The Thistle - An E-Newsletter of Scotch College, Perth, Western Australia

SchoolTV

Scotch has recently partnered with an organisation called SchoolTV, which is a unique digital wellbeing platform targeted at parents. It seeks to inform and empower parents in an effort to enable you to better deal with the issues being faced by young people today and the challenges of modern-day parenting. It aggregates information on a single topic from many great sources (including Beyond Blue and Reach Out) into a single resource for easy access and reference, with contributions from leading experts in youth wellbeing. This will hopefully help to save you time and reduce confusion.

Of course, the website is meant as a supplement to the support already available to parents at Scotch through our staff, particularly those who work in key pastoral care roles.

SchoolTV covers topics that relate to both Primary and Secondary aged children. The topics covered so far (and available to parents) are:

  • Gambling
  • Internet Addiction
  • Online Pornography
  • Social Media and Digital Representation
  • Sexting
  • Cyberbullying
  • Drug and Alcohol Use
  • Suicide and Self Harm
  • Depression
  • Anxiety

Within each, there is a short quiz to see how much you already know on the topic. There are video clips, as well as articles, fact sheets and recommended links to websites and apps.

You can access the SchoolTV archive here: http://scotch.wa.schooltv.me/category-latest-newsletter. Alternatively, you can go to home.SCOTCH (https://home.scotch.wa.edu.au) and search for SchoolTV or Wellbeing.

A great deal of this material is covered at school during Wellbeing and Health classes, so this website provides parents with plenty of information which you can use to better understand the issues and which can form the basis of discussions with your son to ensure their on-going health and safety.

New topics are covered each month. The website's most recent release deals with Exam Jitters - How to help your child through assessments, exams and NAPLAN when they are feeling stressed or anxious.

Here is the link to this month's edition http://scotch.wa.schooltv.me/newsletter/exam-jitters

Future topics to be covered include the following:

  • Transitioning Schools - joining a new school as well as moving from Junior to Middle School and Middle to Senior School (released October 30)
  • Surviving Year 12 - this includes tips for parents on what to expect and how to help your teenager through this challenging year (released November 22)

In 2018, there will be a series relating to Maintaining a Healthy Body, including discussion of Mindfulness, Healthy Diet, Sleep, Exercise and Eating Disorders.

There is a large amount of information available at SchoolTV, and it is there if you would like to know more about a topic. If you have concerns about your son's wellbeing, your first point of contact remains your son's House Head in Senior School, your son's Homeroom teacher in Middle School, and your son's Classroom teacher in Junior School. From time to time, I will review different topics as and when appropriate. In the meantime, if you do access the website, I would be keen to receive your feedback via the link on the SchoolTV page.

Mr James Hindle
Director of Student and Staff Wellbeing