Good Guidance
with Jenny Morris,
Tim Lowe & Silke Hetherington.
FROM THE GUIDANCE OFFICE
Welcome 2021 at Toolooa
The new year see’s our Year 7’s along with new students from other year levels commencing their learning journey with us. Here are some tips for helping your child settling into a new school that might also helpful if you are a continuing student at Toolooa.
Changing schools is not easy and your child feeling a level of apprehension is very normal for the transition that is happening - and for you too!
It might be worthwhile to encourage your child to connect with other students using some of these ideas:
Watch others who seem to be successful at connecting well and see what they do;
Look for a group who seem to have interests which you can share, or that you know something about;
Find out about clubs, groups, sports, music, chess, whatever is happening in your school and join any in which you are interested or know something about;
Helping others can be a good way to make friends, so if you they see someone who is struggling ask if they would like some help;
Keep their eye out for a group that looks like a match for them. Encourage them to catch the eye of someone in the group and smile;
Help them to think about some topics of conversation for talking with others.
In the School and Classroom:
If you are feeling overwhelmed with managing new and different subjects or routines, talk with someone – problems shared are easier to find solutions for!
If you don't understand all the work, tell your teacher that you learnt different things at your other school.
At Toolooa State High School we support each-other and there are lots of people available to help you transition into school. As first point of call, your Form Teacher will have already taken the time to get to know your child and explained lots of Toolooa routines; encourage your child to have them as a first point of contact about any concerns. We have a Year Level Co-ordinator and Guidance Officer for each Year Level, our Indigenous Support Team, a Youth Worker and a Youth Support Co-ordinator and our School Based Youth Health Nurse all here to work together to make school at Toolooa the best it can be!
The most important thing to remember is that communication is key – communication between you and your child; communication between us and your child and communication between you and us. Please remember; early support is key and a problem shared is always a problem halved!