Calwell Primary School eNewsletter

From the Principal

Dear Calwell Families,

Supporting Parent Engagement Program Grant

It has been great to see that the Supporting Parent Engagement Program Grant the school received recently has ignited discussion and interest in the school community. Over the last couple of weeks I have chatted with a small group of parents/carers about the grant. To ensure inclusion and open communication I have included the following Q & A to share some background information about the grant with the broader community.

Who could apply for the grant?

Either a school Parent & Citizen Association, a school or the P&C Council (working on behalf of a parent group wishing to form a P&C association). In the absence of a school P&C the leadership team and I liaised with the School Board to apply for the grant as a school. This ensured that Calwell PS would benefit from additional funding to undertake projects unable to be supported by general school funding.

Grant Guidelines stated initiatives needed to:

align with the aims of the Program as described in the guidelines
be delivered in the ACT for ACT public school students, and/or parent & carers

There were five aims stated in the grant guidelines. Calwell Primary developed its grant application based on the following two:

develop and promote practical tools and resources to strengthen parent engagement to maximise the impact of children’s learning and wellbeing outcomes
support sustainable and innovative initiative to foster greater parent engagement and improve learning and well being outcomes for children and young people

Through applying for the grant we hoped to generate renewed interest in re-establishing a school P&C, particularly as the school has increased enrolments a little over the past few years.

How did we decide on the projects within the grant - how the money would be spent?

Parent feedback from the 2019/2020 Annual School Improvement and Climate Surveys
comment- based feedback we received through the 2020 Learning Journey
recommendations suggested to the school through the most recent school review in 2018/19

The grant was written in such a way as to ensure that the different interests of students, parent/carers and staff could be included in some way. The projects were designed to enable consultation with stakeholders at a later date with some flexibility in delivery.

Was there a requirement for community consultation before applying for the grant? No.

A copy of the school’s grant application is attached to this email.

From the Board

As many parent/carers would be aware the School Board is responsible for setting strategic direction, developing policies and monitoring progress against the 5 year Strategic Plans and the yearly Annual Action Plans. The Board also reviews and ratifies the Annual School Budget developed by the school Principal and Business Manager and monitors expenditure throughout the year. The School Board is not responsible for managing operational matters such as staffing, curriculum, excursions, special programs etc, this is the responsibility of the Principal as guided and required by the ACT Educational Directorate.

The Board consists of three parent/carer representatives, a community representative, two teachers, the school Business Manager and Principal, and in High Schools and Colleges two students. The role of the elected Parent Board Members is to represent the voices of the parent/carer body. Parent/carers are encouraged to liaise with our Parent Board Members to raise anything they would like to bring to the Board’s attention. Our parent representatives are Megan Fox, Rebbecca Nudelman and Tanya Goodman. These parent reps are often on the playground before and after school or can be contacted by asking the front office staff to pass on a message for a representative to contact you.

Community engagement has been an area of interest for the School Board for some time particularly after the decision was taken by parents/carers to dissolve the P&C. Since then the Board and school team has actively worked together to encourage and support community engagement which can take many forms in a school environment. Importantly this includes parent/carers supporting their child/ren to be successful learners.

Currently parent/carers are assisting with exchanging home readers, initiating and running craft club, covering library books, organising and running Mother’s and Father’s Day stalls, building outdoor toys for the preschool, helping with excursions and carnivals, sharing knowledge and skill in classrooms, supporting recycling, gardening and more. Community members have also continued to support fund raising efforts initiated by the school such as the Colour Run to supplement school funding. The Board looks forward to working closely with the school community of students, parents/carers and staff to support positive outcomes for all.

From the Principal

Parent/Carer Survey

The school regularly seeks feedback from parents/carer which is used to assist with setting strategic direction, planning and meeting community expectations. The surveys we ran last year during COViD were invaluable in enabling us to support families at a challenging time and make operational changes when required. The funding we have received through the Supporting Parent Engagement Program Grant gives us an opportunity to begin some projects or initiatives in the school. We have developed a quick survey that will take no longer than 5 minutes to do and invite you to complete it as soon as possible. The information you provide will enable us to use some of the grant funds to undertake projects that parent/carers would like to see actioned this year. Please use this link. https://forms.gle/Rm3D7a6GffWHg4Ma6

School Disco

Our students thoroughly enjoyed the disco last week especially as there were no discos able to be held in 2020. My sincere thanks to the parents who volunteered their time to operate the canteen and to the staff who gave up their evening to attend and support this fun event for students. Discos hosted by DJ Cliff have a super light show and his prizes are loved by students. I will just mention that we are aware that there were a couple of issues in setting up this disco last week which we will ensure are sorted before the Term 4 disco.

Before & After School Care

Staff (teacher) shortages are not only impacting on schools they are also having a significant impact on the operation of childcare services such as before and after school care. I have been in discussions with Camp Australian the provider who operates the before and after school care service here at Calwell Primary. They, like many others are experiencing difficulty in recruiting staff and this has impacted on their ability to provide care for everyone seeking a place for their child. In particular, casual bookings are very difficult to make. Please be reassured that the school is working closely with camp Australia to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

Mid-Year Reports

Reports are currently being finalised ready to send home in week 10. Information about making parent-teacher meeting appointments will be coming home soon. I encourage all families to take the opportunity to make an appointment to meet with teachers.

Linda Neeson

Principal

Principal's Afternoon Tea

CARES Awards

PBL Awards

Notes Home/Due & Dates to Remember

A reminder for parent's to please download the SZapp to view our Newsletters and upcoming events. If you access the calendar and click on the date on an excursion/incursion permission notes are attached to re-print if needed.

*Hot Food Friday will be on Thursday the 10th June for this week only. Next week will be back to normal on the Friday.*

Year 3/4 Camp Birrigai expression of interest - Due back Friday 11th June
Book Club Issue 4 - Due back Friday 11th June
Year 3/4 Royal Australia Mint excursion - Tuesday 15th June
Community Movie Night note due back - Wednesday 16th June
Kindergarten Assembly - Friday 18th June
Community Movie Night - Wednesday 23rd June
Crazy Hair Pyjama Day Rosellas and Magpies - Tuesday 22nd June
Crazy Hair Pyjama Day Cockatoos, K-Year 6 - Friday 25th June
Last Day of Term 2 - Friday 25th June

Payment Options

Thank you to everyone who has made the switch to QuickWeb. We encourage everyone to use QuickWeb Banking for future payments, we will still be accepting Cash and Credit Card.

We are no longer accepting direct deposit payment.

QuickWeb Banking Information – Preferred banking method

QuickWeb is now available using Westpac Banking Corporation on our school website www.calwellps.act.edu.au

To make contributions to the school’s bank account go to the “payment” tab, click and that will redirect you to our Westpac QuickWeb site.

Contributions can be made using a credit/debit card, for any school event, excursion or other financial contribution.

Complete the following information for us to accurately identify the funds and the purpose. The terminology used is listed below

Family Key: your family’s identifier, first five letters of your last name and the first letter of your first name.

Student key: first five letters of the students last name and first letter of his/her first name.

Preschool

Thank you to all our Preschool families who came along for our ‘Stay and Play’ sessions! We hope you enjoyed your time and the Magpies, Cockatoos and Rosellas are already looking forward to the next one!

Preschoolers have been engaging with National Reconciliation Week through stories, art, craft, music and discussions. We highly recommended the ABC Playschool episode ‘Walking Together’ which can be viewed on the ABC iview app.

We have enjoyed many sunny afternoons playing together outside on Ngunnawal country. As we settle into winter, so we can continue to enjoy our outdoor investigations, we ask that children bring a warm jacket to Preschool.

Scrivener

In Kindergarten we have begun our new Unit of Inquiry which focuses on Geography called ‘People Living in Places’. We recently went on our first excursion to the National Zoo and Aquarium where we saw different animals living in different places. Here we are with some of the animals.

Corin

Year 1

Year One have been learning to add numbers to twenty, using the Counting On strategy. We have been playing lots of different Maths games with cards, spinners, counters and flash cards. The students enjoyed building new skills while learning to collaborate with their peers.

Year 2

Over the past couple of weeks Year 2 have been learning about the concept of area. As part of this concept, we went outside to explore the items we could use to measure the area of some different pictures. We discovered that we couldn’t use natural materials as each of these items were different sizes as well as left gaps between them. Instead we used unifix cubes which were all the same size and could be connected together leaving no spaces. We counted the area of each picture by counting the number of unifix cubes that covered the space.

Year 1

Year 2

Googong

Students in 3/4 have been focusing on the reading strategies summarising and paraphrasing as part of our Reader's Workshop lessons. They were asked to retell the important parts of a story in their own words using key words and phrases. Students completed this in pairs using a varirty of picture books.

Bendora

Year 5/6 students have been constructing rectangular prisms to measure and calculate volume and capacity. They then used 1cm cubes to check that their calculations were accurate.

Craft Club kicked off winter this week with some colouring and crafting fun. Our students still can’t get enough of mask making - we had some beautiful butterflies, speedy Flashes, colourful spidermen and a few noble kings and queens by the end of lunchtime.
Special thanks to the members of our community who support Craft Club in person or by cutting out masks and finger puppets at home. If you’d like to join in the fun, we run Craft Club every Monday between 11am and 12pm in the Hall or you can collect a pack of masks to cut out from the Front Office.