Wellbeing Report
February 7, 2020
By Mrs Elizabeth Ryan, Deputy Principal – Student and Staff Wellbeing
I would like to welcome both new and old families to the College and take this opportunity to familiarise you with the contents of the College Homepage which will provide one and all with a wealth of information about 2020 events, the College’s policies and its history. Of great importance to parents are access to the both the College Crest and the College’s bank of Policies.
The Crest Newsletter, which is emailed to all families every second week, can also be located under the News tab. The Crest Newsletter is a primary source of information to parents about upcoming events, guest speakers, year level cohort activities and the like. It is well worth perusing its contents each fortnight so that you can keep abreast of all that’s going on.
The second is the bank of College’s policies. Under the Policies tab parents can access and familiarise themselves with the College practices and procedures on a vast range of matters from Child Safety, the EREA Code of Conduct, Access to College Premises, our Uniform policy to our Grievance policies for both Students and Parents.
Please take some time over the next few weeks to become familiar with our College homepage and its contents.
Mobile phones
In line with the changes to the Education and Training Reform Act (2006) St Patrick’s College has made significant changes to the Personal Electronic Devices Policy.
For the purposes of this policy Personal Electronic devices include iPods, mobile phones, MP3 players, iPads, Air Pods, Smart Watches and headphones.
Summary of Changes
- From Term 1 2020, students who choose to bring mobile phones to school must have them switched off and securely stored during school hours. (8:50am to 3:25pm). This encompasses all areas of the College including the private study in the KRC and the Year 12 study centre.
- Mobile phones are deemed to be securely stored if they are stored in lockers during school hours. (8:50am to 3:25pm)
- Padlocks are available for purchase from the College Shop if required.
- All personal electronic devices owned by students are brought to schools at the owner’s risk.
- Airpods, headphones and ear buds are to be stored in the student’s pencil case and used only as directed for teaching and learning purposes.
- If a student is seen to have a personal electronic device the following will take place:
- Electronic device (including mobile phone and Air Pods) will be confiscated, placed in an envelope which will be labelled with student’s name and home room and handed into Student Services for collection at the end of the day (after 3:25pm).
- The breach will be tracked in the College’s Behaviour Tracking Module.
- The student will be issued with a Thursday afterschool detention. If a student refuses to relinquish their electronic device:
- Given this policy has come into effect in all State Government and Catholic schools I do not anticipate any significant compliance concerns. However, in the event of noncompliance the following will apply.
- The student will attend Student Services.
- An external suspension will be issued (which will occur next day) and parents and or guardians will be notified.
- The student will be required to hand in their phone. The student will then return to class.
- If a student still refuses to hand in their phone, they will receive an internal suspension for the duration of the day (or until they hand their phone in) and issued an external suspension for the following day.
- These significant changes will be enforced from Friday January 31, 2020.
Communication:
A key element in helping your son to succeed at the College is communication between you and your son’s teachers. While PAM and App4 are the primary means of communication between teachers and families we also encourage other means of communication. The email addresses of all staff at the College is the first initial of the Christian name followed by their surname. For example Mrs. Elizabeth Ryan – ERyan@stpats.vic.edu.au – – We hope that this will further facilitate our ability to work closely with you in catering for the wellbeing and educational needs of your son.- Your son’s Homeroom teacher should be the first port of call for any enquiries with the College. Please feel free to make contact with me if you have concerns that are unable to be resolved by your son’s Homeroom teacher, subject teacher, Year Level Coordinators or Director of School. I hope that all boys will settle into a productive routine as quickly as possible; I hope they will participate in activities new to them this year; and I look forward to witnessing a genuine spirit of cooperation and partnership between all boys and their teachers this year.
Headlice
Several cases of headlice have been reported to me since the commencement of the school year. This is of significant concern as it is rare that we as a College have such a large number of cases.
Could you please take the time to check your son’s hair and should he have eggs or lice treat them as a matter of priority. I would appreciate it if he remains home until he has been treated.
Please refer to the link below to access information and treatment advice.
Further, if your son has elected to have longer hair, could you please ensure that it is well tied up as in accordance with our uniform policy. Hopefully this will curtail the spread.
Thanking you in advance for your efforts to check, treat and eradicate lice from our community.
Buses
A significant number of our boys travel both to and from St Patrick’s College on buses.- With so many students from the Ballarat area catching school busses it is important for all students and their families to be fully aware of behaviour expectations while on the bus and the consequences for breaching these.
Poor behaviour on the busses jeopardises the safety of all and often intimidates younger students. It is the responsibility of bus drivers to transport students to and from school safely and this job is made more difficult if students are behaving in a distracting manner.
The following list includes the expectations of all St Patrick’s students travelling on any bus either to and from school or on school based activities:
Where possible students refrain from moving around the bus and remain in seats at all times.
Students are not to engage in any physical contact at any time. -¢ No items are to be thrown around or from the bus.
Consumption of food and drink is at the driver’s discretion however; all rubbish is to be appropriately disposed of.
The use of offensive language is not acceptable.
Behaviour that intimidates other students is unacceptable.
Any other behaviour jeopardising the safety of bus travellers is also unacceptable. Students not abiding by this list of expectations will face suspensions from the bus along with other school based consequences. Clarification of any detail outlined above can be sought by contacting Mrs Elizabeth Ryan at the College.
Victorian P plate passenger restrictions
As many of our Year 12 cohort of 2019 are about to gain or have gained their Victorian Probationary Driver’s License it is timely to remind all P plate drives of the passenger restrictions that are placed upon them.
The Peer Passenger Restriction is where a probationary (P1) driver is not allowed to carry more than one peer passenger when driving. A peer passenger is any person aged between 16 and less than 22, but does not include the driver’s spouse, domestic partner, sibling or step-sibling.
Peer passenger restriction
You can’t:
- Carry more than one peer passenger aged between 16 and less than 22 years old unless you’re:
- a member of the police force driving a vehicle for work
- driving an emergency vehicle for work in line with contract terms
- driving with an experienced driver next to you
- driving under instruction of a driving coach who’s in the vehicle
- granted an exemption from this restriction by VicRoads.
Passenger restriction
If your licence is cancelled or suspended on your P1 licence from a traffic offence, you’ll be restricted from carrying passengers for the rest of your P1 licence period. This means you can only carry one passenger regardless of their age.
The passenger restriction is separate to the ‘peer passenger restriction’ and will override any peer passenger restriction exemptions.
If you’ve already got a passenger restriction on your P1 licence and it gets suspended or cancelled, the passenger restriction is re-imposed on the rest of your P1 period including any extensions to the P1 probationary period.
Student Parking
Due to limited parking and in the interests of safety all students are not permitted to park on College grounds. Rather they are asked to park on Sturt Street; preferably the northern side.
Host Families required
Overseas Cultural Exchange Consultants Pty Ltd are seeking host families for a group of boys from Shibuya Junior High School in Tokyo, Japan. The students will be in Ballarat in March and will be attending Saint Patrick’s College.
All details of the study tour are in the flyer at Homestay Families For Shibuya Junior High School Students . If you are able to host a student or would like to know more about the program, please contact Lynne Gainer of OCEC as indicated on the flyer.
Thank you
Mrs Elizabeth Ryan
Deputy Principal – Staff and Student Wellbeing