Understanding Bullying:
What It Is and What It Isn’t

Recently, a staff member shared an insightful story. Two students were playing with their dolls when one said, “I don’t want to play your game anymore; we’ve played it for a long time, and now I want to play dress-ups.” The other student, sticking to their role, responded, “You’re bullying me because you won’t play my game.”

This highlights an important issue: the term bullying is often misunderstood. While disagreements and moments of frustration between friends are normal, not every conflict or act of unkindness qualifies as bullying.

What Is Bullying?

Bullying involves repeated, intentional behaviour meant to hurt, humiliate, or isolate someone. It includes a power imbalance, where the person being bullied feels unable to defend themselves or stop the behaviour. Bullying can take various forms, such as:

• Physical aggression

• Verbal insults

• Social exclusion

• Online harassment

What Isn’t Bullying?

It’s important to distinguish bullying from other conflicts. Disagreements, arguments, or isolated mean behaviours aren’t bullying. Also, conflict or fights between equals is not bullying, as there is no power imbalance. For example, if someone chooses not to play a certain game, it’s not bullying—it’s a choice. Helping students understand this empowers them to resolve conflicts positively and recognise when support is needed.

The Power of Kindness in Combating Bullying

Explicitly teaching, modelling, and encouraging kindness helps create a culture of empathy and respect. When students understand the value of compassion, they are less likely to engage in harmful behaviours. By promoting kindness as an everyday practice, we encourage students to build positive relationships and stand against bullying and being unkind, mean, spiteful and vengeful.

How Are We Promoting Kindness?

As a Christian school, we believe in showing intentional kindness, reflecting the love God has shown us through Jesus. Kindness is a core school value, and our initiative, You Can Sit With Me, helps students live out this value daily.

Ambassadors from each year level wear badges, signalling they are available to sit with and welcome others. This initiative provides a safe space for students who may feel lonely or need a friend during recess and lunch. Our values of Respect, Kindness and Resilience come from our Christian worldview, which teaches that every person is valuable and made in God’s image.

Living Out Our School Values - Respect, Kindness, Resilience

We consistently model and teach students to show respect by treating others well and putting others’ needs before theirs. Just as God loves and cares for us, the Bible reminds us to love God and, in turn, love others.

God is always kind, compassionate, and slow to anger, and He calls us to show kindness, even when it’s difficult. Jesus’ ultimate act of kindness - dying on the cross for us - sets the standard for treating others. His love empowers us to create a community where everyone feels valued, loved and safe.

Building your child’s self-compassion helps them grow in resilience. Self-compassion helps your child deal with disappointment, failures or mistakes by being kind to themselves. In turn, this helps them to move on from difficult experiences.

Implementing PeaceWise

This year, we’ve introduced PeaceWise, a whole-school approach to relationships and conflict resolution. Although we’re still in the early stages, it’s already positively impacted. PeaceWise helps us develop a common language and approach to building a Christ-centred relational culture. Through this program, we aim to be transformational in shaping every interaction to reflect the Gospel. Our staff are excited to implement this approach, which provides intentional opportunities for students to learn how to manage relationships and conflict in healthy, constructive ways. We’re already seeing the benefits. Recently, a younger student shared how they resolved a disagreement about the swing. They said, “We sorted the argument and made peace!”

By fostering a culture of intentional kindness and Gospel-shaped conflict resolution, we help our students thrive and build relationships that reflect God’s love daily.

Bethany Armstrong - Principal

Recently, Years 5 and 6 students undertook an education tour of the national capital. Students were be given the opportunity to participate in a variety of educational programs with a focus on Australia’s history, culture, heritage and democracy.

The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit the national capital as part of their Civics and Citizenship education. To assist families in meeting the cost of the excursion the Australian Government contributes funding of $450 per student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program towards those costs. The rebate is paid directly to the school upon completion of the excursion.

We would like to express our thanks to the Australian Government for contributing to a trip that will create lasting memories for our students.

One of the highlights so far has been our incredible week-long excursion to Canberra! The trip was full of amazing experiences and opportunities to learn more about Australia’s government. Students had the chance to explore Parliament House, sit in the House of Representatives, and even catch a glimpse of the Prime Minister before he sat down for a Q&A session. Seeing government in action up close was a memorable experience that truly brought our classroom learning to life.

During our time in Canberra, we also held a mock parliament where students took on roles as MPs, debating and voting on some fun ‘bills’ of their own. This hands-on experience helped everyone understand how laws are made and gave us all a greater appreciation of our democratic process.

We also visited the Royal Australian Mint to see firsthand how our currency is produced. This unique behind-the-scenes look at money-making sparked plenty of curiosity and questions!

Other highlights included exploring Questacon, where science came alive with hands-on exhibits and interactive displays, and a visit to the Australian Institute of Sport. At the AIS, students were able to swim and try out different sporting activities, giving us a taste of what it’s like to train as elite athletes.

Overall, it’s been a great start to Term 4, and we look forward to more exciting projects, learning, and fun in the coming weeks. We hope Year 6 has a fantastic end to the year as they finish their primary schooling and prepare for the exciting new adventure of high school.

Luke Lamont - Year 6 Teacher

Tuesday 17th December
9.30am - 11.00am

We are excited to be hosting a Thanksgiving Service in our Performing Arts Centre this year. This is a special opportunity to celebrate students' achievements, the wonderful year we have had as a school community, and give thanks to God for His faithfulness! 

The service will include:
- Celebrating our Kinder students and Year 6 students as they graduate
- Announcing our 2024 School Leaders
- Awarding excellence in student learning and character
- Enjoying a performance from students

A time of fellowship and morning tea will conclude the service.

Tickets are FREE but essential and can be booked HERE or via Facebook. Due to capacity limits these are limited to TWO per family. Children 5 years old and under do not require a ticket but must sit on an adult’s lap. If you would like to reserve a disabled parking spot, please contact the Office.

Friday, 22nd November
8.30am - 9.00am

Come and join us as we share our love of reading in our Library! Families are warmly invited to come and enjoy a FREE hot chocolate and start the school day reading with their child in our fantastic Library.

We'd love to see you there!

Thursday, 12th December
9.30am - 2.45pm

We will be holding our Years 3 to 6 Swimming Carnival at the Hobart Aquatic Centre on Thursday, 12 December.

This year will be a combined school experience with Emmanuel Christian School. We will be expecting to start at 10.30 am with a free swim session for the students after the main events. All students will attend the event; however, only those with permission will be able to participate in the events.

Parents and families are invited to come along to support the students. We will have designated parent seating where you can support and cheer on the students. We will ask spectators to remain in these areas until the end of the carnival. All students will be expected to remain with their class throughout the day. If you intend to collect your child after the carnival, then please organise this with the classroom teacher before the event. If you are interested in being involved as parent help, please talk to classroom teachers or Mr Humphrey.

Students may wear their sports uniform and swimmers to school. There will be time at the pool before the first event for students to change into their bathers. All students will need to bring recess and lunch with them. Students will not be permitted to access the canteen facilities at the pool.

Further information and permission will be sent via Consent2Go shortly.

Peter Humphrey - Physical Education Teacher

We are incredibly proud of our three teams, The Deep Sea Sharks, The Four Fantastic Fiesty Fins and The Real Awesome Dolphins, who competed in the 2024 Hobart Regional FIRST LEGO League Competition.

While we didn’t come away with any awards, we are incredibly proud of each team’s innovation, enthusiasm, and display of Gracious Professionalism. Their teamwork, problem-solving skills, and creativity shone throughout the event.
The competition was a fantastic opportunity for our students to apply their STEM knowledge in real-world challenges, collaborate effectively, and showcase their ability to think on their feet. They demonstrated resilience and a positive attitude, reflecting the core values of the First Lego League.

Congratulations to all involved! We are excited to see how these experiences shape their future endeavours in STEM.

Peter Humphrey - STEM Teacher

Thank you to all the families that have already donated to this worthy cause. Donated items can be placed under the tree in the Office. We are asking families to contribute specific food items over a four-week period that we will deliver to Vinnies. The dates and items to be donated will be as follows: 
Week Beginning Monday, 18 November:

• Jars of pasta sauce

• Pasta

• Long-life juice

Week Beginning Monday, 25 November:

• Breakfast cereals

• Tim Tams

Week Beginning Monday, 2 December:

• Biscuits

• Spreads – jam, Vegemite

• Shampoo/conditioner

• Christmas pudding

The SRC will organise a fundraising activity to donate money to purchase additional food. There will be more details about this in the coming weeks.

Thank you again for your support.

Student Representative Council (SRC) 

Allergy season has begun, and we ask that parents ensure that if their child suffers from seasonal hay fever or has issues with the guinea pigs, they consider giving their child a preventative antihistamine before coming to school.

While we have antihistamine available at school, it is generally reserved for emergency care, such as anaphylaxis reactions.

If you would like to send medication in the form of either tablets or eye drops to school to assist your child with this issue, please provide a completed ‘Authorisation To Administer Medication’ form, along with the medication to the school in accordance with the guidelines in the policy.