Jingeri families!

One of our school priorities this year is focussed on Engagement through Belonging. What this really means is that we want to take steps to ensure every child enrolled in our school feels connected to our place and our people.

Research shows that for students, their most important relationship at school is with their teacher. Second most important is their relationship with school leaders. And thirdly, their peer relationships. As a school, it was no surprise that the teacher relationship comes first for students to feel welcomed and included. At Rochedale South State School our teachers and education support staff recognise this and day to day interactions with every child ensure that all kids are seen and heard. Beyond this, the range of extra-curricular opportunities created by our dedicated teachers offer students multiple opportunities to build connections and to shine in their areas of talent! Thank you teachers and ES staff for all that you do!

It was somewhat surprising to learn that student relationships with school leaders have such a high impact on their sense of belonging, over and above their peer relationships. Research says that students see school leaders as important in creating and maintaining the climate of the school – kids need to feel known, cared for and treated fairly by the leaders of the school. Just as our teachers do a stellar job building positive relationships with students, our leadership team set the tone for a positive school culture through kind and fair decision making, ensuring we listen to students and capture their voice when making decisions that effect them.

Coming soon, our leadership team will experience a temporary change as Mr Charles will be taking some leave. From Week 5 until the start of Term 3, our organisational structure will be as follows:

An important part of belonging is for students to be present. This means that we must ensure that our children are coming to school every day.  At the moment, we are focusing on students who are missing school one day a fortnight or more – this adds up to a month of missed learning days over a year, with some students missing even more time than this. We will be reaching out to these families during the term to discuss how we can overcome barriers to attendance together.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can support school attendance challenges – this could be with a drop off plan in the mornings, a rewards system for attending daily, or perhaps a referral to our remote school psychologist for social or separation anxiety concerns.

Finally, a belated newsletter congratulations to our choir for two wonderful performances during the ANZAC services in our first week back this term. Belonging is all about how we come together as and for the community, and our choir never fail to connect (and make me cry with their moving performances!). Thank you to the incomparable Ms Jo Cooper and Ms Monique Antonellie for continuing to go above and beyond for our students and community,

Stacey Wood
Principal