1 November 2018

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Welcome to week four of what has been a busy term so far. We hope you enjoy reading the information in this newsletter.

PLDS has been shortlisted for the School of the Year category for the WAESSPA Awards 2018.  This is an exciting achievement for our school and highlights our valuable contribution to education. We would also like to congratulate Mrs Fiona Forbes who has also been shortlisted for the Leadership Award 2018.

The results of our parent surveys for 2018 were very positive although we had a decrease in responses from 2017. This was discussed at the Board meeting Wednesday along with suggestions for enabling all parents to readily respond to the survey. Most of our parents agreed that their children felt safe at school and they were satisfied with the leadership, teaching and learning at PLDS. Parents were satisfied with the school communication methods and we would like to further strengthen our community involvement.

The Placement Panel met in week one to review the applications for a place at one of our PLDS sites. Successful applicants have been invited to attend our Induction Days and Kindy Café’s at Port Kennedy, Rockingham, Pinjarra and Mandurah. I would like to thank the Board members for attending Induction meetings to support our school.

Mrs Whelan is busy at the moment organising Transition visits for our year three and exiting students. This is an exciting time to visit their home schools and make some new friends for 2019.

As our planning is underway for 2019 it's very important that parents let us know if you are considering moving schools next year. Could you please let main campus (9523 7830) know by this Friday 2nd November if your child won't be attending PLDS in 2019.

We hope you enjoy reading the exciting news from all our sites in this newsletter. I would like to thank our staff for your wonderful efforts in these events. Students at RLPS campus are working hard practicing their amazing assembly item. The students and staff at the Pinjarra campus joined in the Great Wheelbarrow Race on Tuesday! Students at Mandurah have been planning for National Outdoor Classroom Day and their assembly. Our students at the Bungaree campus have been busy writing narratives.

In our last newsletter I called for volunteers to assist the P&C in the many roles where they help our school. Hopefully we are able to recruit some more helpers for 2019.

World Teacher’s Day was on the last Friday of the month, the 26th of October. It is a day that we can celebrate and show our appreciation for the hard work, commitment and dedication shown every day by the Teachers, Educational Assistants and Support Staff.

Enjoy the warm weather and Outdoor Play Day on Thursday!

Shelley Collins
Principal

Important Information for Parents

School Bus Services

For bus applications, conveyancing applications and change of address notifications please visit the link below

All NEW applications OR CHANGE OF DETAILS must be completed on-line before 19 November 2018

Please contact School Bus Services on 9326 2528 if you have any queries.

New Payment Options

Eftpos is now available at main Campus. We can accept payment for onsite swimming lessons, excursion/incursions and all campus contributions and charges. Unfortunately we are unable to process phone payments.

RLPS Campus

1.3

We have had a very busy start to term 4 in 1.3. The first 2 weeks of term saw us practicing very hard for our assembly item. We retold the story of ‘The Gigantic Turnip’ by Aleksi Tolstoy and Niamh Sharkey. We had a lot of fun practicing and on the day we all did an amazing job, even when we had technical difficulties and we had to wait until the microphone batteries were changed. Everyone remembered their lines and where they had to stand and what they had to do. A huge congratulations to all students on their wonderful performance!

We have also been learning about Giraffes this term and we have learnt some very interesting facts about them.

Bay said ‘giraffes can sleep with one eye to look for danger.’

James said ‘giraffes have long necks and they can eat leaves from the top of the tree.’

Elora said ‘giraffes live in the zoo and they also live in Africa. They can walk and eat leaves and bugs and drink water and stretch their necks.’

Nevaeh said ‘giraffes have 4 legs and a long neck and they have spots all over their body and a mane and eyes and ears and horns and a mouth.’

In art we have been discussing foreground and background in pictures and drawing giraffes using step-by-step instructions. We hope you like our fantastic pictures of our directed drawings as well as our scenery pictures that we have drawn using our foreground and background understandings. We have had lots of fun drawing them.

K-PP Sports Carnival

On Wednesday the 17th October Rockingham Lakes campus held their Kindy and Pre Primary Sports Carnival. The students arrived wearing their faction colours creating a sea of red, blue, green and gold. Firstly they had their running races which were over 50m. They then stayed in their classes and rotated around the activities they had been practicing throughout term 3.

The parent turn out was phenomenal. It was so great to see all of the parents, guardians, grandparents, aunties, uncles and siblings coming down to cheer on the participants. The students thoroughly enjoyed the day and the support from their families. A big thank you to the teachers for their hard work and co-operation to make the carnival such a success. Also, a big thank you to the faction captains who helped set up, back away and run the activities.

Ben Voges
Health and Physical Education Coordinator

Year 3 and 4 Visit by Commonwealth Bank - Money Matters

‘Coach Cash’ from the Commonwealth Bank visited the RLPS and PLDS Block 3 classes on Thursday and Friday in Week 2 to present an incursion to our learners (Cashletes), about the importance of money and the motto of ‘Spend some on you and save some too’.

The two year groups were involved in a range of activities around the theme of ensuring you have enough money to buy an item, the importance of saving some money and looking for the best deal.

Students were also interested to learn about Debit cards and how the bank communicates via the computer (this was illustrated through the use of tin cans and a wire, aptly named the ‘Tinternet’) to transfer funds.

Learners in year 3 also learnt about the importance of the bumps on the new $5 and $50 notes.

All classes enjoyed this learning experience

Mandurah Campus

Term 4 has certainly been busy and exciting. Week 3 saw the students attend swimming lessons at the Mandurah Aquatic centre. All students thoroughly enjoyed the lessons and behaved in an impeccable manner. Everyone is to be commended on their participation, manners and resilience during the eighty minute lessons.

Week 4 will be especially busy with students participating in National Outdoor classroom day on Thursday and then Room 10 and 14’s assembly item on Friday at 2.00 p.m. The students in Room 10 and 14 will be performing ‘Pete the Cat Rocking in His School Shoes’. Below are some sneak peeks of this wonderful performance. We look forward to seeing everyone at our performance and updating you with some fantastic photographs from our open classroom activities and assembly performance in the next newsletter.

Bungaree Campus

Room 3 have had a busy start to the term. In writing, we have been learning to write simple information reports. Last week we researched the African Elephant as a class and found some interesting facts about this animal. The students were very engaged these activities and it was great to see the class share and discuss their ideas.

We have also been learning to structure our writing into paragraphs when completing Narrative Recount activities. Everyone in the class has been so focused and it has been lovely to see everybody put so much effort into their work. Keeping with the theme of elephants, the class wrote their own recount of the story ‘Elmer’. They used the laptops to type up a sentence about their favourite part of the story.

We have also been exercising our artistic skills by drawing our own Elmer’s. Check out our work.

Pinjarra Campus

The Pinjarra site has been abuzz with excitement since the beginning of term with two significant events on the calendar. First up was ‘The Great Wheelbarrow Race’, a school community event that was held on Tuesday 23rd October. Classes were required to build a scarecrow that was to be pushed around an obstacle course in a wheelbarrow with teams of 3 students completing the different obstacles. PLDS students and teachers put in a great deal of time and effort into this event. From designing and building their scarecrow, decorating their wheelbarrow to learning how to run and push the wheelbarrow around the course while completing the challenges correctly. The teams had been practising for weeks and were very excited when the day arrived! The Great Wheelbarrow Race day was a great success and everyone had a fantastic time. Students had fun competing, getting an ice cream from the ice cream van, a hot dog lunch and the day finished with all the children meeting and feeding some beautiful animals from the travelling farm.

Following the wheelbarrow race, was the PLDS Assembly Presentation. All students from K-3 have practised and practised for weeks to hone their dancing and cheerleading skills to the song ‘Cheerleader’. The students did a fantastic job with their assembly! Despite technical issues with the music half way through, PLDS students showed resilience and maturity with how they continued on with their performance.

Congratulations to all the students and teachers for their hard work in putting together a fantastic assembly. Thank you to the parents for their contributions to the costumes, the students looked amazing in their outfits.

The Science Team

Welcome to Science!

We have had a fantastic harvest this year following the incursion from Bunnings on both Rockingham Lakes site and Pinjarra. Lots of vegetables have been successfully grown, harvested and eaten, including celery, broccoli, carrots and beans. Mandurah have had a glorious harvest of peas, strawberries and cherry tomatoes. Bungaree is in the process of a whole school endeavour to grow mini gardens in wheelbarrows.

We have expanded to include various flowers and sensory plants like Rosemary and Citronella Geranium too. The children have had an exciting time with the learning experiences in the gardens and we would like for it to continue and expand to all campuses.

DONATIONS

If you have any spare plants you would like to donate we could really use some seasonal vegetables, quick growing vegetables (radishes, green beans, zucchini etc) Lavender, Rosemary, Tomatoes, Daisy, any kind Geraniums, any kind Geraldton Wax, Bindweed Morning Glory, Succulents, any kind Common Dampiera, wedge-leaved Dampiera Common Thyme.

The majority of plants have come from the Water Corporation list of water wise plants for Port Kennedy,a link can be found on their web page.

Any and all donations will be great fully received by all campuses!

Thank you for your continuing support

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