Dear families & friends, 

Our inquiry this term, ‘Identity, Belonging, Commmunity’, has a strong focus on understanding our selves and each other and how we can connect and build community and belonging. This will culminate in our learning expo on Thursday 11th April. We hope to see many families there to celebrate a great term of learning with us.

NAPLAN

Congratulations to all our year 3 and 5 students who have completed NAPLAN. While it was disruptive to some programs, it is good that we  completed it early in the year and we can move on with our learning. We were very proud of the attitude and persistence that students demonstrated throughout the NAPLAN assessments. 

Traffic Update

The Governing Council and staff have been continuing to work with council, SAPol and the Way to Go program to investigate ways to improve the safety on the roads near our school. After our petition and persistence we have been informed that over the April holidays a pedestrian crossing area will be installed at the front of our school.

A reminder that it is vital that the members of our own community are doing the right thing when driving and parking near the school to ensure the safety of our children.

 Some reminders:

• Please DO NOT use the drop off zone for parking, children must be able to enter and exit the car INDEPENDENTLY with out any need for the adults to get out of their car.
• In the drop off zone children should get out of the car on the passenger side (ie not on the driveway side)
• In the drop off zone your child should not exit the car until you are a maximum of 2 cars away from the gate near the OSHC kitchen, move your car down the line to drop off or pick up
• In the drop off zone children should not walk down the driveway or enter/exit via the main double driveway gate when walking
• If children are not able to enter and exit your car independently please park on the street or at the back of the school (Off Turner St) so students can safely enter the school via the front or oval gate.
• Make sure you are observing the 25km per hour speed limits along Briar Rd
• Where possible pick up and drop off children on the school side of Briar Rd
•  Hold your child’s hand if needing to cross the road (especially our littlies)
• Support your child by reminding them of safe road practices including crossing the road safely, walking on footpaths, wearing safety gear when riding bikes or scooters.

Thank you for your support, we are happy to see some action from our local services and council but it is important we are always modelling and teaching our kids how to keep safe near our roads.  

School Sports Teams

A big thank you to Leigh and Emma who have been working with students and families to give our students the opportunity to play team sports. 

We have had a huge increase in interest for both soccer and basketball teams and this will be reliant on parent volunteers to make this happen for students. If your child has told us they are interested the next step is to have families volunteer to support as coaches and support on game days. 

Thank you to the families who have volunteered to support by coaching, managing, and helping out on game days. We have coaches for both basketball teams now.

We are still needing coaches for all 3 soccer teams. Please consider putting your hand up as without volunteers we will not be able to have these teams. We will support you to get up and running and if everyone is willing to help out it makes for a wonderful experience to share with your child and their friends and families.

The term has been a busy one as always at Felixstow! We have had lots of things happening every day including: 

• Harmony Day celebrations
• Working with the Payneham, Norwood, St Peters council Youth Arts program to paint the 'Gather Round' signs on Osmond Terrace (see picture) 
• Breakfast clubs and special breakfast mornings (Fairy bread Friday, Easter breakfast, Ride to school breakfast) 
• Ride to School day 
• Lunch time clubs and activities - Environment Club, Coding Club, Craft Club and our lunchtime library wellbeing activities
• Volunteer morning tea
• Acquaintance Night 
• Ice blocks for sale
• Easter raffle 
• Photo Day
• NAPLAN 
• AFL Footy clinics 
• Year 5/6 High School transition infomration session for families 
• AGM

We are looking forward to seeing everyone at our upcoming Learning Expo and shared afternoon tea to celebrate the end of Term 1! 

Happy Easter and enjoy a safe and happy long weekend :) 

Cheers Skye 😊

Thank you to those that have paid their school fees or applied for School Card.  A reminder that the due date is looming at the end of this term in just a few weeks.  If you are awaiting your school card application a reminder that the excursion levy of $85 is also due. 

For all school payments

Felixstow Primary School

BSB 105 010

Account 115 989 440

Thank you

Gillian

Congratulations to the winners of our Easter Raffle.  We had 8 prizes to give away thanks to Kmart Firle, Woolworths Marryatville and Foodland Norwood for their generous donations. We raised an amazing $573. This is outstanding for such a small school. Thank you to everyone who bought a ticket.

1st: Tom L

2nd: Lozen and Atreyu

3rd: Tori

4th:  Lincoln

5th: Lozen's Uncle Yandi

6th: Marks Great Gran Liz

7th: Leah

8th: Zofia

Over the past couple of weeks our year 5/6 group have had the opportunity to work with local artist Lucinda Penn and the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters Youth & Arts program, to paint 'Gather Round' artwork that has been installed on Osmond Terrace in Norwood. We love being part of local and community projects and learning new skills through working with working artists in our community.

They look fabulous so go check it out! Our set is facing the Norwood Hotel side of Osmond Tce.

On Thursday 21st March we celebrated Harmony Day.

Harmony Day encourages communities world wide to come together to celebrate diversity and promote the theme 'Everyone Belongs' during Harmony Week 2024.

To celebrate this year many students came in their traditional cultural dress to share a part of their culture. Students participated in a range of activities and we were excited to welcome the kindergarten group from our local childcare Goodstart to celebrate with us.

Inquiry – In inquiry we have been collaborating and communicating our ideas within our groups to create our vision statement which is walk down to the reserve with the juniors and meet up at the bridge to have a fun run/cross country run. Tatenda

STEM - The objective was to make a spinning top that lasted the longest time. We were not able to research or use technology to find a solution and we had to construct it using a minimum of two materials. We had to make 4  prototypes. Archie came up with the idea plasticine on the marble and then I added the bottle top. We believe we have created the best one. Kevin

Maths - In maths we have been rounding up and down to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10 000 and 100 000 thousand to make the numbers easier to read. We have also learned a new game called lock it down which is a game where you have a place value and dice and with a partner you roll and try and make the highest number possible in four rolls. Raghuveer

The Premiers Reading Challenge (PRC)

We would like to encourage any year 1-6 students who haven't already started the PRC to do so. Forms can be downloaded from the link below. If you have a problem accessing the form then paper copies are available from school. Juniper’s class will receive their forms in Term2. The final day of the Challenge is Term 3, week 7. Record sheets must be handed in to Kelly or Gillian no later than this date but can also be handed in any time before if the student has completed the Challenge. Awards are given to students who have completed the Challenge (once the school has received them) at an assembly in Term 4. The Premier’s Reading Challenge website: 

https://premiersreadingchallenge.sa.edu.au/

Wellbeing Breaktime Activities

The Resource Pod is open at one breaktime a day, offering students a variety of activities to participate in or just a safe space to relax and read a book. Bingo Friday has been a popular activity. We will be holding some themed sessions in the near future and welcome any suggestions the students may have. 

Library lessons

Library lessons have continued with the Juniors and P1class learning about book care while P2 had a session on Researching Information. 

Book Care

Students learned the importance of taking good care of books that they borrow and how to take care of them. 

Research

P2 students learned about the 5 A's of finding information for their research:

1. Ask

2. Acquire

3. Analyse

4. Apply

5. Assess

Borrowing/Returning Books

Students have the opportunity to borrow books from the Resource Pod during scheduled class times and when the Pod is open at break times. All books are on loan for two weeks and the due date can be found on a slip attached to the inside back cover of the book or on a book mark. Please return the books by the due date or before if finished, as other students may be waiting to borrow them.