The South Coast Primary & Community Partnership works across Bass Coast and South Gippsland. We can work together with you to create a healthier school for students, staff and your community. Using a whole school approach to health supports shaping long-term health improvements in your school.
If you have an idea to improve the health of your school and would like the support of our team to achieve it please contact us.
Each Term we develop a newsletter with opportunities, practical ideas and resources to support your school to improve the health and wellbeing of your community.
Anna Stephani
School Nurse and Wellbeing Co-Coordinator
Nicole Thurlow
Wellbeing Co-Coordinator
Respectful Relationships is alive at Foster Secondary College where they strive to promote a culture of respect and gender equality every day. Find out what Respectful Relationships looks like at Foster Secondary College from their Wellbeing Team.
Our roles are both related to supporting the school community to improve health and wellbeing.
As the FSC Wellbeing Team our core business is the wellbeing of the students. Seeing students for any health concerns is the main part of our day. To do this well, it is imperative to have connections with local health resources and platforms for timely referral and support.
We also like to share relevant information directly to our school community. Working with families and our community helps promote social connectedness which helps protect students from adverse health conditions.
School nurses develop a health promotion plan every year and one of the priority areas for this is “safe environment”. The Respectful Relationships program therefore works well within the context of a whole school approach to ensure school community and cultural changes can be included in an educational framework and aspects of the RR program will be applied achieving this goal.
There are aspects of the program interwoven throughout the curriculum, and our school have had various student RR works on display at our front office, and within the school newsletter.
For instance, sexual health education programs in year 10 have various activities pertaining to respectful relationship program principles in the group activities undertaken. A major activity is “real world versus media world” where students are asked to discern between what healthy intimate relationships consist of. Other activities might include exploring the laws around the age of consent.
Last year we were lucky to partner with Family Planning Victoria to upskill staff in sexual health education, which has its positive continual flow on effects.
A huge highlight for our school this year was the community participation in International Women’s Day; Girls of Our Town event in March held at FSC, recognising historical and contemporary women of the Corner Inlet area who have made a difference for the community.
FSC has also taken up and promoted any materials provided regarding the 16 days of activism.
The Respectful Relationships program goes beyond curriculum to what is modelled within the school community.
I would like to make comment of the recent wellbeing day activities and particularly the staff video, designed to create a laugh for the students by showing the students we are all individuals who yearn for equality and safety for ourselves and our school community.
The impact of the RR program supports a constant respectful hum that rings throughout the school community.
Young people are smart and gifted with knowing many layers of the world in which we live.
At FSC, students are encouraged to have their voice heard through the student leadership group and the student representative council. A separate group, the Youth Health Advocacy group meet periodically to discuss local health trends and issues.
Ultimately, building healthy school relationships allows students to be able to speak up via any medium to influence respectful relationships. For example, providing opportunities for students to speak at school assemblies and events.
Anna found it useful to attend Building Respectful Relationships: stepping out against gender-based violence PD for secondary staff and partake in the activities. One stand-out activity was about social privilege.
Nicky notes through working in partnerships with community groups and organisations, like we did with the International Women’s Day event was empowering and meaningful. It emphasised and held the importance of the RR message, both within the school setting and wider community. The ripple of the RR message was strong that day.
Both of us have found it really useful to partner with the South Coast PCP. In the past, Rachel has helped us to create a 16 Days of Activism social media campaign, connected us to learning and professional development and has supplied us with health and wellbeing resources.
During the Stage 3 remote and flexible learning restrictions, the South Coast Primary & Community Partnership will be sending schools a weekly selection of helpful resources that can support their community’s mental health and wellbeing.
Please download these resources and share with your school community (Click a thumbnail to open / download the resource)
Having a growth mindset is about taking feedback, learning from experience, and coming up with strategies for improving. It’s believing that even if you fail at something, you can still succeed.
(Click a thumbnail to open / download the resource)
Be kind to yourself; self-care is about actively looking after your own mental health and wellbeing so that you can be more effective in supporting your students and school community.
(Click a thumbnail to open / download the resource)
Korumburra Secondary College, like all schools, is adapting to the new learning environment in term 2 and recently invited South Coast Prevention staff to present to the Year 12 HHD class.
Year 12 Coordinator. Teacher of Unit 3 & 4 Health and Human Development, health, science and humanities.
We use a program called ‘Microsoft Teams’ to allow video conferencing. All of our lessons are available on our school learning platform, Compass, (just like normal), but instead of being in a classroom we connect ‘face-to-face’ via Teams. We also have a fantastic mentor system that means each student has regular contact with their mentor teacher, either via a learning platform, phone call or email.
According to the students, so far so good, although we have all mentioned how much we miss being at school together. We will never take it for granted again!
Sarah worked with KSC last year on the Tap Water health promotion program. She is fantastic with Secondary School students – she is able to speak with them on their level, and has enough ‘cool’ that students really take notice of her messages.
This program was really successful, so I made a mental note to invite Sarah back to speak to the Year 12’s about Health Promotion when we reached that part of our study design.
Of course now we are all online, but Sarah was able to link into our class and speak with them about her role.
Sarah’s first-hand experience and practical knowledge is inspiring to our VCE students who are thinking of a career in the health sector, and provides applied knowledge and ‘real-world’ examples of some challenging theoretical concepts for VCE students to wrap their minds around.
Feedback from our senior students has been that the classes that most closely resemble what they would do at school are the most successful. They are really missing the connections we have at school and so we are making a real effort to reach out and ensure each student is travelling ok.
Finally, we are making sure we are having some fun. Just because we are apart doesn’t mean we can’t keep building an awesome community.
All downloads for Term 1 2020 have been disabled. These will be returned when the campaign is live again in 2021.
Premier’s Active April is a Victorian Government initiative that encourages Victorians to participate in 30 minutes of physical activity a day during April.
To register for Active April and all the offers that come with it visit https://www.activeapril.vic.gov.au
There are so many opportunities to be active across Bass Coast and South Gippsland! Why not try these 30 activities in the 30 days of April?
Pop this Calendar of events in your school newsletter and help your families get active.
Registration Flyer
School Newsletter insert
30 local activities to do in South Coast in 30 days calendar
Teachers Info Sheet
30 school activities to do in your school in 30 days calendar - Get Active!
Inspire your school community and share the images and messages below on social media.
Simply cut and paste text and use the button below to download a ZIP file of all the images OR click on the individual images to open and then download and start sharing.
Please use as below or modify to suit your schools’ style. And remember, join the conversation with the hashtag #activeapril #movemore
| Date |
Post |
Post |
| 1 April 2020 – Week 1 |
Welcome to Premiers Active April To register for Active April and all the offers that come with it visit www.activeapril.vic.gov.au. |
Active April Logo
|
| 8 April 2020 - Week 2 |
Bass Coast South Gippsland |
George Bass Walk for the Kids Leongatha Fun Run logo |
| 15 April 2020 - Week 3 |
Active April is a great time to bring families together for a walk, jog or run. Check out your local parkrun Australia |
Parkrun logo |
| 22 April 2020 - Week 4 |
Bass Coast Check out: https://www.basscoast.vic.gov.au/explore/leisure-and-recreation/bass-coast-rail-trail South Gippsland Check out: https://www.visitpromcountry.com.au/walking-cycling/the-great-southern-rail-trail |
Bike Photo
|
| 30 April 2020 - Week 5 |
Once registered you can log in and add your activity using the app or online at <www.activeapril.vic.gov.au>. Move more with Premier’s Active April and help our workplace win great prizes!
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Active April Logo
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Within the Bass Coast and South Gippsland Region Newhaven College had the highest number of participants for 2019 and was rated as a top school in this area by Active April.
Newhaven College is working towards building a culture amongst our school whereby students and their family’s value physical activity and incorporate it into their lifestyle. We hope thereby then students can make connections between their learnings in Health and PE within school and apply this to their interests and activities that they involved themselves out of school.
All families were sent the schools login details to join Active April with information about the program was sent home with students and then promoted within school by classroom and our PE teachers. We also recognised the efforts of students in the Junior School assembly awarding prizes to students who have made significant effort to incorporate physical activity into their everyday lifestyle.
The benefits for students included increased family activity time, increase in the uptake of students in local sporting clubs and increased student pride when sharing their activities after school. In addition, there was an increase in the number of students using active transport methods to school which helped to reduce congestion amongst the school.
Prizes and a photo board to help promote!
I am loving yoga and running at the moment. Love playing any games where I can win against the kids!
The Achievement Program is a free Victorian Government initiative that helps schools improve the physical health, social and emotional development of children. All members are supported to meet a set of benchmarks addressing key health areas, which complement the health messages outlined in the education curriculum.
For more information contact us or visit https://www.achievementprogram.health.vic.gov.au
The Prevention Team work with schools across the South Coast and with the Department of Education supporting them to implement the Respectful Relationships initiative. Respectful Relationships is a primary prevention activity designed to stop violence before it starts by addressing the deep-seated gendered drivers of family violence.
Tap Water Every Day social marketing campaign was co-designed with students from Wonthaggi Secondary College, Leongatha Secondary College, Korumburra Secondary College, South Gippsland Secondary College and South Gippsland Specialist School. Teenage males worked together with the South Coast Prevention Team from start to finish to understand the issue and to ensure the campaign was relevant to them and their peers. The key messages of the campaign, the communication channels used and the settings targeted were all developed in partnership with teenage males. Click here to find out more.
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