Wellbeing

Counselling Program

At Wattle View we are very proud of our innovative Counselling Program.
Our counsellor provides our students, parents and staff with one on one support where required and also offers a number of valuable programs to both students and staff. The counsellor works with students, parents and teachers to assist in meeting the needs that arise in their daily lives. Life is not always easy. But knowing there is someone there just for you, to talk to, to listen, to encourage and to walk with you can be very comforting. Children today have to deal with some very ‘grown up’ issues such as family break-up, grief, addictions. These can be traumatic for them and affect their ability to learn the necessary skills to survive in this world.

Access to the program is through self, parent, or teacher referral. The counsellor is available as a support to both students and parents and is at the school two days a week.
Please feel free to call in to school or ring the counsellor if you would like to have a chat.

What does a counsellor do?

The role of the counsellor is to care for the child/family when he/she needs someone to listen to them.

A Counsellor can:

  • Listen to a child when they want to talk
  • Provide counselling care (encouragement and support)
  • Run support groups/short courses (e.g. anger management, grief support)
  • Help sort out a problem or issue with a child when they are disruptive or not coping in class
  • Refer a child to other professionals
  • Support teachers in class, helping out as needed
  • Listen to and help with teachers’ concerns
  • Connect with parents when the family is really struggling
  • Be available to talk with parents when they have concerns about their children
  • Matters of faith are only pursued when the child (or parent) wishes to talk about them

Zones of Regulation

Respectful Relationships

Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships Program

In 2016 Respectful Relationships (RR) education became a core component of the Victorian curriculum. The program was developed after the Royal Commission into the tragic death of Luke Batty in 2014. It was a recommendation from the Royal Commission that all schools use Respectful Relationships to support students to recognise and regulate emotions, develop empathy for others and establish and build a framework for positive relationships.

The Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships teaching and learning materials have been developed to support schools to deliver the curriculum and are mandated to be taught in all Victorian government schools by 2021.
At Wattle View Primary School we want our children to have an education that gives them the best start to a happy, healthy and prosperous life. This approach leads to positive change in students’ academic outcomes, their wellbeing, classroom behaviour, and relationships between teachers and students. We know that changes in attitudes and behaviours can be achieved when positive attitudes, behaviours and gender equality are lived across the school community. Together, we can lead the way in creating genuine and lasting change so every child has the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

The classroom program will focus on 8 key areas:

  • Emotional Literacy: This helps students develop the ability to be aware of, understand and use vocabulary about the emotional states of themselves and others with competence.
  • Personal Strengths: Students develop a vocabulary to help them recognise and understand various strengths and positive qualities in themselves and others. They identify the strengths they admire in others and those they need to draw on to engage with the challenges and opportunities that life presents.
  • Positive Coping: Students develop language around coping, critically reflect on their coping strategies and extend their repertoire of positive coping strategies.
  • Problem-solving: Students learn a range of problem-solving techniques that can be applied when confronting personal, social and ethical dilemmas. They engage in applied learning tasks in which they apply their problem-solving skills to be realistic.
  • Stress management: This teaches students to learn a range of problem-solving skills through applied learning tasks, so that they are able to cope with challenges as they arise.
  • Help-seeking: Help seeking is a coping strategy that involves seeking technical, instrumental, social or emotional support from other people.
  • Gender and identity: These are age-appropriate learning activities that assist students to understand and critique the influence of gender norms on attitudes and behaviours (see clip linked below for an example of a discussion prompt).
  • Positive gender relationships: This teaches students to build positive gender relationships and the importance of acceptance of difference and diversity.

Respectful Relationships takes a whole-school approach, recognising that schools are a place of learning, a workplace and a key part of local communities. It embeds a culture of respect and equality across our entire school community, from our classrooms to staffrooms, sporting fields, fetes and social events.
Our students will be participating in RR lessons on a weekly or fortnightly basis within their classrooms or across their level.