Dernancourt School R-7 Newsletter

Dear families,

Last Friday we held our Annual Sports Day and it was a great success! It was wonderful to see so many family members attending and cheering on the children.  

A lot of ‘behind the scenes’ work goes into the planning of Sports Day and I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this. I would especially like to acknowledge the out of hours’ time and work of our Sports Day Committee (Kane Watkins, Steph Webb, Amelia Travis, Guy Barbara and Kaye Coley) for the time they spent planning the day.  The committee met in the weeks leading up to Sports Day to ensure that the events included this year were based on the feedback from our students. Thanks also to Greg Coley for marking out the lines and ensuring the oval was ready. Miss Greenhalgh did a great job of choreographing and preparing everyone for the day with the Whole School Health Hustle.  A big thank you to Andrew Neagle and his team for the speakers and sound system used for the event.

Thanks also to our class teachers for preparing classes for the events, adjusting timetables to allow for runoffs and extra practices as well as supervising team meetings to practise the team chants and the health hustle.

One of the highlights was the parent event, thank you to the volunteers who participated in this year’s event the Tug of War, the children certainly enjoy seeing their family members joining in on the fun.

Thank you to everyone else who contributed to make the day such a success, helping with scoring, helping to cook the BBQ, volunteering in the canteen or on the cake stall or by providing cakes and baked goods for the stall.

Congratulations to Ind who were the overall winners and to Packer for winning the Good Sports Award. Congratulations to all our students for their positive sporting attitudes and overall contributions to the day.

I would like to acknowledge and thank our  Year 3, 5 & 7 students who participated in NAPLAN testing during week 3.

When we receive the results, usually late term 3, they will give us a snapshot of student learning, and how students are performing in comparison to the rest of the Nation in the areas of; Literacy Conventions, Writing, Reading and Numeracy.  We will use this data to track and measure student growth from Year 3-5, Year 5-7 and 3-7.  This data will also allow us to identify strengths and areas to target improvements through teaching programs in line with our Site Improvement Plan.

While some of our students did find working on their own, not being able to collaborate and work in teams, or being able to ask their friends or teachers for feedback a difficult situation to be in – they coped! We watched as many of them used the concepts and skills they had learned from their neuroscience sessions to enable them to ‘be the best they could be’ on the day/s. We congratulate them for their efforts. We know that some students will not receive the results they want; some students will receive results better than they anticipated. We also know these results don’t provide us with information about how well they get along, work in partnership with others, problem solve, persist with tasks, care, encourage and support each other or the many other aspects of their character which we all admire in each of our students.   These scores do not define our students – we know they all did their best….  Thank you!

Congratulations to the following students who received an assembly award last Thursday.

J2 - Hope, J3 - Amadeus, J4 - Mia, J5 - Ari, J6 - Aaroosh, J7 - Andre

P2 - Elisha, P3 - Nishka, P4 - Cooper & Sophia, P5 - Summer, P8 - Taylor, P10 - Keira, P12 - Sienna, P14 - Twisha, SCIENCE - Aidan & Bailey

Well done!  Our next assembly is Thursday (Week 6).  

Out Netball team also received their trophies at our last assembly.  We will publish a team photo in our Week 6 newsletter.

P5 - Jake, Mahayla, Patrick

P3 - Lucas,  Milly, Isaac, Saanavi, Nishka, Burak,

P12 - Noah

P10 - Dion, Liam

P14 - Kira

As we approach the Winter months we experience an increase of various illnesses. There are different virus strains, colds, fevers, gastro and influenza. We ask that if your child presents with any early morning symptoms that you monitor them at home to avoid the spread of germs. Once your child is well enough they can return to school.  If they are away for three days or more they will need a Doctor's Certificate.  You can inform the school that your child is ill either by phone 82612677 or by filling in the eForm on the Skoolbag App.  Many parents find the Skoolbag App very convenient to use, if you need any assistance in the use of this App please come and see us at the front office.

The Department for Education has introduced some new policies relating to medication management in education and care.  If your child requires administration of medication, after returning to school from an illness, a Medication Agreement for education and care (HSP151) must be completed by a Doctor or Pharmacist. This form can be downloaded by your Doctor from the Department for Education website.  Prescription medication must be brought to the school in the prescribed box/bottle with the child’s name and dosage clearly labelled with instructions.  A measured dose must be brought in, school staff are unable to measure out the required dosage.

We are unable to administer any medication if this form has not been completed by a Doctor or Pharmacist.

The crossing monitors are:  

WEEK 5 Rebeka, Jasmine, Nitya, Reikaya

WEEK 6   Joshua, Maddie, Khai, Jay

WEEK 7   Jack, Beth, Daniel, Brook

WEEK 8   Clever, Sienna, Kym, Harper

WEEK 9   Tyler, Dylan, Noah, Akshat

WEEK 10   Lianna, Sarah, Ryan, Ramsay