Energy. That is the word I use to describe the first few weeks of a school year.
Students and parents are excited to catch up with friends and meet new ones. Motivation is high and the air is full of positivity.
Also, a number of questions begin to arise in the first few weeks of school. College staff want to help you get answers as quickly and efficiently as possible. Please ask straight away – we don’t want you to feel frustrated.
WHO DO YOU GO TO?
Usually, the answer is the classroom teacher. Classroom teachers consult Heads of Schools and Coordinators in many situations and will respond to you within 24 hours.
A clearer version of the table below can be downloaded. Click here to download the document.
REMEMBER: YOU CAN MEET WITH TEACHERS ANYTIME
Are you worried about your child’s friendships? Is there something from 2018 that is still on your mind? Do you wonder about your child’s behaviour or academic effort?
Please don’t wait to ask the questions. The teachers would rather have you ask than have you worry or (worse) become angry. Teachers truly care and want to partner with you. It is best to request meetings on Mondays or Thursdays after school as teachers do not have staff meetings.
2019 YEAR LEVEL COORDINATORS
Our Year Level Coordinators are the ones that teachers go to first for assistance with behavioural concerns – and you can too. They work with students in multiple classrooms to help understand all the perspectives of an incident. Once they have all the information, they both work with the teacher and decide if a situation needs to be escalated to the Head of School.
Coordinators will contact you when your child has been involved in a playground incident (either as the victim, the participant or the bystander) or if they have been consistently disrupting classroom learning. Coordinators consult with the Head of School to determine appropriate follow-up.
Feel free to message the coordinators along with the classroom teacher via SEQTA Direqt Message.
Years Prep – 1: Mrs Zibell
Years 2 – 3: Mrs Nelson (Term 1, Weeks 1-5), Mrs Hauser (the remainder of 2019)
Years 4 – 5: Mrs Clark
Curriculum-related questions (PYP, or big-picture, whole-College questions): Mrs Denholm
WE WEAR YOUR WORDS TOO
If you ride PTV transport into work, you may have seen one of their 2018 campaigns “We Wear Your Words”. The same is true for College staff. And, as much as staff work to hide the anxiety associated with angry messages, the students get a sense that something is wrong.
By informing us straight away and asking questions when something goes wrong, we can address an issue before it escalates. We want to know. We want to help. If we don’t know, we can’t help.
To read about our whole-school approach to behaviours issues, see the Relational Process for Influencing Behaviour document.
