Newsletter 8 – Waddington Primary School

From the Principal

Dear Waddington Families,

I would like to begin by saying a huge thank you to Ben Ker for stepping in as Acting Principal during my absence. I have had very positive feedback from staff and students, and am reminded that we are all part of a wider educational community that works together to support our students and staff.

Our Year 3 and Year 6 students have all received their NAPLAN results. The overall trend is continued growth in a positive direction. This tells us that the whole school programs we have in place are effective but in education we always work for continual improvement. An area of focus that is a school priority is to build reading fluency. This decision is driven by different sources of information; NAPLAN, school based assessments, joint initiatives with schools in our network, and of course, teacher judgements on each child. No change can happen over night, but I would ask what you as parents and carers can do to support this initiative? If reading each night is a challenge, maybe you could make one or two nights special reading nights, try to read anything anywhere – road signs, food labels, read aloud the instructions when cooking, change the material that your child is reading; comic books, science books, joke books. Any reading is still reading, and we want our children to enjoy it.

On the topic of reading, we are holding a Free Dress Story Dog Fundraiser Day on Friday 23^rd August. There is a competition to guess the names of the two toy Story Dogs in the front office. The prize for our two winners will be the toy Story Dog and their book. Everyone is welcome to wear free dress, please bring a gold coin. All proceeds will be donated to the Story Dog organisation.

We had a fabulous afternoon with the Wild Cats last Tuesday. All students watched the match with Years 3-6 joining in. Basketball is becoming very popular at lunchtime!

Please remember that we have our Faction Carnival approaching on Friday 6^th September. Families and carers are welcome to attend to support our school.

We look forward to a jam packed end to Term 3. As always, if you have any questions, please come and see me.

With warm wishes to you all.

Ms Katherine Chivers

Principal

From the Administration Team

Planning for 2025

A letter was sent home a few weeks ago to Pre-Primary to Year 5 students asking families to notify the school if they are not returning to Waddington PS next year. This assists the school with planning for 2025. If your child(ren) will not be returning to Waddington, please hand the form into the front office. Thank you in advance.

Term 3 Planner

The term planner is updated regularly and below are some important dates to be aware of for the rest of this term.

Please refer to the Term Planner page under the ‘Community’ tab for the most up-to-date events for the term (but this may be subject to change so please check regularly).

Important Dates

19th August 2024 – Cross Country Carnival

20th August 2024 – Story Dogs 8.45am – 10.15am

20th August 2024 – School Nurse Girls Health talk – Year 5 girls

21st August 2024 – Ear Health Screening

22nd August 2024 – Year 5/6 Careers Talk Koondoola PS

23rd August 2024 – Story Day full day visit

23rd August 2024 – Story Dog Fundraiser Day & Free Dress (gold coin donation)

26th August 2024 – School Photos

27th August 2024 – Story Dogs 8.45am – 10.15am

28th August 2024 – P&C Father’s Day stall – Kindy students

30th August 2024 – P&C Father’s Day staff – PP to Year 6 students

2nd September 2024 – Jumps and Throws Carnival

3rd September 2024 – Story Dogs 8.45am – 10.15am

3rd September 2024 – School Nurse Puberty Talk – Year 6 students

3rd September 2024 – School Board Meeting 1.45pm

6th September 2024 – Faction Athletics Carnival

9th September 2024 – Newsletter published

10th September 2024 – Story Dogs 8.45am – 10.15am

10th September 2024 – Brownes Dairy Excursion – Years 2 – 6

11th September 2024 – Multicultural Afternoon Tea – Staff Room 1.30pm

12th September 2024 – R U OK Day

13th September 2024 – Assembly – Room 9 and 4

16th September 2024 – Book Fair 3pm – 3.30pm

17th September 2024 – Story Dogs 8.45am – 10.15am

17th September 2024 – Book Fair 3pm – 3.30pm

18th September 2024 – Book Fair 3pm – 3.30pm

18th September 2024 – Student Leaders YES Conference

19th September 2024 – Fire and Emergency Incursion Room 8 – 2pm – 3pm

20th September 2024 – Book Week Parade 2.30pm

20th September 2024 – Term 3 ends

7th October 2024 – Term 4 starts

School Photos – Monday 26th August 2024

School Photo Day is next Monday. Individual Student envelopes were sent home a few weeks ago. Please remember to place your order online and bring the order form in on the day to give the photographer. If you would like to order a new school uniform, please contact our front office or use the order form on our website.

Please see below important information from Fotoworks regarding our school photo day.

TheirCare – Before School Care Now OPEN

Free internet for unconnected families with school-aged students

School Student Broadband Initiative provides free home internet for unconnected families with school-aged students until 31 December 2025.

The Australian Government School Student Broadband Initiative (SSBI) is offering free home internet for eligible families with school-aged students until 31 December 2025.

To be eligible, families must:

have no active broadband service
have a device capable of accessing the internet
live in premises where they can access a standard NBN service
have a child living at home who is enrolled in an Australian school.

The free broadband starts from the day the service is activated with a participating internet provider. Families will not be placed on a paid service by the internet provider at the end of the free service without consent.

For more information and a list of participating internet providers, visit NBN Co School Student Broadband Initiative or call 1800 626 269.

If you think you are eligible and want to self-nominate for the free broadband offer:

call the National Referral Centre on 1800 954 610 (Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm Australian Eastern Daylight-saving Time)
visit the School Student Broadband Initiative website.

For technical support in more than 100 regional and remote communities throughout Western Australia, contact your local Community Resource Centre.

Everyday counts!

Perth Wildcats Inspire – Friendly Basketball Game

On August 13th Keanu and Michael were joined joined by their other team mates to take on a student team for a few games of basketball here at Waddington! Here are a couple of photos of the fun students had on the day. One of our student teams even won their game against the professionals!

Breakfast Club – Thank you Woolworths Mirrabooka!

We would like to acknowledge with thanks Woolworths Mirrabooka for supporting our schools breakfast club, our students appreciate you!

From the School Nurse

Colds

Upper respiratory tract infections or colds are everywhere, especially in winter, so it is almost impossible to stop children from catching them. Here are some points which may help:

Teach your child to cover his/her nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing, and to wash hands straight afterwards.
Hands should be washed after blowing noses and before eating.
Use tissues once and then throw them in the bin. (Avoid using handkerchiefs.)
Keep your child home from school if he/she has a cold/cough/fever/pain.
Make sure that your children eat a balanced diet of plenty of healthy foods.
Keep children away from smoke – it irritates their eyes and nasal passages, making it more likely that they will catch a cold.

What to do if your child gets a cold

No treatment will cure a cold or make it go away more quickly, but you can help your child feel more comfortable:

Rest: This need not be in bed.
Provide extra drinks: If your child doesn’t want to drink much, try giving lots of small sips of water, milk or juice, or ice blocks to suck for older children.

Ms Mel Arnson

School Nurse

Room 4 – Come on Our Learning Journey

Wow! Can you believe we are halfway through the term. The students have adapted so well to not only one but two new teachers. We have been busy learning and the students should be so proud of their efforts.

During Literacy, we have been learning how to write a Narrative, particularly, a warning tale. We chose a classic, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. We captured the student’s attention by setting up a Daddy Bear, a Mummy Bear and a baby bear in the classroom eating porridge. We explored new vocabulary in the story like: cottage and forest, we used adjectives to describe Goldilocks and all the students did so well to write their own narrative. Lastly, the students tried some sweet porridge. I wonder if the students asked any parents/carers to put porridge on the shopping list.

In Numeracy, we have been focusing on number. The Pre-Primary student’s have been fine tuning numbers up to 20. The Year One’s have been learning about numbers up to 100. The students have also been studying “shapes”. They used shapes to make a tangram turtle. We have been making time before our Maths lesson to learn some new Mental Maths games like: “Odd and Even” and “Beat the Teacher”. After our Maths lesson, we have been playing board games like “Snakes and Ladders”. These games help students build skills like, turn-taking, sharing and resilience.

For Health, we have planned a real focus on our talents. We made a display about a “Web of Talents” in the classroom. The students discussed so many talents they have as individuals and as a class, we have an endless amount of talents like: soccer, gymnastics, gaming and so much more. We talked about calling on our friends to teach us their talents. This is something we can add to throughout the term. I can’t wait to see how our talents have improved over the term.

We also had a visit from Beth who works at West Oz Wildlife. We met four Australian animals: Nutella, the koala, Toothless, the blue-tongued lizard, Tully, the sugar glider and Savannah the Woma python. The students had so much fun. We got to get up close with the animals, most students were even brave enough to hold the python around their neck.