T1W4 – 23 September 2022
Dear Parents,
I would like to thank all community members that responded to my parent participation survey last week. We will use this information to help refine our community involvement plans. I was also delighted to see many respondents noting that they would like to assist in PSG events and take a more hands-on approach to school life.
To support this approach, the teaching staff have been finalising our Parent Education Programme (PEP) and we look forward to launching it with you in the coming weeks. We hope to run our first parenting session in October. Some of our topics for this year include Technology use, Wellbeing, Literacy, Early Childhood, Counselling, and career pathways.
We will continue to work with the authorities and begin to welcome more community members into the school when the opportunity avails. Other options that were responded to favourably last week were parent golf/swim classes. These are some things we will investigate further. I look forward to sharing our wonderful resources, expertise, and facilities with our community soon.
In preparation for such events, the SSIS golf instructors conducted a beginner golf instruction session for interested teachers last Friday afternoon. It was wonderful to see several staff members learning new skills in a supportive environment. I would like to thank the golf team for their gentle words and expert advice. Hopefully, we can all get on the course soon!
Recently I have been reading a lot of educational reports about social media use, the way students have been using social media during Covid and lockdowns and the transition back to school. I think this topic is a vital conversation to have with our children. Although technology has given our children incredible opportunities to explore, create, design, and communicate, it has also added another layer of complexity to their social-emotional wellbeing and way of life. Our children now live in a world of continual communication (real and virtual), peer evaluation and posting decisions that may have serious consequences for themselves and their friends.
As adults, parents must pay close attention to our children’s usage of technology, give them the support they need and continue to be that moral compass in their lives. We need to set limits for technology use and understand that it is okay to say “no” sometimes. It is also our responsibility as parents to spend time with our children and discuss their social media experiences, get to know what apps they use, read content from their posts, and set family rules about the way your family conducts itself online. Below I have added a link to a page that explains many of the social media apps that our children use daily. These include apps such as Snapchat, Fortnite, bumble and Discord. I encourage you all to review these apps and talk about them with your children. Please also note that this list is not exhaustive and does not include some popular Chinese social media sites like Weibo, Tencent QQ, Douban, Baidu Tieba and Youku.
https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/esafety-guide
I would like to invite all grade 3 to 6 parents to answer the following questions about social media usage. Please click on the link below.
Please click on this link to fill in the survey.
Stronger Together,
