Recognising a student’s personal achievements for their ongoing and consistent high achievements over the year is of the upmost importance to our school. These will be announced in our final assembly and this certificate of achievement will be awarded to these students and uploaded to their Compass dashboard.

Grade Placement

At Wandong we have a very stringent process for grade placement. On the forefront of our decisions is what we as professionals believe is in the best interest of our children as we prepare them for the future. We completely understand that not getting that one friend or that one teacher is at times challenging, but as teachers, families and community we would be doing our children a disservice if we always allow children to have what they want and always providing what they perceive as their first choice.

A huge number of individual teachers, teams and leadership time has been spent on student and parent friendship considerations.

As professional educators we strive to make the right choices taking into account all of the information we have about students. Teachers have all of the academic and social information about every child and can make sound judgements to meet the needs of every student. Often children/parents request certain friends to be with their child, but it’s important to consider that the school knows the child’s friendships and that placing them without that particular friend might be so that the child expands their friendship base, or for another valid reason. We want children to be able to work and socialise with a variety of other children and build skills to make new friends. In addition, sometimes we may get competing requests from other parents/students/staff that have requested that they not be in the same class. Friendships can and do change throughout primary school – students leave, more students arrive and so it is important for children to develop friendship making skills.

The complexity around all these changing scenarios is when one combination of students are moved to accommodate a request, it then creates a chess game of up to seven other moves. The hard truth about accommodating all requests is that helping one, comes often at the expense of someone else’s child.

When allocating children to classes, we endeavour to foster positive social interaction across a year group, by making socially balanced classes and to help prevent non-constructive relationships. Class time is distinctly ‘work’ time and outside play time is a child’s opportunity to be with friends and ‘hang out’. Obviously developing resilience is key for our students, as they develop into lifelong learners in an ever-changing world. We need to prepare children for secondary school where they will have different classes, different teachers, and different groups of children. Eventually our children will be adults where they might not get the job that they wanted or perhaps the university course that wasn’t their first choice. I’m passionate about this and preparing our children together is paramount.

STUDENT LEADERSHIP

Monday was our first opportunity to hear from our ‘would-be’ school captains for 2025, as many students spoke to their peers on why they would be the best candidate for the positions next year. After carefully scrutinised voting by all students, a shortlist of candidates was drawn up and those students were considered by the leadership team, teaching and support staff. Whilst it was an immensely difficult task, as we were spoilt for choice, we have made a decision and this will be announced very soon. Congratulations to all who had the courage to present in front of their peers with commitment, passion for their school and confidence!

Resilience is a Key Factor in Student Success

For many years, I have subscribed to ‘Parenting Ideas’ written and managed by expert Michael Grose. Please take the time to listen to the YouTube clip that discusses anxiety and how to build resilience. It was wonderful to hear Michael talk about how we can make ourselves, as parents, redundant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n86EHCKDSZI#t=13

Resilience is a 21st Century parenting concept that every parent needs to understand. Some kids are resilient by nature – their temperament helps them to be mentally and psychologically tough. You know those kids. They get straight back up after a setback or disappointment. Rejection in the playground doesn’t faze them. Unfortunately, not every child has such natural resilience.

The good news is that most of the research shows that resilience can be nurtured and developed, particularly when parents themselves are resilient and they actively foster it in their kids. Resilient kids share four basic skill sets- independence, problem-solving, optimism and social connection.

Building Resilience

From a resilience perspective parents need to coach kids through some of their more challenging moments and reviewing what they may have learned for next time. Avoid solving all their problems for them. You can promote a lasting sense of resilience in your kids by:

1. Having a positive attitude yourself. Your attitude as a parent impacts on their ability to bounce back from some of the difficulties they face. Make sure you model a ‘you can do it’ attitude for your child when they meet some of life’s curve balls.
2. Look for teachable moments. Many kids’ learning opportunities are disguised as problems. Make the most of these opportunities so that kids can grow and learn from some of the challenges they face.
3. Make kids active participants in the family. Active participation in a family develops the self-help, problem-solving and independence skills of kids that are necessary for resilience.
4. Build kids coping skills. There are plenty of strategies you can pass on to kids to help them cope when life doesn’t go their way, including acceptance, getting away for awhile, and normalisation.

Promoting resilience in kids is a not a single event but a continuous process that requires adults to be supportive and empathetic when things don’t go their way. It also requires you as a parent to have an understanding of resilience, so you have faith in your yourself, and your child’s ability to cope.