Dear families & friends, 

We are well into Term 3 now with lots of things happening around the school as always!

We have already enjoyed our fabulous book week celebrations. It was lovely to see so many families joining us on the day with students and staff dressed up in all sorts of creative costumes for our parade! We also went on our whole school excursion to the Urrbrae Wetlands, which was a great day and has supported our Inquiry learning this term about habitats.

This Friday we are looking forward to our ‘Springfest pancake day’, organised by our environment club with the support of Steve and Camille. We have Sports Day along with our Colour Fun Run coming up next week. A big thank you to everyone who is out there fundraising for the school. We are hoping to raise enough to finally have our filtered drink station installed at school with cold water access for students.

Following Sports Day we have our Closure Day for the Show. If you get a chance to get to the Royal Adelaide Show make sure you check out our entries from our Kitchen Garden group including our wonderful Scarecrow Witch! Good luck for our entries!

Later in the term we have our annual year 2/3 ‘Big Night In’. This has become a tradition in our school as a first taste of being a primary student for our Year 2’s. Year 2 and 3 students come to school in the evening and enjoy some team building games, shared dinner and toasted marshmallows at our firepit together. It is always a fabulous night and a great start to the transition to Primary.

We will of course be ending our term with our last Learning Expo for the year in Week 10 on Tuesday 26th September.

Staffing changes

Recently we have made some changes to our J1 class as Corrina was unable to continue the contract to the end of the term. We thank Corrina for her time with us and wish her the best for her future. We decided, for continuity, to have Emma and Camille, our PE and Art teachers, step into this class to the end of the term. Camille will also continue to teach our Art program, while Emma will step back from PE and we will have Leigh (a regular reliever of ours) in the PE program to the end of the term. We look forward to welcoming back Lauren Ising next term after taking some maternity leave. She will work with Emma teaching the J1 group to the end of the year.

Festival of Music – Auslan Choir

We are excited to have a small group of students who have been working hard on learning the Australian National Anthem in Auslan and will be performing on Tuesday 19th September at the Festival of Music. We can’t wait to see students performing on the big stage at the Festival Theatre! Thank you to Nicole who has been supporting practice during lunchtimes in preparing our students.

Pre-service teachers

We have had a fourth year pre-service teacher, Emma, doing a wonderful job working in P2 with Laura this term and we are looking forward to having another pre-service teacher join us later this term in P2 again. Students are enjoying their time with Emma and we always enjoy having extra hands to help. It is wonderful to be able to support the next generation of teachers coming through.

S.S.O. Week

Last week we celebrated our wonderful SSO team at Felixstow. We are very fortunate to have a team who are dedicated and skilled in almost anything that needs to be done to make sure the school is running well! We would not be able to function without them. We thank them for everything they do to support students and teachers everyday!

Observations in classes

I am very fortunate as a Principal to be closely connected to classes every day. One of the things that we do as teachers is also have more ‘formal’ observations of practice and feedback to teachers to support them to develop their current practice and work together on next steps in learning and teaching for them. I really enjoy these opportunities and appreciate having a team of teachers who are always willing to open their doors and their minds to questioning and challenging themselves to be the best teacher they can be as individuals and as a team. As always, I have been so impressed in these visits to see the depth of knowledge, understanding and ability to articulate this learning that students are developing through the learning that teachers are designing for classes. 

Cheers Skye :) 

We will be having volunteer coffee mornings again this term on Friday 1st and Friday 22nd September. We look forward to having you join us at 9am in the OSHC kitchen.

A reminder to those who have completed all their paper work that our morning reading groups will be held on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8.30 am - 9 am. 

If you think you might be interested in volunteering with us, there are forms available at the front desk, alternatively you can talk to Di or Gillian 😊 

For Inquiry we have been learning about Australia’s different unique habitats. In class we have been working collaboratively in our table groups to record our first and second thinkings. Last week we went on our excursion to Urrbare and here are some comments about our favourite parts.

Nicolas’ favourite part of the wetland excursion was netting because he got to see new creatures.

Maggie also liked the netting the most because it was fun and she got to see all the cute little creatures under the microscope.

Hugo liked going into the high bird hide the most because he could see lots of birds and it was nice and cosy.

Annie liked looking at all the animals, patting them and learning about them. Her favourite animal was the kangaroo rat because it was so cute and fluffy.

Charlotte liked netting in groups and seeing all different creatures because she got to see creatures she hadn’t seen before.

Being a Resource Hub Student Monitor 

Our student monitors play an important role in the functioning of the Resource Hub. Once a week during break times, they work together in pairs to  assist with tasks, such as scanning books for borrowing and returning, sorting and shelving books, tidying the shelves and other tasks as requested. We would like to thank them for their service and by focusing on a student monitor each newsletter. This issue it is Eva (P2).

Eva "I like scanning books and when I see books laying on the floor I immediately pick them up. I also like borrowing books and returning them."

Premiers Reading Challenge

The Premiers Reading Challenge student record forms are due in by Wednesday 6th September. Please ensure your child has returned their form to their teacher or front office by this date. Students will receive their awards in term 4.

Scholastic Book Club

Students will have received the latest Scholastic Book Club Issue and orders can be made on the Scholastic website   (https://www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP) or by downloading the LOOP app.

Orders must be placed by Friday 15th September.

All orders earn our school rewards which are then used to purchase more books for the Resource Hub which are much appreciated by our students. 

Below is a link to Scholastic's Parent Guide to Book Club which you may find useful.

https://www.scholastic.com.au/book-club/book-club-home/

Student Borrowing

Students may borrow books for up to 2 weeks. Please return books by the due dates which can be found in the back of picture books and some other books or on a return slip given to the student when borrowing a book(s).

Each year since 1945 the CBCA has brought children and books together across Australia through Children's Book Week®. During this time schools celebrate books and Australian children's authors and illustrators. 

At Felixstow Primary School we celebrated the occasion with a Book Week costume parade and activities on Friday 25th August. Our students and their families excelled themselves with a wonderful display of costumes and makeup that really brought a variety of much loved book characters to life! 

The basketball team have started off the term strong with their first win against St Joseph’s Hectorville Wildcats 17-4. Well done to all!