10 August 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principal's Report

Dear Parents

Staff Changes

On Friday 12th August we say a fond farewell to Ms Pavlinovich as she embarks on her well-earned long service leave for the remainder of the 2016 school year. Ms Pavlinovich will return to Somerly Primary School at the commencement of 2017. Mrs Tracy Buckley will be the classroom teacher for Room 15 while Ms Pavlinovich is on leave. Mrs Buckley has worked within our school for the past 5 years; we warmly welcome her into her new role.

Due to Mrs Buckley becoming the year one teacher in Room 15, there has been some additional flow on effects for other classes.

Room 12 - Mrs Sue Fuller will now tandem with Mrs Sneddon. Mrs Fuller will teach every Monday whilst Mrs Sneddon has extended her days in the classroom to cover Tuesday to Friday.

Room 20 – Mrs Sue Fuller will be teaching every Thursday, whilst Mrs Jones will continue to teach the remaining days.

Room 19 – Mrs Debbie Morgan will be teaching every Friday, whilst Mrs Brown will continue teaching Monday to Thursday.

Room 17 – Mrs Fuller will release Miss Mundy every Tuesday to enable Miss Mundy to develop ICT across the school.

Vegetable Garden

Do you have one–two hours a week to volunteer in our vegetable garden? If so, we would appreciate your support. The garden continues to flourish under the care of Miss Julie and our students; however some additional hands to lighten the work load would be appreciated. Miss Julie works in the garden every Tuesday between 11:00 – 1:00, please drop by for a visit if you would like to be involved in our awesome vegetable garden.

Book Week

We are holding a special morning tea for all grandparents on Thursday 25th August at 10:00am. All grandparents are invited to attend and spend some special time reading with their grandchildren.

To conclude book week we will be holding a free dress day on Friday 26th August based on the theme of Australia – Our Multicultural Country.

2017 Enrolments

To assist our planning for 2017 please let the school office know if your children will not be attending Somerly Primary School next year. As you can appreciate with the opening of Catalina, the school will be under pressure to accommodate the growing population and we need as much advanced notification of enrolments as we can to plan for additional classrooms and staff. If you know anyone in the community with school aged children please encourage them to come to the school and enrol early.

Nature Playground

We are pleased to announce that the final stage of the junior playground is now complete. I would like to thank all school and community members that have supported the P&C fundraising activities, thus assisting the school with the cost of the playground. Our students are thoroughly enjoying their new play space.

Next our goal is to establish a nature play area for our senior students.

New students

I would like to extend a warm welcome to Emmanuella and Imani who recently commenced at Somerly Primary School.

Tracey Renton
Principal

Somerly Stars!

Somerly Primary School App

Our Somerly Primary School App is now available.

EFTPOS Facilities

EFTPOS Facilities are now available at the school office for payment of voluntary contributions, excursions etc for amounts of $10 and above.

Kindy enrolment for 2017

We are now taking Kindergarten applications for 2017, if you have a child that was born between 1 July 2012 and 30 June 2013 please come into the front office for an application form. As Kindy is non-compulsory, enrolments will be on a first in basis. When applying we need a copy of your child's birth certificate or passport, visa if applicable, current Medicare immunisation details and proof of address.

INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY BBQ

An indigenous BBQ was held after school on Monday, 1st August. It was well supported by our indigenous community. It was great to see parents, aunties, uncles and grandparents there. The afternoon was full of chatter and excitement. Teachers enjoyed the time of getting to know families and their stories. There were hamburgers to eat, kindly cooked by Mrs Renton. Miss Bartley, Mrs MacNicol and Miss Mundy were creating masterpieces with their face painting. Miss Julie was helping students decorate tapping sticks and the older children and boys were playing football.

A big thank you to all of the families and community members who attended. We'll keep you posted on the next event!

Rugby Carnival

On Friday 29th July our Year 5 and 6 girls' and boys' rugby teams travelled to Clarkson Primary school to take part in the Rugby League competition.

Both teams performed amazingly and were rewarded with first place for our boys' team and second place for our girls' team. The teams were presented with trophies and these now have pride of place in our school library.

Come to our Book Fair

To celebrate Book Week we will be having a Book Fair in the library from Tuesday 23 August to Friday 26 August. This year's theme is "Australia : Story Country" and we hope your children will find some engaging stories to encourage them to read. There will be some lovely books for sale so parents may like to get in some early Christmas shopping and students may like to start saving up their pocket money. There will also be a selection of stationery and posters for sale. Any purchases you make will be helping the school as we get to keep a percentage of the total sales in "free books" for the library.

Students: hurry and get your entry in for our Book Fair Competition. Can you guess how many students at Somerly Primary School were born in Australia? Call in to the library and drop your entry in the box. The closest guess in each block will win a $15 book voucher to spend at the Book Fair. We hope to see you there!

Block 1

Science

Hello everyone

My name is Mrs Cannon and I am teaching pre-primary Science in Block 1 for the remainder of the year. In Term 3 we are learning about the weather and how it affects the choices we make in everyday life. We have already explored the idea of seasonal clothing and weather symbols in Australian culture as you can see from the beautiful work samples below:

We are strongly linking our scientific learning to literacy and have been using sensory tools and experiments to enhance our knowledge. As the term progresses we will be looking at temperature and investigating the wind. I would ask that you to talk with your child about the weather and encourage them to listen to the weather report on the news or view maps and charts in newspapers or on-line.

Shebaz and Canaan from Room 2 working with our sensory weather bottles

We have looked at an ABC weather report in class but the students much prefer Grover the Weather Monster from Sesame Street, which provides a great opportunity to reinforce our learning about symbols and to discuss how changes in the environment affect our choice of clothing or activity.

The children will be bringing home part of their very own Somerly newspaper this week. Please feel free to take this opportunity to share and discuss some weather ideas with your child.

Mrs Jackie Cannon

Literacy

Reading Development in our Children

Throughout your child's school life they will bring home books to assist in developing their reading.

Students in Kindergarten are now taking home readers to start to assist with the pre reading development.

Reading Checklist – Emergent Reading

• Holding the book the correct way and turning the pages.
• Locating the title.
• Understanding the difference between a letter, word and number.
• Understanding we read from left to right.
• Sharing and enjoying books with adults.
• Making predictions about what happens in the story.

Reading Checklist – Early Readers

• Sounding out every sound and blending them together.
• Re reading simple decodable texts and linking it to the picture.
• Sounding out High Frequency Words – with enough practice these will become fluent.
• Daily practice of reading will help to become fluent.

Reading Checklist – Transitional Readers

• Reading more challenging texts.
• Comprehension – characters, setting, events.
• Developing fluency in reading.
• Increased understanding of more difficult texts.

Reading Checklist – Fluent Readers

• Confident in reading a range of harder and longer texts.
• Students can maintain meaning through longer and more complex language.
• Understand texts can be something to influence people's ideas.

Reading is an important skill everyone needs. Let's help every child become excited by reading and enjoy the wonderful adventures they can have through literature.

Miss Prue Roberts

Kindergarten

Writing

In Kindy this term we have been practising our counting to build upon the Principles of Counting we had learnt in Terms 1 and 2. We have become great counters by using one to one correspondence, using the correct order of numbers and trusting our count.

Miss Aneka Rosielle and Mrs Helen Aylett

Art News

Year 4s have enjoyed creating detailed pen and ink bees after viewing a video

that highlighted the importance of protecting them and their vital pollination role. We are looking into publishing their artwork in the Save the Bees newsletter and printing postcards that help to spread the word about bee health and safety.

NAIDOC

We were lucky enough to have our school's own skillful Aboriginal artist, Miss Julie, come in and discuss Aboriginal art with our junior students. Miss Julie explained the role and history of art in her family and what it means to her. She shared her own artwork and work that she had completed with students. We used her colourful designs for face-painting at our Indigenous afternoon. Throughout the school, we explored the use of symbolism in traditional Aboriginal art, and the use of colour, line and shape in contemporary work. Students gave visual art's responses to different artists work, and tried their hand at creating rhythm and flow in their own work.

We were also really lucky that our student, Tiane Farmer, was able to bring some of her father's work in to share with us. Maitland Farmer has created some beautiful artwork using the technique of dot-painting. The students were fascinated by the precision and the rhythmic flow of the snake and dots. We hope to see more!

Sunshine and Drawing

Last term, on Tuesdays, students were welcome to come and do free-drawing or write postcards to special people. It was a lovely opportunity to have a chat and draw together or write appreciation letters to people.

Pre-Primaries Explore Portraits

Students in Pre-Primary have been using different materials to create portraits. They had a go at using shells, rocks, plastic, paper, card and beads to create faces and bodies. We are now working on Dancing in the Rain portraits.

Sketching in the Garden

Junior students have been exploring our developing Sensory Garden, and carefully observing and drawing the textures, colours and shapes of our new plants. We love drawing outside and having the chance to touch new textures and breathe new scents. We have noticed some native birds are attracted to our native plants.

Appreciating our Nature Playground

Room 20 students loved listening to James, one of our talented tradesmen constructing a new section of our Nature Playground. It was great for the students to hear first-hand about a practical job that they can train in related to landscape design and construction.

We showed our appreciation with mini portraits and thank you letters.

Year 4 Booklets

Year 4s are learning about the Illustrator Stella Denalis and designing their own character to explore different art techniques and make their own mini book. Our first lessons were fantastic - stay tuned for the final product!

Senior Art Projects

Senior students have explored Pop Art and Fauvist Art styles. We had a lot of fun dressing up and using props for photos and then added our own splash of colour and craziness. You can see the final products in the office, under cover area and Art room. I love the range of expressions and emotions.

Rhiannon Bartley
Art Teacher

Lost Property

We currently have a large amount of lost property located in the green lost property bins outside the medical room at the rear of the main Administration building. If your child has misplaced uniform, drink bottles etc, don't forget to have a look through the bins.

Please also ensure that all of your child's property is labelled clearly with their name to prevent items being misplaced.

Parent Parking

Somerly Primary School is very fortunate to have ample parking space provided for parent parking around the perimeter of the school. Unfortunately a minority of parents/carers are still parking in the "Staff Only" parking area and the disabled bays. This car park is out of bounds to parents and students. A big thank you to the families who are parking in the correct areas.

Sick students

If your child is not feeling well before school, please keep them home and notify the office by phoning 9407 7142 or sending an SMS to 0437 480 486.

Attendance Responsibilities

WHAT THE LAW SAYS

Under Western Australian law (School Education Act 1999), parents must send their children to school unless:

• They are unwell.
• They have an infectious disease.
• The principal is provided with a genuine and acceptable reason.

You must let the school know within 3 days why your child is not attending school.

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR CHILD IS SICK

• At Somerly Primary we prefer either a phone call to the front office (Telephone: 9407 7142) or reply to the automated SMS text message advising staff of the reason for your child's absence.
• From there, we notify the class teacher that your child is away and why.
• If you are unable to call in the morning, other methods of communication are email, note or verbal discussion with class teacher. This must occur no later than 3 days after the absence.
• A student's absence must be explained by the parent or caregiver only, not the student.
• Please ensure your details are up-dated at the front office so that we can contact you about unexplained absences.

UNEXPLAINED ABSENCES

If your child's absence is not explained, the following procedure is followed;

• An absentee note is sent home asking for a written explanation of the absence from the parent /caregiver.
• If still no explanation is given, fortnightly letters are mailed home, asking for an explanation of the absence. Please ensure these are returned to the class teacher as soon as possible.

Introducing our Somerly Staff

In each newsletter we will be introducing one member of our Somerly staff.

Introducing

Name: Mrs Stenhouse
Role: Deputy Principal
Time at Somerly PS: Foundation Staff Member - 2009
Hobbies: I like to spend time with my family, especially my two little girls Ellie and Piper. I also play water polo and am the Secretary of North Coast Water Polo Club.

Since returning from maternity leave at the end of Term 1, I have really enjoyed getting to know all the students at Somerly. I am so lucky to work at such a wonderful school and I'm looking forward to the rest of the year. I can be contacted in the office Monday to Thursday.

P & C NEWS

We're fundraising with Entertainment Books.

With thousands of up to 50% off and 2-for-1 offers available, the new 2016/17 Entertainment Book will be available for purchase from Somerly Primary School at a cost of just $65, Giving you over $20,000 of value. Somerly Primary School will receive 20% from every Entertainment Membership sold. Order forms are available from the school office. Available for use straight away (subject to availability).