Goulburn North Public School has been inundated since midway Term 2 though to today with students reporting incidents of Cyber Bullying. The three main platforms that this has been occurring on are:
If your child/ren are engaging with these platforms they may be encountering aspects of bullying online.
These behaviours are occurring outside of school hours, but are then impacting students ability to learn and focus at school. Some of our students the impact of the bullying is siting just beneath the surface with the slightest remark or issue causing major meltdowns and aggressive altercations with other students and staff.
Tiktok and Snapchat have age restrictions in place of 13+. This has been purposefully decided as a child's brain is not fully cognitively ready to deal with aspects of this program. Currently we have students as young as 8 accessing these platforms and encountering bullying.
Roblox is an online gaming platform that children can interact with. Whilst this platform is designed to be interactive with friends, it is also an avenue to bullying. Students are reporting other kids saying mean things to them.
We have also had reports from students whereby another person/friend is accessing their account and responding negatively to other students online. This 'Catfishing' or 'impersonating' is having a profound effect on student wellbeing.
We encourage our community to:
The school is currently embarking on a massive educational focus on Cyber Education and attempting to instill support strategies for our students. However, without a combined approach from our community, this will continue to be an online issue.
We have also had a visit from the local Police Youth Liaison Office on this very issue. We will ask for further support from our local police moving forward.
Our main goal is to keep all students 'Happy and Safe' at school, however this issue is one that we are encountering at school that is very much based on activities outside of school. If we tackle this issue together we can aim to improve the mental health and well-being of our students.
The school has seen a rise in inappropriate language at school. This has resulted in the need to refocus our attention addressing this issue. The school is currently developing a strategy that will be implemented across the school as a consistent approach. This will involve a common response to students who are utilising poor language at school. Staff will then establish appropriate replacement languages that students can use as an alternative to the used language. All incidents will be recorded in our school management software, which will provide a picture for where and when this language is being used. Our strategy will also involve sharing this data with our school community, so we can tackle this current problem together. Please find below the NSW Behaviour Code for Students that underpins this focus area.
We are hoping to develop a consistent approach to this problem to ensure that our Northern Way of doing things enhances our learning culture.
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NSW Behaviour Code for StudentsPlease find attached a copy of the NSW Behaviour Code for Students. Our current focus for the remainder of Term 3 is reducing 'Inappropriate Language' at school. This code outlines student expectation in being respectful to others and speaking courteously.
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We thank the Mayor on visiting our school to assist with the planting of a flowering eucalyptus tree in our grounds. This will improve the greening of our beautiful community. We will watch this tree grow and become a wonderful sight for years to come. New time you stop off, have a look at our new tree inside the school fence-line off Union Street.
Term 3 Week 3 marks Education Week once again. The theme for this year is 175 Years of Public Education in NSW!! We are so proud of the school and its achievements. Join us this Friday from midday to share in the amazing opportunity to visit classrooms and be part of our assembly for Education Week. The Sausage Sizzle order has now closed, and will be cooked and ready for after our assembly.
Term 3 Week 5 marks Science Week. The theme for this year is Innovation: Powering Future Industries. The theme incorporates the advancement in technology in all industries, especially using artificial intelligence (AI). We will share details of this years event when it gets a little closer.
However, if you would like to to do something as a family that week, on Saturday the University of Wollongong are holding a Science Showcase, an open day at their Wollongong Campus on Saturday the 5th of August, 10am-3pm. This is a free event, if you would like more information please visit https://www.scienceweek.net.au/event/science-showcase-uow/wollongong/
Our amazing friends at "Reading Friends Australia" are commencing a volunteer reading program after the school holidays in Term 3. This will involve members of the community coming into school to listen to some of our students read.
If you are interested in being involved with this program, our students will end up becoming better readers. If you can donate as little as an hour a week to sit and listen to some student read, we are happy for the support this will bring our students.
Please contact the office and we will connect you with our team of volunteers.
We have been asked if we have students that would like to participate in the Fairy Festival in later in the year. Students would be able to dress up as a fairy and be apart of the parade during the long weekend. If you are interested in participating in this event, please contact Mrs Nixon.
Goulburn North PS would like to welcome Pak Subhan Akbar to our school in Goulburn. Pak Akbar is visit Goulburn North in Week 4 as part of a teacher cultural exchange program. Pak Akbar teachers at a school SD Telkom Padang school in Sumatera. He will come and see our school and share some of his experiences from his own school during Week 4. We look forward to this amazing cultural experience.
The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is a short assessment that tells teachers how your child is progressing in phonics. Your child will sit with the class teacher and will be asked to read 40 words aloud. These assessments will be completed this term during weeks 4 - 6. This check normally only takes a few minutes and has been carefully designed not to be stressful for your child. If you have any questions regarding these checks, please contact Ms Caffery, APC&I.
Late last term we commenced our partnership with Reading Friends Australia. This organisation supports reading in schools by providing volunteers who visit classrooms to listen to students read. With more volunteers joining us this term, students in every class will have extra opportunities to read aloud regularly. We were also generously gifted two boxes of books and a library bag for every student.
Grow Your Mind
This week, all classes have started to implement the Grow Your Mind program. Grow Your Mind aims to enhance the social and emotional learning and wellbeing of children, school staff and families through supporting them to understand mental health and form habits of resilience. The program is built upon four pillars to promote mental health and wellbeing: positive psychology, social and emotional learning, public health and neuroscience. The program incorporates 5 social and emotional learning competencies (self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills) to help children. There are 45 wellbeing topics covered by this program. Each week there will be a dedicated GYM (Grow Your Mind) lesson as well as daily 5 minute activities. We encourage you to ask your child/ren about their GYM lessons.
GNPS WELLBEING FORTNIGHTLY FOCUS
Our focus for this term is speaking respectfully. Speaking and behaving courteously is a part of the NSW Public Schools "Behaviour Code for Students."
This information is taken from the ‘Digital Lives of Teens’ report compiled by the eSafety Commissioner (2020).
State of Play
Negative Experiences
Jolly July 1 July - Mackenzie - 5/6L 2 July - Ruby 4/5M 2 July - Lucy 3/4L 2 July - RJ KR 4 July - Mia 3/4B 4 July - Caden 2C 6 July - Brody 3/4L 7 July - Lily 5/6F 7 July - Deacon 2C 7 July - Tyler 5/6F 7 July - Bobby 3/4B 7 July - Ariya 3/4L 8 July - Amarlee 5/6L 9 July - Franklin 4/5M 11 July - Rubi-Leigh 5/6F 11 July - Nate 5/6F 11 July - Eli 3/4L 11 July - Carlisle 2C 12 July - Caleb 3/4B 12 July - Arthur KR 14 July - Zak 5/6F 17 July - Natasha 5/6L 19 July - Lachlan 5/6F 19 July - Blade KR 20 July - Riley 5/6L 21 July - Ivy 3/4L 22 July - Serene 5/6L 23 July - Laurell 4/5M 23 July - Tyler 2C 26 July - Saanvi 4/5M 29 July - Elijah 3/4B | Awesome August 8 August - Caleb - 5/6L 8 August - Chyanne - 5/6F 8 August - Willow - 3/4B 8 August - Ashton - 5/6F 9 August - Ethan - 5/6L 9 August - Ciara - 4/5M 11 August - Coby - 5/6L 12 August - Jarrod - 3/4B 14 August - Xavier - 5/6L 18 August - Lilly - 3/4B 21 August - Ellie - 4/5M 24 August - Anissa - 2/3C 26 August - Matthew - 1L 27 August - Claire - 3/4L 29 August - Nate - 2C 29 August - Jason - 2/3C 31 August - Racquel - 3/4B |
Have an amazing birthday!!!
Friday 4 August @ 12.30pm
Our first whole school assembly for Term 3 and Education Week Assembly will be held on Friday 3 August (Week 3) commencing at 12.30pm.
We will be holding our assembly underneath the junior COLA. Please feel free to come along and join us celebrating the successes of our students.
Additional assemblies for Term 3 will be held on the following date:
KR have begun our new ‘Grow Your Mind’ program. These are some illustrations of our class guard dog, amygdala. Our program helps us with building resilience courage and mindfulness. We have also been working on initiaLit for Literacy. Thank you to all our parents for your diligent home reading. Maths is seeing our class develop symmetrical dinosaurs.
This term in science, 2/3C are investigating the different properties of materials and their uses with Miss McSorley. This week they had fun getting messy while they investigated how ingredients change when they are mixed together by making playdough.
4/5M and Kindergarten are reading buddies. We get to help Kindergarten with their decoding strategies and then read them a picture book. It is great to see the Kindergarten students improve each week.
Our meetings have now changed to Weeks 4 and Week 8 each term. This will mean that our next meeting will be held on:
Monday 4 September in the Staff Room at 6pm.
We hope that you can come along and join in wit the team.
