Newsletter 15 - 12th September 2024

UR Strong

URSTRONG’s whole-school friendship strategy has improved the social climate in schools around the world, connecting over a million kids, parents, and teachers with a common language of friendship. We are proud to be a URSTRONG School and are committed to empowering your children with friendship skills.

You are invited to take advantage of a FREE Parent Membership to access hundreds of resources – including an 8 session video series. This will allow you to learn the same language & strategies being taught in the classroom through the Friendology 101 curriculum. We hope that, as a URSTRONG Family, you will reinforce the important messages of empowerment, self-compassion, & kindness at home.

As a next step, we would recommend:

• Click here to view an overview of URSTRONG.
• Activate your FREE Parent Membership and explore all the resources available to your family.
• Explore the hundreds of resources available to you!

We believe that empowering our students with these skills will create a culture of kindness at our school and we hope that, together, we can support your children to have healthy, feel-good friendships.

1. Language of Friendship Overview: In this video, Dana Kerford (Friendship Expert & Founder of URSTRONG) will introduce you to URSTRONG’s simple framework for guiding children towards healthy friendships. Sit back and relax while Dana walks you through URSTRONG’s unique, kid-friendly language to teach friendship skills and conflict resolution!
2. What is a Friendship Fire?: In this podcast interview, learn all about why friendship skills are important and how we’re supporting kids through URSTRONG’s Friendology curriculum to put out their Friendship Fires®.
3. Think of Yourself as a “Friendship Coach”: The Founder of URSTRONG was interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald who asked her, “Should parents get involved in their kids’ friendships?” Here are some Dos & Don’ts to coach your child from the sidelines.
4. 5 Reasons Kids Don’t Seek Help With Tricky Friendships: We’ve discovered through our URSTRONG program that sometimes children don’t always open up to their parents when they’re experiencing challenging issues with friends. This article explores the reasons why and provides a few tips to open up the lines of communication with your child.
5. When to Step-in & When to Step-back: We really want to work as a team to empower your child with skills to create healthy friendships and be resilient. As parents ourselves, we know it’s sometimes heartbreaking to watch your child struggle. Here’s an article from our friends at URSTRONG suggesting when to step-in or when to step-back when they’re experiencing conflict in a friendship.
6. Fiery Friendships: Friendship Fact #1 reminds our students that no friendship (or relationship) is perfect. It’s very normal to have conflict in a friendship (Friendship Fires!) and also very normal that some friendships are a little more ‘fiery’ than others. Here’s an article with lots of tips to support your child in a high-conflict friendship.
7. Has Your Protective Instinct Kicked In?: It’s very normal for your protective instinct (Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn) to kick in when your child shares challenges in their friendships. In this article, learn more helpful ways to coach your child towards healthy, feel-good friendships.

School Uniforms

Recently, there have been a number of children wearing odd items that are not part of our school uniform. A number of reminders have been given to students and communicated with parents. It is important that as a school, every child wears the proper school uniform every day. An explanatory note or timely communication from parents is required to be communicated to me or the classroom teacher if a child is not wearing the correct full school uniform; this can be communicated in diaries or via email.

Students in Prep to Year 2 have an option to wear their sport uniform every day. 

Students in years 3 - 6 must wear their academic uniform on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Our HPE days are Tuesday and Fridays. For years 3 - 6 the sport uniform is worn on these days.

Uniforms can be purchased at Midford shop in East Devonport. They can also be purchased online through the Midford website School Shops Online | Midford

Our change over to summer uniform is at the beginning of term 4. However, the Sun Smart policy from the Cancer Council has been updated and students are expected to wear hats throughout September.

If you are experiencing hardship and would like support with uniforms please contact me and we can make arrangements for uniforms for your child/ren.

Rugby Jumpers

Currently, the rugby jumpers worn as part of the sport uniform are being sold for $85.00 at the Midford Uniform shop. These will continue to be sold at 

the current price until stock lasts. We have been advised of new pricing for the rugby jumpers. New pricing will be set according to the sourcing of materials and the rising costs associated with the current economy. New pricing of rugby jumpers is indicative of sizes; for example a size 3-4 rugby jumper will be approximately $98.00 and a size 10 rugby jumper will be approximately $110.00. I feel this cost is unfair and unsustainable for families and goes against our responsibility as a Catholic school to support families pastorally and on the grounds of economic necessity.

We have been sourcing an alternative sport jumper that is in keeping with our existing sports uniform and is warm and cost effective. Midford has designed a half zip jumper in stretch microfibre with polar fleece lining to replace the rugby jumpers. The cost of the new jumper will sell at approximately $60.00 for all sizes. This is a much more affordable alternative to the current rugby jumper. The new design will be taken to the board for approval. Parents may drop in and view the new style jumper in the office.

At this stage, the rugby jumper will remain as the current sports uniform we are not phasing it out we are only looking at alternatives for when we will need to source another option.  

Have a great week

Carmen Aylott

Principal