Head of Campus Update – Mrs Melissa Graham, 21 April 2016

How wonderful it was to see so many happy, smiling faces last week when our students returned back for the start of Term 2. I enjoyed observing and participating in lots of excited and animated conversations as students, parents and teachers shared their holiday highlights whilst walking through our beautiful Junior School grounds on way to their classrooms.

The first day of term is always special and teachers look forward to re-connecting with their class members after the break, but the Staff Day prior to this, was also significant in that it was our much-awaited launch of The Resilience Project. Something that had been investigated, discussed and planned for at length since late last year. So before the students started term, all our staff were involved in some professional learning sessions titled ‘Teaching resilience and mental health’ led by the team at The Resilience Project. This thought-provoking, entertaining, valuable and, at times, confronting session reaffirmed the necessity of this as part of our curriculum and provided valuable training and resources for our staff.

Our introductory student sessions were also held last week and were a huge success and explains why many of our students went home talking about ‘dis’ or ‘dismoment’. We were delighted to have over 250 people attend the parent/community information session this week – it demonstrated how very important, timely and relevant this program is. With a shared (home/school) emphasis on practicing gratitude, empathy, mindfulness and developing emotional literacy, we are endeavouring to positively influence the mental well-being of our students and whole school community.

Mrs Melissa Graham
Head of Junior School