Dear Parents and Carers,

We were thrilled that so many of our community attended the Resilience Project Webinar last Wednesday evening : Digital Wellbeing for families. If you were not able to join on the night, see the information below including the link to the recording.

Recording.
Here is the link to the recording as promised. Please note that this link will expire on the 19th of April.

We are seeking some quick feedback from families who attended the Digital Wellbeing Webinar last week. We value your honest feedback, and it assists us to plan effectively for the future.

https://forms.gle/YN7dkSo6fbnfgmaW9

Leah Stevenson’s presentation was engaging, practical and thoughtful. Here are just a sample of take-aways that stuck with our staff.

• Tech is fun and amazing but like anything needs to have boundaries, it can become addictive
• Being bored is OK, kids need imaginative play, outdoor time etc.
• 24% of our student’s report being online between 10pm and 6am this impacts sleep and general health and wellbeing
• If you say goodnight to your child, close the bedroom door and they have a device, you are effectively opening another door to 80 billion people
• A great way to work with technology at home is to have a tech agreement about devices and everyone needs to agree
• If you are on your phone and your child walks into the room, look at them and smile or say hello, this allows them to make a connection with you if they need your time. If they make a connection and want to talk, put the phone away. This tells them you value them and are available for them
• Make time to be around a table, eating together at least once a week with no devices
• Check out the settings on your phone, how much time are you spending on scrolling aimlessly and is this after 10pm? Are you getting 8 hours sleep?
• No time is good time on the phone late at night, online shopping disasters!
• Educate yourself about Apps, some Apps allow kids to locate friends and if they were all at someone’s house and your kid wasn’t invited it could be damaging their wellbeing
• Implement controls, use sites together, play games together, visit https://www.esafety.gov.au/kids

We really appreciate our families working with us to model, monitor and manage everyone’s use of devices. Learning is so much easier when students have regular sleep patterns. We are the first generation to deal with these issues. Together we can listen to research, hear experts and implement strategies to ensure we set boundaries around devices. Tech is a valuable and enjoyable tool, but without adults taking control it can be destructive, addictive and a dangerous influence owning children and adults and destroying family time.

Let’s keep tech in check!

Staff news

Our community sends love and support to Maria Papasidero on the death of her beautiful Dad, Antonio. May her family feel the warmth of God’s unending presence at this sad time. 

Kim Kennedy our wonderful janitor who has been with us for 10 years has made the decision to retire. He will finish up this term. We will farewell Kim at our Week 9 Rainbow Awards Assembly on Friday 4 April at 2:30pm. All welcome.     

Thank you for your continued support.

Many Blessings,