In this Issue: Aussie Day Dress-Up

Parent Information Evening Our Parent Information Evening, which was held last week, was very well attended by many parents wishing to learn about their children’s learning program for this year. Teachers presented their expectations and the various classroom procedures and strategies they intend to implement over the coming months with a focus on literacy, numeracy and science. It was most pleasing to see the wonderful rapport and open communication that exists between the parents and staff in supporting the students of our school. Many thanks to all parents across the school who attended, as it is your understanding of each teacher’s program that will undoubtedly assist your children in their learning progress.

“Excellence in Learning” continues to be one of the overarching areas of focus for our students this year. It requires our children to continue to be far more focussed on their performance in learning and their desire to achieve their “personal best”. As partners in education, it is important that parents articulate to their children the expectations they have of their learning and to support them in achieving those expectations. It is critical that the school and parents have the same expectations of children’s learning and that this is communicated frequently to them. As part of homework routines this term, the focus for students is reading, word recognition,phonics, spelling, automatic recognition of basic addition/subtraction facts and tables. These are all important elements of literacy and numeracy that children must know and remember from one year to the next. Basic facts need to be practised every day in order to become part of a child’s working memory. Constant daily

AN INDEPENDENT PUBLIC SCHOOL

27 February 2014 The Official Newsletter of Wattle Grove Primary School Term 1, Issue 2

revision by parents at home will greatly assist.

School is a great place to enjoy, but we must encourage our children to achieve the best possible learning outcomes and to strive for excellence and their personal best.

Wattle Grove Acknowledgements There are many programs, events, learning experiences and activities which occur in and around our school each and every day. All of which are carried out by people – students, staff, and parents. We are all very proud of our school but, as is often the case in this fast pace of life, we can tend to overlook acknowledging the wonderful things that make our school the special place that it is. Therefore, we would like to provide everyone with a means and an opportunity by which a little written acknowledgement can be made about something or someone in the school which you find positive – whether small or large – it’s your acknowledgement. The Acknowledgement Slips can be placed in a designated box in the Admin. They will then be collated and passed on to the relevant person. Thank you. Julie Roberts Principal

From the Principal

IMPORTANT DATES - Term 1

March

3 Public

Holiday

Labour Day

7 Assembly

Junior

Room 17

11 Early Close

2.30pm

20 Harmony

Day-dress

in National

Costume

4 Early Close

2.30pm

Celebrate Australia Day:

During Week 2 the school conducted a special ‘Celebrate Australia Day’ in which the focus was on developing student learning of Australian history, geography and culture. Students were encouraged to wear clothing depicting the Australian theme and participated in a range of learning activities about Australia throughout the week.

Additionally, in light of the hills’ bushfires, and as part of the Australian spirit, the school conducted a fundraiser for this tragic event. As usual, the students, families and staff of Wattle Grove responded accordingly with a great total of $748 raised on the day. Thank you for the wonderful effort and we are certain that this money will assist the many victims in some way.

Assembly News: Thank you to Miss Pell and the students from Room 6 who’s assembly was about being happy with everything that you do. .Performing the first assembly of the year is never easy and they did a great job.

Congratulations to the following Merit Certificate Winners:

Yr5/6 Rm 6: Rylee, Paige, Iash Yr 4 Rm 9: Bianca, Sai, Amy Yr7 Rm 10: Tyler, Anthony, Nazdana Yr3 Rm 11: Tomasz, Jeffrey, Sahe Yr3 Rm 14: Kai, Zara, Paulene Yr6/7 Rm 15: Aidan, Aylssa, Dylan Yr 4 Rm 16: Chloe, Damon, Axel Yr4/5/6 Rm 18: Ann, Joel, Natalie Yr 5 Rm 20: James, Sophie, Aaliyah Yr7 Rm 22: Henry, Rhian, Sean Yr3 Rm 23: Lucas, Matthew, Kaylee

Congratulations to the Values winners for Respect: Jaclyne and Callum from Room 6.

Music Notice: This year, there are changes to the year levels attending Junior and Senior Choir.

Junior Choir

Will now include Year 2 and Year 3 students. They rehearse BEFORE SCHOOL - 8.30am, on Thursday morning.

Senior Choir

Now includes Year 4 students, along with Year 5, 6 and 7 students. Rehearsals are conducted during school time.

Photos: Left, our Values Award winners Below, the Jun-ior Choir, singing an Aussie song they had been learning in the Undercover Area on our Aussie Dress Up Day.

Wattle Grove Residents’ Assoc Inc: Promoting the welfare of the community of Wattle Grove. Meetings are held at the Woodlupine Community Centre Hale Road Forrestfield on the 3rd Tuesday of odd months at 8.00pm. All residents of Waltle Grove welcome. Email contact: wattlegrove.residentsassoc@gmail.com

P&C News: The P&C AGM was held on Tuesday evening and, once again, thank you to those parents and staff who gave up their time to attend and to those that volunteered to take up a position for this year. Congratulations to our new P&C Office Bearers for 2014: President – Tanya Oliver Vice President – Adam Kew Secretary- Brooke Van Beek Treasurer – Linda Jordan The P&C is now looking forward to another successful fundraising year. Whilst it’s encouraging to have a wonderful group of parents who continue to volunteer and assist year after year, we would also like to encourage new families in our community to participate and become involved in your child’s new school. The next P&C Meeting will be conducted on 11 March 2014 at 7pm

School Dress Code: Our school has a wonderful School Uniform which is worn by all students from K-7. The School Dress Code Policy, as developed by the School Board, is provided to all new parents on enrolment. To ensure that all parents are fully informed of the Policy, a copy has been enclosed with the School Newsletter this week. All parents are asked to refer to the Policy in ensuring that their children are dressed accordingly.

���� -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Newsletters to be Emailed: After this initial newsletter, we will again be emailing newsletters directly to parents, where possible. If you have not advised the office of your correct email address recently, please complete this slip and return to the school as soon as possible, so that we can add you to our mailing list. Student Name/s:____________________________________________ Room Number: ___________________ Parent Name:_________________________ Email Address:________________________________________

Deputy Principal Corner: Where is Your Child? Do you know where your child is when they are on the Internet? Just as you want to know where your child or children are and who they are with when they are not home. Do you know where they are? What they are doing and who they are with when they are on the Internet? Are they using social media to post inappropriate comments about others - things they would not say directly to the person’s face? Do they have social media accounts that require children to be older than primary age to be using? Do your children use the internet in a location where you are aware of what they are doing or they know you can easily check, or are they in a room by themselves or with their friends using the internet? Do you have access to the accounts they are using, so you can see that they are using them correctly? Are you doing anything to educate your children about the dangers of and the correct use of the internet? There are many sites set up to help parents and students to learn the safe and proper use of the internet. Whilst we can teach the students and make them aware of these things, it is when children are left alone or in the company of their peers, when issues can arise. Increasingly we are seeing things posted on social media outside of school that are impacting on students and involving the administration and teachers in resolving these problems. Often parents have no idea their children are involved in these very concerning anti-social and inappropriate acts.

Here are some sites to help you become more aware and educate your child or children about the correct use of the internet. Cybersmart—www.cybersmart.gov.au/ Designed to support and encourage participation in the digital economy by providing information and education which empowers children to be safe online. ThinkUknow - www.thinkuknow.org.au It is vital to talk to young people about behaving appropriately online and with their mobile phone. They need to be aware that there are real world consequences for their virtual world actions.

To find more sites, just Google ‘Internet Safety’ or ‘Cyberbullying’ Stuart Meachem

Student Rep Profile: My name is Shyanne and I’ve been at Wattle Grove for 7 years now and currently a proud student rep for our school. My rep duties include writing out the birthday certificates from Years 3-7. I also make sure that Room 16 is patiently and quietly lining up waiting for their teacher. I have attended a few rep meetings but haven’t conducted a councillor meeting yet but our first one is next week. At our rep meetings we discuss our jobs which are tidy bags, lunchies, birthdays, flags, sport shed, recycling bin and power rangers who go around and check if lights are still on in classes. We also discuss who is going to say what in the rep report.

Student Rep Profile: My name is Regan , one job I do as a Student Rep is: Tidy Bags, to put the flags up, and a class monitor I have been coming to Wattle Grove since Kindy. Tidy Bags consists of walking around the school and checking bags are neat and tidy on the rack ensuring all bags wave working zips. If not, the class with lose points. Putting the flags up is easy, but I am not allowed to let the flags touch the ground. Lining up a class is hard with Year 1s.

.

Student Rep Profile: Hello I’m Madison and I am proud to be your Student Rep for 2014. I am 11 years old. I have 1 brother and 1 sister and I have a dog named Marley. I have been at Wattle Grove for 3 years. As a Student Rep my jobs are to do the paper recycle bins. I have to go around after lunch and collect the paper recycle bins from each classroom and I take them to the back of the school to the big paper bin. I also help in the assemblies .

Student Rep Profile: My name is Nikayla I’m 12 years old. I do dancing and basketball. My hobbies are hip pop dancing and singing. I’m a Student Representative for 2014. My duties as a Student Rep for week 2 and 3 are the birthdays and looking after the sweet children of Room 11 after recess and lunch. I’m looking forward to the Student Councillor meeting to see what ideas the classrooms have. I spoke at the first Assembly of Term One and took the role of opening and closing the Rep Report.

Student Rep Profile: Hi my name is Meah and I am 11 years old. I am a Student Representative of Wattle Grove Primary School and I love it. My duty is every morning Regan and I put up the flags, and after recess and lunch I line up Room 21’s sweet little children. My favourite book is 365 Conspiracy and I love drawing, reading, dancing and playing Basketball, and I also go to church. I’m looking forward to the council meetings and the rep meetings. I also am looking forward to the Year 7 camp at Kalgoorlie. I think it will be the best time of my life.

Student Rep Profile: Hello my name is Riley , and I’m one of your Student Reps for Term 1, 2014. I’ve been at Wattle Grove since kindy and have enjoyed almost every minute since I’ve been at this magnificent school from the age of six. My duties as Student Rep include, Power Ranger and their duty is to check if all the class lights are turned off and to record if they are left on, flags, paper recycling, birthdays, lunchies, tidy bags and the sports shed. But these are only two week duties, we still have student council meetings, senior assemblies and we’re all assigned a class to line up and to keep quiet.