IMPORTANT DATES!
TERM 3 2020
PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE
2021 Planning our School Structures
Last night we hosted a community forum to discuss the possibility of a straight grade structure in 2021. With over 100 in attendance it was clear that our community are invested in the school and want to be able to influence change. We are still collating the information we received with that received from our teachers and we now plan to engage our students in this process. We also plan to share this information with the community as we determine our structures for 2021.
It was a really successful evening with technology allowing for all in attendance to contribute to the discussion. As part of the Educations States reform for education, all Victorian government schools use the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO) improvement model to implement improvement across the system. This model is structured around 4 state-wide priorities. Excellence in teaching and learning and community engagement in learning are 2 of the priorities. We believe that through the engagement of the community we will continue to improve our ability to provide an educational program that helps every child realise their potential. We genuinely appreciate your attendance and look forward to sharing the information with you in the near future.
Another element for us as we plan for 2021 is our staffing profile. It is important that we have a clear picture of how many students will be returning to RGLPS in 2021 for our future planning purposes. We all know that things can change very quickly and that there may be some families who are moving away from the area. If you do have a planned change for 2021 could you please contact the school and inform us of your plans.
2020 Review of the Disability Standards for Education 2005
Last week I provided the information below and I wanted to reiterate it this week. At RGLPS we are a truly inclusive school and we value all of our students and the impact that they all have on how we behave, what we learn and who we become. I have personally been shaped by the many life affirming interactions I have had with people with a disability and my passion to ensure equal opportunities for all students is born out of the many experiences I have had where this does not always occur. As a school community we play an important role in demonstrating our values to the larger population and this is your chance to provide feedback on how the Standards are being understood and implemented, and how they could be improved. I strongly urge you to consider taking the time to put your 2 cents forward.
The Disability Standards for Education 2005 are currently being reviewed by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment.
As part of the 2020 review, an extensive community consultation process is currently underway to seek feedback about whether the standards are effective or if any improvements can be made.
Current, former and prospective students with disability, their families and carers, advocates, educators, and other members of the public are invited to share their experiences, views and ideas to inform the review of the standards.
Due to coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions, engagement activities will mostly be held online via a dedicated 2020 review Consultation Hub. The hub offers a range of different ways that participants can share their views and ideas, and will be open until 11.59pm on Friday 25 September.
A series of webinars is also available for interested participants to share their experiences and opinions.
The webinars will be fully accessible, and will include Auslan translation and captioning. The webinars are open to the public, and each will have a different theme. These are:
- Educators webinar on Wednesday 19 August, 3.30-5.30pm
- Tertiary education webinar on Thursday 20 August, 3-5pm
- Early childhood webinar on Thursday 27 August, 4.30-6pm.
For more information about the upcoming webinars visit the frequently asked questions page.
A discussion paper has been developed with guiding questions to help interested participants have their say.
For more information email engage@thesocialdeck.com
Online Wellbeing Support For Families
The Victorian Government is helping parents and carers manage home learning and stay resilient during the coronavirus pandemic by providing a range of free online resources.
Minister for Education James Merlino introduced child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg for a webinar on Tuesday 25 August – and following high demand, a second will be held, Tuesday 15 September – aimed at providing parents and carers with practical skills, knowledge and strategies for managing the lockdown period and remote learning.
The webinars will focus on strategies and tools to help families manage their wellbeing, including establishing a supportive parental role and dealing with uncertainty and disappointment. Families will have an opportunity to ask Dr Carr-Gregg questions.
The Government has also partnered with Raising Children Network and funded a 10-episode podcast called ‘Raising Learners’ featuring parenting experts from organisations including the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Career Education Association Victoria and eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant.
Raising Learners will provide parents with practical advice, tips and ideas for supporting children’s health, wellbeing and engagement at school. Topics will include connecting with your child’s school community, how to best support your child’s learning, what to expect for VCE and VCAL students and how to keep your child safe online.
These themes were drawn from common parent questions received by the Department’s coronavirus hotline and Parentline. The first three episodes will be launched on 1 September, the remaining episodes will be available throughout Term 3 and 4. Raising Learners will be available via Raising Children Network and podcast apps.
Following an unprecedented response with more than 12,000 registrations, a second webinar will now be held on Tuesday 15 September at 7:30pm.
Places are still available for Managing the Coronacoaster – Tips for building resilient families webinar on Tuesday 15 September at 7:30pm. For more information and to register, visit: eventbrite.com
Until next week,
Kirrily Lamers
Principal
SUSTAINABILITY
STUDENT WELFARE
Banyule Council’s ‘Children’s Recipe for a Good Life’
Banyule Council has a wonderful initiative running to help gather information for developing plans moving forward. Students at Rosanna Golf Links always show great leadership in the school community and I’m sure would welcome a say about how their council should balance decisions and consider all stakeholders. It would be wonderful to see as many students as possible engaging with this initiative.
Information
Children’s Recipe for a Good Life is an interactive webpage created by Council inviting primary school kids to tell us their ideas and opinions about the ‘ingredients’ needed for children to be happy, healthy and safe. Until 8 September, kids can visit shaping.banyule.vic.gov.au/Kids and complete the online activities.
Why has Council created ‘Children’s Recipe for a Good Life?’
As part of Council’s municipal planning role, we are writing a new Child Youth and Family Plan (2021 -2031). This plan will provide guidance on how Council works in partnership with our community now and in the future to deliver programs, services and facilities that support and enhance the wellbeing of children, youth and families. Children have the right to have a say about matters that affect them, and the Children’s Recipe for a Good Life seeks to engage them in the discussion about this plan. The information that children provide will guide further consultation with our community and the actions and priorities outlined in our new plan.
For further information please visit www.shaping.banyule.vic.gov.au/Kids
Looking after yourself
Over the last few weeks it’s clear that many of us are beginning to feel the demands of this strange time. The balancing act of working from home, managing your children through remote learning and maintaining our usual routines has become trying. During this time our children are looking to us to support them emotionally and physically. It’s clear we can only do this well when we look after ourselves. The following link looks at this in more detail.
https://raisingchildren.net.au/grown-ups/looking-after-yourself/parenting/looking-after-yourself
Key points
- Looking after yourself physically, mentally and emotionally will help your child grow and thrive.
- Look after yourself by staying active, eating healthy food and getting plenty of rest.
- If you have a partner, you can look after your relationship with open communication.
- Manage stress by making time for yourself and seeking help.
- Many services can support you in raising your children.
Virtual SRI
For those families who participate in SRI please find a new updated website with ideas and information.
https://www.korusconnect.org.au/sri-materials
Luke Franklin
Assistant Principal
SUNSMART
Just a quick reminder that students attending school will now require a hat to participate in outdoor activities.
DEAF FACILITY NEWS
Hawthorn Theme Song in Auslan
Thank you to all our families in the Deaf Facility and school who took the opportunity to be involved in the Auslan version of the Hawthorn Football Club theme song. You can see the video on the link below, on our school Facebook group, and the social media accounts for Hawthorn Football club. It turned out well.
Thom Jackson
Deaf Facility Coordinator
TEACHING AND LEARNING
The Importance of Handwriting
As I mentioned last week, over the next few newsletters I will share recent neuroscience research that can support you and your child’s learning.
This week, I am going to talk about the importance of handwriting as a process to aid memory recall.
Scientific research has discovered that handwriting is a multi-sensory act which incorporates our fine motors skills and integrates many parts of the brain. When writing by hand, the use of fine motor skills results in different and an increased amount of neurons being activated. This strengthens the brain’s neural pathways and aids the storage and retrieval of new learning. It means the ‘schema’ or the brain’s network of learning has stronger connections and many more of these connections. Due to this, handwriting notes is a superior process to typing on a device as a means to store new learning in our brains.
Similarly, drawing also helps us to recall information with increased effectiveness. Brain research shows that use of colour and images provide our brains with an learning ‘anchor’ which helps us to store, organise and access information. If you think back to a vivid experience you had as a child, you can probably recall details like colours, smells, music, tastes or even the weather at the time? These multisensory details act as ‘anchors’ to help our brains go directly to that memory or to access the memory through a wider range of pathways.
So when teachers ask students to create colourful headings and subheadings for their written work or to a capture their thinking in a mind-map, these are strategies that direct support students to store their learning and recall it more effectively.
ICAS 2020
A reminder that the school has opted to use the second sitting window for the 2020 ICAS tests, which will be held on the following dates:
Monday 12th October ICAS Science
Monday 12th October ICAS Digitech
Tuesday 13th October ICAS Mathematics
Friday 16th October ICAS Spelling Bee
Tuesday 20th October ICAS English
Registrations for the ICAS 2020 have closed.
Maths Olympiad
The next Olympiad is on Wednesday 16th September 2020.
Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series
Thirty Six RGLPS students in Year 5/6 are now registered to participate in a program as part of the Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series. These programs have been created by the Department of Education and are strictly for high achieving students working at least 12 months above level. A nomination from the school is required to participate.
Last week, four students completed a program called ‘Ocean Scratch’ with the Knox Innovation Opportunity & Sustainability Centre. The students learnt about the properties of bioplastics and made biodegradable bioplastics using natural sources that are better for our world. I received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the program from participants and am pleased to be able to offer these opportunities to our high performing students.
Introducing… the ‘High Ability Program’
The Victorian Department of Education and Training has recently created the ‘High Ability Program’, which is aimed at supporting and extending high ability students in Victorian Government Schools from Years 5 – 8. This program will commence from Term 4, 2020.
The education department selects students for this program based on student reporting and NAPLAN data. It is important to stress that students are not selected for this program by each school. Students will be invited to participate in either the literacy and/or the mathematics strand based on their academic results. Each program runs for 10 weekly online sessions (55 minutes) with a teacher from Virtual School Victoria. The participating students will be expected to do a small amount of pre and post session work and each series will culminate in some form of half or full day event. (whether this can be face to face or will be online next term is dependent on COVID-19 advice from the Victorian Government.) Students will learn with similarly high ability students from local schools. Aside from engaging and enriching students academically, a key program aim is to help high ability students to connect with similarly high achieving students from other schools.
The ‘High Ability Program’ will continue in 2021 and will widen to increase participant numbers. For this first intake in Term 4, a handful of RGLPS students in year 5/6 have been invited to participate in the literacy program. I am in the process of making contact with parents of these students, who will need to provide consent in order for their child to participate.
Term 4 2020 Year Level and Specialist Team Newsletters
The school has made the decision that Year Level and Specialist Team Newsletters will be delayed until the start of Term 4. This is due to the current uncertainty around when students will return to onsite learning. Our classroom and specialist programs will look quite different depending on whether students are learning onsite or remotely. For example, in Art some classes will do a ceramics unit if we are learning onsite but this will not be possible if students are still learning remotely. Given this uncertainty, the school has decided to delay the release of the Term 4 Newsletters until the school receives further direction from the Victorian Government and we have a clearer sense of what Term 4 will look like. Thank-you for your understanding on this.
Have a great week everyone!
Kerron Worsdell
Teaching and Learning Coach
SCIENCE NEWS
Over the last three weeks, 1/2 students have been learning about how animals respond to the seasonal changes in our world.
They learned that migration is the change of location because of the change in seasons.
They learned that hibernation is when some animals not only sleep but also slow down their breathing and heart rate to survive winter.
They have also learned that some animals change their coat for seasons and this helps them camouflage for the different appearance to their habitat (snowy white or leafy green/rocky) for that time of year.
Here are some great pics of students camouflaging at home to blend into their surroundings:
Well done 1/2s, its great to see you show your understanding of patterns in our world (seasons) and how animals respond to them.
Feeling creative? Students might like to enter a competition this week using your science and artistic skills. It’s a Bake-Off but there’s more options than using the oven.
Check the following websites and poster for more information!
https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/commissioner/tsbakeoff
https://bushblitz.org.au/bush-blitz-teams-up-with-the-threatened-species-bake-off/
(Submissions due by 8th September)
Ms Wheeler
RGLPS ART GALLERY
5/6 Op Art Designs
SPORT NEWS
Dear Parents and Students,
Thanks for your assistance in being inventive this week for mini-golf, I have seen some amazing putters created out of egg cartons, broom sticks, fence pailings – even Nanna’s walking stick! Holes were made from boxes, cups, mugs, the legs of a teddy bear and lunch boxes! It was clear that the students really enjoyed themselves. It’s a great lesson for them to learn that they don’t need a real golf club (or for that matter the authentic brand name Sherrin Football, Gilbert Netball or Spalding Basketball), you can have just as much fun using alternatives or creating things to play games with what you have at home.
I’d now like to pass on my congratulations to Jasper Bair and Ava Schivo for participating in the School Sport Victoria Virtual Track and Field this week! RGLPS is currently 11th out of 100 schools that have participated – here is the Google Sheet if you would like to have a look https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13imU8Gx3t4N0LpMJtFlSTBZoWbjpb_kC22SuXY_E-Zk/edit#gid=491863273
Now that the competition has been running for a few weeks, I thought I would share which of our students are currently in the Top 5 of the events they participated in;
Aseel Shaweesh – 4th Place in the 200m 9-10 Girls, 3rd Place in the 400m Girls 9-10
Ava Schivo – 1st Place in the 200m 9-10 Girls, 1st Place in the 400m Girls 9-10
Freya Wilson – 2nd Place in the 400m 12-13 Girls, 2nd Place in the Triple Jump 12-13 Girls, 2nd Place in the 800m AND 1500m Walk
Jasper Bair – 2nd Place in the 1500m Walk 5-8 Boys
Marshall Henry – 5th Place in the 200m 9-10 Boys, 4th Place in the 400m 9-10 Boys, 4th Place in the 1500m 9-10 Boys
Congratulations to all!
The competition ends on the 30th of October and you can enter as many times as you like, even if you have not improved your time, as every entry a student makes adds a point to the RGLPS total J
If you would like to see the different events – follow this link https://www.ssv.vic.edu.au/Pages/SSVVirtualTrackandField.aspx
If you would like to enter your scores, follow this link https://form.jotform.com/201958028380053
Secondly, RH Sports has launched another E-Challenge for our students to participate in! This time, rather than winning a cash prize for the school, students will receive their own special certificate for completing the activities. As RH Sports requests an email to send the certificate to, I would recommend that the address of a parent is used rather than the child. There are four quick activities so it would be a fun break from the computer when (IF!!) the sun comes out https://sites.google.com/view/rhsportsfitnesschallenge/home
Thirdly, School Sport Victoria has informed us that there will be no State or Region Competition in Term 4. However, our District is currently planning a number of Round Robin Days for our Year 6s in the event that restrictions are lifted to such a level that Inter School Sport is permissible again. Watch this space!
Kind Regards,
Darren Peters
PE and Sports Coordinator
BOOK CLUB NEWS
Scholastic Book Club, Issue 5 can be ordered on-line now!!
Due to the current restrictions we are unable to send out Book Club order forms. The good news is you can order on line at: scholastic.com.au before the 4th September.
STATE RELIEF
CANTEEN
Recipe Share
Hi RGLPS families,
Have you had time to cook up some amazing recipes during iso? We would love it if you would share your favourites with our community. If you have a great recipe, please send it, with a photo of your masterpiece, to Deb at Deborah.Howard@eduation.vic.gov.au and we will get it into the newletter for everyone to try out.
This week’s culinary delight is from Eliza Bennett in Grade 6. Thanks Eliza!!!!!
Due to current circumstances the canteen will be closed until further notice.
ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS
OSHC NEWS
LUNCH TIME CLUBS
Unfortunately, we are unable to run lunch time clubs at this time.
COMMUNITY NEWS
Disclaimer: Rosanna Golf Links Primary School (RGLPS) does not endorse any product or service advertised in this newsletter. RGLPS takes no responsibility for the content of advertisements or the quality and reliability of products or services offered in the advertisements
