NEWSLETTER

Issue 2 Thursday 9 March 2023

We learn on the lands of the Ngadjuri Nation

TERM DATES 2023


TERM 1Monday 30 January  -  Friday 14 April
TERM 2

Monday 1 May  -  Friday 7 July  

TERM 3Monday 24 July  -  Friday 29 September
TERM 4Monday 16 October  -  Friday 15 December


Long Weekend: Public Holiday Next Monday & Pupil Free Day Tuesday

Some Important Dates for Term 1

Adelaide Cup Public HolidayMonday 13 March
Pupil Free DayTuesday 14 March
Naplan15, 20 & 27 March
Governing Council MeetingTuesday 21 March
Parent InterviewsMonday 3  -  Wednesday 5 April
Good Friday Public HolidayFriday 7 April
Easter Monday Public HolidayMonday 10 April
Last Day of Term / Early Dismissal time of 2:10pmFriday 14 April


From The Principal

Sound Bites Picnic

Last Friday, we held our first Sound Bites Picnic. This was in support of the Deafness Foundation and Hearing Awareness Week. In registering for the picnic, our school received some educational resources and every student received a butterfly pin. Our school is also entered into the draw to win a soundfield system. Through gold coin donations, we raised over $100 for the Deafness Foundation.

The afternoon of the picnic provided us with perfect weather and we were thrilled to welcome over 40 parents and family members to join us. The students were divided into five cross-age Buddy Groups and their parents joined them in playing a round of fun games and challenges.

 Our older students from the 5/6 class really showed their leadership skills and their compassion by helping the younger students and making sure that everyone knew how to play some of the games. It was an absolute delight to see the kids having so much fun and to have so many parents there to enjoy the afternoon with us.

SRC

Our SRC members have been elected for this year. They are:

Our first meeting was prior to the Sound Bites Picnic and the SRC had the responsibility to decide and/or design the five games for the afternoon. The games they came up with were:

Ø  The Floor is Lava

Ø  Bombardment

Ø  Tug-of-War

Ø  Dress-up Relay

Ø  Running-with-a-bean-bag-on-your-head

The SRC will be officially inducted at our next assembly, where they will receive their SRC badges.

Governing Council

The Governing Council AGM was held on Tuesday 21st February. During the AGM, I presented the 2022 Annual Report and discussed our successes and achievements last year. If you would like to read our Annual Report, you can find it on our website.

During the AGM, the council also took nominations for positons and determined who the 2023 office bearers would be.

Your Governing Council is:

You can contact any of the Governing Council members via their dedicated email address:

 gpsgoverningcouncil@gmail.com.

 Gail Holland 


From Sam Wight (Governing Council Chair):

What do the sub-committees do?

Fundraising Committee

As you may well be aware, the school’s fundraising committee has been very active over the past 12 months. With the help of the Greenock community we have raised over $12,000!. Last year these funds helped the school to complete the restoration of the Greenock Primary School Wellbeing Room.

Grounds and Environment Committee

The Grounds and Environment Committee assesses needs on school grounds and organises Working Bees to make our school a more inspiring and joyous place for our children to thrive. The committee will announce Working Bees via the “Greenock PS Parents and Carers” Facebook page and the Skoolbag app. The more the merrier!! Please join us for a fun and productive day – and maybe a sneaky BBQ lunch.

Friends of Greenock (FOG) Volunteers

“Friends of Greenock”, otherwise known as FOG, is a casual, fun and welcoming group of volunteers, created a few years ago. It was created from a desire to build school community and social networks for those able to volunteer within the school, but unable to commit to join the Governing Council. As we all are aware, the staff do a fantastic job and this can be enhanced by the ongoing support of parents and carers. FOG has developed a second-hand uniform project, where-in they accept donations of old uniforms and re-sell them in their pop-up shops. They also frequently support our fundraising activities and run “coffee catch up” mornings. FOG is a great way to get to know other members of our school community and everyone is welcome to join, with no ongoing commitment required.

If you would like to join a committee or take part in one of their activities, please make contact through the email address above or approach one of the friendly Councillors at school pick-up time.

As a school community, we pride ourselves on “Working Together” and with this ethos in mind, the goal of the Governing Council is to ensure that our school community feel supported. As a Governing Council, we are working on some ideas to ensure our school maintains a strong community spirit and we, as always, welcome the constructive suggestions of the whole school community. We appreciate your input and look forward to another productive year at Greenock Primary School.

 

School Routines and Procedures – Term 1

Front Office Hours:

The school reception area is staffed between 8:30am & 4:00pm (open term time only)

Contacting the School:

You can contact the school by phone or email (details at the bottom of this newsletter). 

*On a day where there is only one staff member working in the office or if you call outside of school hours, the answering machine may be on.  Please leave your name, number and a short message with the reason for your call.  If you ask for a call back, we will respond as soon as we are available to do so. All messages are passed on to the relevant staff member.

Staff in the Front Office:

·         Monday         -      Gail  *

·         Tuesday         -      Liz (am) & Gail

·         Wednesday   -      Mari & Gail

·         Thursday       -      Mari  *

·         Friday            -       Mari  *

Uniform Purchasing:

Uniforms can be purchased on Monday – Wednesday preferably by appointment.  Call the school office for an appointment time or you can also order over the phone and quote your EFT payment reference number.  Please see Gail A.

Uniforms cannot be purchased outside of these times.

Preferred payment method is by EFT or Credit Card and uniforms will not be issued until payment is received.

Drop Off and Pick Up Times  -  Drive with caution:

Remain in your car and move off after your child has left or entered the car.

These are very busy times of the day and we ask for your cooperation so that our students and the school community can come and go safely each day.

Remember to drive slowly .

PLEASE DO NOT U-TURN OR REVERSE IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL

School Supervision  -  Yard Duty:

Yard Duty begins at 8:30am each morning.  Please ensure children arrive after this time.  Staff will be on duty until 3:30pm each afternoon and children will be supervised within the JP playground area until they are picked up by their adult.

Please arrange to collect your children at 3:10pm each afternoon and contact the school if you are going to be late.

If you are having difficulty with these times,  the Before/After School Care service, Happy Haven, operating from Nuriootpa Primary School, is available for you to use.  Phone 81555 444 to book or for more information.

Late Arrival and Early Departures:

If your child is late to school (ie arrives after 8:50am), they will need to see staff in the Front Office who will issue them with a yellow ‘Late Arrival’ card to take to their class teacher.  Parents picking up children early for an appointment, will need to tell Front Office staff before taking a pink ‘Early Departure’ card to the classroom teacher. Signing a slip is no longer necessary with EMS, whereby your child’s late arrival or early departure is entered straight into the system by staff on the Reception Desk.

Illness & Injuries at School – Collecting Your Child:

Students who are sent to the Front Office/First Aid room by their teacher due to illness and also for injuries that are considered more serious eg a hard knock to the head, will be sent home. 

Unwell students should not attend school until they have fully recovered and will not pass on illness to others.

Parents will always be contacted first and you will need to collect your child promptly.

If you are unable to collect your child, please organise your emergency contact and let the school know who this will be.

Primary caregivers eg parents are NOT emergency contacts but people other than yourselves eg relatives or friends who can be contacted if parents are unavailable.

Please list at least 2 local emergency contacts for your children.

 Start of 2023 Tasks to Complete:

*  Consent & Permissions Form 2023

Complete for each child on the Skoolbag App

*  Consent Form For Chief Executive Approved Early Dismissals

Complete on the Skoolbag App

Only complete if you child is a new enrolment in 2023 (or you forgot to do it in 2022).

This is a once only form and is compliant for the time your child attends Greenock Primary School.

*  Update Student/Family Information:   

The school will no longer be sending home student information forms to be updated at the beginning of each year.  Therefore, so that we can best support your child at school, we ask parents & caregivers to keep the school informed throughout the year when there are changes to your family circumstances including:

*  home address (residential and/or postal)

*  contact phone number

* employment &/or place of employment

* email address

* emergency contacts

* student's medical condition

* custody information

You can let the school know by completing the 'Change of Details' eform on the Skoolbag App or contact the Front Office by phone or email. 

Students' Belongings:

Please label your child's school uniforms and all belongings that are brought to school eg food & drink containers     

Healthcare Plans for 2023

Parents/caregivers please update your child's Healthcare Plan and medication at the beginning of the 2023 school  year so that it remains current and your child will be covered for all activities throughout the year, including swimming lessons and camp.

Healthcare plans must be completed by your doctor/healthcare professional and all medication must be in the original packaging with the label attached.

Please note:  If your child no longer suffers from a medical condition a signed letter from your doctor is required.

Term 1 Class Reports

Year 3/4 Class

The students have done an amazing job to start the year! They have settled quickly into new routines and jumped straight into learning in all areas.

In the first week, we talked lots about our school, class and individual values and focused on learning the language used through the social and wellbeing program, Highway Heroes. There has been lots of role playing to practise implementing the social skills talked about.

We have been revising and building on lots of number concepts in Numeracy, including odd and even numbers, place value and partitioning of numbers. The students have been showing lots of interest in the hands-on activities, helping to build their understanding.

We have thoroughly enjoyed reading The Twits by Roald Dahl as a class, just finishing it this week. We have been using the text to explore character development and lots of grammar, such as noun groups, verb groups, direct speech, prepositions and adverbs.

We have much more to explore in all areas and look forward to a positive second half of the term.

Mrs Thomas and the year 3/4’s. 

Year 5/6 Class

At the start of this year we made our first art work. We filled in the year level that we are in with interesting facts about ourselves and drew around the number. Some of us decided to use the monochrome technique (black and white) whereas others used nice and vibrant colours for patterns around the number. We stuck a photo of ourselves in the middle of the number. We have then displayed them on the back wall, and altogether they look amazing!!!

Izzy and Anika.

This term in Art we traced our hand onto paper and designed them with patterns to take to the Tanunda Show. We used magnifying glasses to see up close on different things, to see their details and then draw them on our hands. Miss Richardson is in charge of taking the hands to the Tanunda Show for people to see this weekend.                 

Madie and Asha

Earlier this term our class was given a lump of modelling clay each in blue or green. We were instructed to design a mini monster of our choice to present at our next assembly. We were also provided with pop sticks and match sticks to help us create a more detailed monster. We were given the opportunity to add features to our monsters. Some had horns, extra legs/arms, wings and other things. We all put a great amount of effort into them and we are all very proud.

Caitlyn

Recently, the 5/6 class each designed a seniors t-shirt, then we voted for who would end up winning the t-shirt design. The design had to have something to do with Greenock Primary School or Greenock, along with the student names, teacher name and principal name. Finally, after a vary close vote, the winner was Cody!

Hunter and Cody 

School Card 2023

PCW News

Hello,

How are you? Here we are past the half way mark of term 1. You can very proud of your children; by the way they have settled in to their routines, their achievements and the way that they are looking out for each other. It is always a pleasure to see the kindness that is shown to others and the way our kids can support each other, no matter what age, this all makes a great community to be involved in.

So far this term, I have been spending time in classrooms getting to know our new people. I have supported individual students by being a listening ear for them. We have a Tuesday Games Club that I organize. I am also utilizing these first few weeks to get to know the children, your community and am looking at planning programs that we will be running later this year.

I have been in conversations with Young Life Barossa and we are going to continue with our    Pancake Breakfasts this year. Our first one is on March 21st, 8.30am Young Life are happy to come along and help, but due to work commitments they find it difficult to find enough helpers. I am putting a call out to you as school parents, I would like to know if any of you can help cook pancakes for an hour or so a couple of times a term.  You can contact me through the school office, or the email above. I have also connected with the local Church and they would also like to be part of these events at our school which is great.

Another event that is coming up is the “My Child and Me” and “Living with Young People” parent workshops, please see the flier in the newsletter. I have been involved with planning these events and I would like to encourage as many of you as I can to attend these workshops. They are relevant, provide up to date information and they are FREE! “My child and Me” is aimed at Primary school aged parents, while the Living with young People is aimed for parents with teenagers. This is a great local opportunity to connect with other parents and support one another.

 All the best to you for the coming weeks,

Cheers,

Jo

Term 1 Assembly Class Awards

Week 2

Week 4

Week 6

Kindness Award

Premier's Reading Challenge 2023

Greenock Primary School will participate in the Premier's Reading Challenge again this year.  We had great participation last year with 73 students completing the challenge and receiving awards.  The challenge will conclude on 8 September 2023.  Awards are presented each year at an assembly late in Term 4.  Each teacher has received a pack which will include a brochure and reading record as well as the guidelines for the challenge.  A wealth of information can be obtained on the website such as the guidelines, reading lists, posters, the reading record and ideas for families.

https://premiersreadingchallenge.sa.edu.au/parents-families/

Premier's Reading Challenge Letter

Open the download below to read a letter to the school community from our Premier.
Download

SAPSASA Swimming - GPS participants

Greenock Primary School Calendar

School Activities & Events

Tutu Day

Sound Bites Picnic

Tanunda Show Banner

Parent Noticeboard

Greenock PS Governing Council

Contact details: