From the Assistant Principal Students

What Is Bullying?

Bullying is made up of behaviours intended to deliberately hurt, threaten, frighten or exclude someone by physical and non-physical means over extended periods of time. An individual or group may direct these behaviours towards another individual or group.  

Someone is bullying another person when:

• They repeatedly verbally abuse a person or group by calling them unpleasant names, by writing them nasty notes and/or messages or by using unpleasant gestures.
• They repeatedly physically harm a person or group or physically intimidate them by threatening physical harm or by destroying/taking their belongings without permission.
• They repeatedly encourage their friends or people they know to verbally, physically threaten a person or group; or ask them to harass, embarrass, ignore or exclude that person or group from activities.

Bullying may take one, two or all of these forms. Repeatedly means that they do these things to that person or group the majority of the time they talk about them see them or spend time around them.

Research has shown that bullying has negative, long-term consequences for all involved. 

Such consequences include:

• For victims - constant feelings of rejection, low self-regard, fear, an inability to solve problems with others in acceptable ways, relationship difficulties, and problems with achieving full potential academically and socially;
• For bullies - an increased risk of criminal behaviour. 

As such, bullying behaviours have no place at this College

What do we do if it happens to you or someone you know?

If you are being bullied at school or online, or you know of someone that is being bullied, you must make a positive move to stop the bullying. St Andrews has a no tolerance rule for bullying but if you don’t tell us, we cannot help.

Step 1 – talk to someone about what is happening. If you know the person and you are comfortable approach them and ask them to stop.

Step 2- approach your parents or the school to help you sort out the issue. You have your learning advisor or your Leaders of Learning that are there to support you. They might give you strategies to help deal with the situation or they might intervene, this is up to you.

Step 3- If you are able to sort things out, move forward in a positive way, if not, speak to another person of approach someone you trust to help you. At the end of the day we want all students to be safe and learning so we will assist any student to help that happen. Don’t be afraid to come and see a teacher it is our job to assist you.

St Andrews has a zero tolerance policy on bullying. If you have any concerns please see your Learning Advisor, your teachers, your Leader of Learning – Pastoral or myself. The quicker you see us, the quicker it will be resolved.

Swimming Carnival

The College Annual Swimming Carnival will be held on Thursday the 25th February at Blacktown Aquatic Centre. Due to COVID 19 the carnival will be for competitors only, If you are questions about the swimming carnival please see your Learning Advisor or Mr Dunaeff, the Leader of Learning - Sport. 

Attendance

Just a reminder about attendance. We expect all students to attend school unless there is illness or other valid family reasons. We try to avoid taking days off unless it is absolutely necessary. Please contact your child’s Leader of Learning – Wellbeing if you have any concerns about attendance.

What’s in the Student Planner this week?

The focus over the last 2 weeks: students have been focusing on finding out their strength profile and understanding what it means. Student will complete the Character Strength test to identify their strengths and then learn how to use them.

The students have been doing activities for gratitude week. Gratitude for what others do for you and the good things you have in your life. Find the person who has done this and be grateful- say thank you. Thanks to the SRC on both campuses that organised events for this activity.

Ways to change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset

1. Focus on what is working- we need to understand and work with our strengths. When we identify our strengths we start to understand the areas we need help with.
2. Set realistic goals – setting goals helps us focus on moving forward in a positive way. Setting goals on our strengths is easy and if we use similar goals and strategies for our weaker areas you will see success.
3. Be patient- all success takes time. We might see improvement in our areas of strength but sometimes other areas take more time, be patient and it will happen
4. Have grit- be persistent in your work, don’t give up when it gets hard. The work is meant to be hard so you grow and your weaknesses become strengths. 
5. Always uses your resources- all students have resources to help them have success, your families, your teachers, staff at the College and other people who have an expertise in learning. Never be afraid to ask for help, this is a sign of strength.
6. Take action- as Nike says, “Just do it”. Don’t procrastinate, set your goals and take action.

Never use the term “I can’t do it”, use the term “I can’t do it yet” change the way we think, be positive and solution focused.

God bless

Nick Thrum

Assistant Principal- Students