CNPS Bulletin 2024 | FEBRUARY

As we gear up for the month ahead, get ready for a whirlwind of activities! From sending off our Year 6 students to camp at Mt Evelyn, hosting a Parent Volunteer workshop, and diving into our second curriculum day focusing on Berry Street, a public holiday, participating in National Ride to School day, conducting NAPLAN assessments, organising a Year 5 Paddle excursion, and rounding it all off with our Harmony Evening and Carnivale festivities, there's no shortage of excitement.

Until next month, take care and stay wonderful!

Monika

2024 ANAPHYLAXIS

Anaphylaxis is a severe and sudden allergic reaction when a person is exposed to an allergen (or trigger). The most common allergens in children are eggs, peanuts, tree nuts (e.g. cashews), cow's milk, fish and shellfish, wheat, soy, certain insect stings and medications. Anaphylaxis is a serious health issue for a percentage of the population and the school recognises the key to preventing an anaphylactic reaction by a student is knowledge, awareness and planning.

The last couple of years at Coburg North Primary we have had an increase in students who suffer from Anaphylaxis. The DEECD Legal unit was contacted for advice on this. Below is an excerpt from the advice we received:

The guidelines state that it is not recommended that schools ban food or other products known to cause anaphylaxis because:

• It can create complacency amongst staff and students
• It does not eliminate the presence of hidden allergens
• It is difficult to 'ban' all triggers: not all triggers are limited to peanuts and nuts.

It is preferable that the school raise awareness about anaphylaxis in the school community so that there is an increased understanding of the condition. The school may also wish to help parents/carers to identify more suitable food options for their children.

At CNPS this means we do not ban foods being brought to school, but we do ask you consider choosing to send something else, or, if you send foods which are allergens, how you send them, and that you discuss with your child how they can ensure other children are safe. Some ways of doing this include:

• Reminding children that they are not to share food at school
• Keeping any products with nuts in a safely secured container
• Talking to your children about allergies.

The following is an updated list of grades that have students with anaphylaxis and what they are allergic to (what their triggers are). Note that students do sometimes have snack or lunch eating times sitting with other grades, possibly in their year level, and also sometimes with other year levels.

• Foundation: (FA): nuts & egg, (FB): white fish (including white fishodour) (& possibly hayfever & house dust mites), (FD): egg
• Grade 1: (1B): Nuts
• Grade 2: (2C): Nuts
• Grade 3: (3A): Nuts, (3B): Nuts & egg,
• Grade 4: (4A) Nuts & bee (or possibly wasp) stings, (4B) nuts, egg, kiwi fruit, coconut, (4C): nut, dairy, sesame (including crushed) & egg
• Grade 5: none
• Grade 6: (6A): nuts, (6D): nuts

Note: There is an Anaphylaxis Policy for the school on our CNPS website, for more details about Anaphylaxis.

School Captains

My name is Willa and I am one of the School Captains this year. I am excited to be running assemblies and helping with events. This year will be fun with lots of new things for the students to become involved in and events to participate in. I look forward to another great year at CNPS.

Art Captains

Hi, my name is Ellisa from 6C and I am your Art Captain for 2024. I am very happy to hold this position this year. I know that Art will be fun and exciting because it always is. I am very excited about all of the upcoming ways we can celebrate our Art and enjoy it together.

Sustainability Captains

Hello, my name is Georgia B and I am the Sustainability Captain at CNPS for 2024. I am really excited to help our school be as sustainable as possible. Already, we ride and stride to school as much as we can, but I do think we can improve the amount of litter that is often in our yard. I really look forward to helping our school be as sustainable as possible this year!

Italian Captains

Hello my name is Vasco, and I am your Italiano captain. I want students learn the Italian language and culture. Ciao!

STEAM Captains

Hi, I'm Maya and I will be one of your STEAM captains for 2024. I'm really excited to take on this role because I want to bring awareness of how awesome STEAM is, and make student like it even more. One idea I had was to have a science show in groups and have a winner for each cohort.

Hi. My name is Julian and I am one of the first STEAM Captains at CNPS, which began this year. I am excited to do my very best as STEAM Captain and can’t wait to help organise activities and fun for everyone to get involved. See you in the yard. Bye!

House Captains

My name is Bernie and I will be the Bishop Bandicoots house captain for 2024. I am very lucky to be so, and I am very excited for a long year ahead. I am kind and pick up new sports quickly so I hope I will be a good House Captain. Hope to see you soon!

Hi my name is Ailie and I am your Yellow House Captain for 2024. I am very grateful to have the opportunity of being the Jersey Joeys House Captain this year. I am very excited to partially lead this school in 2024 and I hope I will be able to participate in winning the cup this year. Go Jersey Joeys!

Hi my name is Rose, and I am the Gaffney Gliders House Captains this year. I am very grateful to have this role and I am looking forward to leading green house to victory! I believe that together we can show great sportsmanship and win the house cup for the first time. Thank you and GO GREEN!!

Hi, my name is Zoe and I am on of the green house (Gaffney Gliders) captains for this year! I am so excited to be the green house captain because I know it will be really fun and exciting to lead the Gaffney Gliders this year. Let’s have a great year!

P.E Captains

Hi my name is Riley and I am very excited in being your P.E Captain this year. I am very grateful to have this opportunity to lead the sports community. I will be happy to help if you ever need me and hope to keep sports fun this year. Thank you!

I’m Vivienne and I am 1 of your sports captains for this year. I am really excited to have this role. Organising fun whole school sports events is just one of the many things I am really looking forward to this year. Thank you

Reconciliation Captains

Hello everyone! My name is Sienna and I am this year’s CNPS Reconciliation Captain. I am very excited to have this wonderful position at our school. I have noticed that not too many people know of the meaning of this role, so allow me to tell you. Our school supports Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander cultures. We have events to celebrate them and we have even named buildings around our school with Indigenous words. I hope I can find many ways to do this role and I hope we get to celebrate the events together.

eSmart Captain

Hi. My name is Henry and I am your eSmart Captain for 2024. I am super excited to help us to be safe and smart when using technology. Looking forward to it.

Grade 2 Games Day

On Wednesday 14th February, the Grade 2’s participated in a games day, as part of an immersion into our Inquiry topic this term. We are exploring emotions and character strengths and how they contribute to our sense of belonging in a classroom. They could bring in games they like to play to share with their peers. The games were used to help the students identify their character strengths and learn to recognise the strengths of their peers. We were so proud of the students and their resilience, many of them also showed other strengths like kindness, self-control, problem solving, honesty and leadership.

Student Reflections

• Macie - my favourite game was ping pong. I felt proud when I took turns.
• Paton- I had fun. I felt proud of my games buddy when we were resilient.
• Aedan - Games day was exciting. I loved axe throwing.
• Preethy - I loved ping pong, and I felt proud when I tried new things

Grade 3 Teamwork Incursion

Grade 3 had a teamwork incursion where they built and improved resilience, communication, problem-solving and camaraderie by participating in small group challenges. Students had a fantastic time trying to figure out the best way to work together to be successful in each challenge - with lots of head-scratching, positive comments and smiles along the way. Thanks to the team from Supreme Incursions for a fantastic experience!

District Swimming Trials

District Swimming Trials were held on the 27th of February at Elite Swimming in Brunswick. Altogether there were 18 participants from CNPS competing on the day. All of our students did really well and we are so proud of them! Congratulations to the students who swam an amazing time and made it through to the next round by finishing top 2 in their age group!

Individuals:

Freestyle

• Eva P (10yo Girls)
• Pearl R (11yo Girls)

Backstroke

• Zoe H (10yo Girls)
• George M (10yo Boys)
• Ayla C (11yo Girls)
• Pearl R (11yo Girls)

Breaststroke

• Reuben C (11yo Boys)
• Kacey B (12yo Girls)

11yr Girls Freestyle Relay team:

• Vivienne R, Zoe A, Evie H, Pearl R

11yr Boys Freestyle Relay team:

• Reuben C, Harry P, Charlie M, George M

Open Girls Medley team:

• Eva W, Kacey B, Vivienne R, Zoe A

Good luck to everyone advancing to the next stage of Divisions, which will be held on 12th March. We’ll all be cheering you on!

Interschool Sports Update

In the past few weeks the Grade 6s have been participating in Interschool Sports against other schools. They have been showing the school values of Respect, Responsibility and Resilience by playing fairly in games and having fun, no matter what the result. We hope they do their best in the coming weeks and if you see them playing at school on Fridays, make sure you show our CNPS spirit and cheer them on!

What’s on for the rest of the Term 1?

This Friday 1st March (Week 5), we have the first Open Streets day of Term 1. Bishop St will be closed off for students to scoot, ride and walk to school with plenty of fun activities from 8am!

National Ride2School Day is also coming up later this term on 22nd March. We are super excited to organise even more fun activities for students of all ages that ride to school on the day!

Riley & Vivienne

PE Captains

Welcome to our latest newsletter! We're excited to share some wonderful updates from our Wellbeing Team about our ongoing initiatives aimed at enhancing the educational experience and nurturing resilience among our students.

Berry Street Education Model

As part of our commitment to providing holistic support to every student, we're implementing the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM) across all year levels. BSEM is an evidence-based approach designed to address the complex needs of students who have experienced trauma or adversity. At CNPS, we believe in creating a safe and supportive environment where every student can thrive, and BSEM aligns perfectly with our values.

Through BSEM, our educators receive specialised training to understand and respond effectively to the diverse needs of our students. This includes strategies for building positive relationships, promoting emotional regulation, and fostering a sense of belonging within the school community. By implementing BSEM principles in our classrooms, we aim to create an inclusive learning environment where every student feels valued and supported on their educational journey.

Our first of 4 training days took place earlier this week and our next 3 curriculum days will continue to focus on this.

The Resilience Project

In addition to BSEM, we're delighted to announce our partnership with The Resilience Project. Founded on the principles of gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness, The Resilience Project equips students with essential skills to navigate life's challenges and build resilience in the face of adversity.

Throughout the year, our students will participate in engaging workshops and activities facilitated by The Resilience Project team. These sessions will focus on cultivating gratitude, developing empathy, and practicing mindfulness as key components of building resilience. By incorporating The Resilience Project into our curriculum, we're empowering our students with invaluable tools to enhance their well-being and thrive both inside and outside the classroom.

Coming up shortly will be the Resilient Youth Survey, which will give student in grade 3-6 the opportunity to let us know how their school experience is tracking and some areas of improvement that can be made. Keep a lookout for further information regarding this.

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support

Coburg North Primary School proudly embraces the School Wide Positive Behaviour Support framework to create an environment where our students thrive with their social, emotional and academic learning.

At the centre of the framework, are our core school values:

Coburg North Primary School has implemented a series of Positive Behaviour Matrices, which outline the expected behaviours throughout the school. These behaviours, based on our core values, have been explicitly taught to students at every year level over the first 4 weeks of school, and continue to be reviewed and revised during the academic year. Positive behaviour is regularly acknowledged with verbal feedback, school values stickers, postcards and awards.

SWPBS at Home

Teaching behaviours that we expect to see works best when there is consistency across home and school settings. SWPBS is an approach to help all students learn to self-manage behaviour. Family involvement is a key feature and important in all aspects of SWPBS. A strong partnership between school and family is important because when families are involved, outcomes for students are better. You can be involved in SWPBS in many ways by:

• reading materials distributed by the school via Compass.

• being a role model of positive behaviours.

• verbally acknowledging and recognising when your child meets expected behaviours.

• responding consistently and with meaningful consequences when problem behaviour occurs.

You might even like to discuss with your child how your family can show the values in your home.

Welcome back everyone to a brilliant year of learning at CNPS. Students have settled into their classes well. They have been developing relationships with new classmates, learning new routines and processes and beginning to work on literacy, numeracy and topics.

In the photos, you can see Foundation students organising their bags, Pascal participating in the High Achievers program, Archer getting into his book, Micah recording his reading, Pearl and Kit very proud of their artwork, Ava and Florence working in maths, Annabelle proud of her maths work and, Paddy and Padraic playing the guitar.

Congratulations on such a great start to the year.

Learning at Home

Understanding Executive Function: A Parent's Guide

Welcome to a quick dive into understanding executive function, designed just for you! You might have heard this term before, but let's explore what it means, especially for our primary school-aged kids.

What is Executive Function?

Executive function is like the superhero team of cognitive skills that help your child navigate the world. These skills act as the brain's command centre, allowing your child to:

• Plan and Organise: Setting goals, making plans, and organising steps to achieve them, like planning a school project or tidying up toys.
• Focus and Pay Attention: Staying on task and ignoring distractions, such as paying attention in class or following game instructions.
• Remember and Use Information: Remembering details and applying them in different situations, like recalling maths facts or using new words in conversation.
• Manage Time: Understanding and managing time effectively, like estimating how long tasks will take or planning the day.
• Regulate Emotions and Impulses: Regulating emotions and behaviours, like thinking before acting or staying calm in challenging situations.

How Does Executive Function Develop in Primary School-Aged Children?

Executive function skills grow stronger with practice, just like muscles. During primary school, children lay the groundwork for these skills:

• Foundation to Grade 2: Learning basics like following routines, paying attention, and starting to plan tasks with help.
• Grade 3 to Grade 6: Handling longer tasks independently, setting goals, and managing emotions more effectively.

How Can Parents Support Executive Function Development?

• Provide Structure and Routine: Establishing consistent routines at home helps children know what to expect and encourages them to develop planning and organisational skills.
• Encourage Independence: Allow your child to take on age-appropriate responsibilities and make decisions for themselves. This fosters autonomy and helps them develop problem-solving skills.
• Model and Teach: Be a role model for your child by demonstrating and explaining how you use executive function skills in your daily life. Talk through your thought processes and decision-making strategies.
• Practice Patience and Positivity: Executive function skills take time to develop, so be patient and encouraging with your child. Celebrate their progress and offer support when they encounter challenges.

Visual Timetables and Checklists: The Sidekick Brain Helpers