Nuriootpa Primary School

We come to the final newsletter of the term – yay – happy dance!!!!

 It has been a real busy term as is always the case with Term 3! We have survived and thrived !

 Here is a summary of my Governing Council report which was presented last week:

Wellbeing

We continue to work tirelessly in this area to ensure that our students are ready to learn and feeling supported. We are running a Seasons for Growth program with the Year 2s focusing on change and growth in all aspects of life, how this makes us feel and how to respond. Students are embracing this program and learning lots. Well done Kylie Heinrich!

Staff have been discussing their wellbeing and it is important for me to ensure that they feel supported and not overwhelmed. With this in mind we have made the decision to move the school concert Christmas concert to bennial event. We will hold the Christmas concert in odd years which means there will be no Christmas concert this year. Although a wonderful experience, Term 4 is also a busy time with graduation, Kindy and High School transition, end of year reports, excursions, JP sleepover, planning for the following year, and so on. Thus, we hope that you will understand and support this decision. Council and Fundraising is looking into a smaller event that can be held on concert years' year off.

Equity and Excellence

Please pop into the school or check out Facebook/this newsletter to have a look at the second stage of our mural development. Scott Rathman was in this week to complete it up on the deck. Our 3/4 cohort were involved in a workshop last term on what they would like to be represented in a mural and the thinking is:

"Our school is a learning community where we all go on a learning journey together. Every day we discover new things, like Reading, Maths and Science. Our teachers guide us and we help each other. We are all important, and we grow and learn side by side on this exciting adventure"

These two murals on the side of the deck building represent the thoughts of students from years 3 to 6 as well as those students are now in year 7 at High School. We will continue to beautify our school with other artwork. If you have any ideas/ suggestions please feel free to let us know.

We are also continuing our work in the garden which is a great calming resource for students and also leads to some learning in gardening and plants. Again feel free to come in and have a look or wait until next year when you will see the garden really thriving! 

Effective Learners

Teachers continue to provide fantastic learning opportunities and have been examining student progress through PAT testing. Teachers have examined their results on a class basis and next term we will have a look as a school at our progress. Our reading and spelling data is showing great growth across the school thanks to great progression with explicit spelling and reading instruction and our Intervention program. We also had fantastic results with the Year 1 Phonics Screen Check (PSC) which provides a fantastic basis for learning throughout children’s lives. We are very excited and pleased with these results.

Next term we will welcome Kristi Nitschke back from her maternity leave. Louis Falland has done a fantastic job with the 3/4 class and provided some wonderful learning experiences as well as a patient and warm manner which benefited our students greatly. Thank you Louis for jumping in and providing some wonderful learning opportunities and building such positive relationships in a short space of time

Learner Agency

We continue to work on building student agency in their learning through the design of our curriculum and tasks. We are also gaining momentum with the SEG subcommittees and how they are contributing to school improvement. The example of our new mural is a great example of Student Agency in our Improvement work

Quiz Night

Due to the overwhelming success of last years’ Quiz Night we are holding another one! It will be on Friday 18th October

We have planned to upgrade the Junior Primary play area and this is where the bulk of the proceeds will go. We are also having the back of school entrance repaired. As you will know it has been cordoned off for most of this year and finally, fingers crossed, the work will commence soon.

Please consider donating to the prizes on the night. Great prizes are bottles of wine, chocolates, beauty products and vouchers are always a fantastic price. If you don’t have anything tangible to donate even offering to provide dinner for some lucky prize winners or a babysitting service are fantastic ideas!!  Please drop off anything next week or week 1 of next term.

Also please consider coming along on the night. You need a table of 10. Grab friends and family and get yourself a table! Bookings can be made via Karen Brook!  See the flyer further on in this newsletter.

Hello Everyone,

It's been such a busy time for everyone that it can be hard to stop and think about what we can do to help others and to show gratitude for what we have. 

The last few weeks have contained a couple of important dates that pertain to these exact ideas. RU OK? Day was on the 12 of September and classes in our school took part in activities and lessons that broached the topic of how to start a conversation with someone who is not feeling 'okay'. These types of conversations are tricky for students but are important for developing empathy and kindness.  If you're interested, there are number of resources  on the R U OK website you might like to do at home with your children: https://www.ruok.org.au/every-day-resources

World Gratitude Day is this month too. It is on Saturday, the 21st of September. Three of our classes, Mr. Norton, Miss Kalisch and Miss Wild's, joined the World's Biggest Gratitude lesson remotely using Microsoft Teams. This was a great opportunity to learn and discuss all that you're grateful for and develop empathy for those who don't have as much. This event was held on RU Okay day and was 30 minutes long. Children from 550 schools participated across 38 different countries. 9 News did a great story about it you can see here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1254309875570351

As we head into the holidays it is a good time to reflect on what we're grateful for and ensure we're looking out for the mental health of others.

Thanks everyone,

Michael Rostig

On Wednesday last week, 21 of our students performed on stage at the Adelaide Festival Theatre as part of the Public Primary Schools Festival of Music.

The Primary Schools Festival of Music is an iconic South Australian tradition, we engage our students in artistic excellence, cultural diversity and social inclusion through performance in Music and the Arts.

The Festival of Music concerts feature Year 5 and 6 students singing together in a massed choir of just over 300 students.

This year we commissioned Robyn Habel and Adam Page to compose a set of four songs entitled “State of the Arts”. The audience participation was fun and something very different.

During the concerts there were several Guest Artists from public primary and secondary schools, other choir items that presented different musical genre, and two pieces that specifically showcased the talents of the orchestra.

This year Festival of Music included the ABBA song ‘Waterloo’, to mark 50 years since ABBA had won Eurovision with that song.

It was a spectacular event that our students enjoyed being a part of.