NEWSLETTER

Achievement through Caring, Respect and Responsibility

Newsletter

Hopetoun Primary School PO Box 251 Hopetoun WA 6348 hopetounps@education.wa.edu.au

Tel: (08) 9838 3672 Fax: (08) 9838 3687 www.hopetounprimaryschool.wa.edu.au

N O 5 W E E K 8 T E R M 1

2 7 M A R C H 2 0 1 4

S P E C I A L N O T E S

Uniform Shop

Monday & Tuesday

8.20am - 8.50am

Karrina Smallman - Uniform

Coordinator

ksmallman@bigpond.com

Tel: 0428 133 044

School Banking

Every Tuesday

Parent Interviews

Monday 31 March

NO Active After School

Monday 31 March

Scitech Classroom Visit

Thursday 3 April

FINAL Active After School

Monday 7 April

Swimming Carnival

Thursday 10 April

Last Day of Term 1

Friday 11 April

Dear Parents, Guardians and Community Members

Last Friday we celebrated Harmony Day—promoting respect, fairness and everyone belonging. It was wonderful to see so many students and staff wearing orange. As a whole school we united, made a circle and sung We are Australian. In class students reflected on what Harmony Day represented and created posters to demonstrate their understanding. Thank you to Miss Lynch for her coordination of this event.

This year we are implementing KidsMatter into our school. This initiative focuses on developing good mental health and well-being for our students. Good mental health is vital for life. Children who are mentally healthy are better able to meet life’s challenges and have stronger relationships with the people around them. This complements our You Can Do It program and incorporates families and school staff working together to support our children. I have attached Introducing KidsMatter Primary for you to read. We have an Action Team who will be working together to implement this initiative. These people are parents, our school nurse, and staff. They include: Natalie Garmson, Natasha Biddle, Jasmin Agnew, Lisa Nike, Leisha White, Kim Young, Gemma Larham, Judith Weaire, Liz Aberline, Bec Nelson and Kate Lynch. Please feel free to talk to these people about the program and how we can support you and your child. To commence the implementation of this program WE NEED YOU to complete a parent survey. This will be given to you on Monday at the parent interviews, and will be collected during this time by Miss Aberline outside the wet area. We ask if all parents could please return these surveys as your thoughts and views matter to us. This information will be collated and used to guide us where to next in our implementation of KidsMatter. There is a return slip on the survey which will be removed and put in to a draw to win a $20 voucher for the uniform shop.

The Department of Education recently identified that families going on holidays during the school term is a major concern for students attendance, putting students at significant risk for not achieving their potential. A new policy has been announced to combat this issue. As of Term Two we will be implementing the Department’s policy on what is Acceptable and Unacceptable reasons for absence. For vacations the policy states the following: V– Vacation: the absence had been negotiated in advance and the Principal is satisfied that reasonable grounds for authorising the absence apply. K—Unauthorised Vacation: When parents have taken students on an in-term holiday and the Principal has not authorised the absence. For your child’s absence to be authorised you will need to notify the Principal in writing by including the dates and reason for the vacation, and your child needs to complete either a work package or journal during the period they are away from school. The format of this work can be negotiated with your child’s class teacher. Multiple trips in-term throughout the year will not be authorised due the significant impact on your child’s progress in Education.

Hopetoun Primary School Purpose

Through a safe and caring environment Hopetoun

Primary School encourages all children to strive for

excellence in all aspects of academic, social and

personal development in order to participate in and

contribute to the community

As part of our School Attendance Plan this year, I will be sending all families a letter at the end of each term to inform you of your child’s attendance. If your child is under 90%, they are at risk of achieving academically, socially and emotionally. I understand that some absences are unavoidable such as illness, appointments or a family crisis, however it is important when children are healthy that they attend school each day.

On the 15 March we had a disco to raise funds for Canberra Camp. This was a successful night with almost $900 raised. Thank you to all parents who helped make this a success. I would like to give a special thanks to Lisa Nike and Leisha White for their coordination of the event and to Narda Street and Kat Nolen for volunteering their time and equipment to provide the music. I would also like to thank Woolworths Esperance who donated the sausages and bread.

Our Student Councillors attended the GRIP Leadership in Esperance last week with Miss Cockram and Mrs Weaire, This was a great opportunity to learn leadership skills and work with other students from schools in our region. The students have created recounts of the day, which can be found in the newsletter.

Today we announced our Faction Captains for 2014. Congratulations to the following students:

Hamersley—Marrisa Jones, Asher Nolan Fitzgerald—Sarah Hughes, Jacob Biddle Culham—D’arci Harrison, Porsha Waide Barrens—Matt Moloney, Bonnie Smart

Wednesday the 2nd April is ‘World Autism Awareness Day’. We encourage all students to wear BLUE on this day.

There will be NO ACTIVE AFTERSCHOOL NEXT MONDAY, 31 March. The last session will be on Monday 7 April.

Our Interschool Swimming Carnival is on Thursday 10 April at Ravensthorpe DHS. This will be a team of selected students from Years 4-7. A note for those students attending will given out next week.

A reminder to parents that school will be closing on Monday 31 March at 11.25pm in order for teachers to conduct parent interviews. Please see your child’s teacher to arrange a time for your interview. Staff look forward to meeting with you.

Kind regards Gemma Larham, Principal

CONGRATULATIONS

Happy Birthday! We wish these people a Happy Birthday  

this fortnight 

Jordan Temily Eloise Sam

MERIT AWARD WINNERS Room 1: Lucy Edwards, Cooper Smallman Room 2: Jack Nike, Matilda Gallagher Room 3: Kiara Collis, Darcy Garmson Room 4: Eloise Biddle, Ethan Young Room 6: Jessica Bloomfield, Saxon Henrickson Room 7:Mitchell Benn, Olivia-May Johnston Room 8: Temily Grant, Jackson Lannin Physical Education: Lara Grant, Crystal Clark, Petra Verster, Ashton Henrickson History: Jack Harris, Roxanne Raleigh

You Can Do It: Jacob Nguyen, Blake Munday, Amy Nike, Brynn Edwards, Harrison Bermingham, Ashton Henrickson, Emily Larham Master Piece: Jazinta Peters

Oscar Rhiannon Jacob Deegan

Pre-Primary Room 1 With Miss Nelson and Mrs Martin

In Pre-primary we have been doing a lot of work in small groups. Most of our math time is small group work, making sure that everyone is included and engaged in activities. We have one concept or skill for the week and consolidate our learning of number recognition through our mat sessions and small group activities. We complete one activity a day and then move onto the next activity in the following sessions. This week we have been learning about long and short. We used the story of Rapunzel to introduce long and short, looking at her hair. These are our activities this week.

This group is working on the computers using the “Rainforest Maths” program. This program helps consolidate skills and concepts that we are learning in the classroom and is full of fun games and activities. “ I like doing the frogs,” says Ava. Jack says “I like pressing the clouds to make it rain.”

This group are making short and long hair to go on face outlines. Ashlyn says, “I’ve done long hair and short hair.” ‘We had to cut off little strips of paper and glue it on the girl,” said Heidi. “I liked putting short hair on the person,” said Cooper.

In this activities students are working hard to recognise numbers up to 30, counting ‘fish bubbles’ to match the number written on a sea creature picture. “We are counting.” said EJ. “We made number 2’s with the fish bubbles,” said Mia. Vincent added, “ I like the numbers.”

NOTICES

Pre-Primary Room 1 With Miss Nelson and Mrs Martin

Making short and long roads for cars to drive on is always fun. “Making roads was fun,” everyone agreed.

Being given a large box of unifix cubes can be a bit daunting but this group is having a blast making long and short lines. “It was really long,” we all thought.

Reminder:

School Banking Every Tuesday!

 All deposits help raise funds for our school. If you would like to join please see the front office.