POWER
Nicole Walker Head of Year 9
The of the unspoken word – a reflection
Every journey has a place of origin; however, this journey has two catalysts. Like Smetana’s well-known composition Die Moldau, which conveys the story of the Vltava River as it travels from its source, two small springs, through various landscapes, to Prague (Schwarm 2019), my journey started with two ideas and developed into something exciting!
parents, and to connect them with such resources would be empowering and enhance trust. This belief is supported by Dr Justin Coulson, a leading Australian parenting expert, who believes that if environments are in high trust, relationships are cohesive and ‘stronger connections’ exist (Coulson 2016).
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Initial investigations found these resources were already available on the Parent Portal; however, the magnitude of information was overwhelming. This provided a springboard to an exciting journey which not only included my involvement in the reorganisation of the cyber safety resources on the Parent Portal, but gave me the opportunity
SUNATA
The idea to focus on the Parent Portal of the POD (Place of Discovery) originated after participating in the ‘Supporting Student Digital Wellbeing’ webinar course and upon receiving my results from the Clifton StrengthsFinder online survey. The results revealed that one of my ‘top’ strengths was connectedness;
the ability to see the big picture, to understand that decisions have bigpicture ramifications and the belief that ‘everything has meaning’ (Gallup 2019). The webinar sessions provided an acute awareness of the supportive, data-driven resources available to school communities by the eSafety Commissioner. The succinct details on infographics, including the DIY eSafety Checklist and Supporting Student Digital Wellbeing, are indicative of the information that could be available to parents. In my pastoral role, topics such as social media and strategies to encourage positive online behaviour are part of my many conversations with
