Peaceful Kids is an 8 week program for a small group of students in grades 3-6. A group of 4-6 selected students participate for 1 hour sessions each week. This program is designed to teach students a variety of life coping strategies which include:

• A range of Mindfulness meditations

• Positive psychology exercises

• Techniques to lessen worrying

• A variety of coping strategies

• A variety of problem solving strategies

• Journaling and expressing their worries

• Facing challenges and fears step by step

• Preventative strategies to help prevent stress build up

• Being attuned to their own bodies and minds

• Understanding and recognising their own feelings

• Being in the flow more regularly and enjoying more of the present moment

Seasons for Growth is designed to help students who are dealing with significant loss or change. Students will learn that they are not alone in dealing with the effects of change, loss and grief. They build understanding and communication, trust, decision making and problem solving skills as a part of a supportive peer group.
This loss may essentially be because of death of a loved one, parental divorce or separation, moving house or school as well as many other losses or changes. Teachers are asked to make suggestions from their observations and anecdotal records   with regards to which students would benefit.This is in consultation with parents and the Wellbeing Leader and School counsellor.

In Term 4, in the year before students start Prep, we offer a Kinder to Prep transition program.  We invite all our enrolled Prep students to attend a number of half days on the school site to get to know teachers, the Prep area, the classrooms and get to met their fellow students they will be in Prep with the following year.

Please be on the look out for further information on these dates. 

There are a number of Holy Spirit students who began Primary School in another setting. When a child begins school in a new setting, they are likely to need extra support from parents and other family members at first. How a child copes with change can very much depend on the kind of support she or he receives.  Some ways that Holy Spirit’s supports students to settle in to their new school include:

– Families are welcome to visit Holy Spirit to meet teachers beforehand.
– Transition sessions or transition days where the child spends time in their future class or with their future classmates in the weeks leading up to starting at Holy Spirit.
– Obtain teacher’s contact information, to begin relation between classroom and home.

Student Wellbeing
At Holy Spirit Community School we are committed to creating inclusive, engaging, safe and mutually respectful environments where all members of the community flourish.

Our Wellbeing teaching and learning of social and emotional curriculum supports the social, emotional, physical, cognitive and spiritual needs of all our students. We focus on developing resilience, empathy and respectful relationships.

We are dedicated to our School Wide Positive Behaviour framework, which involves a consistent school wide approach to behaviour embedding our behaviour values in the acronym of S.T.A.R: Staying Safe, Try Your Best, Act Responsibly and Respect Others.

We offer a variety of diverse wellbeing intervention programs which are based on evidence supporting student wellbeing and mental health. These programs and services include:

• Wellbeing Inquiry learning units dedicated to the teaching and learning of the social and emotional curriculum
• Grief and Loss Peer Support program called ‘Seasons’
• Peaceful Kids psychology program – focusing on anxiety and stress management
• Social Skills intervention program ‘STOP, THINK, DO’ to support social connection and relationship building
• Respectful Relationship building learning around gender equality and respect
• An annual whole school S.T.A.R day dedicated to wellbeing, behaviour and social and emotional learning and celebration
• School wide positive behaviour approach with consistent values of S.T.A.R (Stay Safe, Try Your Best, Act Responsibly, Respect Others)
• Consistent behaviour documentation and analysis to prevent and manage minor and major behaviour incidents
• Zero tolerance to all types of bullying
• A school counsellor onsite
• Whole school Christian meditation
• A Meditation garden
• Peer/student buddies across the school including a Prep Buddy program with our senior students
• A Student Representative Council Closelinks with our local aged care facility, Gracedale

At Holy Spirit Community School, we provide an inclusive approach to literacy learning with an emphasis on deepening our students’ knowledge and skills in the areas of Reading and Viewing, Writing and Speaking and Listening. Literacy is an important lifelong skill that is fundamental in enabling all students to fully engage in all aspects of their education. This includes academic, social and religious experiences of their school life and beyond.

Student disposition and motivation are important factors in literacy learning. Our team planning approach helps create integrated, relevant, meaningful and purposeful units of work. Digital technology is another way in Literacy to listen, view, respond and communicate throughout. Data helps us to create profiles of our students’ needs enabling differentiated and personalised learning for individuals and groups in our classes. Intervention practices and strategies used are evidenced based to foster success for our students with varying needs. The Australian Curriculum is used for ongoing assessment and reporting and a basis for our planning in English.

At Holy Spirit Community School we aim to develop deep mathematical understandings, knowledge, skills and strategies, which will empower students to apply their learning and live numerate lives in a constantly changing world.

Throughout our daily maths lessons we work to create a culture of mathematical inquirers in the classroom by offering open ended tasks that allow for differentiation of learning among students. Our lessons are based on the key mathematical understandings (for each unit) and the requirements of the Australian Curriculum. We offer a Number Intervention Program to students from Years One to Four who may need additional assistance with the development of their skills and understandings in Number.

At Holy Spirit Community School we aim to develop deep mathematical understandings, knowledge, skills and strategies, which will empower students to apply their learning and live numerate lives in a constantly changing world.

Throughout our daily maths lessons we work to create a culture of mathematical inquirers in the classroom by offering open ended tasks that allow for differentiation of learning among students. Our lessons are based on the key mathematical understandings (for each unit) and the requirements of the Australian Curriculum. We offer a Number Intervention Program to students from Years One to Four who may need additional assistance with the development of their skills and understandings in Number.

At Holy Spirit Community School, through our commitment to ‘Family, Faith and Friendship’, we strive to provide our students with a Christ centred education. Students are assisted to develop and nurture their relationship with God and to develop their knowledge and understanding of the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church.

Our Catholic values permeate all aspects of our school life and have a tangible effect on our school community in allowing our students to develop an awareness of self and respect of others.

In their faith journey and through providing them with a spirit filled life our students participate in daily Christian meditation, school liturgies, prayer services, daily prayer and Class Masses. We recognise that the family is the primary educator of the child in their faith development and work with families to support this. Through our strong working relationship with Holy Spirit Parish our students are prepared in our Sacramental Program. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is celebrated in Year 3, the Sacrament of Eucharist is celebrated in Year 4 and the Sacrament of Confirmation is celebrated in Year 6. Our teaching of Religious Education, which is based on the inquiry approach, is designed to allow our students to appreciate the connection between their faith and their life. Our programs provide links with the Gospels, the Mission of the Church and the Principles of Catholic Social Teaching. This enables them to develop awareness of and participation in social justice activities within our local and global communities.

At Holy Spirit Community School we recognise the importance of Health, Sport and Physical Education within the school curriculum. Our Physical Education curriculum enables students to develop positive attitudes towards physical activity and sport. The foundations are laid for them to remain physically active throughout their school years and develop positive lifelong physical activity habits.

We aim to develop the students fundamental movement skills, sport specific skills, while also building on the interpersonal skills of teamwork, collaboration and cooperation.

Included in the Holy Spirit Physical Education and Sport Program is:

• Weekly specialist Physical Education lessons
• Follow up Sport lessons with the classroom teachers to consolidate and practise skills taught
• Whole school sports days
• House Cross Country and Athletics events
• Participation in Summer and Winter weekly Interschool Sports Programs
• Opportunities to participate in the RDPSSA Sports Programs – Swimming, Cross Country and Athletics
• Opportunities to participate in SSV state team trials
• Sporting leadership roles
• School sporting facilities accessible to the students at play and lunchtimes
• Links to Parish based sports clubs

Students at Holy Spirit Community School attend weekly classes that cover performance and the artistic elements of Music, Dance and Drama. The program consists of stimulating and inclusive activities which enable students to learn to explore and express themselves. Biannually the whole school participates in a Cabaret performance. Students from Years 3-6 have an opportunity to participate in the popular school choir. Private music lessons are also offered such as:

• Keyboard
• Piano
• Violin
• Guitar
• Drums
• Private singing

The Literacy Intervention program supports students to become confident when reading, writing and spelling. We follow a Structured Synthetic Phonics approach, which is evidence-based, and aligns with the Science of Reading. Students who are selected for Literacy Intervention work with Liz, the Literacy Intervention teacher, up to four times weekly. Liz works closely alongside the classroom teachers to ensure that all teaching approaches are consistent and reflect each student’s needs. The link to reading at home is valued, supported and encouraged.

The students who participate in Number Intervention are selected based on feedback from classroom teachers and data collected through various assessments. This program aims to improve a student’s understanding in Number, specifically targeting efficient strategies to help count forwards and backwards and Addition and Subtraction strategies. Using each student’s individual results, a targeted teaching program is implemented to develop more efficient strategies in order to assist with their accuracy, efficiency and confidence when solving Maths tasks.

Students learn about Science, Technology, Enginerring and Maths in STEM sessions throughout P-6. At various times throughout the year external companies offer outside of hours programs on school grounds for programs such as Robotics and Coding.

Holy Spirit has engaged with Speech Pathology for Schools (SPS) to provide holistic school based speech pathology support. Kharlea is an engaging and dynamic speech pathologist who enjoys working alongside school-aged students to find their learning potential in the areas of language and literacy. She works collaboratively with students and staff to assess and target individual needs in the areas of Oral Language and Phonological Awareness. Kharlea’s sessions run on Mondays and Fridays and consist of either 1:1 or small group learning. An LSO is present during the session to further support students with follow up activities during class time.

We have student counselling services which is available on request for all students in our school. These sessions are accessible during learning or playtime depending on best need for students. These sessions are play based and help the students unpack thoughts and feelings to explore the best mentally healthy version of themselves. 

Holy Spirit Community School is proud to be an accredited eSmart School. For more information about eSmart schools please click here.

At Holy Spirit, students attend weekly classes in our Multimedia Centre which houses over 30 PC Desktops, allowing all students the opportunity for one to one technology linked lessons.

Throughout the school, all students, have access to the use of iPads to assist and drive learning. Students create and collaborate using iPads to enhance and engage their learning.

In Grade 3-6, classrooms have class sets of Chromebooks which allows for 1:1 use of technology using Google Apps to assist and engage all types of learning. All classrooms have access to class sets of iPads to assist in all areas of the curriculum.