NOVEMBER 16th

REMEMBRANCE DAY

On Monday 13th November, our school held a special Remembrance Day ceremony in the Sue Goodall building. Greg Oswald led the ceremony with the help of a number of Grade 6 leaders and our students were very respectful throughout the ceremony. Thank you to all the staff and students who purchased and wore poppies to support our fallen sol-diers and their families.

CAMPS This week is a big week for our Grade 3&4 students who are on camp. The Grade 4s left on Monday and from all accounts the children have had an amazing time despite the high temperatures. On Tuesday night, Miss Poulsen commented to me that the children had been amazing and had had a ‘blast.’ Yesterday the Grade 3 children departed school at 9:30am and will have lunch with the Grade 4s before they return to school. I sincerely thank our staff and the assisting parents who have given up time away from their families to provide an amazing opportunity for our students. It is a huge responsibility looking after a large group of chil-dren 24 hours of the day. Teachers spend many hours planning and preparing for camps and I sincerely thank our Grade 3/4 team for this additional work. Contrary to popular belief, teachers are not paid any extra for the responsibility of taking students on camp! PREP TRANSITION – SPECIALIST SESSIONS On Tuesday 14th November, the 2018 prep students joined us for some specialist lessons. The children had a wonderful time in PE, Art, Per-forming Arts and Science. The children also participated in fun class-room activities. It was great to see so many happy faces and the children thoroughly enjoyed the range of activities. CFA BURNOFF Many thanks to Ben Draffin from The Basin CFA and his fellow fire-fighters who burnt off our large pile of branches and foliage on Tues-day night in the bottom corner of the junior side playground. We really appreciate our community groups, especially our connection with the CFA as several members have children at this school. CHILDREN’S SNACKS It is wonderful to see the healthy nutritious foods the children are bringing to school as part of their brain food snacks. Fresh fruit, cel-ery and carrot snacks, etc. are commonplace and choices like this re-duce the number of wrappers we find outside in the playground. Visi-tors to our school including relief teachers who work in a number of schools, often comment on the cleanliness of our school grounds.

November 15—17th Gr 3 Camp 22nd Gr 1 Slime incursion Prep Fairytale Dress Up 23rd Multi Age Day 27—1 Dec 5/6 Camp 28th 1W pen pal picnic 29th Grade 3/4 walking excursion Prep Christmas Play December 4—15th Prep—3 swimming 5th Christmas Carols - 5.30 picnic & 6.15pm start 18th 3/3 Movie excursion 19th 1/2 Movie excursion 20th Grade 6 Graduation 21st Class Parties 22nd Last Day of Term 1.30pm finish TERM DATES FOR 2017 TERM 4 9th Oct - 22nd Dec

PRINCIPAL’S NEWS

BUILDING UPGRADE Demolition works have been completed on the old admin building and new footings will shortly be in-stalled in preparation for the stumps and new flooring in the coming week. Footings around the exte-rior of the new gym were poured yesterday and hopefully the major slab pour of the gym floor will commence shortly if rain does not halt proceedings. Demolition works on the interior of our art room will commence on Monday 4th December with art lessons being held in classrooms during the remaining weeks of the school year. Planning for the recarpeting and painting refurbishment of all classrooms in the Grade 3/4 and Grade 1/2 buildings over the Christmas holiday period is underway. Teachers in these rooms will be busy during December clearing their rooms of all teaching resources so removalists can temporarily move all furniture out of these rooms. CAROLS NIGHT Our Carols Night is planned for Tuesday 5th December, weather permitting. We invite parents to bring their picnic dinner, chairs and rugs from 5:30pm with the concert commencing at 6:15pm. Back up date is Thursday 14th December. REPORT WRITING AND CLASS FORMATION Teachers are currently engaged in these two processes. Student reports take many hours of assess-ment, analysis, moderation and then writing. Student reports will be distributed to parents in the last week of term 4. Teaching teams will soon commence the complex task of allocating students to the new 2018 classes. This decision takes into account a range of factors including academic pro-gress, friendships, special needs or skills, class balance, social skills, etc. The children and parents will be informed of these placements on the same day as the reports are distributed. LEVEL TRANSITION AFTERNOON Next Wednesday, as part of our transition program, the children will meet with teachers at the grade level above to hear firsthand what they can look forward to in 2018. This activity is one way of preparing our children for the next school year. SOME KEY DATES AHEAD

Graeme Russell

Thursday 23rd November Multi-Age day at school

Monday 27th November Grade 5/6 camp all week

Monday 4th December Swimming Program for Prep to Grade 3 students commences (two week pro-gram)

Tuesday 5th December Christmas Carols – 5.30pm picnic, 6.15pm concert. (Back up date is Thursday 14th December)

Tuesday 12th December State wide Orientation Day for our Grade 6 students Last 2018 Prep Transition session 2018 Prep parent evening meeting 7:00pm – Grade 5/6 building.

Wednesday 20th December Grade 6 Graduation Night

Thursday 21st December Class parties and meet your 2018 teacher

Friday 22nd December Last day of term – students dismissed at 1.30pm

November 12th Jordan Sockett Zane Smart Charlotte Thompson Angel Edwards 15th Ethan Hack Ashlynn Geoghegan 17th Riley Chestney Maddie Batson Ava Mitchell Cooper Mitchell 18th Jessie Ritchie Eliza Hazeldine