Willunga Primary School Newsletter

Term 4 Week 3

Community

Term 4 is upon us and our whole school focus of COMMUNITY is underway. This focus allows us to consider what it means to be part of a community.  We understand that community means that just living near each other, as in a suburban neighborhood, doesn't mean you're in a community.  Community is tangible, cohesive and brings people together in ways that allows them to do things they couldn't have done in isolation. At school we work together to build learning communities, for support and collaboration with our learning, we solve social problems through community circles, and we strive to make long lasting connections for students to understand the importance of giving back.  We are fortunate to be in a suburb that already harnesses the power of community through the Rec Park group, Cinemallunga, CFS, football, netball, soccer, basketball, guides, table tennis club, tennis club and many more.  I wonder how many ways your family connects to this or your local community?

To connect to our Willunga Community, Sue Camac will once again be running our Living Library in term 4 where we invite members of the local community in to talk to the students about their role.  This is a highlight of our term 4 calendar.

We also look forward to seeing you at our term 4 Community Celebration 'Twilight Concert' in week 7.

Reminder - The schoolyard is NOT supervised before 8.30am or after 3.20pm. OSHC has exclusive use of the grounds outside of these times.

Important Dates Term 4

  • 1st November - Assembly
  • 5th November - Bike Ed, Governing Council 7pm
  • 12th November - Bike Ed, Special Food Day
  • 15th November - PE Expo YR 4,5,6,7
  • 18th November - YR 7 Footsteps
  • 19th November - Bike Ed

The SMS absence line: Text only 0429 632 559. Must include name, date, reason and class. Please check you are sending SMS to this number for absences.

Materials & Services Fees for 2020

SCHOOL FEES 2020

An invitation is extended to all parents and caregivers to attend the next Governing Council meeting where the 2020 Material and Services fee (School Fees) will be presented for approval.  The recommended fee for 2020 is $290.00 (Notice of Charges is included with this newsletter.) The legally enforceable amount for 2020 is $244.00 as stipulated by Section 106A(14) of the Education Act and has been indexed by the June quarter Adelaide CPI.  This leaves a gap of $46.00 which is a voluntary contribution.  Parents and caregivers who wish to raise queries or concerns about this charge/fee are invited to attend the next Governing Council meeting on Tuesday, 5th November at 7.00pm to do so, or in lieu of attendance at the meeting, parents/caregivers can express their views in writing to the Chairperson of the Governing Council. At this meeting the final decision will be taken regarding this fee.

Are you leaving WPS in 2020??

If you are planning on leaving Willunga Primary School in 2020 please notify Student Services as this information is crucial for our future planning of classes.

Also if you are planning on attending in 2020 and you are in the Willunga Primary School zone please let us know.

Volunteers

We value volunteers at Willunga Primary and if you would like to volunteer you just need to drop in to see Carmen in the front office for a Volunteer Booklet.  This booklet clearly shows the process and online courses that need to be undertaken.  Carmen will also arrange a meeting with a site leader at a convenient time for an induction. 

The new Working with Children Check (WWCC) cis in place. Volunteers who have a current Relevant History Screening through DSCI / DHS are still clear to work with children. When this screening expires, you will then apply for the new WWCC. If you are applying for the first time, it will be a WWCC through the Department of Human Services. Further information is available at school.

A reminder that anyone on site after 9.00am, must be signed in through the front office and have completed the volunteer process.

Visit to Tribe FM

On Friday 20 September, the SAT members (Kezia, Phoebe, Ella, Grace, Mya, Kyla and Eve) visited Tribe FM radio station to present a radio talk with Mr Trevor Garard about what we do during our school SAT lessons.

First, we introduced ourselves and read our pre-written scripts about what we do at Willunga Primary School such as Nude Food Day, ways our school is making changes to our rubbish collection and general discussion included plastic pollution and climate change.

Next, Trevor asked us questions about the plants in our school gardens and what we have in our collection to plant soon which includes pig face and knobby club brush. We talked about our Shiraz Trail walk and how we propagated the sedge seeds we collected along the way.

We also discussed how people think that we are going to have a beautiful future but our prediction is if we don’t make a change we could be living on rubbish.

Of course our favourite part was getting to choose the music and dance along to it.

This was a fantastic opportunity for us to get the message out about making good choices for our environment. We thank Trevor for allowing us this time on radio. 

Sue Camac's News

Willunga’s Got Talent finished off at the end of last term.  We had a great variety of acts ranging from a puppet show right through to one student being a ‘scientist’ showing us magical science experiments.  With this range of acts it did make it very difficult to come up with how to judge our winners.  Winners will be announced at week 6 Assembly.   


Often this time of year I have some year 7’s who say they don’t want to go on to high school, as they want to stay at primary school.  Transitions can be hard and the worry of the unknown.  All through our lives we go through transitions and changes. Different jobs, new baby, house moves, loss of loved ones.  These transitions can be planned, unexpected, positive or negative. If you have a year 7 student who is worried about transitioning to high school, maybe you could talk through some of the times you’ve been able to successfully navigate previous transitions.  It may have been when they first started going to girl guides or surf lifesaving on their own or starting primary school itself. The  good thing is, often after a few weeks at high school some of the former students tell us how much they love high school even more than primary school! 

Do you have our apps? Skoolbag, Seesaw and Qkr

OSHC News

We are currently focussing on Families, Belonging and Inclusion. For this we are creating a "Selfie Collage" to display in our floor book. We are encouraging families to take a moment when dropping off or picking up their children  to take a selfie with them, using our camera. This is set up near the sign in desk or ask one of the educators for assistance. We are looking forward to seeing all your photos.

During Vacation Care one of the activities was creating with clay which was then to sent off to be fired in a kiln. One of the items was a group created birdbath for our garden. This will soon be out amongst our raised garden beds. If you could please keep a look out for this and let us know what you think of the children's creation.

 

Director, Belinda Filkin

Students who will be away from school for more than 3 consecutive days need to apply for an exemption. This is a Department for Education requirement and application forms can be collected from the front office.

The Fleurieu Folk Festival 2019

 This October we joined in the Fleurieu Folk Festival. It was a great experience with the theme for this year was 'space'. Some of the year 6/7’s from Mr Gobbet and Mr Bentley’s classes sang songs such as, 'Blue moon', 'Armstrong', and 'Space Oddity'. There was also an original song called ‘Welcome to Fleurieu’. We had weekly practices which were led by Dave Greenslade, a local musician. All songs had solos and some had harmonies.

Our farewell performance will be at this week’s assembly!

 Students involved were:

Gabor T, Francesca S, Jakayla L, Lilly M, Kadence B, Maibelle R-T, Sam P, Noah G, Faith E

 We hope other people get to have this great experience that we were part of. Huge thanks to Dave Greenslade for his involvement.

Competition Winners

Congratulations to our winners: Ruby M, Maibelle R-T, Matilda B and Kadence B.

Students were asked to enter artworks based on the theme of ‘Empowerment’.

Each received two day passes for the festival. Thank you to the director Val for donating the prizes.

School Sport SA

Congratulations to Natalie W on your selection in the Onkaparinga South District Tennis team. The team competes in the upcoming carnival November 4 – 7.

Rugby League Tag Championship

Tuesday October 22 two teams represented the school at the state championships held at Barratt Reserve, West Beach. The teams were coached by Paul Crate and supported by Megan Osmond and Erin Rogers. The boys’ team backed up their 2018 win with a come from behind win in the grand final. By all accounts, it was rather exciting!

Orchid Club

Winners!

At the September Monthly Show our team won ‘Flower of the Division’ for the first time. Our division, Orchids in Schools, includes high schools so we are very proud. The group meets every Tuesday lunchtime led by our mentor Trevor Garrard.

Special Food Day

Parent Morning Tea

Twilight Family Picnic

Please join us for an evening of celebration and community

28th November from 5:30pm

Bring a deck chair or a rug, pack a picnic dinner and join us as we sing our  Christmas Carols for family and friends.


The next day is a School Closure Day, Friday 29th November

A reminder that as a Department for Education site, dogs are not allowed on school grounds. This includes the football oval between 8.30am and 3.30pm, and at drop off and pick up times.

Japanese News

Fancy visiting Japan? These posters can tell you a bit about what you can see, eat, drink or do in different places throughout Japan.

What a busy year it has been. Hiragana, Kanji and for some classes, Katakana have been learnt for each topic. This term each class will be  doing cooking, and the etiquette around eating, using hashi (chopsticks). All classes have tried Karee-raisu (curry rice). I was happy that most students enjoyed it. Many have asked for the recipe, so here is what I used: 1 packet golden curry -mild, 1 onion, 1 chicken breast, 2 carrots, 2 potatoes (everything cut small), 2 cups water. (You can use whatever vegetables or meat you like.) Par boil the vegetables, add curry mix, simmer for 5 minutes, add meat. Done. This is usually served with pickled ginger (also from Asian section-it’s pink). Enjoy!

 Before you eat, you could try ‘itadakimasu” and when you have finished “gochisousama”.

There are 10 Japanese students visiting Willunga High School  this term. In Week 4 , Thursday they will come and spend time with our students. It will be nice to put our Japanese to use.

Finally, at the end of the year, Japanese families usually have a big house clean, pay bills, visit a temple, so that the New Year begins fresh in all aspects of their lives.  I do the same, except for the cleaning and paying bills….and the temple visit? Perhaps, I just start fresh?

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