News
Junior Primary News
We have started to learn about informative texts in Year 1/2. The students used an e-book to find information about dingoes and produce their own texts.
Principal's Report
Ordinary Days
The last couple of weeks have been extremely busy at St Columba’s. Camps, Excursions, Book Week, Photos….It’s been a busy time. Are these things good? Absolutely. Important? Incredibly.
However we now look forward to some wonderful, exciting, unreal ‘Ordinary days’.
The ordinary day is the uninterrupted day of learning where we can work with our students to progress them with their learning.
On a school level, it is absolute ‘go time’ for our teaching and learning programs as we traverse towards the back half of Term 3. We are fortunate that the calendar opens nicely over the next few weeks to ensure we are getting consistency in our literacy and numeracy programs on site.
The more sequenced days we get in a row of uninterrupted learning time, the more likely our children are to experience learning growth.
The ‘ordinary’ days at school are sometimes the most important.
Capital Works Update
As Banjo Patterson so famously wrote when he penned the Man from Snowy River…
"There was movement at the station!"
This week we have had builders on site preparing for the upcoming works. There has been a start on the demolition of the old stone building at the back of the Parish site. This will form part of the site for the relocation of the Sports Shed and our new Toilet Block.
Yesterday the temporary toilets arrived which were delivered by crane into the school site. We will work with the children over the next fortnight to transition our school over to these toilets while our new toilet block is constructed.
2023
Each year it seems earlier and earlier that I begin to cast an eye towards the following year.
As you might be aware Education across Australia is at an interesting crossroad where many schools are experiencing teacher shortages due to the reduced number of graduates coming through. This is amplified by being in a country area. Long story short…. The earlier I advertise positions, the more likely I am to have suitable candidates.
We have experienced a growth in student numbers and will likely run a five-class structure next year which will allow us to continue to teach a high-quality teaching and learning program. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be able to confirm this and it is paramount I have an accurate student numbers so I can allocate our schools resources appropriately.
Resilient Australia Awards
As you may have seen we recently were awarded the State award at the Australian Federal Government’s Resilient Australia Awards for 2022. This was due to the school’s coordination of the SYP First Aid Initiative which provided primary students across the SYP access to First Aid training and a First Aid kit for their family. I’d like to formally thank Katie Hughes for her coordination of this, and Margaret Grainger for her assistance in supporting the administration aspects of this program.
It's going to be impossible to measure it’s impact going forward, but we hope that somewhere at some time a child is able to call on something they have learnt in this space in a critical situation.
Enjoy the weekend ahead.
Scott
RE News
Hello!
This weekend we celebrate Father’s Day, a special day in our calendar where we take the time to remember and celebrate the men in our children’s lives that make a positive impact and help in raising them. Sometimes this isn’t dad, but grandpa, or an uncle, or a family friend. But whoever you are, you matter and what you do matters! Below is a link to a wonderful parent guru, Maggie Dent, giving some advice for dads on ways to make more of an impact. It’s well worth the watch. 😊
https://www.maggiedent.com/blog/maggies-message-for-dads/
Tomorrow we have a Father’s Day breakfast and look forward to seeing some of you there.
I hope you all have a fabulous day on Sunday with your loved ones and leave you with the below message from Pope Francis for Father’s Day:
St Joseph is the model of the educator and the dad, the father.
I, therefore, entrust to his protection those who are fathers.
Best wishes to you on your day!
I ask for you the grace to be ever closer to your children, allow them to grow, but be close, close!
They need you, your presence, your closeness, your love.
May you be for them as St Joseph was: guardians of their growth in age, wisdom and grace.
May you guard them on their journey: be educators and walk with them.
Thank you for all you do for your children: thank you.
May St Joseph bless you and accompany you.
God Bless,
Miriam Honner
WCH Virtual Urgent Care
The Women's and Children's Hospital has a free Child and Adolescent Virtual Urgent Care Service which connects parents with a virtual team of highly skilled emergency doctors and nurses who can assess and provide medical advice for your children, aged between 6 months and up to 18 years.
Attention: If your child’s condition worsens while you are waiting for your virtual consult, please contact triple zero (000) or go to your nearest emergency department.
7 days a week from 9:00am to 9.00pm
How the service works
- Using your phone, tablet or computer, go to https://www.wch.sa.gov.au/patients-visitors/emergencies/virtual-urgent-care and click on the link to register
- A staff member will check your details
- You will be placed in an online waiting room before speaking with an emergency nurse
- The emergency nurse will assess your child. If the nurse thinks your child needs to speak with a doctor you will be placed back in the waiting room until the doctor is free. You might also be referred to another healthcare service
Please note:
We’re here to offer our best medical care for your child.
Being a virtual consultation, there may be certain limitations and in some cases, patients may be better assessed in a face-to-face consultation. Staff will advise you if this is the case for your child.
Before starting a virtual consultation, please understand that:
- To best assess your child, they must be with you and awake in order for us to provide a consultation.
- If your child has a chronic condition, you are encouraged to contact your primary care team for prescriptions, as we do not have access to your child’s medical records to verify the prescribed medication or the dose.
- You will need to contact your GP for clearance certificates to attend childcare after an illness.
Principal's Report
Week 3 and Week 4 have been incredibly busy weeks in our community, as we’ve had camps, excursions, and our programs in full swing. Below gives you a bit of an insight into that time and other events that are coming up.
5/6/7 Camp
Our 5/6/7’s have been down in the states South East this week exploring parts of Penola and Naracoorte and everything in between. One of the highlights of the program was the children visiting the Mary Mackillop Centre and spending time in the Schoolhouse that was originally used by Saint Mary Mackillop in 1867 to educate country children of all backgrounds in Penola.
Many thanks goes to Emily Rowe, Billy Creeper and Alice Johnson for supporting our children on camp and all the organisation that went into it, including the preparation of catering taking into consideration students who have allergies.
Book Week Parade!
Next week is Book Week. On Wednesday we will celebrate with our annual book week parade from 9:15am followed by a morning tea at 10:00am. It will be a great opportunity to gather and mingle and meet some of the many new families at our school. This term alone we have welcomed 13 new children to our school, many of these new families.
Year 3/4 Native Foods Program
I’ve been so impressed by the Native Food program that has been occurring in our Year 3/4 class led by Angela Grigoras-Oates and Jo Minks. The children have been learning all about cooking through the lens of the geography of the Yorke Peninsula and the connection with the Narungga people. It’s been so good for the children to see the connection to the land, and also learning about the safety and
Reporting the Harm of Children and Young People
Each year, by law we are to communicate the process we follow for the Reporting of Harm of Children and Young people. Employees and volunteers of CESA are mandated reporters under the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017. All mandated reporters must make a notification to the Child Abuse Report Line when they suspect a child or young person has been harmed or is at risk of harm. Mandated reporters can use the online reporting system to report suspected harm or risk of harm.
It's a responsibility the school takes very seriously. For further information please contact me.
Attendance
I can absolutely understand the complexities around attendance now. On one hand, parents are trying to do the right thing by keeping children with any semblance of a cold at home. We’re very appreciative of this. On the other hand, we are concerned about some students having extended periods of time away from school.
As I write this, my own son is having the week off after contracting a virus over the weekend.
It’s almost an impossible balance to find. In these unique times though where our children are spending more time at home with colds, coughs and viruses then ever before, as families we need to limit the other times where our children might be away.
Missing big chunks of literacy and numeracy programs can be challenging to make up in the busyness of the curriculum.
NAPLAN Results
Preliminary results are coming through for NAPLAN and as soon as we have the official printouts we will pop them home to parents.
As a school we are incredibly pleased with our growth as a whole. NAPLAN results only form a small part of the data picture and sit alongside Initial Lit Data, Running Records, PAT results as a way we can form a data picture as a school.
Not only does this data help us form an individual picture of each child’s growth, but we are able to compare these results year upon year to ensure our programs are hitting the mark.
What’s going on with the Build?
This will be a fortnightly update in each newsletter, that will sit outside of the Principal’s report.
There has been a small delay in the builders from Pascale taking site possession, but we expect this to happen in the next fortnight. After that we expect things to happen reasonably quickly.
Again, when I know more, you’ll know more.
Kind Regards,
Scott March
Vietnam Veterans' Day
Our students attended the Vietnam Veterans' Day service at the Yorketown RSL Club this morning. The children laid a book down on the memorial in rememberance of those who served. This book will now become a part of the school library for all students to read.
Library News
RE News
Hello!
What a busy couple of weeks we have had! It’s been so good seeing the students so engaged with their learning and producing some great work. What was particularly awesome to see was their engagement with the mass we had celebrating St Mary MacKillop. Their knowledge around who she was and what she achieved was impressive and reflects the time and care taken by the teachers to make meaningful and comprehensive lessons.
MITIOG started last week and will continue until the end of term. You may find your child coming home and asking questions or being more curious, especially for those students in the middle to upper primary. This is very normal and is a great opportunity to have these discussions with your children. Parents are the first educators of their children and it’s important that children know that talking about and asking questions in a safe, welcoming environment is ok. To know how much information to give your child, I always say that you give a small snippet and if they ask for more information, you give them a bit more, and keep going until they are satisfied with the answer. This way, you are not overwhelming your child with information they are not ready for or can’t comprehend. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any concerns or questions.
SAVE THE DATE! Attention all Dads/significant males! We will be holding a Father’s Day breakfast on Friday the 2nd of September before school. We would like to hold this event to recognise the important role and contribution our dads and significant men make in the lives of our kids. This will be a great opportunity for you to come in and catch up with the other dads/men and have the chance to see your child’s classroom and their work. More information to come.
Have a great rest of the week!
Miriam
Middle Primary News
This term the Year 3/4 class has been working with Miss Giles to develop a better understanding of shape and perspective. As a class they have been learning how to create pieces of art using different perspectives. The students have learnt that objects can be drawn smaller when depicting objects that are further away. Here are some examples of their latest one point perspective drawings.
