We've now got all of these dates, plus LOADS more synced to the SkoolBag App. If you haven't already got it downloaded, click here.
What a busy last fortnight it's been!! Our students have been competing in Hockey, Tennis and Cross Country and have continued to enjoy the endless creativity and engineering opportunities that occurs throughout Cubby Land! I'm so proud of the effort that our students put in to the cross country run! A big congratulations to Lilah M for making it through to the next level of competition!
Thanks to all of you who came and enjoyed a fun night with us during Education Week! We all had an absolute ball and were so glad to open up our beautiful little school to you all once more.
We've enjoyed having some special parents working in our classrooms as well. Not only do we have a lovely range of Mums and Grandparents that come in to read with students each week but we've also been fortunate to have Eliza and Sonja in with our 4/5/6 class creating some fantastic art and Mel working on our garden each Monday afternoon. A big personal thank you to Tania who volunteered to run the parent feedback session for the revision of our school values as well. It was an invaluable session. Thank you to Tania and the parents who joined us for your openness and passion.
We'll never turn down a parent helper so, if you have some free time of a project in mind, please approach your child's teacher.
We had our first Steps to Prep session last week. Thanks to those of you who have been spreading the world of our beautiful little school to those you know who are looking at schools for next year. The session times are below.
Thank you to the lovely staff here for holding down the fort these past few days. I've been off learning more about school finance and beginning a new Principal course, Evolve. It's lovely to know that our school's in such safe and caring hands while I'm away. You'll notice we're down one smiling office lady over the next few weeks as well, with Michelle heading off on holidays to Vietnam. Sam and I will be covering her role while she's away but, please be patient with us, we're both still learning. :)
We're very excited to have Emilia C joining us as our first Prep of 2020! She brought in her enrolment form last Wednesday night and she was very excited to bring a brand new picture book home to enjoy before she starts school with us next year. We're very lucky to have you join us!
Hermit Crabs are COOL!!!
Have you met our Hermit Crabs, Hermie and Momo?
We already told you at assembly some interesting Hermit Crab facts...
- They are nocturnal and do their activities at night
- They like eating watermelon
- They shed their shells when they grow out of them
- They need water to survive
- If they are too hot or too cold they could die
BUT did you know they could climb trees???
Look at these images of Hermie and Momo doing their thing.
On Wednesday the 29th we had Emma and Jessica from Swinburne University come out to do a Healthy Rivers, Healthy Bay incursion. With the prep 1,2s Jessica and Emma played the platypus game where we pretended to be platypus and saw the effects of pollution on their ability to feed. We also learned about and observed real life macro-invertebrates and tried to identify them with a key. They were really cool little critters and we saw some amazing bugs! We also looked at frog populations and how disease and physical removal has left some species almost extinct. If you've got frogs near your place you can use a frog app to find out which frogs are in your area you can download the app HERE. They even had a intricate model of a town where we saw how pollution from our cars, dog poo, farm waste and rubbish flows down storm water drains into our rivers and eventually our bay.
With the older students we learned about water facts and that we've only got less than 1% of the total water in the world available for us to use. We became river scientists and measured some key variables like turbidity, phosphate, salt and pH of the water. Then we used a ranking scale to work out how healthy the river was by comparing us results with charts.
The day finished with us learning about how we can stop pollution and use water wisely in our lives. Some of the simple things we can do include avoiding plastic packaging, capturing our water and reusing it, composting and not buying too many cheap disposable clothing.
All in all it was an amazing experience and we’re super grateful to the crew at Swinburne for coming out.
Family Matters is a small Family Therapy program based at the Berry Street Eaglemont Office, servicing the local government areas of Darebin, Whittlesea, Nillumbik and Banyule.
Matters work with a range of family issues, most particularly the challenges which parenting an adolescent brings. Often parents and adolescents present feeling frustrated, disconnected, hurt and exhausted with a range of issues within the immediate and extended family compounding their relational experiences.
Parents often express hope of better connection, communication and resourcing leading to less conflict, criticism and mutual understanding. Our experience shows that mostly kids want this too, particularly when challenges have occurred to rupture the attachment experience.
Our systemic training allows us to move between multiple (and often competing) positions within a family in the service of strengthening the relationship. The team often refer to the client as the ‘family relationship’ and family therapy promotes the work with the ‘whole of family’ allowing for differing combinations of family members to be seen.
The team are happy to be directly contacted to discuss potential referral on 9450 4700.
The KidsAssist program aims to support needy families with education expenses, and provide a pathway for schools to refer families and children who require financial assistance.
All children should have the ability to fully participate in school life regardless of their parents’ financial situation, yet the rising cost of school education has resulted in some children being singled out or excluded from opportunities to learn and grow, and that’s where KidsAssist comes in.
Eligible families will be able to seek KidsAssist funding for school related expenses including Stationery, Text Books, Electronic Devices, Excursions and Camps, School Sports and other essential school items and activities.
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We have brochures and application forms in the office.
For further information please contact kidsassist@dvsupport.org.au or speak to Michelle.
To apply for KidsAssist please follow the link below:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KIDSAssistEducationApplication
