Glengarry Primary School
Newsletter

Kaya, Parents & Community Members,

The School Board met for the final time on Monday evening and I once again extend my sincere appreciation for the support and direction this group provides for our school.  During the meeting, the Board scrutinised the new Business Plan (for 2024 to 2026), examined draft Operational Plans for next year in the relevant focus areas and endorsed the proposed school budget for 2024.  The Annual Report for 2023 will be released early next year which shall provide evidence against how the school has progressed in relation to current targets.

While teachers are in the final stages of preparing end of year reports, there has also been a significant amount of work undertaken by staff to ensure our school maintains the expected high standards. I extend my appreciation to all staff involved in the preparation of plans, financial submissions and the draft budget.  This planning takes a significant amount of time, largely undertaken outside normal hours and provides the School Board with the confidence to endorse all documentation.

My sincere thanks to Urszula Helac, Stewart Lillico and Jacinta Stephens, who concluded their respective terms on the School Board this year. While these people are welcome to re-nominate, their current tenure on the Board has certainly been appreciated.

 Peter Meston

Principal

Please click on the attached to view the 2024 Voluntary Contributions and Charges.

The Voluntary Contributions may be paid with your child's 2024 Campion book order.  Please remember that the P&C and Student Wellbeing Officer Contribution payments are per family, not per child.  Please ensure you only pay these contributions once for your family.  The School Voluntary Contribution payment is per child.

How lucky are we as a school!?

Thanks to our current Year 6 families, we now have fixed benches on the oval – already enjoyed by the Running Club.

Massive appreciation to the Sinfield, Delsar, Ferguson, Tanner, Goldie and Morgan families for spending time on the weekend installing. Outstanding effort team!

The Photobook Photos are now available to view and purchase on the schools Web Gallery.

To access the gallery, follow the below procedure:

1.     Go to  www.photohendriksgalleries.com

2.     Click on the Glengarry Primary School logo

3.     Enter password :  kiagw897

If parents have any queries, please contact Customer Service at customerservice@photohendriks.com.au

On Thursday the 16th of November, Rooms 1 and 2 went on an excursion to Kings Park to learn about the Noongar Season of Birak.

In the first session, we used drama to recreate the story of how Noongar people use small fires to help stop larger fires in the season of Birak. We could either act out being a tree, an animal or the fire. We put on an amazing performance for our parent volunteers.

In our groups, we discussed how we can do our part to protect our precious environment. We wrote our ideas onto leaves and decorated them using paint markers. Once we returned to school, we used the leaves to create a beautiful artwork that is now displayed in the front office.

We went on a scavenger hunt through the bush looking for clues to solve a word puzzle. We even got to showcase our knowledge of the Noongar Seasons and culture by singing some songs that we have learned this year.

The highlight of the excursion was the Noongar Dancers. They showed us a dance about emus (yellowbelly) and explained how to play a digeridoo. We learned some Noongar names for animals and about traditional bush tucker and hunting. We had lots of fun learning a Noongar dance about Seagulls, Waves and Rocks. The teachers, parents and students had to keep dancing for the whole song!

We enjoyed our lunch together and then spent some time exploring th Naturescape area. We built dams, found tadpoles and other insects. It was really lovely to cool down and splash in the water with our friends.

We all had a fabulous time on our excursion!

Mrs Rollings and Mrs Macaulay

On Friday 17th November the whole school took part in a Careers dress up day, where all students were invited to come dressed as what they want to be when they grow up. There were some amazing outfits and it was fantastic to see everyone get into the spirit, even the teachers! Pre-Primary Blue and Red put on their assembly item in the morning too, thinking about what they would do if they were grown ups and that you can be anything you dream of if you put your mind to it!

It’s great to see the school value of Compassion being displayed around the school this week.  Compassion literally means ‘to suffer together.’  You are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.  Compassionate acts I have seen this week include:

A student spending time with a younger sister at lunchtime because she needs a bit of extra support this week. Students helping to pack up and sweep away the magic sand and not leaving it for one or two to do.  A student encouraging his friend to see the Wellbeing Officer because he is feeling sad.

Compassion implies two people.  The first syllable, ‘com’ means ‘with’.  We all need someone to stand with us when we are struggling.  Compassion implies sacrifice.  We give up our time to enter into someone else’s world when it is less than perfect.  We journey with the person for a time until we see their suffering relieved, or we see they have the resilience to stand up under the struggle.  I’m quite passionate about compassion!