Dear Parents and Carers,

This week we hosted an afternoon tea and talk for the families of our multilingual learners. At St Patrick's we have a growing number of students who speak more than one language, what a gift!

We welcomed Sam Chrzczonowicz, the Teaching and Learning Officer ‑ EAL/D to our school to share her knowledge about second language learning. EAL/D is the acronym for English as an Additional Language or Dialect.

Screentime

How are you managing screentime with your children? We hear from many parents about the challenges in this space, and if we took the word of some of the children they get screentime from dawn til bedtime every day with their parents blessing!!

Here is an excerpt from the Wellbeing that Works forum.

It will come as no surprise that the evidence suggests that excessive screen time has a negative impact on emotions and readiness to learn. Therefore, it is a good idea to reduce excessive screen time. 

How much screen time is excessive?

A good place to start is the Australian Government guidelines for screen time, 24-hour movement guidelines. The guidelines recommend:

• No screen time for children younger than two years
• No more than 1 hour per day for children aged 2-5 years
• No more than two hours of sedentary recreational screen time per day for children and young people aged 5-17 years (not including schoolwork)

Any amount of screen time above the guideline recommendations is excessive.

It is also important to note that even though this is the recommended average, it does not mean that hours can be stored up and used in one go e.g. There is no screen time Monday to Friday so we can have 14 hours over Saturday and Sunday.

Over two hours on any one day is excessive.

Screen time in the guidelines excludes schoolwork. Screen time is defined as sedentary recreational screen time, where children are sitting or laying down to watch video, scrolling social media, or playing games.

The Australian Institute of Family studies estimates that only 15% of 5–12-year-olds meet the screen time guidelines, and that the amount of screen time increases dramatically between the ages of 10 -14. In fact, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that there is a rise in the percentage of students spending more than 20 hours a week on a screen.

It is important for us as adults to make wise decisions for and with our children about their screentime.

Blessings on a wonderful long weekend.

Jo