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INNAR Telephone: Fax: Address:

03 5163 1362 03 5163 1638 30 Main Street, Yinnar 3869

Email: Web Address: Newsletter

[email protected] www.yinnarps.vic.edu.au No 12 May 5th 2016

CALENDAR AND REMINDERS Friday 6th May Saturday 7th May Monday 9th May Tuesday 10th May to Thursday 12th May Friday 13th May Monday 16th May – Friday 20th May Wednesday 18th May Sunday 22nd May Thursday 26th May Thursday 23rd June

Mother’s Day Stall St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School Open Day; 10am – 6pm Yinnar & District Cross Country NAPLAN – Grades 3 & 5 Only Yinnar & District Soccer Grade 5/6 Canberra Camp Lavalla Twilight Open Campus at St Paul’s Traralgon; 4.30pm Working Bee and BBQ Churchill Kurnai Year 7 Open Door Evening Session One; 4pm – 4.30pm Session Two; 7pm – 7.30pm School Closure Day (No School)

Dear Parents, Well, the weeks are flying by and I am pleased to see the students coming straight into class in the morning ready and organised to start their learning. This regular morning routine sets the tone and expectations for the learning for the day. I have noticed a few stragglers coming only a few minutes late in the morning and ask that you try to be here ready to start learning, in the classroom, as soon as the bell goes. We certainly don’t want this to creep into bad habits with the colder months approaching. Schools, like homes, are busy places, and unfortunately we have been falling short on our end, with our communication to you about activities and school events. We are working on giving you more advance notice when communicating information. I thank those parents who have given us constructive feedback in this area. This partnership approach ensures that we have the student’s best interest at heart. By now you should have received my letter about our trial of a communication app, called skoolbag. This app was successfully used by many schools at the beginning of the year for efficient and effective notification to parents in the emergency management situations. Schools have also used this app, and others like it, to

provide up to date alerts and information. If you haven’t had the chance yet, please download our schools app and we can start to use this to communicate. We have subscribed for 12 months, as a trial. It is free for you to download and use and will not replace our other existing forms of communication. We are also trying to use our website to upload permission notes for events. Any other ideas on enhancing and streamlining our communication is most welcomed. Earlier this term, our leadership team met for a planning day with an external facilitator, Noelle Burdekin. Noelle’s services were provided at no cost to the school, as a follow on from a 2015 High Performing School Cultures project. The day was jam packed and very valuable. We started the day unpacking our 2015 NAPLAN Numeracy data, drilling right down to the question level. This gave us a much clearer picture of where our students are overall in specific areas of Mathematics, our schools programming strengths and areas to further explore. Then we spent a considerable amount of time pulling apart the annual implementation plan (our key improvement strategies for 2016) to create a clear timeline to keep us moving and improving this year. We have our Mother’s Day stall on Friday and once again a small band of unbelievably committed mums

are providing a wonderful experience for our children. To pick a gift for mum or a carer is a special thing for many children and it’s great that they have the opportunity to do so. All gifts are well worth their price tag of between 50 cents and $7. If the students can have their money in a purse or wallet or zip lock bag, rather than loose, that would be great. 00. Next week is NAPLAN. Our grade 3 and 5 children will be doing the very best they can over the three days of testing. If you don’t want your child to sit the NAPLAN tests for any reason you have to let me know- otherwise we expect all children to participate. Over the last four years our school has performed very well in NAPLAN, as you would have seen from the Annual Report attachment last week. However, it is far from being the be all and end all in terms of telling us where your child is at as a learner. For example, your child could perform very well in NAPLAN in terms of their knowledge, but still be not proficient in being an independent learner, taking risks and showing resourcefulness and resilience. The other issue with NAPLAN is that, by necessity of the number of children sitting it, it is a multiple choice test. This is the least accurate testing method and as a result almost one third of children will do better or worse on the day than they were capable of. So- in a few months from now, when you receive your NAPLAN data, I still advise you to have a quick chat to your child’s teacher as to their accuracy. It will be interesting to see how they go and of course we all wish them the very best of luck- particularly our grade 3 children, who will never have sat such a formal test before. This term our School council Buildings and grounds subcommittee has planned a Working Bee for Sunday May 22nd. The main focus of this working bee will be to spread a massive amount of much needed soft fall, underneath all our adventure play equipment. Our soft fall level has worn away over time. We really need your help to get this done as quickly as possible. Many hands make light work, and we will feed you with a delicious barbeque lunch for your efforts. If your can only come for a short time, that will certainly be appreciated. If you would like to help, but that Sunday doesn’t suit you, let us know at the office so that we can show you what needs to be done and you can assist when you have the time. This is very important for the safe play areas of our children.

GRACE OUTDOOR AWARDS At Yinnar Primary School we value our Core ValuesGrowth Mindset, Respect, Aim High, Curiosity and Enthusiasm. Thankyou to the following students for displaying one of these Core Values out in the playground: Lottie, Rose, Olivia, Stella, Elwood, Bobby, Jasper, Will and Daniel. We hope you enjoyed your Prize from the GRACE Lucky Dip Box. REMINDER ALL Canberra Camp forms should now be returned to the office. Full payment of $505 is due NO later than Tuesday 10th May. Any students who have been successful in making it to the next round of Cross Country, your permission slips and money needs to be returned to the office by this Friday 6th May. CROSS COUNTRY On Monday 2nd of May, students from the 3 – 6 classes competed in the House Cross Country Championships. The effort from all students was fantastic and there were some very close finishes. Congratulations to Red House, the eventual champions on the day after some hard fought competition. Well done and best of luck to the following students who have qualified for the Yinnar & District Cross Country Championships on Monday 9th of May to be held in Churchill: Sophie T, Mia S, Beth D, Nina F, Mia C, Sienna J, Luke C, Clancy M, Huntar L, Oliver M, Hudson M, Harry B, Sienna C, Elissa W, Ella M, Katelyn M, Ashleigh M, Jess W, Mack R, Parker M, Hayden D, Ben B, Daniel M, Claire I, Charlotte K, Gracie K, Amy K, Tilly W, Tamsyn W, Tom H, Lachie D, Archie M, Brad S, Jack D and Harri M As always, we are incredibly grateful to all the parents who assisted on the day. A big thank you from the staff and students! LAVALLA INFORMATION PACKS We currently have LaValla Information packs for any families of year 6 students who are going into year 7 that might be interested; they can be collected from the office.

Enjoy your week,

Tamina. Harry F LEARNERS OF THE WEEK Congratulations to our Learners of the Week: P/1N- Isla, 1/2W- Lexis , 2G- Oliver, 3/4 W- Henry, 5/6S- Ashleigh and 5/6T- Charlotte. Well done and keep up the great work.

Alyson

Cinta

Yinnar Primary School Working Bee and BBQ

Dear Parents and Carers, We are holding a working bee and BBQ on Sunday the 22nd of May from 9:30am to 1:00pm. Our beloved school grounds bear the brunt of all that childhood energy and enthusiasm and could do with a helping hand! We have a few jobs for the day to improve safety and generally spruce up the grounds. These include; - spreading soft fall mulch under climbing equipment - spreading soil around footy goal posts - repairs to wooden and metal play equipment - concrete grinding to remove trip hazards - general gardening and tidy up. There will be something everyone can do! Kick-off is at 9:30am finishing with a BBQ lunch at 1:00pm but come when you can and stay for as long or as little as you can, every bit helps. BYO tools if you have them (shovels, rakes, mulch forks, wheelbarrows, power tools, gardening equipment, gloves etc.). If anyone has earth/mulch moving equipment that would be a big help. Donations of building materials, wood etc, mulch or soil would also be greatly appreciated. So come along, have some fun and help improve the school.

Looking forward to seeing you there, Members of School Council Buildings and Grounds Committee -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------To help with planning and catering please return this slip to school by the 19th of May. I/we ______________ can make it and would like to help with general _ carpentry _ metal work _ concrete grinding _ gardening _ earth moving _ other __________ I/we ___________ can't make it to the working bee but can help with ______ at another time and can be contacted on _______________.

Special dietary requirements _______.

We do not endorse or recommend any one product for Head Lice, but we found some interesting information on the KP24 website which you may find helpful and informative.

Mother’s Day Stall Friday 6 May, 2016 th

Lots of Lovely Gifts for Mum From 50 cents To $7.00