Dear families

NAIDOC Week 

Yesterday the children and staff celebrated NAIDOC Week.  Everyone participated in different activities including decorating stones, watching 'Big J and Little Cuz', making the Rainbow Serpent from wool, creating mosaic animals, and listening to stories. 

I would like to thank Mrs Stacey Young for her leadership and organisation of this school wide event.  Thank you also to the HASS Committee staff for their ideas and organisation, and to the many staff who were busy sorting out materials for the activities, and lead the day's events.

In the afternoon the combined school’s leadership team had afternoon tea with some of our families.  It was an opportunity to find out about family connections across the community and to talk about the school. Thank you to Mrs Bev Shaw for making contact with all of the families.

We know that our celebrations are well ahead of the National event but we had our plans in places before the new dates were announced. COVID-19 has resulted in lots of last minute changes for everyone.

Staff news

At the beginning of next term we will welcome back Mrs Sandi Hird to her much loved Year 2 class.  She can’t wait!  I would like to thank Mrs Michelle Schoch for all of her work with the children and Mrs Sublet.  Mrs Schoch will not be a stranger to us as she will be back as one of our regular relief teachers.  

Stone hunters

We started this week with a stone hunt.  Children collected white stones that the student councillors and faction leaders hid around the school grounds.  Every stone collected and put in the faction bucket meant another point for the faction. Hopefully all of the stones have been found.

Faction competition

Children are awarded faction tokens for showing our school values of being respectful, safe and responsible.  They have been picking up rubbish, remembering to wear their hats, getting to class on time after a break, keeping the verandas neat, and playing games safely. 

The final faction token count for this term is:

Well done to Green Faction.....Again!  The children will be having an icy pole before the end of Term.

Work around the school

Since the last newsletter a few more building and grounds projects have been finished or have progressed.  The bore filter, which is by the basketball court, is now in action.  The filter will take out the iron in the water to prevent further staining on the buildings. 

The two transportable classrooms are now open for learning.  The Education Support children and staff are already settled into one of the classrooms.

There has been some more progress on getting new interactive panels installed into classrooms.  The tender has been awarded and we have met with the contractor to discuss timelines and installation requirements.  Next term we hope that every classroom will have a brand new interactive panel.

A new pedestrian gate is being installed by the Kindy transportable.  The gate will allow children to walk off Jolstra Crescent and straight into the Kindy playground and not walk through the carparks to get to their classrooms.

Assemblies

From next term we will recommence whole school assemblies which is something that I am very much looking forward to.  At this stage we need to observe the 2 square metre physical distancing requirement for an audience.  Once we have a plan so that parents can be in the audience, we will let you know. 

What’s coming back?

Next term will see the return of some of our usual programs:

Term Planner

A new term planner has been included with the newsletter.  Please make sure that you keep up to date through the newsletter and app notifications so that you know what is happening and when.

Sporting Schools Grant

Congratulations to Mr Robert Lee, Phys Ed teacher, who successfully won a $650 grant for the school which he is using to purchase netball equipment. 

Safe holidays

I would like to wish the staff and students a very happy and safe holiday.  I hope that everyone enjoys having time to unwind and be school-free.  For those who are travelling, stay safe. 

Thank you to the staff for all of their work throughout Term 2.  It has been challenging at times, normal in parts, and unusually busy, even though the calendar appeared to have less on it.  Take a moment to appreciate a well deserved holiday. 

A very special thank you to Miss Tammy Hanrahan and Mrs Carol Perry, Associate Principals, who have worked tirelessly maintaining the many practices and processes that we have in place and for problem solving as things have changed. 

I am confident that we will return to Term 3 in a much better position than we were 10 weeks ago!  

Term 3 commences on Monday 20thJuly 2020 and there are no school development days.