Eleebana Endeavour

I am so pleased to welcome everyone back to Term Four at Eleebana Public School. We are all very excited to begin this term with a few relaxations to the Covid safe restrictions, meaning we can start to include a few of our much-missed activities. Unfortunately, the current health advice still precludes non-essential adults on-site and so we will continue with our drop off and pick up arrangements and with zooming in a virtual audience to school events; but it is still heartening to see students beginning to engage in a just a few of those valued and enjoyable activities we look forward to in the normal school year. 

I am delighted to welcome back our Band rehearsals. I know how hard it must have been for our young musicians to maintain a dedication to practice, and I take my hat off to all our conductors and all our ‘band families’ who have helped guide and sustain their interest and commitment over the course of this year.  It is lovely this morning, to hear them tuning up ready to begin again.

Our school is now able to hold a Cross Country event and an Athletics Carnival, details about these events will come home soon.  Kindergarten and High School transitions have also been approved (under specific guidelines) and we look forward to being able to provide more information about our school programs in the next few weeks. 

Obviously all our activities will continue to reflect the Department of Education’s Covid- safe policies, and so will not be exactly the same as in previous years; however, we are still delighted to have a few of our activities and opportunities back, and a little bit more normalcy for our students. 

 On behalf of our school, I want to pass on huge congratulations to Ms McCloy and 1/2M for their fabulous entry into the  Grillex Outdoor Learning competition. Their video, which was written and directed by class members, was an absolute masterpiece and thoroughly deserved their position in the top ten. While we were not the winners overall, we couldn't be prouder of the efforts of the 1/2M team. Thank you all to all our wonderful community members who voted for their entry, your efforts were much appreciated.

 We are currently working hard to evaluate our school practices, our strengths and our areas for improvement, in order to build our next School Improvement Plan. To start the ball rolling we are undertaking an extensive situational analysis to assess exactly where we are as a school and to determine our leverage points for improvement. I am working with the staff to examine student data and review school processes. We are interviewing students to understand their school experience and where they feel we can make a difference. In normal times, I would hold parent forums to hear the voice of our community and how school practices could be honed to better support your children. As this is currently not possible, I will instead be reaching out by phone asking for a moment of your time to discuss various aspects of your experience as a parent at Eleebana PS.  Phone calls will be randomly selected, however, the evaluation questions will be sent out on email, giving all families the option to respond. I look forward to sharing the results of our evaluation with you all.

Once again, thank you all for your ongoing support and understanding throughout this very different and ever changing landscape.

Lucinda Farrell

Principal

Facebook

It is great to see our Facebook followers continuing to grow. We are close to hitting the 300 mark which is impressive considering we only launched our page a month ago.  We love nothing more than being able to showcase the wonderful things happening in our school on a daily basis.  You are most welcome to comment on any of our posts but remember never to mention a child’s name under a photograph. It is very important we keep our students safe by NOT making them easily identified. Remember the page is a public space.

Attendance Matters

When your child attends school every day, learning becomes easier and your child will build and maintain friendships with other children.

Parents and carers can help foster positive attendance habits by:

• helping their child learn the importance of punctuality and routine
• ensuring their child arrives on time from the start of the school day, ready to participate in learning
• reducing disruption to learning where possible, by planning any necessary appointments outside of school time
• promptly communicating any absence to the school
• working with the school to encourage and support regular attendance.

As much as we encourage you to send your children to school every day, our current health situation does not always allow this to happen. In accordance with advice from NSW Health, parents and carers are reminded NOT to send children to school if they are unwell, even if they have the mildest flu-like symptoms.

·         Students with flu-like symptoms will need to be tested and provide a copy of a negative COVID-19 test result and be symptom-free before being permitted to return to school.

·         Students who do not undertake a COVID-19 test result will not be permitted to return to school for a 10-day period. Additionally, they must be symptom-free for at least 3 days prior to returning to school.

·         Students who have seasonal allergies or another condition that presents similarly to flu-like symptoms are still required to get tested for COVID-19 and return a negative test result. Where their symptoms continue beyond 10 days, students should provide documentation from their GP confirming their symptoms are typical for their condition.

Teacher Professional Learning

Staff are currently learning about the power of teachers’ words in shaping children’s potential. Our recent professional learning schedule has a particular focus in the subject of Mathematics. Often messages, even the most subtle, have a massive impact on student’s perception of themselves as mathematicians.

I thought I would share a snippet from one of our professional readings that you as parents may also find very interesting…

“It is extremely important that neither parents nor teachers praise children in fixed ways, telling them they are ‘smart’. When children are told they are ‘smart’ they often feel good, but later when they fail in some situation, and everyone does, they think “Hmm, I am not so smart”. Always praise what children have done, instead of the person, eg: “It is wonderful that you have learned how to add numbers”, not “wow you can add numbers, you are so smart.” [Article: Unlocking Children’s Math Potential, Jo Boaler, Professor of Mathematics Education, Standford University]

So with that interesting idea in mind, I’ve included a few suggestions that you might like to try when conversing with your child. Use it at any time but particularly when working mathematically.

Tuesday 20 October:  Senior School Zoom Assembly 2:30pm. Hosted by class 3SB.

Tuesday 27 October: Junior School Zoom Assembly 2:30pm. Hosted by class 2M.

Friday 30 October: Cross Country - Years 2-6

Tuesday 3 November: Athletics Carnival Years 2-6

Friday 20 November: Mini Fete

Monday 14 December: Year 6 Farewell

Wednesday 16 December: Last day of Term 4 for Students

Thursday 17 December: Staff development day

Friday 18 December: Staff development day