7 September 2022

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Dear Parents/Caregivers

OUR SCHOOL VISION IS TO SUPPORT STUDENTS IN BECOMING STRONG, THOUGHTFUL AND INDEPENDENT INDIVIDUALS WHO ASPIRE TO BE THE BEST THAT THEY CAN BE. OUR ETHOS OFFERS STUDENT CENTERED EDUCATION THAT IS FOCUSSED ON BOTH THE PRESENT AND DEVELOPMENTAL NEEDS OF STUDENTS.

Athletics Carnival

On Wednesday 31st August and Friday 2nd September 2022, we held our Faction Athletics Carnival. It was a fantastic day despite the windy weather. The carnival was a great success as always with our tabloid set up. The carnival is designed with four rotations to ensure the students are kept active all day. It also ensures we provide a balance of competitive and fun participation focussed events.

One of the key participation-based events is our Bluearth rotation, hosted by Mr Gane with the support of Ms Senini. At Somerly Primary School, as a part of our Student and Staff Wellbeing Policy, we utilise the Bluearth program to focus on five key principals; Environment, Experience, Engagement, Stimulation and Team & Self-Awareness. Through a range of physical and mental health exercises, we aim to promote resilience and mindfulness amongst our Year 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 students.

It was a smooth and enjoyable experience, where all students participated successfully in individual and team events. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff involved in the organisation of the day. A big thank you to Mrs Ochieng and Mr Koppl for your preparation of students and detailed organisation of the carnival. Thanks also goes to our P&C for their organisation of the Eagles raffle and Father’s Day stall.

Congratulations to all individual winners. An Interschool Athletics team will be selected on these results and the carnival will be held on All parents are welcome to attend.

List of individual winners

Final results were as follows

1st Place – Alkimos – 1721 points
2nd Place – Gemini – 1545 points
3rd Place – Villalta – 1518 points
4th Place – Centaur – 1227 points

Fathering Project Gardening Event Week 9 Wednesday 13th September

Our next Fathering Project event is scheduled for Wednesday 13th September and will be a busy bee in our school garden followed by a sausage sizzle. Please see attached information.

Parent Meetings Week 8 Friday 9th September 2022

Just a reminder to parents that our Term 3 Parent Meetings will be held on Friday 9th September 2022. On this day, school will close at 11.45pm. Any student that is unable to be collected will be supervised on school site till our regular closing time. We will ensure that we have someone posted at the cross walk for students walking home.

This term, parent meetings will have a phone in option and all face to face parent meetings will be held in classrooms. This is to help manage risks presented by the continual impact COVID is having in our community.

The purpose of these meetings is to provide you with an opportunity to talk to your child’s teacher about their progress, learning, celebrations and concerns.

School Board

The School Board is committed to establishing and reviewing the school’s objectives, priorities, general policy directions and evaluating the school’s performance. The School Board will hold an open Board meeting on Tuesday 13th September.

Please remember that a copy of the School Board Meeting Minutes is available upon request from the front office.

The School Board will be reviewing its membership and is still calling for another parent representative. Please come along if you are interested or contact me for more information.

P&C

A big thank you to all those who attended our P&C meeting last Tuesday 30th August 2022. It is fantastic to have such a dedicated group of parents committed to our P&C.

They have made many successful donations to the school this year as a result of their fantastic fundraising and have more exciting events planned. Included in this is the upcoming Disco in Term 4. This can only go ahead with the support of parents to organise and run the event.

Riverlinks Park - State Government Grant $2.6m - All Abilities Playground Upgrade

Some exciting news for our community. The City of Wanneroo has received a State Government grant of $2.6million to develop an All Abilities Playground at Riverlinks Park (located at 15 Riverlinks Dr, Clarkson).

A preliminary concept design has been developed in consultation with the City’s Access and Inclusion Working Group, and is now open for review. Please see attached a copy of the preliminary design of the park and potential play equipment to be installed.

Dogs on School Grounds

Dogs are wonderful pets and much-loved family members, however they require care, education and restraint. Some of our students have an aversion to dogs while others have allergies. Please support us by refraining bringing your dog onto school grounds.

Zoe Hadley-Hawley
Principal

Stars

Behaviour Focus

Our behaviour focus for Week 8 is:-

Eating Time Safety

• We put our lunch box in our bag
• We eat our own food

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 6206 4200, sending an SMS to 0437 480 486 or emailing somerly.ps@education.wa.edu.au .

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.

2023 Enrolments

Children born between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019 will be eligible to start Kindergarten next year. If your child has a birthdate between these dates, please complete an Application for Enrolment as soon as possible. Places are filling fast!

Please click on the link below to access our Application for Enrolment.

Pre-primary Re-Enrolment

All existing Kindergarten students are required to enrol for Pre Primary in 2023. To complete the enrolment process, it is necessary for you to come to the school office as soon as possible to sign your child’s enrolment card and update your child’s information.

This process will ensure your child’s placement in our Pre Primary program for 2023.

If your child will not be returning to Somerly Primary School in 2023, please advise the school office as soon as possible.

Book Fair Thank You

Learning Focus

English

We celebrated a fantastic Book Week recently, with many successful events throughout the school. Students enjoyed the Book Cover competition, buddy reading, lunch time stories, the Book Fair and of course our wonderful dress-up and parade. There were a range of incredible costumes again this year and it was particularly exciting to see so many students with their accompanying book.

We would also like to offer big congratulations to our Redesign a Book Cover competition winners and we have included the winning designs for you to enjoy.

You may also have seen an announcement on Seesaw earlier this week regarding the recording of our Book Sharing session by Emily Dawes. The session was very informative and included some great tips for parents when reading at home with their children. Make sure to check it out!

LOTE

The students have been very enthusiastic learning Italian this semester, showing cooperation with their classmates and undertaking many new fun and challenging activities.

The junior and middle primary students have made very good use of digital technologies by playing Italian-related online games and working on Seesaw. They also participated in whole-class oral language games, practised their conversational Italian, and continued learning and singing Italian songs.

Students in the upper primary years have also worked diligently on various Italian activities. The Year 6’s created some amazing posters of their favourite hobbies and sports. Fantastico lavoro ragazzi!

It has been wonderful to see the level of commitment all the students have shown in practising to speak and write in Italian. A wide variety of activities have helped them to stay engaged, have fun, and learn the Italian language and culture from many different perspectives.

Signora McCulloch

Waste Wise Schools

Gardening Club

We are so excited to be able to share with our Somerly community that we have completed all our work on revitalising our Community Garden, thanks to our Waste Sorted Grant (formerly Waste Wise Schools) of $2197.84 which was approved on the 13th October 2021. This grant was supported by the Government of Western Australia and administered by the Waste Authority. Our students have worked so hard on each stage of our plan and Waste Sorted was there from the very beginning, with Rosie attending our school to conduct a waste assessment, Patrick came to help us at the planning stage of our garden and Meg assisted with all our queries and adjustments. Our garden looks amazing and currently we have potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, beans, mint, basil, cherry tomatoes and mixed lettuce growing. Thank you Waste Sorted for all your help!

We have also recently planted some fruit trees - pink lady and granny smith apples, a pear tree and a lime tree.

Our Grant Sign

Our Garden Now!

Our Waste Sorted Journey…

Somerly Primary School Garden Progress thanks to the generosity and support from our Waste Sort Grant.

In the beginning….

Then we got to work…. Putting in new vege mix soil in the garden beds

Laying gravel around the garden area and garden beds

The compost bins are in……

Sowing the seeds for our garden…

It’s all flourishing…

Now we get to harvest and offer to our community for gold coin donations to put money towards our garden and community pantry…

So that’s our journey so far and we are really enjoying it and reaping the benefits! Our kids are thriving too!

Thank you Waste Sorted (Waste Wise Schools)!

Thank you staff, students and our families for continuing to support our containers for change challenges raising money for our community and our students. Our second challenge this term was our Science challenge in weeks 5 & 6 collecting 1757 containers raising $175.70 for our community.

Our challenge winners were

Room 18

collecting 603 containers!

Thank you to all participating classrooms

Room 7 – 33 Room 8 – 168 Room 9 – 204 Room 10 – 101

Room 3 – 85 Room 4 – 36 Room 15 – 58 Room 12 – 195

Room 14 – 65 Room 20 – 33 Room 17 – 62

Our next challenge is …

Shout out!

We are looking for some local small businesses to support our containers for change fundraising so please parents and carers if you know of any small businesses that could support our fundraising by donating their containers please let us know.

We need some helpers to put together a small shed and lay 6 large slabs for the floor of the shed. If you are free any time to help, please call Teresa on 0400512299.

Thank you for helping us to help you!

School Holidays at Your Library

P & C