From The Principal
The Joy of New Beginnings
Bible Reading: The earth is full of His unfailing love. Psalm 33: 5
New beginnings often give us a sense of hope and joy. Newly married couples radiate happiness on their wedding day. Choosing a new place to live is often an exciting adventure. There’s a certain energy that accompanies the start of a new school term. And we celebrate the new year with parties, cheers, and even fireworks.
God designed creation to give us a similar sense of hope and joy. Before sin entered the world, creation radiated God’s justice, faithfulness, and love. God’s word, by which the heavens and the earth were created, gave structure and meaning to all created things.
At times, we still catch glimpses of this beauty and joy in creation. We marvel at the smooth sand on our favourite beach. We watch the sun set over the water. We wonder at the complex patterns of frost etched on our windowpanes in winter. We admire the fresh snow blanketing trees in our yard or neighbourhood. And when spring comes, we are delighted with the first blade of grass or the first blooming flower.
Too often, though, in our hurry through life we miss the creative majesty of God at work. What’s new soon becomes old, and we feel no reason to offer praise or even take notice. As you enter this new year, ask God to help you instead to observe something new each day about his unfailing love in creation.
A prayer for today:
Creator God, the stars and the seas declare your goodness and love. By your Holy Spirit, help us do the same. Amen
Excerpt taken from The Joy of New Beginnings — Today Daily Devotional (todaydevotional.com)
The Power of Good Parent-Teacher Relationships
A good relationship with your child’s teacher and school is a great starting point for handling any problems that come up at school. Communicating and building relationships with your child’s teacher helps you to work well together when there’s a problem.
Good parent-teacher relationships mean children:
- do better academically, emotionally and socially
- are happier at school
- attend school more regularly
- are better behaved.
School problems: what to do
It’s common for children to have some problems at school. Some problems are minor – for example, missing out on a place at the athletics carnival or forgetting to bring the right sports uniform. You and your child can usually sort these ones out yourselves by talking and problem-solving together.
Some problems might be more complicated or long-lasting. For example, your child might be having ongoing difficulties in the playground with another child and the strategies you’ve suggested to your child haven’t worked. With these problems, you might need to talk with your child’s teacher to find solutions.
How to approach school problems with teachers
When you need to talk with teachers about problems, a calm and positive approach is likely to get a positive outcome for your child. Here’s what to do.
Pause to calm down
If something has just happened to upset your child, this can upset you too. Try to take some time to calm down before you do anything. This will help you avoid doing something you might regret later, like sending an angry email.
You could say, ‘I see you’re very upset about this, and I’m upset too. We need to calm down so we can think about what to do’. Saying this will help your child to learn this strategy too.
Be a positive role model
Even with a serious problem, you can model positive problem-solving for your child by being positive, thinking about solutions, and talking about working with the teacher. This is better than complaining or being aggressive.
You could say something like, ‘Let’s ask Mr Smith if he has any ideas about how we can sort out this problem’. This kind of approach shows your child that you value the teacher’s opinion.
Speak respectfully
No matter what you think, it’s important to speak positively and respectfully about your child’s teacher, the school and other children in front of your child. If you complain or criticise the teacher or other children and their families, your child will do the same.
Go through the right channels
This usually means talking directly to your child’s teacher to start with, rather than the Principal. Going straight to the Principal can make the problem bigger than it is.
It’s best to make an appointment with the teacher. This way you can discuss the issue privately and the teacher can give you their full attention.
Depending on the issue and your child’s age, it might be appropriate for your child to come to this meeting.
Avoid defensiveness
When there are problems, people sometimes feel defensive. For example, if either you or the teacher feels criticised, you could both end up feeling defensive.
Defensiveness can get in the way of problem-solving, so it’s good to try seeing the teacher’s perspective and to help the teacher see your perspective too. For example, ‘I can see it’s unrealistic to expect you to spend lunch time in the playground helping Ethan, but I’m worried because he’s lonely and has nobody to play with. How can we both help him with this?’
More information found at Parent-teacher problem-solving strategies| Raising Children Network
Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD)
Every year, all schools in Australia participate in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). The NCCD process requires schools to identify information already available in the school about support provided to students with disability. These relate to legislative requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, in line with the NCCD guidelines (2019).
Information provided about students to the Australian Government for the NCCD includes:
- year of schooling
- category of disability: physical, cognitive, sensory or social/emotional
- level of adjustment provided: support provided within quality differentiated teaching practice, supplementary, substancial or extensive.
This information assists schools to:
- formally recognise the support and adjustments provided to students with disability in schools
- consider how they can strengthen the support of students with disability in schools
- develop shared practices so that they can review their learning programs in order to improve educational outcomes for students with disability.
The NCCD provides State and Federal Governments with the information they need to plan more broadly for the support of students with disability.
The NCCD will have no direct impact on your child and your child will not be involved in any testing process. The school will provide data to the Australian Government in such a way that no individual student will be able to be identified – the privacy and confidentiality of all students is ensured. All information is protected by privacy laws that regulate the collection, storage and disclosure of personal information.
To find out more about these matters, please refer to the Australian Government’s Privacy Policy(https://www.education.gov.au/privacy-policy).
Further information about the NCCD can be found on the NCCD Portal(https://www.nccd.edu.au).
If you have any questions about the NCCD, please contact the School.
Save the Date
Monday 8 August – EKKA Holiday MBRC
Wednesday 24 August – Book Week Parade
Blessings for a wonderful term of learning and friendship.
Mrs V xo
