St Andrews PS Newsletter

• Friday 10th May - Interschool Sport at Panton Hill
• Friday 10th May - P/1 Assembly at 3pm
• Monday 13th of May - Sporting in Schools - Hockey
• Tuesday to Thursday 14-16th May - NAPLAN (Years 3 and 5 Students)
• Thursday 16th May - School Council
• Friday 17th May - Interschool Sport at Arthurs Creek
• Wednesday 22nd May - Open Classrooms Morning & Education Week Activities Night 
• Friday 24th May - Interschool Sports vs Wattle Glen at home
• Friday 24th May - 2/3 Assembly at 3pm
• Monday 3rd June - Sporting in Schools - Tennis
• Wednesday 5th June - Cross Country
• Friday 7th June - Curriculum Day - No School
• Monday 10th June - Queen's Birthday - No School

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. 

It has been a really lovely time to be a part of the St Andrews Community over the last few weeks. I feel very fortunate to have been able to work with a bunch of parents and students to prepare for and enjoy the recent Pumpkin Day and St Andrews Festival. 

A huge thank you to  the Bartlett, Taranto, Addison, Doyle, Ernest-Tamblyn, McColl Johnson, and Sandford families who came out and helped at the working bee! Without your help, and your great gardening equipment, we would not have achieved all that we did in the lead up to the festival. 

Thank you to all of the parents who volunteered their time on the festival, whether it be in preparation, pack up or in sales on the day. It was lovely to see such great positive energy and smiling faces there to greet the visitors to our school. 

I must say a big thank you to Carla!! She organised a great Pumpkin Festival on Friday and the students had an absolute ball! Well done to our best dressed winners and artists as well. For those of you that got to the weigh in on Saturday, you would have seen that Kangaroo Ground PS absolutely blew the other pumpkins out of the water, growing the largest pumpkin by a long shot! Congratulations to Panton Hill who won the Ugliest Pumpkin and I'm very proud to say that we were awarded the prettiest pumpkin. It was lovely to have Frank along on the day to run pumpkin bowling with the kids. We had lots of happy faces taking home lovely flowers for their gardens. You may have seen that we still have some pumpkins lingering at the entrance. If you'd like to take one home with you, you're more than welcome to!

You may have seen our OSHC teacher, Olivia, up at the Community Centre on the day as well. With the help of her lovely Mum, they were surrounded by children who were happily making some very creative key rings in order to raise some money for the fantastic program that she runs. Thank you for volunteering your precious time Liv!

Lastly, a big thank you to Kyle with all of the efforts that you made with preparing our students, both past and present, to perform at the Festival. Even though it was bucketing rain at times, the crowd was full of smiles and cheers when the students took the stage! We were all so proud to see them up there and cannot thank you enough for enabling that to happen.

As you’re aware, next week Grade 3, 5, 7 and 9 students across the country will sit the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy, NAPLAN. This can be a nervous time for both students and parents. It’s important to keep this assessment in perspective and understand that all students complete these assessments for a wide variety of reasons:

·         To provide a nationally consistent measure of skills of Australian students at set points along their schooling journey.

·         To provide consistent data on the effectiveness of programs in Australian schools.

·         To inform classroom, school and region practices aimed at improving the effectiveness of these programs.

·         To provide a ‘snapshot’ of data to parents on their child’s literacy and numeracy skills.

·         To provide parents with information they may use when choosing a school for their child.

At St Andrews, the focus is not on what the students do and don’t know, but how we can better cater for them. While the testing situation can be a new experience for students, we try and make it as stress free as possible and we encourage parents to reflect that approach at home. If you or your child have any concerns, please come in for a chat. 

The Visiting Primary School Nurse from the Primary School Nursing Program will be visiting our school next week.  Thank you to all the Foundation parents who have completed and returned the School Entrant Health Questionnaire (SEHQ). 

In addition to seeing all Foundation students, the Visiting Primary School Nurse can assess children in Grades 1-6 and is available to provide advice and health information. If you would like to take this opportunity to raise concerns about your child's health and development with the school nurse please speak to your classroom teacher to facilitate a meeting.

The students and staff at St Andrews would like to wish every Mother here a very big HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY for this weekend!! We hope you all get spoiled rotten and enjoy your heartfelt gifts this Sunday. 

The 2/3 class wrote some fantastic persuasive texts about why their Mum's are the best! No bias here, we think you're all brilliant, but here are a few examples for you all the enjoy.