Updates
CatholicCare Counsellors Staff Development Day – 24 September 2025
A message from CatholicCare
CatholicCare will be hosting our annual Staff Development Day on Wednesday 24 September 2025. All school counsellors rostered to work on this day will be attending the event, and therefore, there will be no counsellor coverage in schools on that date. We appreciate your understanding and support, and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Tina Acevska, Manager, School, Student & Family Program (SSFP), mobile: 0419 462 621.
Positive Behaviours for Learning
Victorian Education has produced a series of Positive Classroom Management Strategies in ‘placemat’ format.
Each of the eight placemats presents evidence-informed practices that create safer, more purposeful learning environments supporting student learning, wellbeing and behaviour.
Classroom Behaviour Expectations and Rules
Help your students thrive! When students know exactly what is expected of them, they are more likely to demonstrate those behaviours. This placemat provides a simple, effective framework for creating and teaching classroom rules that are observable, measurable, positively stated, understandable, and always applicable (OMPUA). Give students the structure they need to succeed academically and behaviourally.
Classroom Procedures and Routines
Free up your students' working memory and reduce their cognitive load! Well-established routines help create predictability and structure, which is critical for the success of all students, especially those with diverse learning profiles. By clearly defining and teaching procedures, you can increase instructional time and create a positive, collaborative classroom culture.
Encouraging Expected Behaviour
Build stronger teacher-student relationships and promote student motivation. The placemat on encouraging expected behaviour provides a menu of techniques to acknowledge and reinforce positive behaviour. Learn how to use specific, positive feedback frequently and immediately, with a goal of a 4:1 ratio of positive to corrective feedback.
Discouraging Inappropriate Behaviour
Turn behaviour errors into teaching opportunities. This placemat provides a continuum of instructional responses to address inappropriate behaviour, just as you would with academic errors. The educative approach focuses on using brief, calm, and respectful corrective feedback to re-teach expectations and guide students toward the desired behaviour.
Active Supervision
Be present and purposeful in your classroom. Active supervision involves moving, scanning, and interacting with students to create opportunities for teaching, prompting, encouraging, and correcting behaviours. This simple yet powerful strategy reduces inappropriate behaviour, increases student engagement, and helps pre-empt escalations.
Opportunities to Respond (OTR)
Boost student engagement and academic outcomes! Opportunities to Respond (OTR) are instructional questions or cues designed to elicit a student response. By presenting varied OTRs at a brisk pace, you can increase on-task behaviour, make learning visible, and provide immediate feedback to students.
Activity Sequence and Choice
Empower your students and increase task completion. For students who can do a task but are reluctant to start, offering choices and strategically sequencing activities can be a game-changer. This placemat provides guidance on how to offer choices in tasks, materials, or even the order of work to build independence and create more equitable learning environments.
Task Difficulty
Ensure your work tasks are a perfect match for student skill levels. When work is too difficult, it can lead to disengagement and problem behaviour. Learn how to adjust task length, time, or response mode to ensure more students experience success and promote on-task behaviour and task completion.
2025 Ready Set School Bag
Transition to School (Kindergarten) Information
For children and their families, transitioning to school is a significant time that can have a considerable impact on a child’s longer-term academic, social and wellbeing outcomes.
The Transition to School (Kindergarten) Information is designed to support principals and their staff, including Kindergarten teachers and Senior School Support Officers (SSSOs), in planning their school's Transition to School processes in collaboration with their respective Heads of CCSI.
Within the document, schools have access to a range of optional resources, including templates, to support the administration involved in planning transition events and activities. SSSOs may contact Kylie Hawke at hawkek04@dow.catholic.edu.au or Lisa Burton at burtonl01@dow.catholic.edu.au if they have any questions or require additional support.
Ready Set School Bag
The Ready Set School Bag is a resource designed to support both parents and children as they play, explore, and learn together. Each bag is given directly to the child during School Orientation to help prepare them for a positive start to school.
For 2025, CEDoW will provide the following items to be included in the bag. Schools are also welcome to include any additional items at their discretion.
- Ready Set School Bag
- Ready Set School Booklet
- Picture Book
- Totem Card
Arrangements will be made with the SSSO’s working on site during the student vacation period and all remaining bags will be delivered to schools by the first week of Term 4.
Thank you for your continued support in helping children and families feel confident and connected as they begin their school journey.
This Week’s CEDoW Library Resources
ACEN eBook
This week’s Sora eBook edition is Own Voices.
Use the link here to explore eBook titles for primary, secondary, and staff through the Australian Catholic Education Network (ACEN). To sign in to Sora, select “ACEN” as your school.
ClickView Highlight
This week’s ClickView highlight for primary and secondary is public speaking. You can view it here.
If you have any questions, please get in touch with Jim Gallagher, Library Services Manager, at gallagherj01@dow.catholic.edu.au.