9 August 2017

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Dear Parents/Caregivers

2018 Enrolments

To assist our planning for 2018 would you please let the school office know if your children will not be attending Somerly Primary School next year.

If you know anyone in the community with school aged children please encourage them to come to the school and enrol early.

If you have a student in year 6 please note that high schools are now taking enrolments for year 7 students in 2018.

Kinross College will be holding their transition day on Friday 17th November from 9.00 -2.00 for enrolled students only.

Book Week Celebrations

In the last newsletter the parent information session on ‘how to support your child with reading’ was advertised as being on Thursday 24th August, the date has been changed to be on Tuesday 22nd August.

We are hosting our annual morning tea for all Grandparents on Wednesday 23rd August at 10:00am. All grandparents are invited to attend and spend some special time reading with their grandchildren.

NAPLAN Online

NAPLAN online is being introduced for 2018 with the aim for all schools to be administering NAPLAN online by 2020.

NAPLAN online will provide better assessment, more precise results and faster turnaround of information. Your child’s results will be returned to you faster - within a few weeks rather than a couple of months.

Our school has volunteered to undertake a trial to enable us to assess our technical readiness to implement the new online assessments. This trial gives us a chance to try out the new national online assessment platform in a real life classroom environment. The trial is called the School Readiness Test (SRT).

During August 2017, all students in years 3 and 5 will participate in a trial of the assessment platform by undertaking two online readiness tests that include examples of the new NAPLAN online questions. Each test will take about 45 minutes to complete.

Participating in this trial is important as it will help us ensure we have adequate internet connectivity and whether students have access to sufficient number of devices for NAPLAN Online testing. During the trial, our teachers will have the opportunity to practice managing the classroom logistics for an online assessment and the new test administration processes.

Feedback from schools participating in the trial will inform transition to the online assessment as well as provide valuable feedback to shape the final development of the NAPLAN online platform and administration processes.

The readiness test has not been constructed to assess curriculum knowledge, but rather to provide students with an opportunity to experience the types of questions that will be included in the new online assessments. As such no reports will be provided.

Should you wish to view the new online NAPLAN assessments you can do so by going to the public demonstration site

Website

Our much awaited new web site has gone live follow the link below to view the website

New Students

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

Tracey Renton
Principal

Behaviour Focus

Our behaviour focus for Week 4 is:-

RESPONSIBILITY;

CLASSROOM

• Be on time
• Have our equipment ready
• Ask for help when you need it
• Be honest
• Practice active listening
• Help others at the appropriate time

Merit Certificates

Room 2: Austin and Phoenix; Room 3: Lukas and Lana; Room 4: Ivy and Haziq; Room 9: Kane and Grace; Room 10: Malcolm and Sarvesh; Room 11: Jayden and Dalia; Room 12: Aaran, Arhum and Tyrell; Room 13: Ashlee and Selwyn; Room 14: Tadas and Chris; Room 15: Ruby and Aarav; Room 16: Evie and Tyson; Room 17: Jacob and Maaria; Room 18: Rayden and Moksh; Room 23: Beau and Crystal; LOTE: Isaiah – Rm.14 and A’Janae – Rm.9; Music: Room 14, Tadas and Luke; Art: Sean – Rm.10, Malcolm – Rm.10, Madalyn – Rm.3 and Ali Sina – Rm.10.

SOMERLY STARS!

Kindy Enrolment for 2018

Kindergarten enrolments for 2018 are due to close shortly. 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.

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.

Swimming Lessons

Swimming lessons will take place 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 this letter was sent home to families last week.

Please Note - If you are making payment via Direct Deposit, please quote the student surname and room number in order for us to allocate payment to the correct student account.

Woolworths Earn & Learn 2017

Dear Parents

This year we will be participating in the Woolworths Earn & Learn program. Through this program we will be able to get new educational resources for our school and all we need you to do is shop for your groceries at Woolworths.

From Wednesday 26th July to Tuesday 19th September or while stock lasts, we are collecting Woolworths Earn & Learn Stickers. You will get one Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker for every $10 spent (excluding liquor, tobacco and gift cards). Place the Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker onto a Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker Sheet and when it’s complete, the Sticker Sheet can be dropped into the Collection Box here at the school or at your local Woolworths.

At the end of the promotion, we’ll be able to get some great new equipment. The range is extensive and offers lots of items ideal for our students – including resources for Maths, English, Science and some fantastic fun supplies for Arts & Craft, Sport and for our library. If you’d like to know more visit the link below. A link to the sticker sheet can be accessed below if you require this.

Book Week

Room 11 Assembly

Year 3, Room 11 presented an assembly based on poetry. They recited two poems. The first based on their love of recess and the second about a ‘knight and a lady’.

Learning Focus

Waste-wise Updates

Our whole school waste-free lunch day is now on Fridays. We are currently focusing on reducing the amount of zip-lock bags and gladwrap that is being used. We are hoping to raise awareness about how much waste is being accumulated in our waste facilities and how long these can take to decompose.

Across the school we waste approximately 500 zip-lock bags and 400 pieces of gladwrap per week. This plastic can take up to 20 years to break down.

Waste Product Decomposition Time

Banana Skin- 3 to 4 weeks
Paper Bag- 1 month
Cardboard- 2 months
Apple core- 1 to 2 months
Aluminium Cans- > 1 million years
Orange Peel- Up to 2 years
Cigarette Butts- Up to 12 years
Plastic Bags- * Up to 20 years
Plastic Bottles- * 450 years
Glass- 1to 2 million years

* Petrochemical products never truly breakdown and remain in the environment forever.

Many thanks for your support. Any and every effort is appreciated. Keep an eye out for more Waste-wise Heroes in our next newsletter and on the notice board in the undercover area.

TerraCycle

We are also beginning to recycle with TerraCycle. TerraCycle is a company that is eliminating the idea of waste, by recycling ‘non-recyclable’ items. There are posters in the undercover area that illustrate exactly what items we are asking students to bring in to recycle. Once collected we will post them to Terracycle, who convert them into useable items and give our school a small amount of money in return. We are aiming for 1000-2000 items across the school by the end of Term 3. Please see pictures below for products that can be recycled through TerraCycle.

Thanking you in advance for your support.

Miss Bartley – Art Teacher

P & C

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.

Community Notices

Kurlangas Aboriginal Playgroup

This term we will be looking at the numbers 1-5 and the colours red, yellow, blue and green.

We will have coloured playdough, make collages and cellophane windows, do paintings and pasta gluing.

A lot of our work will be based around the “Very Hungry Caterpillar” book.

Please note our new time of 12.30pm-2.30pm. Playgroup is FREE, and held every Wednesday at Somerly Primary School during term times, for Aboriginal children up to 5yrs of age and their carers.

An afternoon tea of fresh fruit is provided for the children, and tea, coffee and biscuits for the adults. You do not need to have a child attending this school to attend.

Hope to see you there!

Aboriginal Early Years Team