Largs Bay School Newsletter

Dear Parents / Carers,

We are so pleased to report a highly positive and successful Week 1 and 2 with over 425 students in school. 

Important Dates - February

·         Monday, 13th February - Governing Council, Annual General Meeting, 7:00 pm 

·         Tuesday, 21st February - School Welcome Event, 5:00 to 7:00 pm  

Pupil Free Date Change

Please note that our Term 1 Pupil Free Day is Tuesday 14th March 2023 (as listed on the Term 1 Calendar). OSHC will be open on this day and will communicate their special program shortly. 

Parent / Teacher Interviews Change

Interviews have been moved forward from Term 2 to Term 1 to provide information to families earlier in the school year. Interviews will be held in Week 10 of Term 1, 3rd to 6th April. A full program and online booking system will be provided in March. 

School Leadership Team

The Largs Bay School Leadership Team welcomes you to the 2023 school year. We are here to support your family and manage questions and issues that arise with open communication. 

·         John Burns - Principal - john.burns475@schools.sa.edu.au

·         Georga Tyson - Deputy Principal - georga.tyson19@schools.sa.edu.au

·         Karen Smith - Wellbeing Leader - karen.smith640@schools.sa.edu.au

·         Natalie Griffiths - Business Manager - natalie.griffiths657@schools.sa.edu.au

Week 2 Curriculum Overview

In Week 1 of term teachers provided their introductory Newsletters. This week classroom teachers will provide their Curriculum Overview for Term 1. These include both classroom and specialist subject programs. Teachers welcome questions on these topics. 

Annual General Meeting / Governing Councillors Needed

The Annual General Meeting will be held on Monday, 13th February at 7:00 pm. An important part of the AGM is the election of Governing Councillors. We are currently looking for new Council members. This is a great way to learn more about the school and to contribute to governance and future plans. Please drop in, call or email me if you would like to know more about the role.  

School Welcome Evening

Please ‘save the date’, Tuesday 21st February, 5:00 to 7:00 pm, as an opportunity to tour the school, visit classrooms and speak to teachers and school leaders. There are no set times for formal classroom presentations. The format is students providing family tours, an opportunity to explore classrooms and to meet your child/rens teachers. 

Updated Contact Details (Emergency Situations)

In the case of an emergency or possible school closure it is important that we can contact all families quickly. If you have a new or have changed mobile phone number, email address or home / living address please ensure the Front Office has these details.  

SkoolBag

LBS uses the SkoolBag system to communicate on a daily basis. It is very important that all parents and carers join this service to receive key and urgent information about dates, events, news, policies and emergency procedures. 

Simply go to the Apple App or Google Play Store, search for Skoolbag and download the App. Follow the instructions to establish an account and then join Largs Bay School. It is very easy and takes just a few minutes. 

Facebook

In 2023 we invite all school families to join our Facebook page. This is a fun and informative way to follow the ‘daily life of the school’.

To join you must have a Facebook account and then simply search inside Facebook for Largs Bay School. You will recognise our page by the school logo and welcome banner photos of the school building and our wonderful mural. 

Covid-19 Protocols

·   Anyone testing positive to COVID-19 must notify the school immediately.  

·   There is no longer a set quarantine period for a positive case, however, 5 days remains strongly recommended by Health SA. 

·   Students cannot return to school until they are fully ‘Covid-19 symptom free’. 

·   If you become a classroom / close contact It is still best practice to test every second day for 7 days.  

·   Communication of positive cases to school families remains in place, however, this will be simplified in Term 1. 

Covid-19 Positive Cases

It is particularly important that any positive Covid-19 student case as well as the positive test date are immediately reported to the school. Please phone LBS reception on phone 84492000, or email dl.0219.info@schools.sa.edu.au.

Please do not send to school any child/ren showing any of the symptoms of Covid-19. If a child is unwell at school, they go home immediately, the sick room will be for a very short-term stay. 

I am looking forward to a positive and successful 2023 school year. I also look forward to meeting you all in the coming week.  

Kind regards,    

John Burns    

Principal 

Largs Bay School    

Phone: 84492000

Email: dl.0219.info@schools.sa.edu.a

John.Burns475@schools.sa.edu.au 

Room  

This year at Largs Bay School we are again fortunate to offer students 5 Specialist subjects. These lessons being S.T.E.M, Music, Indonesian, P.E and Writing. We welcome 2 new staff members to these roles. Mr Stephen Birch to the Specialist Music Role and Mrs Elese Wosltencroft to the S.T.E.M role. We are also pleased to have well-known Largs Bay classroom teacher Emma McEvoy take up the Writing role. All year levels will experience all 5 Specialist subjects over the course of the year with some classes fortunate to experience an additional lesson this semester. This means if they do not attend a specialist subject in Term 1 and 2, they will in Terms 3 and 4. In timetabling these lessons for the semester we are allowing our Specialist staff time to report against the Australian Curriculum.

The Leadership Team

In Room 3 we have had a wonderful start to the school year! We have been learning new school routines and expectations and getting to know each other. We have drawn wonderful self portraits, made name rockets & counted the number of letters in our names, and made a birthday graph to show when everyone celebrates their birthday. We have also been learning about the school value ‘Respect’. This means listening to others with the 6 L's – legs crossed, lips zipped, listening ears, looking eyes, lap -hands in and learning with our brains. This week we are learning to be ‘Bucket Fillers’ by showing respect to others by being kind. 

In Literacy, we are learning to correctly articulate (say) sounds by looking at what our mouths look like and how the sound is made (are our mouths open or closed, where is our tongue, where does the air come out, is our voice box on or off). This will help us to learn our phonics (sounds and letters) when we begin InitiaLit in a few weeks. In Mathematics we are learning the basics of counting. We have started this by sorting and counting objects and singing number songs and rhymes.

It has been an amazing start for Room 20 with team building, get to know you activities and collaboration to make our class pledge enacting the school values of respect, responsibility and persistence. We have also discussed our class motto of 'Reaching for the Stars' meaning to do our best to achieve our goals in life. We have explored character strengths in people we admire, identified our own character strengths and explored the book of poems, 'The Best Part of Me' by Wendy Ewald with two of many beautiful poems written by the students shared here. In mathematics, students have been enjoying morning 'Number Talks' and it has been wonderful to see students extend their mathematical thinking and learn from their peers. Students have identified ways to successfully work in groups by building shapes (photo) and raced the clock to circle numbers 1-100 as a team (photo). 

In Room 22 we have had a great start to the year. We have been getting to know each other, reviewing the Largs Bay values, writing about our holidays and learning how to be mathematicians. 

To start the year, Room 30 have been looking closely at our school value, Persistence. For a lot of us, Maths can be a very daunting and challenging subject. We had a lot of discussions about how mistakes are ok and that they help us learn. By the end of the week, we all agreed that Maths isn't something to fear! Anyone can be a Mathematician! To help celebrate our positive mindset, we made "Maths grows my brain" headbands. 

Room 32 have been learning about the school values of Respect, Responsibility and Persistence. We listened to the story Franklin Wants a Pet and brainstormed how we can be responsible at school and at home. We also Read Giraffes Can’t Dance and spoke about the importance of being persistent. 

The Smith Family supports long term participation in education through the provision of timely opportunities and support, enabling students to optimise their education outcomes. For this reason, The Smith Family offers Learning for Life Scholarships, Programs and Support throughout the primary, secondary and tertiary education years; an eligible student and family can continue to be part of Learning for Life throughout their schooling and post school vocational education.

Scholarships are awarded to students in financially disadvantaged families that have demonstrated their commitment to education and who would benefit from additional resources and support and who meet the referral criteria.  To be eligible for the program, families are required to have a current Pension Concession or Health Care Card and demonstrate a strong commitment and engagement to education.

For further information on the Learning for Life Scholarship, please contact:

Yolanda Martinez 0407 519 472

yolanda.martinez@thesmithfamily.com.au

As our children grow, so does their exposure to the online world. With children spending more time online, it is important that we teach them the difference between in-person and online friends.

Awareness and education are the first steps in reducing the incidence and impact of crimes against children. ‘Jack Changes the Game’ has been created for educators and parents to start age appropriate conversations with primary school aged children in years 1-3 about being safe online.

Please go to www.ThinkUKnow.org.au to access this book as well as resources to support these important conversations. If you have any further queries please feel free to call or email me on 8449200

Karen.smith640@schools.sa.edu.au