17 30th of Oct 2014 BIKE ED INSIDE... ............................................. *Health Centre Reminders *Hair Lice *Mobile Phone Donations *Uniform *Parent Link *Library News *Cyber Safety *Grade Prep Swimming *Grade 4 CERES *Prep Swimming *School Banking Competition *Seals Swimming Vacancies *Community News *Returning to P.G 2015 This term the Grade 4’s have been participating in the Bike Ed Program. The program develops the students understanding with not only the skills required to be a competent cyclists but the necessary rules and safest options whilst cycling on the paths and roads. Students are learning how to approach and use different intersections such as roundabouts and how to signal to let other drivers know the direction that they are heading. Scanning is the skill that the students are really focussing on during the Bike Ed program. This involves listening and looking in all directions to see if there are any changes ahead such as oncoming vehicles, pedestrians, road signs or possible hazards. They are learning that while they may have right of way while riding on the footpath or the road they must make that eye contact with others to ensure that they know they are being seen. While some of the grade 4s have been on their local footpath and road ride, others are fairly excited about doing this in a group with their peers. Make sure you look out for the Grade 4s riding on the roads! Melissa Pizzul PAGE 2-3 Walk to School Month PAGE 4-6 Click competition DATES TO REMEMBER Thurs 30th Oct - Grade 1 camp night Fri 31st Oct - First Prep Transition Mon 3rd Nov - Curriculum Day, Student Free Tues 4th Nov - Melbourne Cup Day - Student Free Thurs 6th Nov - Grade 2 Sleepover Fri 7th Nov - Grade 1 spit the pip incursion - 1CF, 1KU, 1BA Tues 11th Nov - Grade 1 spit the pip incursion - 1RC, 1KC,1SC Mon 17th Nov - Grade 6 Graduation ticket payment due Tues 18th Nov - Grade 1 spit the pip incursion - 1FL, 1JB, 1KE Mon 24th Nov - Grade Prep ACMI Excursion PBR, PCL, PJV Tues 25th Nov - Grade Prep ACMI Excursion PAH, PCC,PEC Wed 26th Nov - Grade Prep ACMI Excursion PMM, PJA, PSK Wed 10th Dec - Christmas Concert Tues 17 Dec - Grade 6 Graduation Dear Parents, and Friends of Parkwood Green PS, At the moment we are half way through the preps having their first swimming experience with our school. I watch as they move to the pool fully dressed with their Parkwood Green gold swim caps proudly perched on their heads. Parents your children are doing so well in the water you should feel very proud of their independence, confidence and willingness to try what might be a new skill. Learning to swim is life-saving so congratulations for choosing to have your child involved. If you want their skill to continue to improve then private lessons will assist. Our Somers Campers This year we have participated in our first Somers Camping experience. The camp takes children from schools within our local Network of schools. Our children are mixed with others who are attending, and they are away for eight days. Sunday was the Visitors Day for the families and it can be a difficult day for children. But if they can manage the goodbye then it is not long before they are home and this is such an important separation lesson. The camp offers a variety of activities focussed on water-leisure skills, adventure activities and development of personal qualities. We have two teachers accompanying the children and they are in daily contact with me. I am very proud of the children and teachers attending. They again have been able to demonstrate why Parkwood Green is an excellent school. Enrolments for 2015 The coming year sees the benefits of our school’s enrolment policy introduced in 2013. In 2015 we will be ‘pulling’ our enrolment numbers back to the mid 1200’s. So whilst we still will be the biggest primary school in Victoria we will be more manageable at this new figure. As a result of this policy, children will be seeking enrolment at our neighbouring schools, which will possibly be their local school. Parent choice for enrolment will continue to be acknowledged, as it has been in the past at Parkwood Green Primary School. If you haven’t enrolled your prep yet, better get onto it! Transition sessions start this Friday, October 31st. Play on the Oval During the breaks children often like to play soccer on the oval. Whilst this is a great physical and social activity sometimes the children play as if it is the last competition they will ever be involved in. Competitive spirit, don’t get me wrong we all need this, but here at school we need to moderate this type of win at all costs playing. I am asking teachers to actively intervene if children are playing too competitively or in an unfair manner. Could I ask that you speak with your children about play that is appropriate in a school yard given there are many other children to consider. Bike Ed for Year 4 students Over the last weeks the Year 4 students have been involved in Bike Ed. I have been on the footpath ride with the groups twice and I must say I am impressed with their skill and attention to safety. Riding outside of the school requires that students are vigilant, attentive to the road and oncoming traffic as well as a responsible member of the group giving instructions to those behind them. As a result of the training they will receive their ‘Bike Licence’ which signals that they have had some training in the fundamentals of safe riding without an adult. Year 4 is a great age for Bike Ed as their peripheral vision is developing and they are able to take on the responsibility of riding within the general rules of safety. Look for the Licence when it comes home! Curriculum Day November 3rd Just a reminder that this coming MONDAY is a Curriculum Day for Parkwood Green PS. No students are to attend on this day. Teachers will be working offsite on this day. Mr Allibon the Senior Sub-School Principal will be at school, as I am on a school review at an inner city school. Well that’s about it from me. Until we meet in person, Yours sincerely Kerri J Simpson Your Principal HEALTH CENTRE REMINDERS To our Parkwood Green community, Just a couple of reminders from the Health Centre for Term 4. Hayfever has already begun, if your child suffers from this, ensure that the Health Centre has been given the student’s own supply of antihistamine with a signed medication authority form please. Sunsmart term - a HAT is required to play outside. Sunscreen is in every classroom if you forget at home. WATER is so important for the student’s - Please ensure your child has their own drink bottle everyday filled with fresh water. The students are very active in their school day and de-hydrate very quickly. Walk to School October It has been very pleasing to see many more children and parents walking, riding and scooting to school. Let’s hope all those children are getting their raffle tickets ready for the draw for the bikes on Friday. To go along with the Walk to School October celebration we offered fresh fruit to all students on Tuesday of this week. Keep up the good walking everyone; 10,000 steps a day is the fitness goal I believe. Excellence & Opportunity Cont next page.. | PAGE 2 RE- Hair Lice UNIFORM SALE Just a reminder about checking your children’s hair - we are trying to provide classroom hair checks as often as possible. This occurs when we have been notified of hair lice in the class. If you could routinely check the hair at home at least once a week it will help eradicate this problem. Also it would help to keep the students at school. If students are found to have live lice, they are sent home. The school will be holding a second-hand uniform sale on Friday, 31st October, 2014 at 2:45pm until 3:20pm. This will be held outside the Learning Centre. If it is raining it will be held in the Learning Centre. Items to be sold include second-hand clothes (various sizes). All second-hand clothing items - $5.00 ALL ITEMS WILL BE SOLD AS CASH ONLY Regards, Jocelyn, your school nurse PARKWOOD GREEN PARENT LINK A group for parents/guardians of students with special needs. MOBILE PHONE DONATIONS By donating your old mobile phones you are helping Melbourne zoo raise money that directly helps wild gorillas. One of the biggest threats to gorillas is the illegal mining of coltan, a mineral used in mobile phones. The mining of coltan within the Congo River Basin is contributing to the rate of poaching of mountain gorillas at an alarmingly fast rate. Whilst efforts are being made to tackle this issue, the majority of the world's known coltan reserves are found within Africa, and mining within gorilla habitat continues. Recycling lessens the demand for coltan and each phone you donate supports rangers in the Democratic Republic of Congo who risk their lives to protect wild gorillas. PLEASE CONTINUE TO COLLECT AND DONATE AS MANY PHONES AS POSSIBLE. The Library Team WALK TO SCHOOL MONTH The Walk To School initiative encourages students and their families to walk to and from school, building healthy habits for life. On Tuesday the 28th of October, all students were offered a piece of fresh fruit at Parkwood Green Primary School to encourage our students to build their own healthy habits for life. Are you a parent or guardian of a child with special needs? You are invited to join us in sharing some experiences, strategies, ideas, links and information in a positive group environment. On Thursdays at 2:30pm (session 6). Meeting held in Room 36. If you are not able to attend this meeting and are interested in being involved please email Jenny Valenzuela on [email protected] LIBRARY NEWS Book Fair Wrap Up Towards the end of last term, we ran a very successful Lamont Book Fair. Thanks to the generosity of our school community, $12, 549 worth of books were purchased. As we receive 30% commission, we will now have $3,764 to spend on beautiful new books for the Library. Thank-you for your continued support, The Library Team Happy Reading! CYBER SAFETY Cyber safety is an important issue for young children. At primary school age and in many cases before they come to school they are already able to access their favourite websites, play games and use some social media or apps with parent permission. The winners of the two bicycles will be announced at the Whole School Assembly this Friday. At Parkwood Green we value the importance of Cyber safety very highly. We have access to many forms of electronic devices including IPads and Netbooks. This week we were lucky to receive over 400 cyber-smart/ cyberbullying showbags from local Labor MP Natalie Hutchins to help further educate our students. Thank you Natalie. HAPPY LAST WEEK OF OUR WALK TO SCHOOL MONTH! Wellbeing Officer, Walk To School Month ends this week - Well done to all who participated! Craig Thompson Administration Officer, Madison Jackson parkwoodgreen.com | PAGE 3 GRADE 4 CERES EXCURSION CLICK COMPETITION rd On the 23 of October, the Grade 4s went to CERES. CERES is a place where they recycle and try to reduce the amount of waste going into landfill. Some activities that we did were Waste Timeline, ‘In the Bin’, Food Waste and Organic Gardening. In the Waste Timeline activity, we learnt how long it took for different waste products to break down. Like a glass bottle took 10,000 years to break down! In the Food Waste activity, we learnt that many people don’t realize how much food they put in the waste bin every week. We were very shocked by the result! Our next activity was the Energy Efficient Housing, where we learnt about different ways we could use energy around the house. Something interesting that we learnt was that instead of using the air conditioner or heater, we could open the windows, wear appropriate clothing or use a fan to keep cool. To keep the heat in, we could have a double-glassed window, have these things under the door or window so that cold air does not come in or wear more clothing. Next was the Organic Gardening. We went into a garden full of plants, and were given an activity to investigate. There was also a worm farm where we learnt a lot of facts about how worms help the gardens. We were taught many different facts about things around the garden. Something interesting we learnt was that the small pieces of wood or plants on the ground acted as a sponge, which absorbs the water in the soil. Overall we had an awesome day at CERES and we hope we can come again some day! Written by Sarah Law 4IB and Amelia Walker 4DA The theme for the Photography Competition was: Culture and Family The guidelines for this competition were: •Students could submit no more than one piece of work for the topic. •All work had to be original and photographed in 2014. •The Entrant’s name had to be placed on the back of the work. •The final date for the submission was on Wednesday September 10th 2014. •Work submitted had to be as a digital file (jpeg) and printed on A4 photographic paper to a box in the General Office. The winners of the competition are: 1st Place - Abigail T, 5AP 2nd Place - Tahlia J, 5AP 3rd Place - Imarsha P, 5NW Congratulations to these people who showed outstanding photography skills. Prizes will be awarded at the next Whole School Assembly on the 14th of November. GRADE PREP SWIMMING During weeks 3 and 4, Prep students were involved in swimming lessons. All of the children were excited to wear their new swimming caps. The students learnt new swimming techniques, which is a crucial life skill that we would want all of our children to become confident in. The children demonstrated great independence in their ability to get dressed and take care of their belongings. Well done to all students that participated in the swimming program. Sarah Kennedy The Winning Image: By Abigail T, 5AP parkwoodgreen.com | PAGE 4 The Day The Gorilla Came Looking For Mobile Phones At Our Assembly SEALS SWIMMING VACANCIES… 9/10yr 11yr 12yr Girls Born 2005/6 Boys Born 2004 Girls Born 2003 We currently have vacancies in the above age groups in the Seals Early Morning Swimming Program. Seals Early Morning Swimming is held on Thursday mornings from 7:30am to 8:30am. Please collect an expression of interest form from the front office if you are interested and fill it out. All forms are to be returned to Kellie Neil. (This is not a learn to swim program) parkwoodgreen.com | PAGE 5 parkwoodgreen.com | PAGE 6 COMMUNITY NEWS! WORLD 4 KIDS Dear Parents, World4kids will be offering a curriculum day care program on Monday 3rd of November for the families that need this assistance. Please contact world4kids Out School Care on 0426 211 213 if you need more information regarding this day. Kind regards, Rosa Smit | Centre Manager GREENAID Dear Parents, Just a reminder that 116 boxes remain outstanding for the Greenaid fundraiser. Potentially we are liable for $8352.00. Please return any unsold boxes and/or money immediately. Administration Officer, SCHOOL COUNCIL REPORT October Meeting 2014. Hello everyone, It is that time again to update you with what’s happening at School Council. Last Monday evening we had another great meeting, only 2 more to take place for 2014! In the Principal’s report Kerri shared with us the results of the Parent Survey for 2014 with councillors. Focus groups to be run by Kellie Neil (Community Liaison Officer) will provide additional feedback. The Principal also spoke about gave us an trialling a Learning Expo to report to parents in Term 4. here. This could take place in week 9 in Term 4. Further information will be forwarded in the coming weeks. Planning and budgeting for 2015 is about to take place. Parents and teachers were invited to participate in an Online Survey for community input into the school directions. Curriculum Action teams have commenced discussions about Cont next column... Excellence & Opportunity what worked well this year, along with changes. Our school will be up for a School Review in 2015. From this there will be a new Strategic Plan developed and this will provide the school with a clear direction for a further 3 years. Kerri also informed us about the new program called ‘Catching on Early‘. Craig Thompson, our Student Wellbeing Officer, and our Social Worker, Natasha Divine, will be running Parent information sessions about this. Finance is always kept busy, with Josie absent we heard from our Business Manager Dianne Swan. Book lists were a hot topic for 2015. Dianne was able to show us an example pack for each year level. A new provider will be providing Booklist items for Parkwood Green in 2015. It’s full steam ahead to have lists printed and ready to hand out to the PG community in the next few weeks. Thanks to the many families who purchased books from the Book Fair. It’s really pleasing to hear how successful the Fair was, I saw many excited students very happy with their books. Thanks to everyone who helped to make this a success! Our school now has over $4000.00 to spend on more library books for you all to enjoy! Education Committee, with David Allibon, leading have been looking at our Student’s Dress Code. Other areas the committee will be working on is Assessment and Reporting, Working Bees, Communication and Transition from one grade to another. As leader of Community Links I gave a report on the areas we have been attending too. At our last meeting we sought feedback regarding the 10 Year Anniversary held last month at the Luxor. We discussed the food, slide show, preparation and general comments from the night. This feedback will be important for any future milestones we have here at PG! Most of the School Council Members that attended agreed that it was a great night to catch up with past staff and friends. School uniforms were discussed and along with the Education committee will be looking at different aspects in 2015. However there are NO changes to the uniform. Our Parent/ Volunteer Morning Tea is only around the corner too. Please pencil in the date in your diaries now , as we would love to see you there. This is to be Monday 8th December 11.00am (date is also on the parent calendar). I will be looking forward to this as it’s a great opportunity to thank many of you for your help throughout the year. Simon Parker reported the Kitchen Garden is still to be developed. It will include a five Kitchen workspaces and open shelving. I can’t wait to see this finished, I think it will be fantastic ! The bulb planting was a huge success and the bulbs are coming up. Won’t be long till we see some colour around soon. The next working bee is Friday November 14th 4-6pm. Another date to add to your diaries. The Grounds team are looking at drip systems in gardens around our great school too. Another great meeting with fellow School Councillors. Next Meeting: Monday 17th November @ 7pm. All welcome ! Fiona Hyett School Council President. | PAGE 7 PAH - Zane Mckenzie PBR - Aarya Sholapurkar PCC - Taliah Baker PCL - Yumin Jayasinghe, Aiden Roberston & Zain Ahmed. PEC - Sarah Tadday PJA - Alexander Vetere PJV - Sienna Moore & Xavier Psaila PMM - Fizza Syeda PSK - Lesha Smith 1CF - Jordan Cesar 1FL - Sienna Izak 1JB - Isaiah Lee Wen 1KC - Angelina Pacheco & Xavier Pardillo 1KE - Eden Aualli 1KU - Oliver Gray 1SC - Izaiah Timu 2AH - Brianna Sant 2BC - Luke LaRocca 2FC - Leyla Bozok & Aaron Spaseski 2JM - Riley Cassar 2SP - Charlie Mcfarlane 2TK - Koray Cagla 2TM - Kavian Rahmani 2YL - Ava Nicolle 3AP - Tayissa Hermence, Samuel Saad & Caysha O'Brien 3BM - Meagan Mostert 3BZ - Cain Lawless 3HD - Ragav Bramendran 3KH - Riley Willis 3MB - Chanel Calleja and Gary Barbaro 3MG - Michael Larizza & Xavier Bennett 4CT - Nathan Cassidy-Natano & Jaksen Luhm 4DA - Max Talia 4IB - Shaun Stockman 4JM - Dante Pisani & Katie Fyssarakis 4KL - Brodie Lee 4MP - Anwar Elissa & Jorja Novak 4SS - Mason Bosevski & Emily Hughes 4TL - Elijah Mares & Bhargav Venu Shastry 5GD - Emily Young & Brendon Mifsud 5JP - Sarah Wood 5KC - Chanelle Baldevia & Indiana Grant 5LC - Nathan Branagan 5NW - Emily Kerbage 5SB - Gideon Lopez 6CL - Priya Nalavade 6JS - Odin Agatanovic 6KJ - Athan Christopher 6KW - Omkar Bhavsar & Amanda Phillips 6ML - Emily Orevic & Alexis Schembri 6RM - Fahmi Adem 6ST - Tina Kogioumtzis Music - 3BZ, 1CF & 1KE Art - 4SS, 3AP & 3BZ Library Bookworm - 1JB, PAH, 3BM, 5AP & 6ML PE- 5JP & 5LC
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