School Leadership
This week, we held an extra ordinary School Leadership election to elect a School Captain. Congratulations and thank you to the Year 6 students who presented a leadership speech in the school hall on Monday. The newly elected leaders will be presented with their badges at the K-6 Assembly on Monday 6th March.
Congratulations Niah on your election as School Captain and Abbey on your election as Vice-Captain.
School Attendance
We are committed to working with you to offer support and remove any barriers that may be preventing your child from regularly attending school.
This is a reminder that all student absences must be explained within 7 days of the first day of them being away from school. Please contact the school promptly whenever your child is absent and let us know the reason for them being away. This allows us to provide the right support and make sure your child's absences are recorded correctly.
In the event your child has repeated or ongoing unexplained absences, we will continue to try to contact you about each absence.
We know that for our students every day of school matters.
Days missed equals years lost. There’s approximately 200 days in a school year. When a child misses one day a week over a year, that’s 40 days of school, 8 weeks of lessons and 2.5 years over their school life lost. As your child’s education has already been interrupted through periods of learning from home due to COVID-19 over the last 2 and a half years, now is the time to prioritise face-to-face learning and making the most of every school day.
If you have any questions or if you need support with your child’s attendance, please contact your child’s class teacher.
Nut Awareness and Allergy awareness
We are seeking your help to support the students in our school who are at risk of anaphylaxis.
Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction that is potentially life-threatening. The most common causes of anaphylaxis in schools are food and insect allergies. The only way to prevent allergic reactions is to avoid being exposed to the allergen.
Our school is supporting students at risk of anaphylaxis in the following ways:
• training staff,
• encouraging students with food allergy to wash their hands before and after eating,
• encouraging students to wash their hands after eating something their classmate/friend is allergic to,
• teaching students not to share food with friends who have a food allergy,
• teaching students the importance of getting help immediately if their friend with allergy looks sick,
• educating students about allergies and anaphylaxis, and
• teaching students that teasing someone with an allergy is not acceptable behaviour.
Food allergy is now common in school aged children. Children can be allergic to any food, and it is not possible to completely remove all foods from our school. To help manage food allergies, our school is following the National Allergy Strategy Best Practice Guidelines (2021) which do not recommend banning foods as this is difficult to enforce and can bring a false sense of safety. We request that parents consider not sending nuts to school, for any child.
As we educate our school community to help with the management of food allergy and anaphylaxis, the parents of the student with food allergy will continue to educate their child on self-management at a developmentally appropriate level.
We ask you to support the school’s risk minimisation strategies outlined so that we can increase safety and provide an environment that meets the needs of all our students.
Teacher Professional Learning
Over the past few weeks, the staff have been participating in Professional Learning on giving and receiving feedback and curriculum implementation. All teacher professional learning has the learner at the centre of all that we do.
Parent Teacher Interviews
This year we will be holding Parent Teacher Interviews across two afternoons. K-2 Parent Teacher Interviews will be on Tuesday 28th March and Years 3-6 Parent Teacher Interviews will be on Wednesday 29th March. More Information will be sent out to you soon.
School Maintenance
The school continues to have maintenance programs onsite, the walkways and poles are in the process of being painted and once this is finished, we have a fresh coat of paint in all walkways and brightly coloured poles.
School Photos
School Photo Day will be Thursday 30th March, all students will need to wear their summer uniform.
ANZAC Service
The school ANZAC Service will be held on Wednesday 5th April at 10:30am in the school hall.
Fancy Hat/Easter Hat Parade
This year, we will be holding the Annual Easter Hat/ Fancy Hat parade on Thursday 6th April starting at 10:15am. More information will be sent home on Monday 6th March. Students can make an Easter Hat or a fancy hat of their own choice. The P&C will also be holding a Easter Egg Raffle on the day.
School Camps 2023
This year, we have planned the following camps for students in Years 3-6.
Years 3-4: Taronga Zoo Snooze September 14th and September 15th
Years 5-6: Canberra Excursion October 18th- October 20th
Safe Bus Travel to and From School
All parents of students travelling to and from school are encouraged to sit and speak with the child/children about the safe way to travel on the school bus. All bus travel students have been reminded at school to do the following when travelling on the school bus:
· Tap on and off with an Opal card.
· Sit on a seat in the bus and face the correct way.
· Speak quietly with your friends.
· Respect the bus driver and keep each other safe.
· Thank the bus driver when it’s time to get off at your stop.
Staffing News
Mrs Smith is now on leave, and we look forward to seeing her back at school soon, we wish her a speedy recovery. During this time, Ms Erin Tumeth Clarke will be the relieving School Administration Officer and we welcome Ms Isabelle Fogg as relieving School Administration Officer on Wednesdays- Fridays.
