From the Assistant Principal's Desk:
The staff have been working throughout the year to gain a greater understanding of the PDHPE syllabus and how it can be targeted to meet the needs of each student. In our last professional development day we looked at the five core social and emotional competencies (SELS) that support students and adults understand how their unique identities support and shape their learning. We looked at the data we have for each class to decide where our focus needs to be in the following five core competencies:
- Self Awareness
- Self Management
- Social Awareness
- Relationship Skills
- Responsible Decision Making
This is what the teaching of these competencies have looked like in Amaroo and the Learning support Centre this term.
Amaroo Blue
The teachers in Amaroo and the Learning support Centre have been working hard to develop the students’ self awareness.
In Amaroo Blue students have been learning about what the 5 social norms mean to us. We read about them, discussed them and then acted them out in a role play. The students were able to choose how they would represent the ideas involved in the social norms. Here are some great photos of their work:
Amaroo Gold
In Religious Education, we have been learning about the sacrament of Baptism.
The key symbols of Baptism are:
We also visited our church and saw the Baptismal font and Easter Candle that is used during the celebration of Baptism.
In Personal Development we have been learning to understand, express and manage our emotions. We have read books about our emotions, played emotions board games, painted pictures of our emotions and written about times that we have felt a wide range of emotions.
I feel excited when I go to the basketball and the Illawarra Hawks win!
By Nicholas
I feel happy when I play with my new puppy
I feel shy when I meet new people.
I feel cheeky when I trick my friends.
I feel upset when Nicholas is not at school.
By Leo
I feel happy when I hug my dog Frankie.
I feel tired after playing soccer.
I feel angry when my brother Raf annoys me.
I feel surprised when I open my presents.
By Roman.
I feel happy when I play with my friends.
I feel sad when it rains.
By Jack
Learning Support Centre
In the Learning Support Centre lately we have been focussing on Active Listening and Appropriate Responses in a conversation.
A question needs to be on topic and seek more information about what the person just said.
A comment needs to be on topic and add on to another person’s comment or question.
A connection relates what the other person just said to an experience of your own.
We have learned that when making a connection we need to be careful not to take over the conversation with a story about ourselves!
We have also been holding ‘Yarning Circles’ to practice these skills.
Yarning circles have been used by Indigenous peoples from around the world for centuries to learn from a collective group, build respectful relationships, and to preserve and pass on cultural knowledge.
In a yarning circle:
- people sit in a circle and listen deeply while taking turns to talk.
- a ‘power instrument’ is passed around clockwise and only the person with the item speaks.
- understanding and respect.
