28 November 2018

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Welcome to week eight of a productive and busy term. We hope you are enjoying the lovely weather and take the opportunity to spend some time outside with your family.

Students have been busy completing work for the term and teachers are finalizing curriculum reports and Individual Language Plan reports to be sent home to parents at the end of term. Work Sample Files will be given to students in the last week of school and we hope you enjoy reading through them on the holidays.

Transition visits for our year three and exiting students have been successfully completed and they have enjoyed visiting their home schools and making new friends for 2019.

Induction meetings have taken place across all PLDS sites for new parents, along with a change of campus meeting at Bungaree and Kindy Cafés for new parents. We were able to meet our prospective parents for 2019 and look forward to forming strong partnerships over the coming years. Thanks to our P & C volunteers who opened the Uniform Shop, informed parents about the P & C and spoke from a parent’s perspective at the meetings. Thanks also to Mrs Michelle Williams, Chairperson of the School Board and Board members, who informed parents about the Board and also spoke from a parent’s perspective.

The last Board Meeting for 2018 will be held next week where we will review the year and plan for 2019. We would like to thank the Board Chair Michelle Williams and Board members for their contribution to our school community. 

 The final P & C meeting was held last night. I would like to sincerely thank all members of the P & C for their tireless work in volunteering and fundraising for our RLPS campus. We will be able to formally thank parent volunteers at our Parent Morning Tea next week.

PLDS teachers from all sites will meet together on the 6th December at our Whole School Review Day to review language and curriculum data for all students. This will assist us to target our planning effectively for 2019 and beyond.

Thank you to school community members who took the time to fill in the School Survey. Your feedback is valuable to us and we will review ways to continue improving our great school at our Whole School Review Day next week.

I would like to acknowledge Miss Kelly Taylor, Miss Rachael Blomfield and Miss Eleanor O’Grady for presenting at the ALEA conference Notre Dame last Saturday. PLDS teachers were able to share their expertise with new teachers who attended the conference.

Students have been busy across all sites with Bungaree students exploring Indigenous Australian Artworks, Pinjarra students looking forward to the colour run, Mandurah students learning about people in our community and RLPS campus students enjoying working with buddy classes.

The PLDS Annual School Picnic will be held on Friday 7th December. Students and school staff from all sites, along with their families will join together for a picnic at City Park in Rockingham. This is always an enjoyable conclusion to the year with lots of activities to join in.

Shelley Collins
Principal

End of Year Picnic

All Sites

Our ‘End of Year’ picnic is on Friday 7th December at City Park on Leghorn Street from 10am – 1:30pm. The children will have a range of activities in which they can participate (some are water based). Lunch will commence at 12:50pm and families are welcome to join the students in their class group. Kindy students who do not attend class on this Friday are welcome to meet at the park to join the fun. Please remember your child’s packed lunch, hat, sunscreen, towel, bathers and sun safe clothing. There will be NO EARLY RELEASE of students from the park.

Bungaree Campus

In Rooms 1 and 2 students have been exploring Indigenous Australian artworks and learning about the cultural significance of different art styles, techniques and the symbols used. We have also been exploring the different language groups of Australia’s Aboriginal peoples and places of cultural significance, including connection to the land.

To consolidate all their learning, the students have been working with the local Aboriginal and Islander Education Officer to plan, draft and paint a mural depicting the 6 Noongar seasons.

Students have had a lot of fun painting the mural. We still have a little bit of work to do but it is starting to look really good. Well done to all the students involved in this activity. The mural will be there for everyone to enjoy for a lot of years to come.

Room 3 have been learning to write procedural texts and last week they wrote a procedure for fairy bread. The students enjoyed the activity and as a class, we wrote a simple step by step procedure for fairy bread. We finished the lesson off with a picnic in the playground to enjoy our treats.

Pinjarra Campus

What a busy term 4 we have had at Pinjarra PLDS! To celebrate, the Pinjarra PBS team have organised some wonderful activities including some exciting water play for our students to participate in. We also have our end of year book awards ceremony which celebrates student achievement across all classrooms.

On November 22nd our PLDS K-Year 3 students hosted their second junior school assembly of the term. After wowing staff and students with their cheerleading dance moves earlier this term, they set their sights on presenting an exciting Aussie Christmas oral compilation. They began by presenting their version of “An Aussie Night before Christmas,” and ended with a delightfully energetic choral performance of “Aussie Jingle Bells.” Even with 2 weeks of swimming lessons and swatting hundreds of flies during afternoon practises the students managed to present another memorable and entertaining performance.

We are looking forward to the Colour Run that is happening next Friday with our host school as well as our PLDS site party coming up in week 9 to celebrate all our student’s achievements and successes throughout 2018!

Emma Claxton

RLPS Campus

D3

This term has been extremely busy in D3. We have had our heads down and bottoms up working our hardest in all areas of our learning and I must say we are doing a fantastic job. This term there have been lots of special days that we have been involved in. During week one, we had Fruit and Veg day picnic, where we watched a movie in the undercover area while eating healthy fruit and veg. That same day we also joined with the whole school and did the Colour Fun Run out on the oval. Week two our Pre-Primaries had their Sports Carnival. Week four we had a very exciting day, where we did all of our learning outside of the classroom for Outside Classroom Day, joining up with D2 to have our lunch under the tree.

Worm Farms with D2

We were also very lucky, as we joined together with D2 to make worm farms. We went out to the garden and constructed our worm farms. They are still alive and well in our classrooms. We are monitoring them daily and making sure they are watered and fed. It was a fantastic experience, especially great to buddy up with our friends from D2. Thank you Miss Blomfield.

Swimming Lessons

Here we all are ready to go to swimming lessons.

We have been joining up with our Year one buddy class every Friday afternoon in 1.3, to have fun interacting with our friends and enjoy lots of different educational activities.

We have a very busy end of term coming up and are very excited as we head towards Christmas and the end of the year, which looks to be full of exciting events on our school calendar.

Uniform Shop School Holidays Time

The uniform shop will be open on Friday 1st February 2019 from 8:30am – 11:30am before the return to school.

Canteen

Last day of ordering will be:

Wednesday 12th December, 2018. The canteen will be closed Thursday 13th December, 2018.

Mandurah Campus

This Term Room 18 has been learning about people in our community. We have learnt about police, fireman, doctors and nurses to name a few. The children have enjoyed this theme and our construction site was a very popular attraction in our classroom.

The Pre-primaries have also been practising their measuring skills. We are remembering to start at the beginning of the object and place the cube end to end.

Science with Mrs Panhuysen

On Thursday 1.11 2018 we celebrated Outdoor Classroom Day in our garden. Room 18 PP students planted a grape vine, a strawberry guava plant, a passionfruit vine and a loganberry plant. We are growing our own fruit salad!

Fun with Language

Along with naming items, describing them is a great way to build your child’s vocabulary.

Describe items with your child:

• when you pick an item up at home talk about it with your child discuss the:
    o  colour
    o  shape
    o  size
    o  texture
    o  parts it has
    o  where it’s found
    o  what you use it for, etc.

Access support for Apple devices and applications

Staff, students and their families can access technical support for Apple devices and applications direct from Apple using AppleCare Support.

AppleCare Support is available at no cost to you and is provided through the Department’s AppleCare Enterprise agreement.

Staff, students and their families can access AppleCare Support.

Access to AppleCare Support is not based on the ownership of the device or application.

AppleCare Support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to provide technical support for:

• Apple software and operating systems
• Apple applications (ie. Keynote)
• Personal Apple accounts or settings

To contact AppleCare Support:

• phone 1300 760 237
• when prompted enter access code 2961
• follow the prompts to select your Apple device

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