Social and Emotional Support

We are proud to support the Secret Agent Society sessions facilitated by Uniting Care, Bairnsdale.

Secret Agent Society (SAS) is a breakthrough approach for empowering children’s social and emotional skills. The SAS Small Group Program consists of 10 weekly sessions (club meetings)

SAS Small Group Program is evidence-based to empower children aged 8 to 12 with identified social and emotional challenges. The Program teaches children how to:

• Recognise emotions in themselves and others
• Express their feelings in appropriate ways
• Cope with feelings of anger and anxiety
• Communicate and play with others
• Cope with mistakes, transitions and challenges
• Build and maintain friendships
• Solve social problem
• Prevent and manage bullying and teasing and
• Acknowledge their personal strengths

We are fortunate at St Mary’s to have the services of Julie Matthews, Professional Counsellor. Julie works onsite one day a week offering a private counselling service to support the social and emotional needs of our students.

Circle Time is a popular activity that is used in many primary schools to help develop positive relationships between children. It aims to give them tools to engage with and listen to each other.
It’s often used as an opportunity to solve problems that are affecting the individual or groups of students. Circle Time has many benefits for children as individuals and their school. These include:

• Improved speaking and listening skills.
• Increased self-esteem.
• A sense of community.
• An understanding of how their behaviour affects others.
• Improved emotional intelligence.
• Improved problem-solving skills.
• A sense of responsibility.

The circle encourages unity, respect, turn-taking and working together towards a shared vision.

We understand that Lunch breaks can be tricky for some children, therefore we provide a range of optional activities for students to engage in – coding club, dance club, school garden club and the Lego club.

Seasons for Growth offers children and young people a safe space to come together, and share their experiences of change and loss.

The Children and Young People’s Program has a safe and engaging curriculum structure that incorporates a wide range of age-appropriate activities involving drawing, role-play, stories, discussion, playdough, music and journal activities.

There are four different levels of the program. Each level includes eight weekly sessions, a final celebration session (that range from 40 minutes to an hour depending on age). Each weekly session explores a concept theme such as, Life is like the Seasons, Change is Part of Life, ‘Valuing My Story, Caring for my Feelings, Making Good Choices.