14 June 2017

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Dear Parents

Are you leaving?

If you are planning on moving house and your children will not be attending Somerly Primary in term 3 can you please notify the front office as soon as possible. Student enrolments have a significant impact on our school budget, currently due to a recent decline in student numbers we will be restructuring some of our classes for the commencement of term 3. Although collapsing a class isn’t a decision that we undertake lightly we are confident that the transition for the students will be seamless. A transition day will be held on the final day of term for the students that will be changing class. Parents will be notified next week should the reshuffle affect your child. I thank you in advance for your understanding with this matter.

Chaplain

I wish to extend a warm welcome to our new chaplain Mrs Emma Swart. Mrs Swart has been very busy spending time in the classrooms and getting to know our students. Mrs Swart will be at school every Tuesday and Friday and parents are welcome to contact her via our school number on 9407 7142.

School Disco

Our first school disco for the year is to be held on Wednesday 21st June. The DJ for the night will be our very own Miss Olsen. Tickets are available on the night at the cost of $3.00.

Hotdogs, chips, drinks and more will be available at the canteen for purchase.

There will be two discos as listed below:

Junior Disco - Kindy – Year 4 - 4.00pm – 5.30pm (students must be accompanied by a parent).
Senior Disco - Years 5 – 6 - 6.00pm – 7.30pm.

Please note:

• only students of Somerly Primary are able to attend.
• students must be picked up promptly at 7.30pm.
• students are not allowed to walk home alone.

NAIDOC

A friendly reminder that we are currently taking payment of $2.00 for our whole school incursion for the Wesley Moorditz Dance Mob. Monies can be placed in an envelope and placed in the box outside the library.

School Shirts

A reminder that Lowes are currently selling our school sports polo shirts at a reduced cost of $16.99.

Swimming lessons

Swimming lessons will commence in Weeks 9 and 10 of Term 3. If you would like to begin paying for swimming lessons, instalments are gladly accepted. Please see the swimming letter below for payment details, a hard copy of which will be sent home to families at the beginning of Term 3.

New Students

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

Tracey Renton
Principal

Behaviour Focus

Our behaviour focus for Week 8 is:-

SAFETY;

OVAL

• Stay within school boundaries
• Use equipment safely, including the soccer goals
• We always play safely when on the oval

Merit Certificates

Room 1: Audrey and Cameron; Room 2: Oliver and Alia; Room 3: Gwen and Emily; Room 4: Ava and Taj; Room 8: Will, Abbey Jay and Room 8; Room 9: Mieke and Jayden; Room 10: Zeinia and Kylie; Room 11: Rowan and Matilda; Room 12: Oscar and Brayden; Room 14: Emily, Makayla, Lillee and Laiken; Room 15: Jay and Sarah; Room 16: Leiara and Hayley; Room 17: Kevin and Dharshini; Room 18: Temwani and Chloe; Room 20: Skye and Tyrell; Room 23: Alex and Room 20, Music: Ashley, Matilda and Year 1; LOTE: Layton and Kaitlyn.

SOMERLY STARS!

Uniforms

With the mornings now being very chilly, we are encouraging all students to wear their school jacket or jumper to school. A plain black jacket is also acceptable. Please make sure your child’s name is written in them to avoid being put into lost property.

Kindy Enrolment for 2018

We are now taking Kindergarten applications for 2018, if you have a child that was born between 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2014 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.

If you know someone who has a child due to start Kindergarten next year, please let them know that enrolments are open and will be closing early July.

Students Late to School

If your child arrives late to school they are missing critical morning routines and learning activities. The school day begins at 8:40am and students will be considered late if they do not arrive by this time. If your child arrives after 9:00am you are required to enter through the front office and provide us with a reason for the lateness. A late slip will be printed for you to give to the class teacher.

Not Feeling Well?

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.

Late Collection of Students

Somerly Primary School has a student finish time of 2.45pm each day. If your child has not been picked up before 3pm, you will be required to come to the front office to sign them out.

Dogs on School Grounds

Dogs are wonderful pets; however, like children they require care, education and restraint. Some of our students have an aversion to dogs while others have an allergy associated with dogs. Please support these students and refrain from bringing your dog onto school grounds.

Fire Brigade Incursion – Rooms 11, 12 & 20

After recess on 16th May 2017 we went to the undercover area to learn about being safe when a fire happens.

First we went to the undercover area and said “good morning”. The other classes said it really slowly. The firemen told us lots of things that fire fighters do such as helping people in car crashes, house fires and just some problems. We learnt that if a fire happens, you need to get outside as soon as possible because if you don’t, the firemen will have to find you. You should know that we learnt that you should always have an escape plan.

After the firemen finished talking to us, one class lined into one line. Each line was paired with another line. My pair went first. At first I didn’t know what we were doing until I saw somebody with a hose. First the firemen squirted the water up, but then it started to wet lots of people so they sprayed it to the left. Everyone tried to get the water to touch the light post. Hailey made the water spray more at the end of everyone’s turn.

In the end, we went to see a really big fire engine. The firemen were really kind to us. They told us that the hose was thirty metres long. They gave everyone in the front row a turn of holding an end of a hose. After that we got to see the jaws of life, the firemen told us that the jaws of life were only called the jaws of life because they save people. In the end, Ms Pavlinovich to a group photo of all the year 3’s.

Written by Tori – Room 11

Room 17 - Assembly

Congratulations to all students from Room 17 for presenting such a fantastic assembly with the theme of “a positive mindset”. You all did an amazing job!

Learning Focus

Vegemite Birthday Celebration

30th May was Vegemite’s birthday. It was invented in 1923. Manufacturers say that today Vegemite is found in 90% of Australian homes.

Room 11 conducted a survey and found that it was only in 60% of their homes.

The children then made their own sandwiches and wrote a procedure to show the process.

Physical Education

On Friday the 9th June, 17 Somerly students participated in the Quinns Rocks Invitational Cross Country held at Gumblossom Park. Year 4's and 5's ran 1500m and the year 6's ran 2000m across some difficult terrain. Our students represented Somerly with pride and did an excellent job of running the whole distance. Well done to those students involved!

Our year 5 and 6 students have been busy preparing for the upcoming Rugby tackle competition and also the Winter Interschool Carnival. Rugby tackle will be held on Wednesday 21st June at Amberton Sports Ground in Eglington where we have one team participating. For the Winter Interschool Carnival the sports are AFL, Soccer, Tag Rugby and Netball. As we have joined a new cell for our Interschool competition, teams will be travelling to Kingsway Sporting Grounds where we will play against Quinns Rocks, Mindarie, Kinross, Beaumaris and Connolly Primary Schools.

ICT

With ICT and Digital Technologies being focuses in our classrooms teachers and students have been working together to learn and produce fantastic work with computers, laptops, iPads and robots. You can help support our students at home by teaching them how to log on to a computer by locating the ‘Crtl’, ‘Alt’ and ‘Del’ button.

Robots

This Term the school has purchased Bee Bots for the use in Kindergarten, Pre-Primary and Year 1 classrooms. The Bee Bot robot is an awesome stepping stone into robotics and coding. Students use arrows to program the Bee Bot to navigate along a grid or path. It also provides opportunities for students to ‘debug’, learning how to problem solve and fix a problem. You can support our students in by downloading the free Bee Bot app.

Coding Club

Coding club occurs Tuesday lunch times in the Library. Year 3 and 4 students are working towards producing games using the program Scratch 2.0. The program allows students to choose their characters, cream a board game and add a score. Currently, Scratch 2.0 is being investigated in th4e Year 4 classrooms and the Year 6 students are creating a game for a specific target audience. You can support your students learning to be programmers by downloading the free offline version of Scratch 2.0 from the following website,

Coding club is now being opened up to some Year 5 and 6 students who will be learning how to investigate the Ollie Robot this term. Ollie is an outside turbo robot that can travel at various speeds. You can change the tyres to create more friction. Students will first be investigating how to move Ollie before programming him to follow a path.

Word of the Week

To support our students at Somerly, the ICT councillors will be presenting a Word of the Week. This word will relate to the different digital capabilities students will be learning about throughout the year, words such as upload, download and the World Wide Web. Stay tuned for more interesting words and their definitions.

P & C

Fundraising Event

Don’t forget to book your tickets for the P & C Fundraiser at Grand Cinemas in Currambine. Please refer to the noticeboard below for details.

We're Fundraising with The Entertainment Book

Order forms can be collected from the school office.

Alternatively, you can order your book or your Digital Membership securely online by visiting the link below.

Books are available immediately and can be collected from the school office.

20% from every membership sold contributes to supporting our fundraising.