Newport Natter

The photos show the Year 2 and Yr 6 leaders delivering interesting, engaging assemblies to their peers with only minimal teacher support.

This is a great example of the type of improvements we would like to implement into the future.

The students are at the centre of the learning, the use of technology has enabled a more time efficient alternative as well as enhancing the experience; in this case allowing students to add videos, pictures, music and song lyrics to improve their presentation and learning for their peers; and the need for behaviour management strategies from teachers takes a back seat to main purpose of the activity.

It’s my hope that the survey input from everyone over the next three weeks provides us with more ideas and guidance to improve many more of our practices.

During this time, I ask for your understanding as we slowly re-introduce pre-COVID activities, many of which like band and community user programs, will re-commence in Term 3 and, as programs re-start, expect to see some changes for the betterment of students.

Thank you to those 318 families who booked time to discuss their child/ren’s social, emotional and academic progress with their teacher over the next two weeks as part of our formal reporting process.

We know that a strong partnership between you and the school improves learning outcomes for students. The changes to the reporting process this semester aim to not only provide you with information about your child’ progress, but also to give you the opportunity to provide further insight for your child’s teacher about student achievements during the learning from home period and provide you the opportunity to have input into your child’s learning goals for second semester.

We had planned to trial Student/Parent/Teacher conferences last term with Year 4 but were unable to proceed with this. However, one step towards increasing student responsibility is to ask your child to answer the parent/teacher interview questions prior to your phone interview.

1. What are your strengths at school (what are you good at doing at school?) / What do you find more difficult to do at school / need more help with?

2. What did you learn about yourself as a student when you were doing your school work at home? Were you able to solve problems by yourself? Were you motivated and did you get organised to work on your school work? Were you able to use the technology to learn and do your work? 

3. What goals would you like to work towards and achieve in Terms 3 and 4? 

When I have the opportunity to be a “real teacher” and go into classrooms to teach a lesson, if I haven’t been briefed by the teacher on what they would like, I dip into my social/emotional wellbeing toolkit and teach lessons that I believe will help our Newport students to become strong, smart, kind and independent. One of these is about our basic needs (see below).  Here are some photos of the Newport staff satisfying their need for fun with “Formal Friday.”

Unfortunately our soap dispensers were damaged on Friday last week between recess and lunch. Washing our hands is imperative when using the bathroom, before and after eating and at other times during the day. We will be reminding the students in assemblies this week, to be respectful with school property.

I would like to congratulate our captains and ministers for the work they are currently doing to improve the school for their peers. Ava J. has written a Parliament report featured later in this Natter that explains their current projects. The photos below show the student led handball competition on Thursday. It was sensational, those involved had a great time. Thank you.

Kind regards,

Natalie Baldi

Principal

This week in Parliament, our sport and leisure ministers (Harry F. and Drew O.) have been working on getting soccer goals put up at the grass area. They have ordered them and the goals should be arriving shortly.

Liam D. ran the Year 4 handball tournament last Thursday. He will be moving on to Year 3 soon.

The student wellbeing ministers (Harley P. and I ) are working on painting the final friendship table. The table will be painted a sunset theme, with a sun in the middle and clouds of warm colours surrounding it.

Our grounds and environment ministers (Josh L. and Pearl P.) are working on the chicken coops. We are looking for ‘Chicken Champions’ who will help feed and manage the chickens on weekends and holidays. They have issued Chicken Champion notes to the Year 6 volunteers. If you are interested in becoming a Chicken Champion and your child is not in Year 6, please see the note attached in the Week 6 Natter, print it off and hand it in to the office. We thank everyone who has volunteered so far.

We have had a suggestion for mufti day, crazy hair and/or sock day. For this fundraiser, students will be asked to bring in a gold coin donation to raise funds for the Year 6 gift to the school. We will take this suggestion to next week’s Parliament meeting to have it decided upon.

Our school quote board has been relocated to the display board at the front of the library. This is due to students rearranging the letters. Every week, there will be a new inspirational quote on the board.

We look forward to reading the students' unique ideas and creative suggestions.

Thank you

Ava J.

In anticipation of the reopening of the canteen, date to be advised, we are asking any parents able to volunteer to get in touch with us.

Various shifts and days are possible, and we will work around your availability.

We know that many of you were volunteering under Tammy’s management and hope that you will continue, but this is also an opportunity for new volunteers to help in this especially important aspect of the school community.

You don’t need to be a cordon-bleu chef, or have any special skills, to be a canteen volunteer as there are a range of tasks to fulfil including serving, making sandwiches, putting orders together and cooking, to name a few.

If you have any capacity to assist, please email us at info@newportpandc.com.au and let us know:

·         Your name

·         Email AND telephone number

·         Days and times you are likely to be available

·         The tasks you feel you are best suited to

We will then use this information to create a schedule that suits you, in consultation with you.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope to see many of you at the canteen when we reopen.

Best regards,

Brooke Logan President