Dear families,

I hope you’ve had a great week.

I present a shorter newsletter item this week. Enjoy the extra minutes of free time this affords you!

Enrolments

We have opened enrolments for Prep 2023. 

If you have children due to commence in the next 3 years, please fill out this form to help us determine the number of places available for next year and beyond.

You will also be able to indicate if you’d like us to send home an enrolment form. Please note, there is no need to fill out an application form for enrolments beyond next year as these forms are often altered from year to year from MACS (Catholic Education).

If you know of any families who are looking for a school in 2023, please direct them to our website.

COVID Restrictions

The Victorian Government has extended the recommendation to administer COVID surveillance testing for students until the end of the term. We will let you know when to expect the next set of test kits.

It is no longer necessary to check in using the QR code as of today.  Please note that parents volunteering onsite are currently required to have their vaccination certification sited by office staff.

We are expecting new guidelines to be published in the next 2 weeks. As directives change, we will let you know how these changes affect school operations.

School Survey

Eariler today I shared instructions via Operoo for how to access the Enhancing Catholic School Identity survey for parents.

I encourage you all to take the time to complete this survey as it provides us with information from various sources (parents, teachers and students) on the type of school we are within the context of Catholic identity. We rigorously examine this data and it helps us set goals for the next review period.

Staffing news

I received the news yesterday that Mr Marks will be relocating regionally to be closer to family. I know you will join me in sending him our best wishes.

The position has been re-advertised. 

Mrs Mary Klein, who has taught the students for much of this last week, will teach in 5/6M for the next 2 weeks whilst we explore the best options for our students. 

Have a great weekend,

Sonia

Overall our school finished in 2nd place which was a fantastic result.

Good luck to those students who made it through the Divisional Finals which will be held on Thursday 11th of March. 

A very big thank you to Mrs Sims and all of the parents who helped and supervised the students on the day. 

The window for the Enhancing Catholic School Identity survey is now open for our community.  Please refer to the Operoo note sent out earlier today for instructions and more information.

The P-2 teachers and students have been enjoying the Little Learners Love Literacy (LLLL) program which focuses on sounds and sound blends to assist students in the reading and writing. You can read more information here :https://www.littlelearnersloveliteracy.com.au/ 

Here's what to expect if your child is in the following level/s:

Preps

The Prep students are learning about letters and their corresponding sounds. As they progress, they will begin to investigate segmenting and blending these sounds to read words. Students will be starting to take books home next month to read. We have found that the spelling session for LLLL is a great gateway to prepare students for the SMART Spelling program used in Years 1-6.

1/2s

The 1/2 students are also finding that LLLL has linked wonderfully to their Literacy program, allowing them to practise their weekly sound focus in SMART Spelling and during the whole class big book focus. The students are particularly enjoying the sound box, word and sound games and being ‘sound detectives’. Year 1/2 students have started to take home LLLL decodable texts and and/or other home readers that align with their level each week. A note from the teachers has accompanied these to help you support your child with their reading practice. Although it might seem like the book is easy to read, we are building student’s abilities to read with fluency and automaticity. It is important for your child to read the books as much as they can to consolidate their understanding of each stage so their sound knowledge is easily transferred to other skills - we have already started to see Year 1 and 2 students use their knowledge of phonemes and graphemes in their writing! 

A great idea for reluctant readers is to have your child be a ‘sound detective’ at home by having them look for the sound focus from their book in other books around the house! 

Take a look at this article from The Age this week on just why a phonics program is so important: ‘Results came really quickly’: How one tiny Victorian school turned literacy around

Thanks for all of your support at home with this program! 

Brenda Lycke

Literacy Leader

blycke@smaltona.catholic.edu.au 

Respect • Responsibility • Resilience • Courage

If these students eat or in some case, touch, any food products that contain any of these foods or traces of these foods they could be put into a life threatening situation.

We are asking for your co-operation particularly if one of these students is in your child’s class, that NO sharing of food takes place. These students are well aware of what they can eat but if you reinforce with your own child that these children are not able to ‘eat’ everything that other children can and to please not share food with them. 

On special occasion days e.g. birthdays, class teachers will have a ‘treat’ that these students can eat but please keep these allergies in mind if you are sending birthday treats for the class.

These students are in Prep B, 3/4B and 5/6L.

We have other students in the school who have milder reactions to the foods listed above.  While they do not require an epi-pen, the still feel great discomfort if they come in contact/eat these foods.

These children are in Prep S, 1/2KT, 1/2C, 3/4A and 3/4B.

We appreciate your cooperation in this matter. 

What a great time we all had last Friday when Supreme Incursions came out to visit us.

We walked in and saw some amazing activities and we were so excited to start. 

Our presenter Ryan explained all our activities and then the fun began.

We worked so well together to build our team working skills. 

We had an obstacle course that we had to lead a partner through which was so much fun but the tricky part was that our partner was blind folded.

We then had to work as a team to make a pathway crossing from one end of the hall to the other. We did lots of talking and sharing of all the possible ways to achieve our goal.

There were so many other amazing tasks that helped us to build our skills when working with others. We also learnt a lot about how to be resilient when things may not go our way.

Click on the link below to see some of our students in action.

3/4 Incursion Term 1 2022

Your 3/4 team
Lisa Said, Nicole Barnes & Randa Assaad