Dear Parents and Carers,
As a community we were all shocked and horrified at the events in Beirut last week. Our prayers and thoughts go out to the people of Lebanon at this time. Our FIAT team led the school community in prayer for the Beirut victims and survivors last Wednesday. We also continue to pray for the people of Victoria and all those suffering in our community and around the world as a result of COVID-19.
EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING FOR YOUNGSTERS
Executive functioning skills are crucial for performance in school and life, beginning in the early years of a child's life.
What are executive functioning skills?
These include the skill that helps us put aside what we want to do because we have to do something else. We call this inhibitory control. For a child, that might be stopping talking to listen to the teacher. Or waiting quietly to be called on in class. This type of executive functioning develops first, accelerating during the preschool years.
Another important skill is our working memory: being able to store, maintain and use information over brief periods of time. An example is being able to remember events in a story when answering reading comprehension questions. This ability shows gradual improvement from preschool through adolescence.
Being able to adapt to changing task demands or contexts is an important executive functioning skill. For example, being able to switch from studying multiplication facts to getting started on a maths test. This capacity develops gradually between ages 3 and 5 and continues to mature into adolescence.
Students often need to call on different executive-functioning skills in real time - for example, using inhibitory control to tune out distractions from classmates while recalling from working memory the teacher's directions to complete a writing assignment.
Executive functioning skills are partly inherited, but they are also sensitive to both negative and positive experiences.
Positive experiences. A warm emotional climate, a balance of play and learning, and a caring and emotionally supportive school environment all help with the development of executive functioning. This includes adults showing self-regulation.
Stress. Moderate stress is important to development but persistent stress undermines the development of executive functioning - for example, harsh parenting, violence in the home and abuse, and at school, unsafe, punitive experiences.
Schools work hard to build safe, positive, emotionally supportive classrooms and other school experiences. Children who enter school with weak skills will be especially sensitive school stresses. Children with poor executive development benefit from early intervention and targeted help.
Acknowledgement: Michelle Cumming, Educational Research, Feb 2020
Tell Them From Me
In the coming weeks we will be inviting students, teachers and parents to provide feedback on their experience of our school using an online survey. The surveys are an important part of our whole school evaluation and planning process.
We would like to invite you to complete the Tell Them From Me (TTFM) Partners in Learning survey. As we value the role of parents and carers within our school community we would greatly appreciate your feedback. The information you provide will be used to maintain our commitment to working together in partnership to further improve student learning and wellbeing at HOLY TRINITY GRANVILLE.
The survey is anonymous and will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. You are able to access the parent survey on your computer or mobile device by using the URL below:
www.tellthemfromme.com/ggv6c
