newsletter - wangarattass.vic.edu.au · if you require your child to be picked up/dropped off at a...

Newsletter Wangaratta District Specialist School

Date 1/03/2018 Ph. 5721 7424

[email protected]. Fax. 5721 8601

Chris Harvison

Principal

Dates to Remember

Photo orders due by Tuesday 5th March

Labour Day - Monday 11th March - No school this day.

Principal’s

Awards

Week 3— Junior: Elijah Macey – for being a learner becoming more confident with his independent living skills.

Middle: Olivia Scott – for being a learner and overcoming her fears and being brave by swimming in the 50m pool

Senior: Erynn Bulmer – for being a learner and spending her first day in her new class-room, with the Buller girls.

Week 4 - Madeline Wernert, Brandon Alfieri, Bailey Mackrell, Dakoda Leavett-Brown,

Kayne Morrow, Jordan Furlong, Tyler Beardow, Tyson Barnes

The halfway point already!

Hard to believe that we are already approaching the second half of the term! Time flies when you are having fun!!

It has been wonderful to see so many parents and carers visiting our school over the past few weeks to meet with

teachers and flesh out the 2019 Individual Learning Plans for students. Our aim as always is to have a collabora-

tive approach to all student learning goals and we value your input, as you clearly know your child better than

anyone. This becomes increasingly important as students reach their final few years of school as it allows us to

better map a smooth transition plan for students into a sustainable post-school pathway.

School Captains

Speeches will be delivered by aspiring school captains at assembly over the coming weeks with students voting to

elect their 2019 captains before terms end. We are very much looking forward to hearing our senior students

speak at assembly—it is always a highlight! Keep an eye on our facebook page for photos and announcements as

they happen.

Bus changes

You should have received a letter last week outlining some bus changes—please take the time to read through this letter. The main information is as follows—If you require your child to be picked up/dropped off at a stop

other than their usual nominated stop, you MUST let the school know by 2pm that afternoon. This allows time for the staff in the office to make the changes. The office is extremely busy from 2 pm onwards so changes are unable to be made after that time.

2019 School Fees

2019 school fees are now due to be paid. You will see on COMPASS that your 2019 school fees have been added and you will have received our 2019 breakdown of fees both via COMPASS and in hard copy this week. If you have any questions about this process, please contact the office. We appreciate your prompt payment.

Pathway Options for Students

with a disAbility (Transitioning)

A free information session for parents/carers

of students with a disability.

“What to consider for life after school”

Discussion will focus on career options and supports around:-

pathway planning

post school funding within the context of NDIS

employment and other transition options

local services map

Presented by Mark Cottee

National Disability Coordination Officer

Resources to support the options explored in the presentation will be available on the day.

They will help you to make the best choices for your student.

RSVP by 25th March 2019

Suzanne Sinclair

Phone: (03) 5721 7424 Email: [email protected]

OR

" Return slip via students Diary

Parent/Carer Name:- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I will/will not be attending this event

Number of attendees:- . . . . . . . . . . .

Wednesday 27th March 2019

Wangaratta District Specialist School

139 Appin Street, Wangaratta

mailto:[email protected]

Changes to your normal bus arrangements

Our school buses now operate on a system whereby students are electronically tracked when boarding/alighting. This allows the bus company and the school to know where the student will get on/off the bus on any given day. It is a safety requirement instigated by the government.

If you require your child to be picked up/dropped off at a stop other than their usual nominated stop, you MUST let the school know by 2pm that afternoon. This allows time for the staff in the office to make the changes. The office is extremely busy from 2 pm onwards so changes are unable to be made after that time.

In the event that the changes have been unable to be made by the time the bus departs school because insufficient warning has been given, the bus will drop the students at the normal stop.

To request a change to the normal bus stop:-

please ring the office on 57 217424 before 2pm state the child’s name bus they catch the normal stop the stop to be changed to how many mornings/nights it will occur for before reverting to the normal routine. write it in the communication books so the classroom staff know as well

You can verbally relay the message to the bus staff as a matter of courtesy but they are unable to make the changes to the system.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter, our aim is to have all students arrive at school/arrive home safe and accounted for.

Suzanne Sinclair

Bus Coordinator

Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.

Buffalo - Leanne, Shannon, Jill and Lisa

The term is just flying along as we continue getting to know our new class mates and learn our daily

classroom routine.

There are lots of fun and exciting activities to try and we also had our first excursion outside the school,

which proved to be a big hit.

Its amazing to see the massive growth already in such a few short weeks, it’s an awesome space to be part of and we are loving our learning and play.

Taminick - Phillipa, Kara and Fiona

Kara and Darren enjoy

some sensory play with

the playdough.

Francis and Aidan enjoy

time in the sensory room.


Mt. Emu - Lisa, Lori and Jack

Stanley- Bridie and Simon

Over the last few weeks, students have begun to settle into their

learning and the classroom routines. Students have been working

hard to build their confidence to work independently and to a

schedule. Students are proud of the success they achieve through

their own hard work and persistence.

This term, Stanley is participating in weekly Occupational Therapy and social skills groups which are run by our Allied Health team. We are looking forward to what we will achieve in the coming year!

The Emu crew have had a busy couple of weeks. We are all working on our

handwriting, and we have seen a marked improvement already.

Hop took us out for a bike ride last week and the students had the opportunity

to do some off road riding. We are planning a trip from Beechworth to Tar-

rawingee later in the term. More news about that adventure in the next news-

letter.

Last week we cooked sausage rolls. They proved to be very popular with the

boys. This week we will be having a go at Lasagne.

Fridays we have our junior and senior assembly. Aidain, Matthew and Mitch

are helping out. Mitch sings the Happy Birthday song. Matthew does the key

word sign on stage alongside Mitch, and Aidain hands out the Principals

award . They are all contributing to what is a very special junior assembly.

I hope you all have a wonderful week from the Emu Crew.


Mt Beauty - Chloe and Lea

Frazer and Emily

We have started our swimming program this term. Our students are learning a number of water safety skills

with our swimming instructor Cass. The boys especially love the free time at the end where they have been do-

ing belly whackers into the pool.

Last week our class was one of the lucky ones to get one to one Ipads! Judd came into Warby to help set them

up and guide us through how to use them. We have already started using them for our learning and have started

writing and designing books that we will read to some of the junior kids once they are finished.

This week in Enterprise we are starting to prepare our shark tank for our Warby Pop-up shop so stay tuned for

whats to come.

The past two weeks have been super busy here in Mt.

Beauty! All the students are being great learners in

the classroom working on their spelling words and

learning our letters. We have had Community Access

where we visit Woolworths to shop for our cooking

and the Wangaratta Library. The throne chair has

been a popular one amongst our students here! During

our Buddy session with Kosciusko class, we engaged

in some sensory play with water and bubbles. Matt

and Kathi had a ball! Great to see our older students

engaging with the younger group. What a great two

weeks it has been Mt. Beauty!


VCAL 1 and 2 Jodi, Rosie, Adrian, Hilly and Ash

Wangaratta District Specialist School’s association with NE Tracks LLEN. Coordinator Shane Crispin works with the school to try and provide work placement opportunities for our students. This year some of our stu-dents will have the opportunity to work at the Wangaratta Speedway. According to Shane “this is a great op-portunity for students interested in automotive , engineering , media and event management to learn some new skills build new networks and be close to the racing action”. Jess Elkan is one student willing to ‘step into the drivers seat’.

The Hotham boys have been working really hard the last couple of weeks. We are very lucky to have been a part of the one to one iPad program and there has already been some amazing work being done on them. We made some fantastic presentations on big land animals that we presented to Mt. Morgan, it’s just the beginning of the exciting things that we will do on the iPads.

Having no power didn't stop Hotham from having an awesome day. We spent the morning up the Warby Ranges and then had a BBQ down at Merriwa Park with the rest of middle grades which was fantastic!

Hotham - Jordan and Alicia


Mt Typo - Ryan and John

Feathertop - Sarah, Ranni and Sam

In Feathertop we are going to be working on robots. They are called Spheros.

I am going to teach it to run a race, spin, follow a track, or change colour.

By: Brandon, BJ, Zac, Shannon, Ryan, Ewan, Locky.

It has been an eventful few weeks for the boys in the Typo classroom. The fellas have enjoyed getting back into their swimming programme for the term, picking up where they left off and learning to swim like fish with Tamara, their swimming instructor. The boys were also lucky enough to enjoy an outing to the splash park on the day with no power. No better way to spend a day without air conditioning than in a nice cool body of water. We were also luck enough to help celebrate Rory’s 12th Birthday. A big happy birthday to Rory from all the boys of Typo. As ever, the fellas continue to show that they are safe, respectful and eager learners both inside and outside the classroom.

Buller - Kate, Leanne and Belinda


Allied Health Team—Paula, Lily and Tina

Wow the term is flying by. We are enjoying getting to know the new students and staff and working together to achieve great outcomes for the students.

We have been working with students on social skills. Learning how to start a conversation, ask appropriate questions, listening to others, answering questions and keeping on topic are all valuable skills which we all need to use in our everyday lives.

In Key word Sign groups we have been looking at emotions and how important it is to be able to express how we are feeling. Two of the signs we have learnt are happy and sad.

Circle time in Buller room. We do a lot of different interac-

tive activities: moving photo from home to school, noise

desensitisation, weather and date.

Holly is opening a jar in

cooking. She follows visual and written

task analysis for frying mince meat.

Kaitlyn is on the floor. She finds things in the room and

matches them to photos and other activities.

Edwina is keeping Sam company while

Sam is having some tummy time.

Bogong - Renee and Lizz

Morgan - Daine and Sheydin


We are very lucky to be one of the rooms selected for the 1 to 1 iPad program. Students have enjoyed using

their IPads as a learning tool in a range of areas. This week, we have begun to prepare our own garden bed ready

for planting next week. Our Middle Year electives program also began recently with students selecting from

Table Tennis, Lawn Bowls, Photography, Indoor Games, Movie Animation and Bike Riding. Students in Mor-

gan are also enjoying our cooking program. Next up is Lucas and his group with his speciality dish, Fettuccini

Carbonara.

Charlie is pretty happy with the 1

-1 IPads in Morgan this year

Seb showing his independence at the self

check out for our weekly grocery shop

The boys preparing our own

garden bed in the hot house.

During the last fortnight in Bogong we have introduced some

exciting new things to our weekly schedule. Some of them in-

clude: electives, 1:1 iPads, swimming and a combined cooking

session with another middle years class. Many of our students

first preference for electives was photography, the girls have

learnt how to apply filters to their photos and have gone on out-

ings in the local community to snap some shots. Well done to

Jemma Bailey who claimed the first ‘Photo of the week’. During

our swimming sessions at the YMCA we have been focusing on

water safety in the 50m pool. This week for cooking we intro-

duced the idea of eating our lunch with another class who cook

during the same session. The Bogong girls enjoyed their baked

potatoes along side the Kossie boys who cooked curried sausag-

es. Later in the term we hope to do a master chef day! Stay tuned

for more updates!

As you may have seen on Facebook, Bogong student Olivia Miller swam at the

Victorian Open Swim Competition at MSAC. She swam against Para Olympians

from countries such as Japan, Canada, Belgium, New Zealand, France and Austral-

ia - an amazing achievement in itself! Liv came home with a 10 second Personal

Best in the 100 m freestyle, a 2.15 PB in the 50 m freestyle and a PB for the 50 m

backstroke.


Kosciusko - Matt and Jilly.

It has been a big couple of weeks for the Kossie boys. The Kossie crew have loved accessing their new iPads and have been able to create some really engaging and amazing Keynote and Google Classroom presenta-tions. The iPads have allowed all the students to put their thoughts onto paper as they have enjoyed both writing text and adding voice overs to get a message across. They have also been a great addition to the weekly Electives program for both the Photography Elective and iMovie Elec-tive group. The photography crew took and edited some amazing photos of the ovens river, where Jemma won the first “photo of the week”.

Mt. Cobbler - Dave, Lachie and Luke

The Cobbler boys have been having all sorts of fun lately.

From drumming , to cooking sausages in bread, to going on a road trip to Beechworth, to checking out the

view over Wangaratta from Ryan’s lookout, to spray painting our own musical instruments with Robyn, to

flying Lachy’s drone at Merriwa park.

As you can see the boys are having heaps of fun.

Stirling _- Lee, Lis and Stella


Mt Pilot - Jacqui , Kara and Sharon

Last Thursday during the power outage at school we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go

to the movies with the Bogong class. We saw the film “Stan & Ollie.” It was about the comedy duo Laurel

& Hardy. The students seemed to get right into the movie and really enjoy it. The highlight for some of

them was being treated to a small popcorn or a drink. Shaneevah said she was worried that Ollie was going

to die while he was on stage doing their last act. Jack thoroughly enjoyed the movie and said that he

thought they were funny and Matthew said that he was glad that they stayed friends for such a long time.

When we returned to school there was still no power so we each had a fruit icy-pole that the students had

made the week before. The icy poles had kiwi fruit, peaches and oranges in them and they were delicious!!

As we were finishing our icy poles the power came back on.

We have started our middle years electives; some of the activities include table tennis, lawn bowls, photog-

raphy and movie making. Everyone seems to be having a wonderful time and are enjoying socialising with

students from other classes and forming new friendships.

All is going well in the Mt. Pilot classroom. Our room is

set up just the way we like it, and we have been adding a

few touches of our own in the form of paintings and art-

work. The students have been enjoying Music with Robyn

on a Monday morning. The drumming sounds fantastic.


It’s been an exciting time in Music recently with the purchase of 4 new guitars and an assort-ment of music equipment including a microphone and mic stand, music stands, guitar cases and guitar straps. I have also ordered new speakers to use at Assembly and other group gather-ings.

A huge thank you again to the generous donation from the Wangaratta Uniting Church Oppor-tunity Shop.

Buffalo class enjoyed their first visit to the Music Room and did some awesome Drumming!

This weeks newsletter page is dedicated to all our fantastic artists here at WDSS. How awe-some are these drawings, I did want to point out they are NOT traced and are drawn free hand using step-by—step directions. We are blown away by these and so many more of our stu-dents artwork.

ART with Jodi & Jody

Wear your scarf to school day

Whether you barrack for the defending Premiers, or the perennial wooden spooners, most of us have a

favourite AFL team that we support through thick and thin.

To coincide with Round One of the new season it’s time to show those colours before some end up demor-

alised for the rest of the year, or for those who will rub their colours in the faces of others.

March the 21st is that day to show your colours, Wear your scarf to school day. If you don’t have a

scarf, then wear your shirt, hat, whatever it is to show which team you are hoping goes deep into Septem-

ber.

Those that wear their team’s colours can make a gold coin donation. 100% of the money raised goes to-

wards the fantastic staff and facilities at the Wangaratta District Special School.

If you don’t have a team that you support, any scarf will do. Just to show that you made the effort!!

More than 55 staff including Principal Class, Teaching, Educational Support and Allied Health staff

are passionately committed to working with families, carers, specialists, relevant outside agencies and

the local community to ensure students achieve their maximum potential and targeted educational out-

comes

For more information on the outstanding work that the school does with children with disabilities find

out here http://www.wangarattass.vic.edu.au/

This is a great chance to help those, that help those in need, and to thank them for the tireless work and

achievements that they accomplish.

Every little bit helps.

Thankyou

Wangaratta District Specialist School

Together We Will

http://www.wangarattass.vic.edu.au/

newsletter - wangarattass.vic.edu.au · if you require your child to be picked up/dropped off at a...

Documents