St Andrews PS Newsletter

14th of August 2020

Principal News

100 Days of Prep

We are so proud to celebrate this milestone for the youngest of our students!! While Friday was not what any of us planned it would be, Jen certainly dressed to celebrate the occasion with her students online and we all hope that you have of will enjoy our picture matching game. It's been a big year for our Foundation students, who have certainly not had the year that any of us had expected, but they are still making incredible gains and learning so much!! We are so proud of their endless positivity, energy and resilience. Well done and congratulations on reaching 100 days of school!

Upcoming Info Night August 26th 

Normally we will have already started our transitions for next year but, with the way the world is, that's another thing that's been pushed to the side. 

In the absence of holding a community open night, we have decided to hold a Virtual Information Night for anyone who has a child looking to enrol at STAPS in 2021 or beyond. Jen and I will be hosting the meeting online. You will have the opportunity to ask any questions you have and we've got some lovely presentations to share with you. 

Keep an eye out for additional information and feel free to share with your friends. 

Food Bank

We're glad to have been able to supply some of our families with some food packs over the past week. Thank you for reaching out. We honestly have SO MUCH FOOD sitting here and, because we can't share it with our students, we would love to share it with you at home. No need to be bashful. Give us a call or send through an email and we can arrange a pack for you. 

Readathon

Some of our amazing students have chosen to sign up for the MS Readathon and have already raised a whopping $232!! If you're looking for a way to get your child more engaged in reading or simply want to support a really amazing cause, please join us! Let's see what we can achieve together during these times. 

Can you match the Preppy with their Elder?

Home Learning

Prep / One News

We are excited to be celebrating our Preps completing 100 days of school learning this week. Our Preps are doing such an amazing job, when you consider that half of their school life has been spent learning remotely from home!

In honour of 100 days, we have had a week full of learning connected to 100. We have sorted and counted 100 beads, estimated how much 100 drops of water is, mixed 100 colours and timed 100 seconds. On Friday we had a special whole class conference to share 100 things from home, and dress up as 100 year old people!

The Prep/1's loved watching Hayley's movie about Angus' day last week.

Here are a few of their narrative stories:

Maxwell - Angus slept in until 9.00am. He went up to Pluto with me. We came back to Earth.

Harold - Angus jumped on a frog

2/3 News

I think I'd like to begin by acknowledging all every one of your children for the effort and dedication they have put into this most unusual situation. Doing our learning this way has it's challenges and I don't think there has been a 2/3 student yet, that hasn't said at some point, "Ryan, this is just really hard," in one way or another.

Despite that, I am pleased to say that they are all rising to the occasion. I was listening to a group read earlier this week and the thought struck me that, "these kids wouldn't have even attempted this book at the start of the year."

Some of their other successes include:

  • Nelly not only conquering division but also helping to teach it to Archie.
  • Truman, Adele, Jasmine and Olive reading so beautifully that they put Adele's baby sister Maeve to sleep.
  • Wade having enough spare time to edit a video of my instructions together to make it sound like I'm rapping. 
  • Callum working tirelessly to save his lego man from drowning.


Regardless of if their successes have been academic or just getting through the day's jobs, the 2/3 kids are proving that they are up to the challenge.

4/5/6 News

The grade 4/5/6's have had quite the eventful start to their term. Despite their initial disappointment about having to do more remote learning the class has really shown persistence when facing all the new challenges that have been thrown at them. 


Some highlights from the first 4 weeks of term have been;

  • Scarletts' dog actually eating her homework! - When first reading her post on google classroom, we all thought that she was joking but it turns out that Scarletts' dog had actually gotten hold of her learning pack and treated it like a chew toy. 
  • Our Crazy Class Stories - During our Wednesday morning class meets, we have recently started playing a game that requires each student to contribute three words to a story at a time and I think it is fair to say that our story became quite bizarre by the end.
  • Snow in St Andrews - A big thank you to Lilah who recorded a video of the snow falling in St Andrews on a particularly cold Saturday afternoon. Apparently, both Lilah and Harry did a funky snow dance and we are still trying to convince them to show us what exactly a snow dance looks like. 
  • Adas' Newborn Lambs -  A few weeks ago we welcomed some new members to the grade 4/5/6 family... 5 baby lambs!  The lambs made a guest appearance during one of our class meets and I think it's fair to say that they stole the show.


Another big change this term has been the arrival of a new teacher and a new student. Sadly we had to say goodbye to Nat for the rest of the year as she takes her long service leave but she will definitely be back to visit when we all eventually come back to onsite learning. We miss you already Nat! On a more positive note however, we have not only welcomed Tyler, who has stepped in for Nat while she is away, but also Olivia who is a new student to the school.  

Specialist Update

Japanese Learning @ Home Student Work

White Crane Directed Drawing
Hiragana Colouring
Anime Character
Origami Tsuru
Hiragana Colouring
White Crane Summary
Weekly Japanese Task Submission

Japanese

みなさん、こんにちは。おげんきですか。すばらしいです。

Hello everyone. How are you? I'm feeling great.

I hope you are all cosy in your homes and enjoying the brisk, cold walks in the morning, or sunshine in the afternoon.

As you can see from the pictures above, there has been some great work produced for Japanese this term.

Reminder for students to check the Japanese Choice Grid, choose an activity, then upload a photo or write about the task in the WEEKLY JAPANESE TASKS Google Slide. I will return the work with a digital stamp and feedback, and then students are able to submit again the following week.

A special mention to Scarlett, who has been very creative and engaged this term and is producing a fantastic collection of her Japanese work on the slides.

Japanese Calligraphy Competition

  • Do you have beautiful handwriting?
  • Do you enjoy Art?
  • Would you like to try Calligraphy?

Every year, the JLTAV (Japanese Language Teachers Association of Victoria) hold a Calligraphy Competition for all students studying Japanese at a Victorian School. If your child is interested, let me know and I will forward the details. Equipment needed: 2B greylead pencil, entry form and the entry sheet. Each year level has a different Japanese message to write in the Japanese script. Each school is limited to 4 entries per category - Prep, Yr 1&2, Yr3&4, Yr5&6 - so if we have more, we will need to judge the entries. 

Japanese Meet - Wednesday 11am-11:30am

At the time of writing the newsletter, responses from the Week 4 Check In, showed that some students would still like to meet up on a Wednesday. It is optional and will be very casual. Look forward to seeing you there.

きをつけて。Take care.

Barrett Sensei

STEM - Science Week is Next Week

It’s National Science Week next week! The theme of this year's National Science Week is “Innovation for Our Oceans”. To help celebrate it, we're doing a STEM challenge. The challenge is to design the ultimate ocean and sea exploring machine. Anyone who enters the challenge will receive a prize upon returning to school. Your invention must have parts that will help it survive the ocean AND help make it cleaner and better for our future. It could:

  • Be an ocean rubbish cleaner
  • Help stop animals from being impacted by noise and boats
  • Clean up oil spills 
  • Prevent over fishing
  • Help stop the ocean temperatures rising
  • Provide artificial reefs for wildlife.

So many opportunities, have fun making your ocean explorer! When you have designed and either drawn or made a model of your project you can upload it HERE. Instructions for uploading are HERE, make sure you include your first name, year level and school when you upload.

Also, for anyone that's interested, there's a free webinar on Wednesday the 17th of August at 5:30pm where some ocean scientists will be talking about our oceans! Register below: 

 https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UcCs92d5SrG7LNA6BaT3Dg

See the Sugarloaf STEM site for some videos to help give you ideas on how to help our ocean. http://sugarloafstem.global2.vic.edu.au/category/weekly-s-t-e-m-summary/

Join Us

Join us

https://www.msreadathon.org.au/home
Join the STAPS reading team by clicking the link and signing up. 

Psychologist Available Now

Shine Bright Psychology is now providing convenient and affordable, onsite psychological counselling services for all students at STAPS. These services attract no out of pocket expense, as they are Medicare bulk billed services. 

Children will be able to access this treatment service where they have a referral from a General Practitioner (GP). The referral completed by the GP is known as a mental health treatment plan. 

Our fantastic psychologist, Lili, is now attending school each Thursday. An initial appointment can be scheduled by contacting Hayley or Michelle.

Click here to read our past newsletters

http://www.standrewsps.vic.edu.au/ourschool.php?id=19#

St Andrews Primary School