Nerae Preece Principal
From the Principal
“The genius thing that we did was we didn’t give up.” Jay-Z
As morale and motivation start to fade, I thought this quote was so pertinent. As vaccination rates are increasing (thank you to the kind souls out there getting it done for our community!) we have to hold strong just a little bit longer. Edwina and I have been listening to the feedback from families and this week we thought we could share 2 tips and tricks, how to reduce negative self-talk from your child and the catastrophe scale!
How to reduce negative Self talk
Negative self-talk is common among children. It is a stage that most children go through, but how the adults around them respond can affect how long it lasts and how they come through it.
Our first response which is often to immediately reassure and try and out do their negative self-talk with our positive reassurance.
Child: “I’m stupid”
Adult: “No you’re not, you’re a smart little cookie. You can do it. I believe in you.”
Anyone who has tried this, knows it really doesn’t work. In fact, this just gives the child opportunity to argue with you in their head. You’re pointing out how great they are and they’re busy looking for evidence to prove you wrong.
Here’s a different way to approach it.
Child: “I’m stupid”
Parent: “Hmmm, so you are having some difficulty with this writing task?”
Child: “It’s too hard.”
Parent: “It is challenging. Let’s work out which part you don’t know how to do YET.
In these simple words you have done some amazing changes in your child’s thinking:
- You have shifted the focus from the child’s perception of themselves to the challenging part of the task.
- You have empathised. Children need to know that parts of life are challenging and that is OK.
- You have laid out the expectation that this task won’t always be challenging with the simple word YET
The Catastrophe Scale
This particular tool has been a good one, I have used it since my first year of teaching (I’m not sure who created the idea, but my mentor Mary Moore showed this to me). The catastrophe scale (see the picture below) is a scale that puts things in perspective. In the past I have worked with children that go through a phase of completely over reacting to situations. It seems really terrible for them, and sometimes can lead to meltdowns, shut downs or maybe tears.
So the key to setting up the catastrophe scale is to make this when the child is calm and ready for talking. You simply draw a thermometer with blank spots. Then have a chat about where bad events or things would go. For example at the top of the scale might be losing my family, mid-way might be having a fight with a friend and at the bottom might be dropping a delicious ice-cream on the ground. Spend some time decorating the Catastrophe Scale, and then pop it on display in a safe spot, eg fridge, bedroom wall.
You can talk about it at different times when other people’s problems arise. If your child notices that something is happening in the world you might say, where would that be on the catastrophe scale? This helps your child put things into perspective.
Then, when something happens to your child and they are talking about it A LOT, it might be that something is unfair or they have had something happen to them, calmly take them to the catastrophe scale and say, “where do you think this problem might be on the scale?” They usually point at the top of the scale (Do not eye roll at this point), just repeat the measures on the scale and see if they can put things in perspective themselves. You may even decide to wait until the moment has passed and bring it up a little later (During meltdowns or shutdowns will probably not be the best time to chat about it, they just need your help to co-regulate at that time)
This takes a little bit of time, and needs a lot of repeating and chatting about it, but with a bit of persistence this really helps a child work out what is a catastrophe and what isn’t.
Hang in there village, and a big thank you to all of the beautiful kind gestures from many of you over the past week. We are so grateful for the delicious food that has been given to us.
Take care,
Nerae
An invitation to become a member of the Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group.
Date: Thursday 16th September 2021.
Time: 4.30 to 5.30
Where: https://eduvic.webex.com/meet/anderson.rohan.r
The school council has come to the decision that it is important for our school to create a Reconciliation Action Plan.
A Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) is a formal statement of commitment to promote reconciliation between the wider Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. A RAP demonstrates to the community that a school is forward thinking about reconciliation and committed to making positive change. Narragunnawali provides the platform to guide teachers, educators and community members through the development and implementation of a RAP. The process is flexible and can be tailored to meet the needs of the school and the local community. Click the links for more information.
https://www.narragunnawali.org.au/
As our first step, a survey is to be completed so we can set some goals and develop a vision. Please come and join us and begin the first steps of taking action towards reconciliation in education.
If you wish to attend please email Mr A.
IMPORTANT SCHOOL DATES
Important school dates to remember:
TarraWarra Museum of Art – TBC
Grade 3/4 swimming program – TBC
Grade 1/2 swimming program – TBC
Grade 5/6 Ski trip – TBC
Prep swimming program – TBC
Grade 5/6 Aussie sports expo – TBC
AROUND THE GROUNDS
WELL DONE!!
Badger Creek PS would like to say a huge congratulations to Olive and Ava who participated in the Rotary Speech Competition.
We are so proud of you both!
You did an amazing job.
This week in Art…
Hello Badger Creek families,
We have had another wonderful week in our remote learning art room exploring how to express both our physical and emotional selves through a narrative self-portrait. Students looked at famous artworks that explored this concept and then applied this knowledge to their own self-portraits.
Our junior school students traced a silhouette of their head shape and then drew pictures that explored their feeling towards their time spent in lockdown. They were challenged to find ways that they could represent their feelings as images.
The senior cohort did a guided drawing of an eye, concentrating on creating different values with their grey lead pencil (shading from light to dark), to create a more realistic drawing. They then divided the background of their artwork and drew pictures that represented their experience both physically and emotionally during lockdown.
You can see our students’ achievements in the attached gallery.
Enjoy your weekend.
Vanessa Imberger
Music News
Beauty in the World Badger Creek
Watch and share!
Dear families and friends,
I think it about time we updated our recording of the National Anthem. Next week I will be holding a webex for the school band and the choir to make plans for this. So start practicing your singing and playing of the National Anthem and check out the blog for details.
Have a good lasts week of school!
Jenny Legg
Music Teacher
This week in P.E…
Hi Badger Creek Community
We are hoping you are all taking care and keeping active during this latest remote learning journey.
Thank you to all our students that have participated in the PE remote learning sessions these last few weeks.
Next week, we are excited to provide an opportunity for the junior and senior students to be involved in AFL footy day activities and scavenger hunt activities.
Wear your footy colours and upload a photo via the google form on the blog!
AFL FOOTY DAY: Wednesday 15th September.
Wear your footy colours and participate in a range of activities provided!
Make sure you send in a photo in your footy colours!
We miss having you all in our PE classes and cant wait to see you soon!
Take care, stay active 😊
Mr Pitts and Ms Hunter
This week in Prep…
The preps have officially sprung into spring this week as they work hard on many spring projects. In literacy, they’re sentences have been blossoming due to all the interesting words the students discovered. A big thank you to Margaret Wild and her wonderful books filled with wow words for inspiring our writing this week.
In Maths, we produced a flower garden filled with our number knowledge, amongst other quirky garden items. Once again, our favourite part of each day is the time spent together online. Whether we’re having a chit chat, SMART spelling or playing fat cat, it’s all smiles when we’re learning synchronously.
A few reminders for next week:
-Monday and Wednesday we’ll be hosting Fun With Friends on WebEx at 12pm. Links will be posted on our daily blog pages.
-Wednesday will be our virtual Sanctuary visit. An email has been sent home today with further information relating to this.
-Friday will be pyjama day! Meaning, parents will have one less morning duty to complete on this last day of term as the children can roll out of bed and remain in their pjs for the rest of the day’s endeavours. The rest of the household might like to join in this fun…
Thank you for your on-going support,
Prep Team
This week in Grade 1 / 2…
Hello to all our lovely families in 1/2.
It has been very special connecting with so many of you for 3-way interviews. We appreciate your time. It has truly highlighted just how resilient our community is and how important it is to make remote learning work best for your families. I think it’s safe to say we are all feeling the end of term fatigue, so please be kind to yourselves.
Next week, our focus is all about wellbeing. There will be an assortment of activities that you can do with your children that promote positive self-talk, persistence and gratitude. We foresee this being a bucket-filling week to end the term and ready to enjoy a well-deserved break from the learning.
We have so many published authors in our mix. It has been wonderful to receive and hear so many stories written by our talented students. Here are a couple to share and leave you with.
Take care,
1/2 Team
This week in Grade 3 / 4…
Welcome to the newest member of 3/4 … Miss Aston! Ms Aston joins 3/4 this Term and we look forward to her bringing all the positivity and energy that she has brought to the education field in the last few years to Badger. Welcome!
In our 3-way conferences we have been excited to see children presenting work they are proud of and setting goals for next Term. What a great thing we have achieved this year, remote learning at home has meant that our children have felt more inclined to pursue passion projects, investigative news reports and so much more!
This week we have been excitedly exploring different news reporting styles, turning the mundane at home story into a crazy out there story that is both imaginative and embellished. We hope that your children have been able to use their imagination and come up with creative ways to present either their news report or news article.
In Numeracy we have been exploring factors, all kinds of fact families and all kinds of numbers have been created, broken up and put back together with number sentences and equations.
This week in Grade 5 / 6…
Another fantastic week of learning for our amazing 5/6’s!
As always, we are continually impressed with how our senior students are pushing themselves in the learning in different ways.
We continue to engage in reading in multiple ways, creating new covers for a favourite book, using reading strategies to respond to what is happening in their independent reading books to beginning to research a Passion Project.
Our Poetry Anthologies are coming along nicely as we have added Limerick, Diamante and Shape poems. We have seen lots of amazing language, and interesting topics from a wide range of interests. We are very excited to see what other amazing poems our 5/6’s can create.
We have been exploring volume in using Lego, sugar cubes, creating different size boxes and determining the volume of the box in centimetres and metres. We have also continued to cook throughout the week and have created lots of yummy dishes.
We are excited to see what our 5/6’s come up with for their Passion Projects over the next week and look forward to sharing some of them with everyone.
Keep up the amazing work!
School uniform orders:
Please find below the link for the school uniform orders.
http://www.aplusschoolwear.com.au/SearchResult.aspx?Labels=BADGER%20CREEK
All orders are to be completed through the website
DRINK BOTTLES
Please ensure drink bottles are being brought to school each day.
There are facilities to refill drink bottles when required.
Community news
JOKE OF THE WEEK
What kind of shorts do clouds wear?
A: Thunderpants
