Boneo Buzz: 13th September

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Why is it that when some people encounter obstacles to a goal it stops them, while other people gain energy from the challenges life presents?

The ability to bounce back and persist especially when things get tough are traits of highly successful individuals. Grit is something we can develop, although some individuals seem more predisposed to it than others. 

Many children under the age of 15 experience a form of anxiety, which can impact their daily lives and activities. Educators are now beginning to look at the possibility of turning some of those known worries into stimuli for resilience discussions so that our children can enter the world beyond the school gates with confidence. 

Anxiety affects everyone at some stage in their lives, whether it is from an early age or in adulthood. Anxiety is caused when we are confronted with situations that make us feel stressed, tense, uncomfortable, angry or frightened. Anxiety triggers the flight-or-fight response in the brain to protect us from danger. It is an emotion that affects an estimated half a million Australian children.

For many children, anxiety prevents them from building any sort of sustainable resilience, which is a life skill and vital to overcome unavoidable adversity. Resilience is built by the individual characteristics we are born with such as our genes and personality but also by our environmental factors, including our family, socio-economic status, community and culture. 

A positive support network can be the key for children to feel empowered to take risks, explore new opportunities and show confidence.  However, there is a fine line between guiding your child away from adversity and protecting them from adversity. 

Children who experience anxiety can feel hesitant to immerse themselves in opportunities that will take them out of their comfort zone. With an element of uncertainty in any opportunity, a child’s anxiety can be heightened.  A wave of doubt can cloud their vision, resulting in children placing unnecessary expectations and pressure on themselves. In an environment such as sport, children have the opportunity to experience sportsmanship, team effort, leadership and endure the emotional rollercoaster that success and failure ignites. Performing arts is also a great way to boost confidence to perform on stage, to develop coordination and rhythm and to create long lasting friendships. We want our children to embrace challenge and feel supported to work through the emotions they may have.

Boneo students begin each day with ‘Ready to Learn’ a wellbeing session designed to help the children identify, calibrate and create a positive mindset as they head into a new school day. The core belief of this practice is that positivity breeds future positivity.

It is crucial to note that anxiety does not have to impact a child’s life in a negative way. As a parent, it is fundamental to develop an open dialogue with your child so that they feel supported, valued and heard. We need to support our children to push through and not avoid the ‘tuff stuff’. Finally, we must be reminded that the more our children are exposed to new and foreign opportunities, the more likely they will be open to personal growth and build their resilience.

It is hard to believe that we are heading into the last week of term. I invite all families to join us on Friday for the annual Boneo Footy Day. You will have received a Compass notification outlining the details of the day.

Kids Teaching Kids

On Thursday, twelve students from Year 5 and 6 participated in the ‘Kids Teaching Kids’ event at Point Nepean National Park.

Kids Teaching Kids is all about empowering students, and yesterday students from 10 schools on the Mornington Peninsula each presented a 40 minute workshop that focused on current environmental issues.

Students from Boneo successfully presented an engaging workshop encouraging their peers to ‘Choose to Reuse’ and to further consider the direction our community is heading with a preference for single use items.

The group ran three activities including a memory game, ‘Food Scrap Toss’ and ‘Clean up Challenge’. Well done to all students who participated and represented Boneo Primary at the event.

This week our Year 5 and 6 TREC Technology Team truly exhibited the power of ‘Kids Teaching Kids’ when they taught the Preps how to code and programme using a variety of tools in the SPARK Centre. Our Prep students demonstrated their coding skills using Sphero Balls, Minecraft and EV3 Lego Robotics.

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden

The Year 4 students had a wonderful time in our school vegetable garden today. They started with a ‘Weed Warrior’ competition that involved (an impressive amount of) weeds being removed from the garden and put in the compost bays.

Jane and Chloe from Bunnings also joined our session today with a donation of vegetable seedlings that were planted in the weeded, watered and composted garden beds.

A big thank you to Bunnings for their support of this program.