Respect Goes a Long Way

At the moment, we are being bombarded by stories and online abuse towards women and children. As a school, we have been committed to the process of embedding Respectful Relationships (RR) for a number of years now and are a lead school in this space. In our work at MSJ, we have taken a whole-school approach to Respectful Relationships. We want RR to be at the forefront of the work we do and, as such, it is purposefully part of the curriculum across different domains and is an integral component of the wellbeing, faith and learning areas. We stress the importance of age-appropriate information that allows students to be given opportunities to question and challenge attitudes, behaviours and structures that have enabled ongoing violence to become a real societal issue. Ongoing professional learning for staff and the use of experts to support our work in areas such as sexuality education and consent is prioritised as we seek to have a vision for the future where violence against women and children is ultimately reduced.

Healthy relationships students have with others, whether in the classroom, outside in the yard, online or as friends outside of school, is important for our students. Unfortunately at times, students have a falling out with friends and, sadly, some students use information about others to cause distressing times for some. While we are aware of the role of brain development in some poor decisions students make, we also have some students using social media as an avenue to get back at others. Here, we use a Restorative Practices approach to addressing this.

As a school, we are grateful for those students who are able to identify material and actions by others that are outside our school values and will call it out as an upstander. As a community, poor behaviour towards others and language used that is offensive, whether it be racial, religious or cultural, must be challenged. Students must be aware of how their behaviour impacts others and includes how they represent MSJ on an excursion, on social media, in the classroom, travelling on the bus or train, and in their online profile.

Child Safety Survey

Our Child Safety Committee is committed to working closely with our school community to ensure we provide targeted information that meets the needs of our College. We are keen to get some feedback from you to assist in providing some input as to areas of interest. Please complete the form HERE if you are interested.

Uniform

Uniform expectations are well-documented and require the whole community to commit to ensuring we have high standards and not make excuses for those who cannot meet them. This includes only using the school bag to and from school, wearing the blazer in Terms 2 and 3, only wearing black lace-up shoes, and having dress and skirt length to the knees.

Mobile Phone Policy Feedback Sought

We believe the introduction of our Mobile Phone Policy this year has reduced the number of students using their phone inappropriately at school. To accommodate those that still struggle to place their phone in their locker and have had it confiscated on three occasions, parents are expected to collect the phone from school. We appreciate the support we have had from parents as part of this process. We are currently seeking student feedback on the policy and are looking for feedback from parents. Please complete this survey HERE.