West Lakes Shore School Newsletter

WELCOME BACK! I hope families had a wonderful holiday period. It has been a really settled start to Term 2 with staff and students focused on quality teaching and learning in Literacy and Numeracy and our whole-school Connected Curriculum: Our Big Backyard. Some parts of this terms teaching and learning involves students being active and getting outside to learn about living things; maintaining and planting in our school gardens; understanding different cultures and perspectives; and a focus on STEAM through designing concepts for the ATSI gardens as the next phase of our nature play yard development. Our Nature Play Committee will soon meet to plan the development of this space, incorporating many family and student ideas. Many year levels have exciting excursions and incursions planned for term 2 and these give children the opportunity to experience real-life, purposeful learning connections in our world. Bike-Ed will commence for key year levels and students will learn vital safety skills. Our school has recently trained staff in the ‘Way2Go’ initiative which aims to improve our students as active citizens. Class teachers will be sending home a termly overview that details each units/classes key learning for the term and gives you an insight into things you can reinforce, practice and discuss with your child/ren.

Enjoy your weekend and stay warm.

Kind regards

Carol Press

Principal

Children have the right to play, discover, speak, be healthy and be safe. This term we are looking at how we can continue to support all students to be safe during yard play. We want ‘Our school Big Backyard’ to continue to be a positive, happy and exciting place to be! As a staff we know students respond best when we build strong relationships, positively reinforce behaviour and are consistent in our expectations of what students can and can’t do to stay safe during yard play. Throughout Term 1 we reviewed our yard play expectations and compiled a rights and responsibilities yard play map. I attach a copy of our map and encourage you to discuss and reinforce this with your children. If you have any suggestions or ways we can support safer student yard play please forward them to our nature play committee for consideration via carol.press854@schools.sa.edu.au . Throughout the term, additional leadership will be visible during yard play alongside our student Nature Play Leaders. We aim to reinforce and continually ‘teach on’ the consistent responsibilities and expectations as part of our Big Backyard learning. The Nature Play student leaders are now visible in our nature play spaces on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They are trained mediators and are active in our school play spaces to support students with minor problems. Please encourage your children to look for these leaders who will assist them during yard play. Our student leaders are taking on a huge responsibility that will develop their individual leadership skills. A huge thanks to Kieran, Jacqui and Rozika for their work to implement and support this initiative.

All staff reinforce and respond to physical, social, cyber and verbal incidents that occur and are reported, with appropriate follow up and steps in line with our school policy. This includes referrals to reflection and/or office referral. Every incident is followed up and outcomes are documented in line with our site policy. One of the things research shows (from staff who attended the PEACE Pack training) is that nationally less than 50% of students report incidents directly to a teacher. As a PEACE Pack school we are continuing to examine ways we can improve this. The presence of student Nature Play Leaders is one step towards providing our students with an alternate way to safely seek help. All student leaders know and are trained to report issues to staff for further follow up.

This term we are having our regular visits from SAPOL to reinforce cyber safety and teach age-appropriate ways of staying safe online. One way families can help children stay safe is through accessing some of the top tips and advice from the e-safety government website.

Some questions to consider and prompt your thinking about your child’s online safety: Does your internet have filters? Do you know passwords for all social sites your child may be accessing and check these for any online bullying? And importantly do you talk to your child about what they should do if they come across any inappropriate sites or things online? Children regularly do not tell an adult as they feel they will be banned from using the technology or that they will be in trouble. As a school we are working with students to encourage them that if they see something, then they should act and do something, as this is the best way to keep themselves and others safe.

https://esafety.gov.au/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIuIWKhbH-4QIVUwwrCh00XQlOEAAYAiAAEgJ1G_D_BwE

During the second week of the school holidays, Braden G from SD7 competed in the State School Sailing Competition. Braden spent the week camping with the Ocean View College School Sailing team and competing at Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club.

Braden competed with the A team and they were very successful this year coming in at 6th place out of 22 teams.

Due to extreme high wind on the last day of competition,  Ocean View College didn’t get to battle it out in the finals. 

Well done Braden from everyone at West Lakes Shore School!

Below is a link to a short survey via Survey Monkey.  We value your opinion on the current uniform and would like your input as to what works and what doesn't. 

We would appreciate if you take 5 minutes to complete the survey.  The survey will close on Sunday evening.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MPQ3DFL 

Our school is once again participating in the Woolworths 'Earn & Learn' campaign.  Your child should have brought home a sticker sheet to start collecting.  Completed sheets can be returned to school or placed in the collection box at West Lakes Woolworths.

Thank you for your support!

Please make a note of the following dates on your calendar:

PUPIL FREE AND SCHOOL CLOSURE DAYS FOR 2019

• 11th June 2019 - Tuesday - TERM 2 - PFD - PLEASE NOTE THIS DATE HAS CHANGED
• 2nd September 2019 - Monday - TERM 3 - PFD
• 20th November 2019 - Wednesday - TERM 4 - PFD

• 30th August 2019 - Friday - SCHOOL CLOSURE DAY

Please make sure you have booked your child/ren into OSHC if you require care for any of the Pupil Free Days or the School Closure Day.  

TERM 2 Calendar - 29 April to 5 July 2019

TERM 3 Calendar - 22 July - 27 September 2019

TERM 4 Calendar - 14 October - 13 December 2019

Please make sure that you download the SkoolBag app on your phone or device, and keep it updated.  The great thing about SkoolBag is that it is free and all family members can set up their own account to receive information.  Do you have other children at different schools or kindy?  There will be a pretty good chance that their school uses SkoolBag!

The SkoolBag app is a vital part of our school community, and we are trying to utilise every part of the app.  Don't miss out on what's happening - be informed!  Spread the word and lets get every family using this great piece of communication.

If you have any feedback for us please don't hesitate to forward your suggestions to rachel.roe536@schools.sa.edu.au