School Values

Eltham North Primary School has in place a set of core values that underpin the vision of the school. The values are unique to our school in that they have been developed by parents, staff and students, however, they are all linked through their direct relationship to the nine core values of Australian schools as outlined in the National Framework for Values Education.

ENPS is a caring school and we have defined four key values using the acronymn 'CARE'

At Eltham North Primary School we have a commitment to provide a safe, caring and supportive environment that focuses on the needs and emotional well being of all students. Our Student Code of Conduct and welfare management practices, based on DET guidelines, aims to foster a whole school climate where personal responsibility and self-discipline are developed. This code acknowledges the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, which supports racial and religious tolerance and prohibits vilification on the ground of race or religion.

Parents have an obligation to support the school in its efforts to implement the Student Code of Conduct. The Principal and staff have an obligation to implement the Student Code of Conduct in a fair and consistent manner.

Students, staff and parents develop a clear understanding of the school’s policies, expectations, rights and responsibilities and rules, all of which reflect the School Values. Students are empowered to assess their own behaviour and develop strategies to act in a responsible manner. They look at how their learning is going to make a difference and how it will affect other people.

We believe that norms and expectations rather than rules will frame student behaviour. The notion of resiliency is embodied in our school values.
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The Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR) program.
We incorporate this whole school approach through eight topics at our school.
Here is a brief description.


Topic 1: Emotional Literacy 
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 Topic 1: Emotional Literacy Emotional literacy can be defined as the ability to understand  ourselves and other people. It includes the ability to understand, express  and manage our own emotions, build empathy, and to respond appropriately to  the emotions of others. Building a large vocabulary for emotions helps to  increase emotional literacy and build self-awareness and empathy for others.
 
Talking about how we feel helps us to understand ourselves and other  people better. We learn how to understand our emotions   express how we feel, see things from someone else’s perspective to understand how they feel, respond appropriately to someone else’s emotion.  

‍Topic 2: Personal Strengths Children and young people need a vocabulary to help them recognise and understand strengths and positive qualities in  themselves and others. This topic provides learning activities to build this vocabulary and to use it when discussing personal, social and ethical  challenges.Research in the field of positive psychology emphasises the importance of identifying and using individual  strengths. Social and emotional learning programs which use strength-based  approaches promote student wellbeing, positive behaviour and academic achievement.
 
What are my strengths and positive qualities? What are yours? Focusing on strengths helps to improve students’ wellbeing, behaviour and academic achievement. We need to be able to talk about our strengths and positive qualities  in order to understand them. We learn how to:   talk about strengths and positive qualities recognise our own strengths and positive qualities recognise other peoples’ strengths and positive qualities; focus on strengths when discussing personal, social and ethical challenges.  

Topic 3: Positive Coping Learning activities in this topic provide opportunities for students  to identify and discuss different types of coping strategies. When children  and young people develop a language around coping, they are more likely to be  able to understand and deliberately utilise a range of productive coping strategies and diminish their use of  unproductive coping strategies. Students learn to extend their repertoire of  coping strategies and benefit from critically reflecting on their own choices  and being exposed to alternative options. Activities introduce students to the concept of self-talk and practice  using positive self-talk to approach and manage challenging situations.  Positive self-talk is a key strategy for coping with negative thoughts,  emotions and events. It is associated with greater persistence in the face of  challenge, and can be learnt or strengthened through practice. What do we do when life gets challenging? Some behaviours help us deal with  challenges successfully. Other behaviours are not helpful. Talking about different ways of coping helps us to understand good  strategies and unhelpful strategies. When we learn about different ways of coping, we get better at  choosing successful coping strategies. We learn about different types of coping strategies how to reflect on our own choices, how to practise positive self-talk – a key strategy to cope with negative thoughts, emotions and events.  

Topic 4: Problem Solving Problem-solving skills are an important part of the coping repertoire.  The classroom program provides a number of learning activities to develop  students’ problem-solving skills. The activities in the program assist  students to develop their critical and creative thinking skills, and to apply  them to scenarios exploring personal, social and ethical dilemmas. Problem solving is a positive coping strategy: being able to solve problems helps us to cope with challenges.We use learning activities to practise thinking critically and  creatively to solve problems.We explore personal dilemmas as well as social and ethical  issues.  

Topic 5: Stress Management Children and young people experience a range of personal, social and  work-related stressors in their everyday lives. Activities within this topic  have an explicit focus on teaching positive approaches to stress management.  Assisting students to recognise their personal signs and symptoms of stress,  and to develop strategies that will help them to deal with stress  effectively, will help students cope with future challenges. The activities  focus on the ways in which self-calming strategies can be used to manage  stressful situations. All kinds of things can make us feel stressed. If we learn how to manage the stress, we can deal with challenges more  easily.We learn how to recognise when we are stressed, work out strategies to deal with stress effectively calm ourselves in stressful situations.  

Topic 6: Help-Seeking Learning activities in this topic area are designed to help students  discuss the importance of seeking help and providing peer support when  dealing with problems that are too big to solve alone. This helps to normalise and destigmatise, help-seeking behaviour. Scenario-based activities help students identify situations in which help should be sought, identify trusted sources of help, and practice seeking help from peers and adults. Some problems are too big to solve alone. It’s ok to ask for help. We explore different situations where we look at:  when to seek help, who we can trust to ask for help.  We practise seeking help from peers and adults.

Topic 7: Gender and Identity Learning activities within this topic assist students to challenge  stereotypes and critique the influence of gender stereotypes on attitudes and  behaviour. They learn about key issues relating to human rights, gender,  identity and focus on the importance of respect within relationships. The  activities promote respect for diversity and difference. Exploring stereotypes helps us understand how they influence our  attitudes and behaviour. We learn about: gender stereotypes:  how gender stereotypes can influence our attitudes and behaviour issues relating to human rights, gender and       identity the importance of respect within relationships diversity and difference.  

Topic 8: Positive Gender Relations Learning activities within this topic focus on  building an understanding of the effects of family violence and focus on the standards associated with respectful relationships. Students develop the skills needed to solve problems, set boundaries within relationships, and  play an active role within the prevention of family violence. They develop  peer support and help-seeking skills that can be applied in response to situations involving gender-based violence in family, peer, community or on-line relationships. Respectful relationships are key to preventing family violence. We learn: about the effects of family violence; what we should expect in a respectful relationship.  We develop skills to help prevent family violence, including how to solve problems, set boundaries within relationships.  We practice peer support and seeking help when gender-based violence  occurs:  in families, among peers, in the community,  online.