Dear families & friends

As we start the last week of term 3 everyone is getting ready for learning expo and getting excited for the upcoming holidays. We have a few things on this week so make sure you check the week 10 agenda sent out last week and later in the newsletter to keep track of the week! 

PAT (Progressive Acheivement Testing) 

Over the last couple of weeks all students in year 1 to 6 have been undertaking our annual PAT assessments in reading comprehension and Mathematics. These are the most useful assessments for teachers as we have instant results and feedback about how students have improved over the year and where we need to focus our learning program as we plan forward. We have been very pleased to see the progress made by students over the year and have started sharing some of this with students directly. We still have a handful of students that need to complete the testing this week before we look at the data as a whole.

EMS

We have now moved over to the new EMS (Electronic Management System). It has been a lot of training, meetings and work load, in particular for Gillian, over the last few weeks. 

We can see there will be many things that will be streamlined on the new system and it is much more user friendly than the older system, however there is bit more to do as we learn to do everything in a different way and work through any teething problems.

Playgroup

We have had strong interest already with the reopening of our playgroup, with several families both our own families and local families that have seen advertising making queries and many already committed to attending. We are excited to be able to provide this opportunity to our local families again starting in Week 1 next term every Thursday from 9 to 10.30am.

If you have any family or friends with children aged 0 to 4 make sure you let them know to come along and have some fun and get to know other local families. 

We look forward to seeing many of you over the week and wish you all a safe holiday. Term 4 starts on Monday 14th October, please see some important dates for term 4 at the end of the newsletter.  

Cheers Skye 😊

Currently school is going through a major data change and all Administration and Finance programs are changing to EMS (Education Management System). So, I ask for your patience as everything I have been doing for 22 years has changed.

It is vital that email addresses are kept up to date as all receipts will now be automatically emailed to you. Attendance will be recorded differently so it is very important that you report attendance via the APP Audiri in the Attendance tile rather than emailing, texting the mobile phone or through Seesaw.

Once the program is up and running there may be an automatic email or SMS system but we will keep you updated.

So if I’m looking a bit confused its probably because I am J

I am excited about the positive changes that have been made.

Thank you

Gillian

We are asking for volunteers to listen to children read in the classrooms this term and next, if you are interested please see Di or Gillian and we will add your name to the list. We will be providing some training to support you in this role at one of our morning teas (dates tbc). 

If you are not already a volunteer, we will happily help you to get your clearances and complete your application process so that you can work with our children. Any questions please see either Di or Gillian.

Please come along to our breakfast club and enjoy some warm toast or a treat if it is one of our special breakfast theme days.

A thank you to Claire (Adelaide's mum) for helping out every Monday and to Kerrie (Mark's mum) for the freshly baked bread on Thursday.

The students have eaten their way through the vegemite that was kindly donated by some of our families, so we are asking again for some more to see us through to the end of the year. if you are able to donate a jar, please give it to Kelly or Gillian.

Breakfast Club is open from 8.30am to 8.50am, Monday to Friday in the OSHC kitchen. All students and their families are welcome, just drop on by (there is no need to book a place). 

Breakfast may include:

Toast and various spreads

Fruit

Cereal

Yoghurt

Milk

Tea/Coffee (for adults)

It's a great opportunity to have a bite to eat and socialise with other students/families. 

Eggy breakfast is back again and will be taking place on Wednesday morning of the last week of term (25th September), starting at 8.30 am until 9am. All students and their families are welcome. This time we are kindly asking for a gold goin donation, the money raised will go towards an end of year eggstravaganza breakfast!

Breakfast options are:

Fried egg in toast

French Toast (Eggy Bread)

With your choice of the following; tomato sauce, BBQ sauce or cinnamon sugar.

So please come and start your day with the sunny side up! 

Thank you to everyone who had a sausage sizzle, cup cake or icy pole at sports day, together we raised $657. This money is going towards saving our OSHC.

We would like to say a special thank you to Kerrie (Mark's mum) for baking the team coloured cupcakes, Daniel (Tom & Eliza's dad) for donating the icy poles, Amanda (Zahara & Zofia's mum) for helping out on the BBQ and Carmelina (Ricky, Tori & Stella's mum) for helping with the Breakfast Club.

Book Borrowing & Returns

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. 

Scholastic Book Club

Thank you to the students who ordered books from Issue 6, you have earned reward points for the library to purchase new books from Scholastic.