Hi families,

Welcome to Term Two.

Hoping you all had a great break as a family and were able to share some special times together.

      Thumbs Up Program

This term all of our classes will be taking part in the ‘Thumbs Up’ program, which is a component of our Social and Emotional learning at St Augustine’s.

The Thumbs up program (CASEA Program) is an Early Intervention program for young children that promotes prosocial behaviours.  This program was developed by The Royal Children’s Hospital Integrated Mental Health Program.

The aim of the program is to promote prosocial behaviour, positive self-esteem, social skills, problem-solving skills and assertiveness. The program focuses on teaching students interpersonal, problem solving and conflict resolution skills. The Activities are fun, practical, hands-on and child-focused. The children are taught in constructive and engaging ways to improve their capacity to regulate their behaviours and act appropriately, improve social relationships with others and develop their social problem-solving skills.

Benefits of the program

• Common language as a school
• Classroom activities promote prosocial behaviours
• Children are given strategies to manage strong emotions
• Teachers will have an improved understanding of behaviour management
• Children will display less challenging behaviour

The sessions focus on:

Session 1 – Getting to know you

Session 2 – Identifying feelings

Session 3 – Strong emotions

Session 4 – Introducing ‘Stop Think Do’

Session 5 – ‘Think & Do’ social problem

Session 6 – Cool Weak Aggro’: Assertiveness

Session 7 – Working together

The “Thumbs Up” program has been successfully running in all classrooms over the past two weeks and hopefully your child has been coming home discussing with you what they have learnt. It is a great idea to continue to use the same language that they are learning at school in the home environment to help children with their emotions, which leads to behaviours that are more positive.

Happy conversations,

Ms Jodie

Wellbeing theme for Term Two – SHOWING KINDNESS

As we continue to promote a kindness culture at St Augustine’s this term we focus on ‘Showing Kindness’ as a school community.

Each week students will be given a different kindness challenge that they need to work on throughout the week.  This week’s goal is to show kindness to others in your class. Students will receive a short video each Monday morning introducing a kindness goal and teachers will discuss this with their class, focussing on what this would looks like and sounds like in the classroom.

Students displaying this goal may receive an award or have their name added to our kindness tree.

It is a great opportunity to discuss with your child what the goal is each week and what they are doing to achieve this goal.

Together we can create a welcoming, kind community at St Augustine’s where everyone feels happy and safe to come to school.