It has been great having the children back on site to resume the normal learning program over the last week. The uncertainty around covid restrictions has made planning events, excursions etc. a tricky business. We appreciate your patience with cancellations, postponements and alterations to plans. One of the casualties of the uncertainty is the school concert. We had initially planned for the concert to go ahead either late this term or early next term, but have decided to cancel this due to the logistics of so many people in one place and the ongoing uncertainty. We are hoping that normal assemblies will be allowed to resume soon and that classes will have the opportunity to perform what they have been learning in Music classes there.

During SEL lessons at the moment students are exploring coping strategies for challenging situations. This may include strategies for self-calming, strategies for facing fearful situations or strategies for cooperative work and play. Children are generally resilient, however learning some coping strategies can give children a way of dealing with difficult situations.

I, along with other local principals, recently took part in an information sharing session with Dr Rob Gordon, a clinical psychologist and trauma specialist, who spoke about the stressors that can build up during repeated lockdowns. Stress can accumulate for a number of reasons, including ongoing uncertainty. An important message he gave was that stress can suck the mental and physical energy from us. This can generally only be replaced with fun and/or leisure. It is important to seek out the fun and leisure where we can, as this not only helps us but those around us as well. This may sound easier said than done – but sometimes we may need to just focus on the core needs or ourselves and our families and tend to some of those de-stressing activities.

Thanks again everyone for doing the right thing with the QR code check ins, mask wearing and social distancing around the school. Having such a supporting school community certainly helps with keeping the stress down!

Michael Edwards
Principal

Last week the oldest child in each family took home a letter with the parent’s occupation codes and schooling codes.  If you haven’t yet returned the form, could you please do so tomorrow.

Enjoy your week,
Sandra

Aliya McCormack for always displaying a willingness to challenge and extend her learning.
Bella Somerville for displaying a high level of initiative and responsibility in the classroom.
Jim Kelley for applying new approaches to problem solving in Mathematics.
Vivienne O’Brien for using ideas from authors to improve her writing.
Ben Hardisty for always working hard and doing your best.
Cooper Wall for completing his work at home with his family about ‘What changed at night”.
William Boddenberg for completing lots of doubles and rainbow facts for his maths games board.
Taidhg James Hillier for completing and posting lots of home learning activities during remote learning.
Ewan McInerney for making a sensational transition back to school from home learning.  Epic effort, Ewan!
Esmeralda Haslett for fantastic commitment to all home learning activities each and every day.
Beau Ridgeway for conscientious effort and focus in all learning areas.
Vanessa Williams for creating a fantastic character poem and conveying a strong feeling to her readers.
Claire Walsh for independently making connections between fractions, decimals and percentages.
Jack Gregory for his amazing free verse poem about life on his farm, which included lots of great descriptive language.
Kaitlyn McGlead for working hard to improve your handwriting both at school and at home.
Henry Lerch for always being a hardworking and interested learner as well as our resident dinosaur expert!
Phia Smith-Deans for her various vivid visualisations.
Raffaele Gargiulo for great graphing.
Nate Attwood for being in my online room on time and ready to go EVERY DAY!
Lachy O’Brien for his excellent use of the elements of poetry in his daily poetry writing.
Hugh Mason for his excellent cross-section of a volcano.

Artwork of the week
In Art, Year 2 students explored the subject matter of birds using charcoal, a wool duster and an eraser to make layered drawings. The results were astonishing! With Kirsten in the Art studio, we will be transferring these images onto foam to make a reduction print.

Hot lunch this week is a sausage roll/spinach fetta roll.

Helpers are Jane Murphy & Bron Westbrook.

If any Year 5/6 students who were going skiing would like to order please have your order in at the office by 9am tomorrow morning.

The roster is below.  We still need a few more helpers – if you can assist please let Sandra or Bron Westbrook know.

Year 5/6 Skiing Program
Covid restrictions are impacting on our ability to plan and run excursions, and this is especially true for the ski program.

The current restrictions are:

• Excursions cannot join with another school (we run our ski program with Osbornes Flat PS to help keep transport costs down)
• Anyone 12 years and older require a negative Covid test result no more than 72 hours prior to entering Falls Creek Resort (this is a step too far given that, even if people were tested, weather can postpone a ski day at short notice ... lots of effort getting tested for no skiing)

My fingers are crossed that these measures will ease in the next week or two as there is heaps of snow and a group of people ready to hit the slopes.

Our current plan (if these restrictions ease) is to make our Downhill Day 2 (13^th August) our first day of skiing. Only those students who indicated that they would ski on day two would be able to attend due to limited seating. The parent helpers that I have down for this day are: Phil Edwardes, Leigh Attwood, Sarah McAlister, Matt Lane, Neil Owers, Xavier Pinard (plus 4 teachers). Parents who missed out on this day are prioritised for the other downhill day. Parent volunteers, please let me know if you have your own ski pass and/or skis & boots so we can factor this into the ordering.

All parent helpers need to have a Working with Children check.  Please provide Sandra with a copy of your card.

Downhill Day 1 would then happen on the 20^th August (a larger group) and I would need to check parent availability for this date. Students who hadn’t booked into Day 1 could possibly join on this date as we have two buses for this day.

Cross Country would be held on the 3^rd September not the 27^th August as I had in my email last Thursday – this is due to the availability of ski hire. Unfortunately we will need new permission forms for this day but they will be sent home closer to the date.

All this assumes an easing of restrictions and favourable weather on the planned ski days.

For those who haven’t had a child involved with the ski program before, we keep a close eye on weather forecasts and postpone trips if Alpine weather warnings (Bureau of Meteorology) are in place or if the forecast is for wet or windy conditions (experience has shown that beginner skiers struggle with winds once they get up over 25km/ph sustained). We also use contacts on Falls Creek to guide decisions about postponing these trips. Obviously, we exercise extreme caution when taking a large group of beginning skiers into an Alpine environment. The last thing we want to do is to turn a child off skiing due to extreme weather.

Ski Gear Check:
I would like students to bring their ski clothing into school next Thursday 5^th August to check its suitability for skiing. Children need to bring in their outer layers (jacket, ski pants, gloves) plus goggles. If your child doesn’t have a piece of clothing that they require, the school has a limited supply of gear that they can lend out for the duration of the program and I will note this down if needed.

I will update you as circumstances change and confirm details for our first planned trip via email.

Thanks so much for the offers of assistance from parents to help out on each day. This program could never be offered without volunteers. Don’t hesitate to email me if you have any questions about the ski program and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Earle Mason
Ski Program Co-ordinator.

If you have a child starting at school next year Enrolment packs can be collected from the school office.  If you would like to book a school tour or have any questions please contact Michael or Sandra at school.

QR Check in and Face masks
A reminder that all parents entering the OSHC space must be wearing a face mask and must sign in with the QR code located on the front of the door. This is a directive from the Victorian Government.

Our program
It has been lovely to welcome all our children back after two weeks away in lockdown! We are glad that children have come back to school feeling positive and eager to be back.

During lockdowns we generally have a very quiet program, and this time was no exception. It’s a great opportunity for us as a service to check in with children more and work on our program and space. We have collaborated with children over the last two weeks and it was discovered that children wanted to see more engaging displays in our service, ones that they have a part in making. You’ll notice our NAIDOC week display is still visible as we are yet to complete this with lockdown slightly interrupting us. You may also notice our Olympics display, this is something the children have loved being a part of. We have looked into what sports are played, what countries participate and keeping track of Australia’s progress throughout. It’s become a part of the morning routine to update our medal tally! We love having children engaged and willing to input to our service this way, we will continue to work with children to create displays that we are all proud of.

The weather has been slowly warming and drying up, so we have had more opportunities to be outside, which has been great! We have noticed a great deal of sportsmanship and encouragement amongst the children during our group games and are really proud of the children for championing these qualities in each other.

We will begin to start on our next vacation care program draft in the next few weeks, as always, we love incorporating children and family’s suggestions. If you have something you’d like to see us do in the next school holidays please let us know and we will try and work in into our program!

1^st August – Spencer Pretty

3^rd August – Taidhg James Hillier