Windellama Public School

Thursday 19th March 2020 Term 1 Week 8

RESPECT – RESPONSIBILITY - EXCELLENCE

Inside this Newsletter:

• Welcome new staff • Big Read Bus • A word from the Principal • PBL Information • School Student Banking • Sensory Garden • Kindy 2020 • P & C Meeting • Hockey NSW • Cross Country • Goulburn High Focus Day’s • Around the school photos • Premier’s Reading

Challenge • Up and coming Events • K-2 Report

The Big Read Bus has been postponed indefinitely, as directed by our local Goulburn Mulwaree Council.

PASSIVE PLAY Our students enjoying passive play in and around the sensory garden.

Windellama Public School would like to welcome and introduce two new staff members, Bronwyn Warren and Melody Wyatt. Both of these staff members are School Learning Support Officers (SLSO’s), and will be an addition to Karen Charnley who has been our SLSO for some time now, supporting and assisting both the K-2 and 3-6 classroom teachers. Between Karen, Bronwyn and Melody, we now have additional support to students every day in both classrooms.

A WORD FROM THE PRINCIPAL

This year we will be putting individual learning plans into place for all our students. This involves meeting with families to discuss where the children are in their development, and how they can move forward. We have already had the pleasure of having these discussions with some families, and look forward to meeting with more families over the course of this term. As you know, measures have been put in place by the Department of Education to ensure the safety of our students through the outbreak of COVID-19. This means many things have been cancelled, including our visit to Bungendore Public School. We are very lucky to still be able to have the author Harry Laing come to visit us at our school. I’m sure our children will benefit greatly from the workshops he will present. The students all have the opportunity to enter a writing competition run by Write 4 Fun. We have started working on these at school, but if any child would like to work on this at home they are more than welcome.

PBL

This week’s Recess Buy-Up recipients:

Week 6: Noah K-2, Emily 3-6

Week 7: Lacey K-2, Cooper 3-6. Keeping it in the family! Congratulations Axel, Emily, Cooper and Lacey. Keep up the great work! In the last newsletter, we should have also congratulated Emily on being a line points winner and having the responsibility of picking the bell song. She chose ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor. What a great song choice – it really had us

pumped up for class (not to mention that the teachers knew it )!

Today will also be our first assembly for 2020. We have our first bronze awards to hand out for earning at least 10 merit tokens, as well as our first school value awards for displaying respect, responsibility or excellence whilst at school. Congratulations to all award recipients.

SCHOOL BANKING NOTICE

COMMONWEALTH BANK

The health, safety and wellbeing of our communities and our people is our first priority. Due to the rapidly developing situation with coronavirus, School Banking has been temporarily paused from 20 March 2020 until the start of Term 2. Please don’t bring your deposit book with your weekly banking into school and we will notify you when banking will recommence.

SENSORY GARDEN The students have been able to utilise the sensory garden area to enjoy some passive play. We like to change the equipment that students have to use regularly. This week we brought out the ‘big feet’. They were lots of fun and Ms Leggett joined in!

KINDER 2020 The annual Goulburn Post edition with Kinder 2020 photos will be published shortly. We have sent of our Kinder photo (see below) to be added to the edition. Keep an eye out in your mailbox, we look forward to this edition each year.

From left: Chelsie, Gracie, Evie, Dekota.

P & C MEETING Our next P & C meeting will be taking place on Monday the 23rd of March. During the meeting (AGM) we will be taking nominations for executive positions and electing our executive team. Please come along and think about how you can support our school. There are many upcoming opportunities for community involvement. The meeting will be held at 6:15pm in the 3-6 classroom, in accordance with the social distancing measures introduced by the NSW Department of Education. We hope to see you there.

For term 1 we have been running a hockey program for the students. It has been advised by Hockey NSW to cancel all programs until the 4th of

May, this includes all Sporting School programs.

CROSS COUNTRY This has also been cancelled as it is an interschool sporting excursion.

GOULBURN HIGH SCHOOL FOCUS DAYS

The Goulburn High School year 6 to 7 transition focus days have also been cancelled.

AROUND THE SCHOOL PHOTOS

2020 PREMIERS READING CHALLENGE

The challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students. Enclosed is a flyer on how to log in to the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge.

UPCOMING EVENTS IN TERM 1

EVENTS DATES

School Assembly Week 8, Thursday 19th March

School Dental Assessment Week 10, Friday 3rd April

Easter Hat Parade Week 11, Thursday 9th April

3 – 6 REPORT 3 to 6 have been working hard on their contributions to the Write 4 Fun writing competition. We have quite a few aspiring authors in our class. We are also budding tour guides, researching tourist destinations around the world for our Global Connections unit. Mrs Robens and Mrs Ball are both working with the class on fun science and technology projects.

K-2 REPORT K-2 have almost finished learning about the weather – our science unit for this term. As part of the unit, students designed and built a shelter. We then tested the shelter to see how it would withstand the sun (a light), the wind (a fan) and the rain (spray bottle filled with water). The students did a wonderful job of presenting their shelters to the class, we have some budding young engineers among us! A huge congratulations to Axel, who has already learnt two sets of sight words and been given the next level to take home. Great work!