is to continually strive to ensure that every child feels safe and supported to ensure they can be the very best they can be.
I will continue this focus in our next newsletter – let’s get our children’s fears out in the open where we can attend to them – it’s about supporting your child to be the very best they can be!
Nadine Davey
Principal
In 1/2 Piper, we have had a great four weeks with our prac student from the University of Tasmania, Miss Cacciatori. During our time with Miss Cacciatori, she has taught us how to turn a story plan from a boring piece of writing into something with much more detail that engages the reader.
We have also been learning about positional language and how it helps us to give simple directions to people. We wrote a six-step scavenger hunt for our buddy class. They had to follow instructions to find hidden clues in the adventure playground. If they followed the steps, they arrived to a surprise of Smileys!
In 5/6 B we’ve spent time getting to know our Kinder/Prep buddies.
It’s been great to practice our leadership skills with our youngest schoolmates, and to help them get to know the school that they’ll spend as much time in as we have! This week the weather was not great so we had to do some inside activities. We played with playdough, practiced our sharing and co-operation. We made paper boat silhouettes which meant we had to practice being safe with scissors and glue. We also did some colouring ins together, some buddies even got to keep the ones we made. We can’t wait to keep building these fun friendships with Miss Gray’s class.
In the classroom, we have been learning about using persuasive devices to advertise travelling to countries in Asia. We have had to plan for, draft and produce a persuasive text to present to the class about why our chosen Asian country would be a good place to visit. This task has required us to use a lot of research and summarising skills. Some people are choosing to use ICT to present their text while some are choosing decorated posters and brochures. We’ve had a lot of fun learning about the geography of countries that are closest to us.
With two weeks until holidays, we wish everyone a happy end of term!
Lainey Fitzpatrick
Jeans for Genes Day: Friday 4 August
On Friday 4 August we will be participating in Jeans for Genes Day. The word jean is a homophone with the word gene. They look different and mean different things but sound the same when we read the word. Genes means all the information in our body that makes us who we are, but jeans are the trousers that we wear. All members of the Springfield Gardens Primary School community are invited to wear jeans on this day and make a coin donation to the Children’s Medical Research Institute.
The staff will be entering a team Skipping for Genes challenge. Each person on our staff team will need to jump rope (skip) 100 times each day of August. As they say, practise makes perfect so I hope all staff who join will be skipping legends by the end of August!
Kids just want to be kids, but instead of playing sports with their friends or catching butterflies on a sunny day, kids with genetic diseases are getting liver transplants, taking dozens of medications, or getting their next dose of chemotherapy. It shouldn’t be this way. By donating through Jeans for Genes, you can help the scientists at Children’s Medical research Institute find cures, so these kids can go back to being kids.
U Think U Know
On Wednesday 26 July all grades will be participating in the U Think U Know program that is being run by Constable Anthony Bailey. This program is led by the Australian Federal Police and focuses on the use of online materials. During these sessions students will be taught age-appropriate information regarding being safe when using online sites and materials. For more information you can access the main web site at https://www.thinkuknow.org.au
Interschool Chess Tournament
On Tuesday 20 June, Springfield Gardens had 15 students attend an interschool Chess Tournament. Everyone was very impressed with the representation from Springfield Gardens and commented on their sporting attitudes as well as knowledge and understanding of the game. Our team came out victorious and are therefore invited to send representatives to the state championships in Term Four. Nee Hser Ku and Kobe Mansfield won equal first place in the overall standings. Our top four scorers for the tournament were Nee Hser Ku, Kobe Mansfield, Lexan Brandall and Bradley McGuire.
Other members of our team were Maxie C, Stella, Mariah, Izack, Noah Pearton, Layla, Archie C, Sebastian C, Hayden, Noah B, Johnny and Akira.
A big thanks to Joshua and Brodie for being our reserves. They will play at our next tournament.
Our next tournament will be in Term Three. We look forward to offering this opportunity to more students in the coming term.
Congratulations to the whole team!
Theatre Royal Excursion for Children’s University
On 1 June 2023, students involved in Children’s University went on a bus to the Theatre Royal, which is the oldest, still working theatre in Australia. It has new additions, but some walls are still the original walls in the theatre. When we were waiting, we touched some of the original walls of the building and it was so cool. The walls and the theatre are 186 years old. Then we went into the theatre, and we had to wait a little. We looked up and stared at the ceiling and it looked so detailed. The show we watched was Wilfred Gordon MacDonald Partridge. It was fun and the play was funny. They made some cool sounds for the play with their instruments. They showed us how they made the sounds, and we asked them some questions. After we jumped in the bus then went back to school. We earned two hours for Children’s University doing a review of what happened and a summary of the play. Written by Ra Hau
Upcoming Children’s University Opportunities
A reminder for all Children’s University students to bring their passports and learning logs to school to receive their hours of learning. The current projects students may collect from school to take home to complete are:
- Origami
- Weaving
- Germination: Growing Beans!
- Making a heat pack
- Plastics
- Clean Up Australia
Aussie of the Month
In May, our Aussie of the Month awards were given to Kylo and Noah P.
Kylo was recognised for being so kind and forgiving to everyone and accepting of people for who they are. He always looks out for everyone, not just his friends and makes sure they are okay. He always gives everything 100% effort - even when he knows it is going to be a little bit hard.
Noah is a kind and respectful member of our school community. He always demonstrates our school value of community by showing mate ship and valuing the work of his peers and the adults at school.
A big congratulations to all our Aussie of the Month winners.
School Values Awards: Learning
Over the last two assemblies, students have been acknowledged for their attitude towards learning. Congratulations to:
- Aric
- Oliver
- Zach
- Sebastian
- Jett
- Jiehan
- Elijah W
- Charlotte (Charlie) B
School Values Awards: Community
This week the Upper Primary assembly gave certificates for students who have shown exceptional community spirit. As one of our school values, we were happy to present community certificates to Maya, Gabrielle J, Melina, Johny and Akira Steel.
Grade 5 and 6: Future Seekers and Passports to Success
Over the last 6 weeks, grade 5 and 6 students have been engaged in The Smith Family’s Future Seekers and Passports to Success programs. Grade 5 students worked through the Future Seekers course and in their last session were lucky enough to meet special guest speakers from local industry. Students were able to ask questions about their work and find out first hands the challenges and rewards of working in their industries.
Passports to Success focused on the different skills that students need to develop to be successful at high school. Units included study skills, independence and making schedules. Grade 6 students were visited by a group of students from Cosgrove High School, and they were able to ask many questions about their transition to high school.
I just wanted to thank you again for allowing us to deliver the Future Seekers and Passport to Success programs at your school! I was fortunate enough to attend the final session of the Future Seekers program where we invited some of our industry guests to come in and spend some time with the students to discuss their work – it looked like the students and the guests had a great time! I have attached some photos from the session, as well as an audio file where some of the students recorded a mini podcast with one of our guests!
Free Book Swap – Our very own Community Library!
Parents and community members may have seen the new set of shelving made for us by Todd. It’s located in the foyer beside our display cabinet.
The idea, much like the community libraries you see around the streets, is that people bring along appropriate children’s books for swapping. Leave one or some, and take one you haven’t read. The school has already donated several books and a few little people have taken it as an opportunity to take a - new for them - book home.
It would be really good to see this initiative supported. Please don’t feel you have to give books to take one. The priority is supporting young children to love reading and books generally.
Feel free to have a cleanout at home and donate to our library – especially those books your children have outgrown.
Once our garden is producing fruit and vegetables again, we’ll be using the same shelving to sell our wares.
Books and veggies – can the world get any better?
