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Ardtornish NewsletterTerm 3 Week 3 - Friday 11th August
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No 13
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In this issue
Diary Dates
August 14th - Carly Ryan Foundation Parent Session 6.30pm 18th - National Day Against Bullying, Choir Rehearsal at Moprhetville 23rd - Sports Portfolio 7pm 25th - Tennis Carnival, Book Week Assembly 9.20am Road Crossing
Monitors Wed 9th Aug – Tue 15th Aug Phoenix H, Adi A, Cameron D Wed 16th Aug – Tue 22nd Aug Zahra O, Mikaela B, Isla G Wed 23rd Aug – Tue 29th Aug Amelia M, Sienna H, Rhea V Please arrive by 8.25am |
Empowering Students to Solve Problems
Pictured here is Mabel and Jamieson
Friday, August 18, is the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence (NDA). The NDA theme for 2023 is 'growing connections'. This theme supports research findings that strong school community connections and social skills are protective factors in the prevention of bullying and help enable positive, help-seeking behaviours in students. Bullying is a term that can be overused. Children will often call an individual one off event such as someone kicking their ball away as bullying. As annoying as such unkind behaviour is it is not technically bullying. Bullying has a very specific definition. Bullying is defined as ongoing and deliberate misuse of power through repeated behaviour towards another person with the intent to cause harm. This could be repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. Violence is the intentional use of physical harm towards another person actual or threatened with the intent to hurt someone psychologically or physically. This year’s Wellbeing and Engagement Collection Survey (WEC), a survey of our year 4 – year 6 students showed high wellbeing results in cyberbullying with 88% of our students stating they had not experienced bullying online or via text messages. In the areas of verbal, social and physical bullying our 90% of our students reported this not being an issue at all or sometimes being a problem. These results show us it is so important to keep educating our students about bullying and violence and empowering them to solve problems. At Ardtornish Primary School we grow connections through explicitly teaching our school values: Be Kind, Show Respect, Aim High, Bounce Back. 
These four values are embedded into our classroom practice and are explicitly taught. By teaching our school values we are taking the Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) approach to teaching and learning to promote positive behaviour across our school and help our school develop safe and supportive learning environments.
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We also teach our students how to solve problems through our ‘How to handle a problem’ using the four key steps:
1. Stop and reflect - Stop, think, take a breath, and reflect on what is happening. Ask Yourself: What is my part in the problem? Do I need to change my behaviour? Then ask the person to stop doing what is causing a problem and use an 'I statement to let them know how you feel. 2. Solve it – try to solve the problem. 3. Step away – move away from the person if they will not work with you to find a solution. 4. Seek Help – from an adult. Do not let the problem go unsolved. 
These four steps are on display around our school and actively discussed with students, especially when they are faced with a problem. Teaching students ‘How to handle a problem’ not only empowers them to solve problems on their own, but hopefully prevent the problems from reoccurring.
Additional to teaching our students our school values and how to handle a problem, we also promote to keep reporting a problem until it goes away. We encourage students to solve problems on their own, but when they cannot their first adult to report their problem to is the yard duty teacher or their classroom teacher. Recently I heard one of our year 6 students say one of the best things about being at Ardtornish is how kind everyone is and when you are hurt or have a problem, someone is always there to help. As a staff member and the Student Wellbeing Leader of the school this I am so happy to hear this is how our students feel. Some of the supports we guide our students to are: Trusted Adults – at school and at home Kidshelpline – 1800 55 1800 https://kidshelpline.com.au/ eSafety - https://www.esafety.gov.au/ The Carly Ryan Foundation - https://www.carlyryanfoundation.com/ Mrs Natalie Hall Student Wellbeing Leader, Autism Inclusion Teacher, and Year 6 Classroom Teacher 
Absences
Send a text to 044746152. Include name, class and reason for absence. __________________________________________________________
Assembly Dates Book Week Assembly Friday 25th August - Week 5 9:20am Friday 1st September - Week 6 2.10pm Hosted by Rooms 29 and 20 |
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RRHAN-EC Training for Volunteers RRHAN-EC Training, Responding to Risks of Harm, Abuse and Neglect – Education and Care. Click this link Plink account for volunteers - RRHAN-EC training to do the online training Once completed please email a copy of certificate to [email protected] 
Click the link below to see what events, programs and activities are coming up around Tea Tree Gully Council area. https://www.teatreegully.sa.gov.au/Events-programs-and-activities Congratulations Year 5/6 Basketball Teams!
What a great day we had at The Lights basketball stadium on Tuesday 8th August! Both the girls and boys teams gave their best efforts with the girls achieving their first win after some close games - a great result given that most of the team had not experienced a basketball game prior to this carnival. Our boys team was undefeated, leaving the most exciting game until last and winning their way into the finals play off day in week 8 later this term. Well done all! 
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Children's Book Week® will soon be here!
In week 5, term 3 (21/8-25/8) Ardtornish PS will celebrating Children's Book Week® and the 2023 theme 'Read, Grow, Inspire', and for the first time in 3 years (due to Covid restrictions), we will be having a face to face Children's Book Week® assembly on Friday, August 25th at 9:30 am in the gym.
Lots of questions have been asked about costumes and I want to explain how we organise Children's Book Week® at APS.
- it is not a parade but a concert, where each class partners up with their buddy class and presents a small item (3-5 minutes) onstage.
- we think that 'books should be the stars' during Children's Book Week®, so each item is about one of the Children's Book Council notable or shortlisted books for 2023 (https://cbca.org.au/notables-2023). The students have been reading many of these books in their classrooms so they will enjoy watching them being brought to life on stage.
- the class teacher has already chosen the book and will organise simple costumes
- teachers might have a simple request for families ie such as wear black or wear your bathers etc, depending on the book they are highlighting. They will let you know.
It is great fun to watch and we welcome your attendance but realise everyone cannot come during the day, so we hope to film each item, to share with our APS community.
I look forward to the fun.
Regards
Jane Moore (Teacher Librarian)
