Dernancourt School

Hi everyone, I am writing to you as Acting Principal for three weeks as Julie is away at the moment having an amazing holiday with her husband in Egypt. While Julie is away, Shannon Leonards is our Acting Principal and Amy Farquharson is our Acting Wellbeing Leader. We are all working as a team to help support all our children, so please feel free to reach out to any of us with any needs. We have welcomed Laura Toland to P14 to step in on Mondays- Wednesdays while Amy F is acting Wellbeing Leader. 

We also have welcomed Amy Clarke 4 days a week and Janine Preece on a Wednesday into J3 for the rest of the year as Amelia Travis our Year R/1 teacher is on maternity leave. Amelia has now welcomed a beautiful little boy into her family born on Friday 8th May. Congratulations Amelia and welcome to the world, Theo.

I had the privilege yesterday evening to attend the NESCI AGM. This is the organization that contributes financial and moral support of our Pastoral Support Worker program and to Jane Adamson who has filled this role at Dernancourt School for 23 years. Jane is an integral part of our wellbeing support at Dernancourt providing emotional support for students, families and staff, running our much loved breakfast club, Care and Connect group for families of students with additional needs, food and Christmas hampers for families, emergency lunches, running What's the Buzz social skills groups, providing second hand uniform and many more support needs across our school. We really value Jane's support. NESCI passed on their gratitude to the Governing Council and wider Dernancourt community for continuing to support of the Pastoral Support Worker program. NESCI have also run for us in the past pancakes for Mother's and Father's day breakfasts (stay tuned for this again next year) and BBQ help at the End of Year Concert and other school events. They are a near and dear support for us in our school and we warmly thank them in return. 

I would like to say a big thank you to the Parent Committee for all their amazing efforts at running a beautiful stall for our Mother's (and special others) Day. This could not happen without your work and is something that is really valued by our students. I'm hoping all the mums felt very special on Mother's Day. On this note, there was a wrapped present that must've fallen out of someone's bag on the way out of school last Friday. If this might've been your child, please let us know as this gift was handed in at the front office and is still waiting for it's owner.

In other news, we had an unfortunate cancelling of our SAPSASA Netball carnival last week due to predicted bad weather and our PE teacher Kieran Ryall is working on another opportunity for these students. We had a very successful excursion to the Zoo by our Year 3/4 classes which was really well supported by parent volunteers. Thank you to those parents that attended and thankyou to teachers for creating these opportunities. We also had Modbury High School students come to our school to speak to our year 5/6 classes about the experience of transitioning to Secondary School and our R/1/2 team is busy planning an incursion for their students on wildlife. Lot's of great opportunities for our kids.

All the best from Kym (also now known now by the kids as 'Jim', a mix of both Julie and my name or 'pretend Julie' given Julie is away!)

Our journey with our school values is still going strong!

Until our new values are fully defined, we’ll keep using our previous values as our guide for the mid-year reports. We're already thinking ahead about how we’ll showcase these updated values in our end-of-year reports.

We’ve collected lots of great feedback from the students about what our values mean to them and what they look like in action. Drawing from the most shared responses, we’ll create student-friendly versions of our values that everyone can connect with.

Up next, we’ll be asking students to design logos for our three values: respect, kindness, and teamwork.

We’re really looking forward to seeing all the creative ideas our students come up with!

Congratulations to the following students who have completed the 2026 Premier's Reading Challenge.

J2    Ekas, Elias, Anhad, Sophia, Lucas, Hugo, Prisha, Eviana, Gursanjh, Ricardo, Mason & Vincenzo

P8    Evan, Hayley & Liano  

P10    Alija

P12    Alex

P14    Reyansh

The Canteen will be holding a special lunch on Tuesday 26th May, 2026.

You can choose between three different packs:

Croissant Pack 1 - $7.10

Ham and cheese croissant or tomato and cheese croissant with a packet of chips.

Croissant Pack 2 - $5.85

Cheese croissant with packet of chips

Croissant Pack 3 - $4.90

Plain croissant with a packet of chips

Order via the QKr app. Orders due 9am Thursday 21st May, 2026.

SORRY NO LATE ORDERS CAN BE ACCEPTED.

Last Friday, 8th May, 2026 some of our students competed in the SAPSASA cross country. Congratulations to Maci. She placed second. Maci will now compete in the finals later in the term.