Newsletter - 29-4-22
Principal's Report
Compass:
We are excited to moving to compass as our main school communication system. This will replace SZapp and Grade Xpert. Next week the teachers will start using compass to mark student attendance. The week after parents will have access to compass and start receiving communication via this platform.
Next week you will receive log in details and passwords for Compass via email and via a hard copy. Please ensure the school office has an up to date email address for the adults in your family.
For families who have students at Drouin SC, you will already be familiar with compass. For other families, there are some helpful videos on line explaining how compass works. This term compass will be used for attendance, the news feed and school reports. Next term we will expand our use of compass to include notices for excursions and finances.
Compass Parent Guide
The Compass Parent Portal is an online portal that allows you to access up-to-date information about our school and your child’s progress. The portal is accessible via the web and also via the Compass School Manager App (available for download via the App store on your device). Within the parent portal are many different features including the ability to:
- Add Attendance Notes
- Communicate with your child’s teachers
- Monitor your child’s homework and assessment tasks
- View Semester and Progress Reports
- Book Parent Teacher Conferences
- Consent and Pay for school events
- Order school lunches via the Canteen
- Make school fee payments
- View school news items
This guide will assist you with navigating the portal and includes step by step information on how to complete key processes. Please note, some processes detailed in this guide may not be applicable (or in use) at our school. If you have any questions regarding your Compass parent portal, please contact the school for assistance
Rapid Tests:
Important feedback on the rapid antigen testing (RAT) program is being sought from our school community through a short survey that has been developed by the Department of Health.
RATs are helping students and staff to safely attend school by ensuring positive cases are identified as quickly as possible. All RATs ordered by the Victorian government for schools are effective in detecting coronavirus (COVID-19) variants, including Omicron.
To help evaluate the roll-out of the program to schools in Term 2 and ensure that staff and students have the required support, a short survey is being sent to parents at a sample of Victorian schools.
Our school has been selected to complete the survey from Monday 2 May 2022. The survey is voluntary and anonymous. Our school will not have access to your individual data or responses. The link to the survey is here:
You are asked to complete the survey by 9.00am Monday 9 May 2022.
Cross Country:
Well done to all of our students who participated in the cross country today. It was great to see our senior students putting in their best effort and supporting the younger students. A huge thank you to all of the parents who came along to support the event and the children.
Toys at school:
We understand that children like to bring toys to school, especially if they have ‘Show and Tell’ in their classroom. Please do not send along expensive or special toys as the school will not be responsible for lost or broken items. We also ask that you do not send along any toys which look like a weapon or which encourage rough play including swords and guns. Children become quite upset when we have to tell them that they can’t have these items at school and this then disrupts their learning. It’s in everyone’s best interest if these items are left at home.
Upcoming pupil free days:
We have two pupil free days planned for this term. These are still to be approved at School Council Monday night, but to help you prepare for these days, please note them on your calendar. We have a pupil free day for teacher professional practice on Tuesday 24th May (this day has only just been introduced by DET in the last couple of weeks. Due to a shortage of Casual Relief Teachers, DET has recommended the day be taken as a pupil free day). We have another pupil free day for teacher assessment and reporting on Friday 10th June. Many of our families take a 4 day weekend for Queen’s birthday weekend, so we have worked in with this.
School Council:
We are still looking for a couple of interested parents to join School Council. Please speak to me if this might interest you.
Ms Jenny Dowsett
Principal
Learning Community 1
Prep Guy
Welcome back everyone to Term Two. We hope everyone had a lovely Easter and were all spolied by Easter Bunny! This week in our room we started learning about Non Fiction text features in Reading including the title page, index and table of contents. In Maths we followed a recipe to make ANZAC biscuits, measuring all the ingredients ( I think we have some Masterchef juniors here!) and we began our learning on addition. In Writing/ Spelling this week we learnt about editing our sentences, working on self editing to add capital letters to begin our sentences, spaces between our words, ending puntuation and rereading to ensure our sentences made sense. We had a lot of fun competing in our Cross Country run; well done everyone for showing resilience and keeping on trying. Welcome to our preservice teachers; Zekiah and Sharelne who will be working in the Prep room for the next few weeks. Remember my classroom door is always open to you, so please feel free to come in at any time. Please check in at the Office to show your current Working With Children's Check.
Mrs Jane Guy, Ms Kris Preston.
Prep Guy Student Of The Week
Congratulations to Cooper this week who was chosen to be our Student Of The Week. Here is what Cooper's classmates said about him:
- Cooper is very quiet.
- He is funny.
- Cooper shows our school values.
- He is kind.
REMINDER: On Friday the 6th of May, we are celebrating MOTHER's DAY. Mums are invited into the Prep classroom from 9.00am-10.30am for some pampering! Two notes have gone home about this. If you are unable to make it into our classroom please ensure your child has a special person to work with. Please check in at the office to show your current Working With Children's Check.
Grade 1/2s
Term 2 has started with a great first week back in Grade 1/2S! This week we began our Integrated Studies unit with a farming experience as we planted our own beans! These will be displayed in our classroom for us to watch grow over the term. We also sharpened our arguing skills (sorry mum and dad) as we started learning about persuasive writing. This week we wrote about: 'What's better: cheeseburgers or pizza?' And 'It is better to have chips than chocolate in my lunchbox'.
Miss Nicole Stark.
Grade 1/2 K
Hi families of 1/2 K.
A new Term, a new Teacher, a new Classroom set up and Routines. It’s all so exciting! This week we have all enjoyed getting to know each other and what our new classroom structure will look like. The kids have enjoyed telling me about the things they love about their room and class, and we will wiggle and jiggle until we find the perfect fit for all of us. It is wonderful to be back in a classroom and working with such a fantastic team of people. Things are busy but please feel free to make a time to chat before or after school if you’d like to. The more communication there is, the better environment we can create for everyone.
Ms Kathryn Thorpe, Ms Liz Wahl.
Learning Community 2
We are off and running to start Term 2… Literally!
Today students participated in our School Cross Country event. It was great to see so many students get behind their house teams, wear their colours and participate in the event! This week our Grade 6 students also had a wonderful day at Drouin Secondary College participating in the 'day in the life of a Secondary School student' program.
In Reading this week students worked to explore the Author's Purpose, such as to entertain, explain or persuade the reader. Additionally, students in 4/5M are preparing to start Reciprocal Reading Circles as part of their reading groups. In Writing, students looked at the structure of Persuasive Texts, including how to create paragraphs that state a topic sentence and give evidence to support their opinion. In Maths, students moved into Measurement - Length. They enjoyed estimating and measuring object and distances, both formally and informally.
Mrs Sarah Munday, Miss Maxine Howard, Mrs Glenys Howard, Mr Anthony Craig, Mrs Leanne McKane.
School Photo Reminder
Canteen Special Lunch Day
On Friday 6th May (next Friday) the Canteen will be holding a Sausage Sizzle.
The Canteen will still be open for snacks at Recess and Lunch but
will only be serving sausages for lunch.
Sausage in bread - $1.50
Sausage in Bread with onion - $2.00
Please order these just like a normal lunch order by putting what they would like
on a paper bag with there name and classroom number.
Thank you
Emily Gade
Canteen Manager
Gardening & Cooking Club
This week in Gardening Cooking Club we placed some very cool critters in our garden beds, we pulled out some of the weeds and we kept smashing our coloured tiles for our Rainbow mosaic. Gardening Cooking club happens every Thursday lunch time and is open to everyone in the school.
Mrs Jane Guy
Parents & Friends
Our annual Mothers Day Stall will be held next Wednesday the 4th of May.
The students will be able to choose gifts ranging in price from $1.00 - $5.00. Their classroom teachers will bring each class to the stall, where they will have time to select items to purchase. Each student to please remember their money on the day, and to please bring a bag to put their items into.
We will be needing assistance from parents on the day to assist at the tables. Anyone who is able to help, please meet in the hall at 8:45am. If you prefer not to see your child shop, we can have you step away during that time.
The new date for our Free Dress Fundraiser day for Breakfast Club is Friday the 13th of May. Students are welcome to come in free dress, or something suited to Friday the 13th, and bring a gold coin donation.
This day is to raise funds for breakfast club, to enable us to offer hot milo and juice to students wanting breakfast with their friends at school on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning.
Our next Parents and Friends meeting will be Wednesday the 25th of May at 9:15 in Room 1.