Curtin Primary School Newsletter

Week 10 Term 2 2019


Principal - Merryn O'DeaOUT OF SCHOOL HOURS CARE
Deputy Principal - Maryanne HayesJuniors - 0476 846 570
Board Chair - Alistair James - 0428 776 626Seniors - 0472 820 865
P&C President - Megan Moore - megankm4@gmail.comBefore school - 0472 820 865
If your child is absent please notify the school via email - curtinps.absences@ed.act.edu.au - or via the Skoolbag appBookings - 02 6147 3318

Dear Curtin families,

My thanks to you for supporting your child’s learning and participation at school in what has been a busy and successful semester. Major achievements include:

  • our professional focus on the teaching of writing is leading to enjoyment and achievement in classrooms.
  • our effort to create a school that displays and enacts cultural integrity has guided each year level to develop a significant acknowledgement of country and all inquiry units specifically include content to build student understanding of Aboriginal histories and cultures.
  • students have embraced the routines of Unlocking Potential, leading to increased stamina and learning.
  • Our Be You team has been established with staff and community members and have prepared recommendations for our school to optimise the wellbeing of each child in the school.

Over the last week, I have spent time with each teaching team analysing the achievement and growth of each student which has enabled us to make individual, class, year level and whole school plans for semester 2.

Reports

Last week, progress reports were sent home to all families. The reports were part of a pilot of the newly implemented ACT template and were sent electronically for the first time. I would like to thank Leslee Roberts for guiding our school through the complex process of establishing and sending the new template. Early in term 3, your feedback on the reporting process and the template will be sought.

The process of creating the reports was extensive and each teacher strived to ensure you received the best possible feedback about your child’s achievement, engagement and participation at school. If you have questions, concerns or feedback, you are invited to contact the appropriate teacher for an interview to follow up. Equally important was the Student Self Assessment Reflection which came home on the same day. This represents your child’s perspective on their learning and participation at school. If you haven’t already, we encourage families to take some time to sit with your child, read the report and self reflection together and then to discuss achievements and next steps.

Attendance

At this time of year, we understand many students miss school due to illness. We appreciate the efforts parents make to keep sick children at home as this leads to fast recovery and stops the germs spreading!

Regular absences however are more detrimental to learning. When considering student achievement from this semester, it is apparent that missing more than 5 days of school in a term reduces the learning progress made in a term. This doesn’t have to be whole days - even arriving 10 minutes late each day means a student misses almost an hour of instruction each week. Next term, we will be closely monitoring attendance and following up to support students to be at school. We encourage all families to work with the school to ensure students attend as regularly as possible.

Wellbeing

As we move into the holidays, it is a perfect time to think about the wellbeing and mental health of your children. School holidays bring opportunities for families to spend time together as well as for children to be in busy activity programs or having relaxed time at home. Screen time and access to websites or social media have been regular topics in classrooms and between adults at school this semester.  The links between children’s access to online content and levels of stress are regularly reported. Despite being a primary school, we increasingly see students impacted by online interaction, particularly use of social media. We encourage all families to consider their child’s interaction with social media to ensure their safety and wellbeing. The Australian eSafety Commissioner (esafety.gov.au) provides lots of useful advice and resources for parents. The following key questions from the eSafety website might be timely in helping you decide if your child should be accessing social media.

  • Is your child able to withstand negative online experiences?
  • Does your child understand the importance of protecting their personal information?
  • Does your child understand how privacy settings for social media work?
  • Does your child understand what is safe to share online?
  • Does your child know how to report cyberbullying and other kinds of abusive content?
  • Is your child willing to let you establish clear rules and supervise their social media activity?

At school, all year levels participate in appropriate webinars to build their online knowledge and safety. We believe social media brings too much risk for primary school students to engage with, although we are aware that many children are active in these spaces. Curtin Primary school does not require students to create their own gmail accounts, or ever to have their own social media accounts. If you face challenges or have concerns about your child’s access to online content and social media, please contact a teacher or member of the school executive for a discussion.

We wish each family a restful and safe break, and look forward to seeing everyone back at school in term 3.

Yours in learning,
Merryn 

Canteen will be closed on the last day of term, Friday 5 July, for stocktake and cleaning. There will be no recess or lunch orders available.

PASSION PROJECTS TERM 3

Passion Project nomination forms have been emailed home.  You can either print off and return the nomination form, or list your child’s three preferences on a piece of paper. These will need to be returned to the front office before the last day of school this term.   Please make sure you have your child’s name and class on their slip. We have some exciting new Passion Projects happening next term. 

SCHOOL EVENTS

Events may be viewed and added to your personal calendar on the Skoolbag app

Year 2 excursion to Canberra Theatre5 July
Last day of Term5 July
First day of Term 322 July
Kindergarten incursion Constable Kenny Koala23 July
Kindergarten excursion Ladybird Play24 July

Notes to be returned

Notes may be downloaded from links found below


Date Due
Kindergarten excursion Ladybird Play4 July

Kindergarten excursion Ladybird Play

Download

Tournament of Minds

Tournament of Minds will be starting on Monday 22nd July. We have enough students to register 8 Curtin Teams this year which is incredible! Go Curtin!!  

Please note than any students in a registered TOM team MUST be in the TOM passion project on Fridays. This will be crucial time with their team rehearsing, creating, making costumes and props, script writing, problem solving, working with the facilitators and being part of the team. Any TOM student who has not registered for the TOM passion project will not be eligible to compete in the finals.

At the commencement of the Challenge on Monday 22nd July, we will finalise teams and make sure each student is in a team. Parents will be asked to contribute $25 per student to cover registration, resources and materials costs. A note will be sent home in Week 1, Term 3 requesting payment.

Volunteers

We are asked to provide some helpers/volunteers on Tournament day on 31st August/1st September. If you are able to help in any way, such as helping on the BBQ, please let  us know.

Judges

ACT branch requires judges on the tournament days. Judges are volunteers from the community who may be experts or experienced in a field such as STEM, Arts, Social Science or Language Literature. All training and information is provided by the ACT branch committee, it’s actually a lot of fun! The tournament can’t go ahead without judges, so if you think you might be interested or would like more information please contact: Sonya Nemarich sonya.nemarich@ed.act.edu.au or Deborah Fitzgerald Deborah.fitzgerald@ed.act.edu.au

Sonya Nemarich (Year 6 teacher/TOM coordinator).

2019 ACT Primary Schools Chess Championship Central Canberra/Woden Zone

Thanks to everyone who took part in the 2019 ACT Primary Schools Chess Championship Central Canberra/Woden Zone. It was a very enjoyable day, with 49 enthusiastic players taking part. Thank you to Garran Primary for being such wonderful hosts, and for Turner, Hughes and Curtin for taking part.

As this was a combined zone event (Central Canberra + Woden) there were lots of trophies awarded! Turner 1 were the Central Canberra Champions with 26/28, followed by Turner 2 with 18.5

For the Woden Zone Garran Primary (17.5) were 1st, Hughes Primary (17) 2nd and Curtin Primary 3rd (16).

Teams that qualified for the final are: Turner 1 (26), Turner 2 (18.5), Garran (17.5), Hughes (17), Curtin 1 (16) and Curtin 2 (13.5)

The teams for the final are normally made up of your best 4 scorers (for team 1) and then your next 4 best scorers if you have a second team. However you may change players around if necessary (due to illness etc)

Did your students have fun? The ACT Junior Chess League runs various chess tournaments and coaching clinics throughout the year. For more information on these please visit our website www.actjcl.org.au

Shaun Press
ACTJCL Interschool Co-ordinator

SAVE THE DATE!

In term 3, all Curtin classes (P-6) will be producing a performance for families. This will also be part of our Book Week celebration. Please save the evenings:

Thursday  15 August - Preschool to Year 2 concert

Thursday  22 August - Years 3-6 concert

Time to start counting. 1,2,3….

Earn & Learn is over for another year. Now that it’s over, it’s time to start collecting all those stickers.

Thank you to everyone who has dropped in stickers. If you have some at home it's not too late to drop them in to the front office. We will be submitting them on Friday 5 July.

The more points we earn, the more we can redeem from a choice of over 10,000 educational resources including mathematics and English resources, art & crafts materials and much, much more!

We are grateful for your support and look forward to a successful program. If you have any questions, please ask at school.

HALL OF FAME

Congratulations!

Mrs Kemp, our school piano teacher, would like to congratulate the following students on their fabulous piano exam results:

Joshua M - Grade 3 - First Class Honours

Arianne K - Grade 1 - First Class Honours

Valentina H – Preparatory First Class Honours

Well done! 

PE NEWS

PLEASE HELP - GYMNASTICS

To run this program maximising use of all available gymnastic equipment, I would like AT LEAST two parents from each class to assist with supervision of children during their lesson.  Those classes without a helper will participate in a modified program. Even if you are only available for 1 session, that would be greatly appreciated, but feel free to help as many times as you like.

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW AND FILL OUT ELECTRONICALLY.

If you are able to help, please clink on the link below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yiDYxZTst7U75jfdNPJBh4D8h6SiWsSp/view?usp=sharing

·          Click on open with google sheets (top middle of page) and fill in your full name on the spreadsheet. – it automatically saves for you.

·          Use the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet to select day. 

P&C NEWS

Uniform Shop

The uniform shop is located opposite the canteen and is open from 8.30am until 9.30am each Wednesday. 

2019 Curtin Primary School Uniform order form

Download

CANTEEN NEWS

Canteen will be closed on the last day of term, Friday 5 July, for stocktake and cleaning. There will be no recess or lunch orders available.

CANTEEN HOURS OF OPERATION

The canteen is open from 8.45am until 1.45pm. If you have any canteen queries, Lizzy can be contacted on 6142 2581 during these hours.

2019 Canteen Menu

Download

COMMUNITY NEWS

Woden Interchange Service Updates

Can you please advise all students of the following changes that will take affect at Woden Interchange from Saturday 6 July 2019.

Platform numbers and departures are changing from 6 July 2019

Transport Canberra is making improvements to the Woden Interchange, to make it easier for customers to use the new public transport network.

You will notice platform changes as we work to improve customer information throughout the interchange, which includes new and improved signage and a simplified layout. 

Our friendly Customer Service staff will be available in the interchange to provide assistance. Please refer to the below map for platform and departure changes, for your regular services.

School services will continue to leave from the same location in the interchange, however, the platform number will be updated to reflect the broader changes as seen in the map attached.

Your school has had amendments made, these can be found at https://www.transport.act.gov.au/getting-around/getting-to-school/school-service-updates-term-3/. School packs are currently being updated. Please check in the coming days on the Transport Canberra website for these.

For further information, please visit: transport.act.gov.au.