Last week, our school executive team had the privilege of attending a professional development day led by Tom Bennett, a renowned figure in the field of behaviour management. Tom, who has published an independent review of behaviour in schools, recently chaired the Behaviour Management Group for the DfE and is currently their Independent Behaviour Advisor. His expertise extends to coaching teachers and schools internationally in all aspects of behaviour management and research integration. He is also leading the Department for Education’s Behaviour Hubs project, a $10 million program aimed at enhancing behaviour skills in schools across the UK. Tom's insights have been sought after globally, and he has been making the media rounds in Australia over the past few weeks. https://tombennetttraining.co.uk/about-tom-bennett/

Understanding Student Behaviour: Key Insights

Tom Bennett’s recent seminar was not just a theoretical exploration of managing student behaviour but a practical guide that provided educators with actionable insights they can implement in their classrooms.

Here are some key takeaways:

Building Effective Relationships

Building genuine relationships with students is essential, but this goes beyond being liked or making lessons fun. True relationship-building involves setting high expectations and maintaining consistent boundaries.

Three Pillars for a Positive Classroom

• Safety: Students need to feel safe from bullying and harassment. A "safe brain" is a "smart brain."
• Calm and Predictable: Learning thrives in calm and predictable environments. Disruptions significantly hinder students' ability to focus.
• Dignity: Students must feel valued and respected. A dignified environment supports their sense of belonging and self-worth.

Defining Good Behaviour

Good behaviour isn't just about sitting still; it’s about engaging in appropriate actions for success in various contexts. Teachers should model and teach these behaviours consistently.

Proactive vs. Reactive Approaches

Effective teachers proactively teach desired behaviours rather than simply reacting to misbehaviour. This involves clear, explicit instructions and consistent reinforcement.

Environment and Behaviour

Children’s behaviour is significantly influenced by their environment. Educators can help by creating supportive and structured environments.

The Importance of a Behaviour Curriculum

Like academic subjects, the behaviour must be taught explicitly. This involves clear, sequential, and repeated instructions to ensure students understand and internalise appropriate behaviours.

Creating a School Culture

Establishing a positive school culture involves setting norms, routines, and consistent consequences. Teachers should communicate expectations clearly and regularly and reinforce positive behaviours through praise and appropriate rewards.

Handling Misbehaviour

Address misbehaviour directly and privately when possible. Whole-class punishments are ineffective and unfair. Instead, focus on individual accountability and support.

Rewards and Sanctions

Rewards should be meaningful and targeted, encouraging desired behaviours. Sanctions should be fair and consistent and aimed at deterring future misbehaviour rather than serving as retribution.

De-escalation Techniques

When conflicts arise, remain calm and empathetic. Use language that provides choices and reminds students of the rules. Early intervention can prevent situations from escalating.

Daily Philosophy: Safe, Calm, and Dignity

Teachers must believe in and embody these principles. Consistent, predictable, and supportive environments foster student trust and engagement.

Expect High Standards and High Regard

Set high expectations for student behaviour and academic performance while deeply valuing each student’s worth and potential.

Addressing Misbehaviour

Misbehaviour often stems from a lack of understanding, habit, or value of good behaviour. Explicit teaching and consistent reinforcement are essential.

Respect and Norms

Teach and model respect explicitly. Establish school-wide norms through assemblies, form time, and everyday language.

Creating a Culture

Teachers and schools must work together to create a consistent culture that supports positive behaviour. This includes clear norms, routines, and consequences.

Behaviour Feedback Systems

Use a variety of consequences to reinforce desired behaviours and address misbehaviour. This includes encouragement, clarification, support, and targeted teaching.

Consistency is Key

Consistency in expectations and responses to behaviour across the school is crucial. Inconsistencies can undermine efforts to establish a positive school culture.

Conclusion

Tom Bennett’s insights emphasise the importance of a structured, supportive, and consistent approach to behaviour management, which Chelsea PS has implemented over the past three years. By focusing on safety, calmness, and dignity, and by teaching behaviour as explicitly as academics, we can create environments where all students have the opportunity to succeed. The executive team at CPS have taken away key learnings from this PD Day with Tom. We will ensure our teachers and staff are implementing these key strategies and continue to provide the best possible school environment for our students to flourish and succeed.

FUNTIME LUNCHTIME CLUBS

There are great benefits of our Funtime  Lunchtime Clubs as they are an opportunity for students to have fun and interact with other students, who have similar interests and passions. It also allows students to increase friendships, promote socialisation, teamwork, co-operation and collaboration. Library/reading, Bluey Club, Funky Friday, Chill Out and Discovery Play are offered weekly by our teachers and support staff.

NEW BUILDING AND PLAYGROUND ‘OPEN FOR BUSINESS’

What a thrill it’s been to see the excitement of students and teachers, moving into the new building. Some very cool music, creative artwork and sporting activities are showcased in this beautiful light filled space. An added bonus is the surrounding landscaping where students can play, ‘chill out’ and sit and chat with friends.

STUDENT MOBILE PHONE POLICY

School Council-Education subcommittee have updated our Student Mobile Phone policy aligning with the Department of Education’s directives. The policy means phones brought to school must be switched off and stored securely during the school day. Smart watches may be worn but must be switched off all day during school hours.

The aim of this policy is to provide:

• a safe environment to learn without inappropriate mobile phone use (including cyberbullying) or distractions
• greater opportunities for social interaction and physical activity during recess and lunchtimes.

The use of technology is important, but the risks and benefits from its use need to be managed, refer to our summary of research articles.

A copy of this policy is available on our website.

MOTHER’S DAY AND SPECIAL FRIENDS BREAKFAST

What a wonderful morning we shared for our ‘Mums and Special Friends’ breakfast! Our families enjoyed a range of tasty pastries and muffins from our wonderful friends at Temptation Bakeries and

a delicious coffee provided by Real Barista Coffee.

A highlight was the delicious bacon and egg rolls, skillfully prepared by our MasterChef leader Rohan Anstey and his wonderful team. Your help was much appreciated!

Another very special community event on the Chelsea PS calendar!

EDUCATION WEEK

Last week we celebrated Education Week with an open afternoon showcasing some great maths games and activities with our families.

In our 112-year history we have seen many celebrations, events and changes.

Chelsea Primary School began in January 1912, with 65 students, in Hoadley's Hall, Main Road, Chelsea, Nepean Highway. Because of its oriental appearance, the local people called this hall “The Joss House”. Our brick school was built in Argyle Avenue and officially opened on 27 January 1915.

During the world-wide epidemic of influenza in 1919/20, the school was taken over for use as a hospital. The school children were transferred to the Congregational Church Hall.

A two-storey wing was built on to the school in 1921, and then another wing was added in 1927.

There have been many building and environmental changes over the years, our most recent our new arts and sports facility.  

Dear Students and Families,

We have had an exciting term so far full of learning and fun activities. In this issue, we will highlight our athletics program, delve into our current math and phonics topics, and share some important upcoming dates.

Athletics

Our students had a blast the other week at our Annual Athletics Carnival. It was wonderful to see everybody getting involved. Well done Preps for having a go and showing great sportsmanship throughout the day! Some highlights included the 100m relay, the sack race and of course, toss the chicken! Thank you to the parents who were able to get down on the day and show their support. Thank you also to Miss Mac for organising such an awesome day!

Our learning

It was wonderful to open up our classrooms earlier this term during Education week, for parents/carers to come in and have a look at the amazing work that our Preps have been doing! We’ve been working very hard this term, here are some of the current focus areas for our Preps:

Maths: Exploring Place Value

In maths, we’ve been exploring place value, which helps us understand the value of each digit in a number. Here’s how we’ve been learning:

• Place Value Houses: We use these to see how numbers are made up of tens and ones.
• Building Numbers: Using blocks and other manipulatives to build and break down numbers.
• Using Numicon: Numicon has been a great tool to enable us to understand place value. Using Numicon, we can show exactly how many tens are in a number and how many ones.

Phonics Focus: Digraphs and End Blends

This month in phonics, we’ve been working on digraphs (two letters that make one sound) and end blends. Here’s what we’ve covered:

Digraphs:

sh: words like "ship," "shop," and "fish."

th: words like "this," "that," and "with."

ch: words like “chip,” “chat” and “much”

End Blends:

ng: words like "ring," "song," and "long."

nk: words like "pink," "bank," and "sink."

It’s amazing to see how far the Preps have come with their reading, writing and spelling, they should all be so proud of themselves!

English: Expanding Our Sentences

In English, we’ve been learning how to make our sentences more interesting by adding details. We’ve been adding who, what, where, and when to our sentences. For example, ‘The cat sat’ can turn into ‘In the morning, the cat sat on the bed’. Students have been writing their sentences independently, using picture prompts to help.

Integrated:

Earlier this term, we finished our Integrated unit of ‘Dreamtime Stories’ and we have now moved on to Geography. We’ve been learning about our country, our city and our neighbourhood.

Upcoming Events and Important Dates

• Excursion to Twisted Science: On the 5th of June, we will be visiting Twisted Science for a fun-filled day of hands-on experiments and learning.
• King’s Birthday Public Holiday: There will be no school on the 10th of June due to the public holiday.
• Last Day of Term: The last day of this term is Friday, 28th June.

Thank you for your ongoing support. We are looking forward to the rest of the term, filled with lots of learning and fun!

Kind regards,

The Foundation Team

Wow, what an awesome Term 2 we have had so far in the Junior Years!

This term we have continued our schoolwide focus on ‘Responsibility’ and Good Learning Behaviours. It has been amazing to see the students demonstrate this focus through all their hard work as we near the end of Term 2.

The highlight for this term has definitely been the Chelsea Primary School Athletics Day. It was wonderful to see the students decked out in their house colours, trying their best, and cheering one another on. The kids all behaved beautifully and did so well in following all instructions to help make the day so amazing.

We’re sure however this highlight will soon be topped. The Year 1s have an exciting excursion to the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens coming up, and the Year 2s will be embarking on a journey to the Melbourne Museum. The Year 1s will learn all about Aboriginal tools and Indigenous plants through the Shared Country program. The Year 2s will learn about Australian History focusing on both European settlers and Aboriginal culture. Both of these excursions coincide with our English learning for this term.

We look forward to all the exciting things still to come throughout the rest of Term 2!

MIDDLE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Middle school students have been immersed in exciting novels this term, with the Grade 3’s loving The Enchanted Wood and the Grade 4’s enjoying Treasure Island.

To compliment these novel studies, writing has focused on sentence structure, reading has focused on fluency and a range of comprehension skills, from summarising to questioning, have been explored.

In Maths, there has been great engagement in lessons and it’s been wonderful to hear many students state that they are feeling more confident in their skills.

Fluency in timetables has continued to be part of each lesson while students build their multiplicative thinking.

It’s also assessment season and we are so proud of the effort all students are putting in to showing their understanding.

EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

All students have updated their First Aid skills thanks to the team at St Johns Ambulance who visited earlier this term.

Athletics day was a highlight for students and teachers alike!

Not only did students participate enthusiastically in all activities, but they encouraged their peers and had loads of fun!

Coming up on the calendar is a Maps & Mayhem incursion, Reconciliation Week activities and a Living Culture indigenous education incursion.

Can you believe there are only 4 weeks left of Term 2? Time really does fly when you’re having fun!

May has been an amazing and monstrous month for the Senior School. Our skill-building incursions on First Aid (St. Johns) and Rail Safety (VICPOL) were critically relevant, the Year 6s trip to the Shrine of Remembrance was inspiring, and the Year 5 and 6 camp at Phillip Island Adventure Resort was so...much...fun! It all set the scene for a big Term 2, so let’s check it out! 

English 

We have been reading and examining our novel for Term 2 - Boy Overboard – and using this wonderful text to introduce and expand our understanding of empathy, human rights, immigration and emotions. We have reviewed the critical components of Information Reports and used our knowledge learned from Boy Overboard to enable each student to research, draft and publish an Information Report on Refugees. For the next few weeks, the Senior School will complete a unit on debating, to enhance critical thinking abilities and public speaking skills on a range of relevant and engaging topics.  

Mathematics  

This will only take a fraction of a second... Yes, the Senior School mathematics focus in May has been on fractions. Fractions is often a maths concept that is challenging for many to master, so the Senior School has gone deep and wide with many worked and real-world examples to support the students’ learning across the different levels of understanding. The month ahead will see us learn about three other concepts: probability and chance; grid coordinates and mapping; and area and perimeter of various shapes. All of these are highly relevant to everyday practices, and fun to learn! 

Humanities  

Our Term 2 Humanities focus is Geography, with a focus being on developing ourselves as effective global citizens through a knowledge of our world’s different cultures. This has also been supported through the knowledge of information reports in English, to complete a range of projects across Year 5 and 6. Year 5 have focused on South America as their home project, and will culminate their at-school learning of Europe via their Travel Expo activity on Wednesday 12^th June 2:45-3:45pm. Year 6 has been focusing on Australia’s connection to our neighbouring continent – Asia – with projects and presentations showing the importance of this connection. Year 5 will complete the term with a mini unit on natural disasters and Year 6 will focus on Australian immigration.  

Sport 

Interschool Sport (ISS) has taken a momentary backseat to other events in May (camp, athletics day). This however didn’t stop the teams competing strongly against St Jospeh’s earlier in the month across the term 2 sports of Aussie Rules football, netball, teeball and soccer. The Seniors will recommence ISS on Friday 31^st May and compete in the Winter Lightning Premiership on Friday 14^th June (locations TBC).  

It has been a big month for athletics at Chelsea Primary and in the Senior School. Well done the massive group who qualified to compete at the District Cross-Country, and to those who chose to compete at the same time as the Year 5/6 Camp. Special mention goes to Calvin Sharp in U12/13s, has ran 12^th but impressively did it with a broken toe, and to Tegan Brincat in U11s who finished in 3^rd place! Tegan then since progressed on Divisionals, where she came 7^th and is now off to Regionals. Amazing! Go Tegan! The Whole School Athletics Day went ahead on 24^th May and was a great day full of house colours, personal best efforts, and great cheers of support and positivity. The Year 6s almost beat the teachers in the final relay. Miss Mac will send out a list at a later date of any students who qualified to represent Chelsea at the District Athletics Day in Term 3 (date TBC).  

School representation 

A shout out to two groups who represented Chelsea Primary at community events this month:  

• Indy, Adriel and Jaime who delivered their awesome experiment presentation at the John Monash Science School (JMSS) Science Exhibition Night in early May; and 
• The CPS student leadership team – Tahlia, Ayla, Jonty and Ty – who delivered an outstanding presentation on their geocache initiative as part of the Kingston Council Junior Mayor Election Day on 23^rd 

Coming up ahead 

The following events are coming up for the Seniors as we progress to our final four weeks of Term 2, before the mid-year break commencing at the end of Friday 28^th June.  

• 13^th June: I sea, I care team workshop
• 14^th June: Winter Lightning Premiership 
• 10^th June: Kings Birthday PH
• 18^th & 24-25^th June: Mid-year Student-Led Conferences / Parent Interviews 
• 21^st June: Chelsea’s Got Talent (show)

Thank you! 

We wish to thank all the fabulous families of our Senior School kids for your support to the kids and staff during the numerous big events in this last month, from transport support, to volunteering to help with stalls, and athletics days coordination – you are a wonderful local primary school community. ?? 

Please stay in touch with us with any questions, queries or doubtful points,  

Your Senior School Team: Mrs Jakon, Mr Munday, and Miss A.  

PE IN TERM 2

District X Country

Our superstar Chelsea team competed at District X Country on Friday 10^th May at Cornish College. All students put in a fantastic effort and we came home with some incredible results!!

In the 9/10 Girls, Lucy came in 6th and Florence 7th and in the 11 yrs Girls, Tegan finished in 3rd place!! Go Girls!!! The girls then went on to compete at the Divisional Championships last Thursday where they again dis us all very proud. A big Congratulations to Tegan who came in 7^th in her age group and is now off to the Regional Championships! Good luck Teags!

Whole School Athletics Day!

CPS Athletics Day was held last Friday 24^th of May after unfortunately having to be postponed from the week prior due to poor weather. No one could argue what a brilliant decision this turned out to be as the sun was shining and smiles were all round! This is one of our students, and even some teachers, favourite days on the school calendar and it lived up to our high standards! All CPS students put forward their best selves and should be so proud of their efforts, not only for achieving such wonderful results, but participating, giving things a go, encouraging their peers and celebrating everyone’s achievements together!

Thank you to all the families who came down and supported our students, especially those parents who helped out on the day! You are all so appreciated and make these events even more special and exciting for our kids!

Stay tuned for the winning house, which will be announced next week at Assembly!

New Soccer balls!

Sending out a HUGE THANK YOU to Ebony La Posta for her absolute goldmine find and incredibly generous donation of 20 NEW SOCCER BALLS for the school!! As our students know, soccer balls are always the first to go over the fence or go missing so boosting our stores will make a huge difference to our Sport and PE program!!!

Miss Mac and all the students are over the moon!!

CSEF
The Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund helps eligible families to cover the costs of school trips, camps and sporting activities.

If you have a valid means-tested concession card, such as a Veterans Affairs Gold Card, Centrelink Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card, or are a temporary foster parent, you may be eligible. There is also a special consideration category for asylum seeker and refugee families.

Payment amounts this year are $150 for eligible primary school students. Payments are made direct to the school to use towards expenses relating to camps, excursions and sporting activities for the benefit of your child.

If you would like to apply, please download the form on Compass or ClassDojo. Alternatively, you can collect a hard copy form from the school office. When submitting your application to our school email address chelsea.ps@education.vic.gov.au or at the office, please supply a copy of your valid means-tested concession card.

To find out more about the program and eligibility, please go to the Department of Education and Training’s Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund web page.

Check with the school office if you are unsure, and please return completed form to the school office as soon as possible for processing.

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