Community Garden Project

Many thanks to the people who have already expressed an interest in assisting with our community garden. We are now at the point where we are looking to put together a construction crew to begin the work of building our garden beds. We would love to have the assistance of those members of our parent community who possess trade skills or general construction skills. If you could spare a few hours on a weekend to assist with building our garden beds, we would be extremely grateful!

Friendology

Positive Education at Avenel Primary School:

As most of you would be aware, social skills and personal capabilities are central to our school values and mission at Avenel Primary School. In 2019, we have been framing this work under the over-arching banner of “Positive Education.” Led by Mrs Malone, our school has been working on developing a structured curriculum to address areas such as friendship skills, communication skills, wellbeing and developing effective personal attributes and habits. In Term 1, our school implemented the “Friendology” program to build students’ skills in developing strong friendships and managing the issues which naturally arise within friendship. The core skill developed within the program is the ability to use open and assertive communication to address interpersonal difficulties. There are a number of outstanding resources for parents within the Friendology program and in coming weeks I will include supporting material within our newsletter. For this week, I thought I would begin with the Four Friendship Facts that underpin Friendology:

1. No friendship or relationship is perfect.
2. Every friendship is different.
3. Trust and respect are the two most important qualities of a friendship.
4. Friendships change…..and that’s O.K.