Welcome to Week Six of Term 4. Last week I attended a Principal’s Roadshow on Wednesday and Thursday where the Director-General, Department of Education, Michael De’Ath, Associate Director-General ECSS, Sharon Schimming, and other staff from Central Office shared departmental messages in line with Equity and Excellence, our focus, educational achievement, wellbeing and engagement and culture and inclusion. Kay Kirkman, our Regional Director and other key staff from Regional Office shared key messages around ‘One System, One Plan’ and supports that are in place to achieve our focus.

2024 Planning

We are now well into our planning for 2024 class structures. Please continue to encourage families to contact Administration as soon as possible if they are leaving our school next year.

Any family who has a Prep student commencing in 2024 is encouraged to contact Administration now to ensure a smooth transition to school.  We are also encouraging any families who will be commencing at Calliope next year to let administration know.

Parent/Carer Specific Information for Class Placements

All parents and carers have an opportunity to provide specific information to assist the school in the placement of individual learners to classes in 2024. This is not an opportunity for parents and carers to request specific teacher[s], just as classroom teacher[s] are not able to request specific learners to be or not to be in their class. It is an opportunity for all parents and carers to provide specific information to guide our Teacher Teams to make informed decisions to ensure the full range of learners’ needs are considered.

A template is included in today’s Newsletter and is also available from Administration for those families wishing to provide such information. The deadline for the return of all forms is Monday November 13^th, 2023. These forms should placed in an envelope marked CONFIDENTIAL or emailed to admin@calliopess.eq.edu.au

Parents will understand that:

• It is not always possible to meet all requests
• Only issues that impact on the educational needs of the student will be considered
• This process is NOT about requesting a teacher
• Parent requests close Monday 13 November 2023 and it will not be possible to consider requests after this date
• There will be no change made to class lists at the end of year
• If enrolments change significantly in 2024, there may need to be minor changes. Classes will not be finalised until after Day 8 2024. This usually occurs around Week 3.

Teachers take considerable time and effort with class placements. We consider each child in determining class placements. We aim to ensure that optimum use is made of the prior knowledge that teachers, parents and others have of each child prior to class placement. Your child will find out their class, teacher and new room as part of our transition process on Wednesday 6 December 2023.

Student Code of Conduct

Each week I focus on an aspect of Calliope’s Student Code of Conduct.  This week the focus will be Critical Incidents.

Critical Incidents

It is important that all school staff have a consistent understanding of how to respond in emergencies involving student behaviour that seriously endangers the student or others.  This consistency ensures that appropriate actions are taken to ensure that both students and staff are kept safe.

 A critical incident is defined as an occurrence that is sudden, urgent, and usually unexpected, or an occasion requiring immediate action (e.g. in the community, on the road).  The aim in these situations is to bring the behaviour of the student under rapid and safe control.  It is not a time to try and to punish or discipline the student; it is a crisis management period only.

 Staff should follow the documented plan for any student involved in regular critical incidents, which should be saved and available for staff to review in OneSchool.

 For unexpected critical incidents, staff should use basic defusing techniques:

1.  Avoid escalating the problem behaviour: avoid shouting, cornering the student, moving into the student’s space, touching or grabbing the student, sudden responses, sarcasm, becoming defensive, communicating anger and frustration through body language.
   
   
2.  Maintain calmness, respect and detachment: model the behaviour you want students to adopt, stay calm and controlled, use a serious measured tone, choose your language carefully, avoid humiliating the student, be matter of fact and avoid responding emotionally.
   
   
3. Approach the student in a non-threatening manner: move slowly and deliberately toward the problem situation, speak privately to the student/s where possible, speak calmly and respectfully, minimise body language, keep a reasonable distance, establish eye level position, be brief, stay with the agenda, acknowledge cooperation, withdraw if the situation escalates.
   
   
4. Follow through: if the student starts displaying the appropriate behaviour briefly acknowledge their choice and re-direct other students’ attention towards their usual work/activity. If the student continues with the problem behaviour, then remind them of the expected school behaviour and identify corrective actions of continued unacceptable behaviour.
   
   
5. Debrief: at an appropriate time when there is low risk of re-escalation, help the student to identify the sequence of events that led to the unacceptable behaviour, pinpoint decision moments during the sequence of events, evaluate decisions made, and identify acceptable decision options for future situations.

Appropriate physical intervention may be used to ensure that Calliope State School’s duty of care to protect students and staff from foreseeable risks of injury is met.  The use of physical intervention is only considered appropriate where the immediate safety of others is threatened and the strategy is used to prevent injury.

 Physical intervention can involve coming between students, blocking a student’s path, leading a student by the hand/arm, shepherding a student by placing a hand in the centre of the upper back, removing potentially dangerous objects and, in extreme situations, using more forceful restraint.

 It is important that all staff understand:

• physical intervention cannot be used as a form of punishment;
• physical intervention must not be used when a less severe response can effectively resolve the situation and the underlying function of the behaviour.

 Physical intervention is not to be used as a response to:

• property destruction;
• school disruption;
• refusal to comply;
• verbal threats; and
• leaving a classroom or the school, unless student safety is clearly threatened.

 Any physical intervention made must:

• be reasonable in the particular circumstances;
• be in proportion to the circumstances of the incident;
• always be the minimum force needed to achieve the desired result; and
• take into account the age, stature, disability, understanding and gender of the student.

 Record keeping

Each instance involving the use of physical intervention must be formally documented.  The processes can be found at http://ppr.det.qld.gov.au/corp/hr/workplace/Pages/Health-and-Safety-Incident-Recording,-Notification-and-Management.aspx online.

Some reminders of upcoming events from the calendar include -

Week 7

Year 6 Camp

14 November – P&C Meeting

Week 8

21 November – School Captains Speeches

22 November – Leadership Speeches

24 November – Prep Open Afternoon (2-3)

24 November – Calliope Carols