Calwell Primary School eNewsletter

From the Principal

Dear Families,

The end of the year is fast approaching, and we are all looking forward to our fun activities to celebrate.

This Thursday we will hold our End of Year Celebration to be held on the playground. This will run from 4pm to 6pm and will include some singing and dancing from each of our classes, a chance for our kids to play together and a sausage sizzle. We are looking forward to welcoming many of our community members to this event.

Next Wednesday evening is our Year 6 Graduation which will be held at The Canberra Southern Cross Club. We are looking forward to celebrating with our graduating class of 2023. Information and invitations have gone home about this event. Please contact the front office if you have any questions about it.

Academic reports will be emailed home on Friday of Week 9. Teachers have been busy assessing student learning, moderating, and writing reports. Our teachers put a lot of care and effort into writing school reports to ensure you receive accurate and relevant information about your child’s learning.

The annual Movie Day will be held in Week 10. Information has gone home about this. This is a great way to finish the year and a great way for our kids to celebrate with each other.

Planning for 2024 is well underway. Students have been asked about who they think are suitable learning partners for them and parents have also provided feedback. Over the next weeks we will be putting together class groups for next year and thinking about best fit teachers and peers.

We are hoping to let our community know soon about who will be teaching in which units for 2024. It’s important to remember though that the January break is a long time and staffing changes can occur.

I would like to thank our teachers and students for their organisation and participation of Passion Projects this term. Every Friday afternoon our students have moved into their multiage groups to engage in these activities. This has been a positive experience with our students getting to work with different peers and teachers.

We are looking forward to seeing lots of you over the next couple of weeks.

Kind Regards

Ben Roberts
Principal

Principal's Afternoon Tea

CARES Awards

Gold Awards

2024 student-free days

Get planning for 2024 with upcoming student-free days

From 2024, there will be 4 student-free days for ACT public schools. These are the first day of each school term:

Term 1, Monday 29 January 2024
Term 2, Monday 29 April 2024
Term 3, Monday 22 July 2024
Term 4, Monday 14 October 2024.

We use student-free days for staff development, enabling us to plan in a student-free environment. Student-free planning days have been expanded from 1 to 4 days from 2024 as part of our new Teaching Staff Enterprise Agreement which prioritises better teacher workloads for educational leadership, teaching and learning.

For all school term dates, visit the Term Dates page: https://www.education.act.gov.au/public-school-life/term_dates_and_public_holidays

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.

- Thursday 30th November End of year community event 4-6pm

- Monday 4th December Principal's Afternoon Tea (selected students only)

- Wednesday 6th December Year 6 Graduation

- Friday 8th December Year 5 Farewell Assembly 9:15am

- Tueaday 12th December movie notes due back

- Thursday 14th December whole school movie day

- Friday 15th December last day of school

Lanyon Christmas Pantry Appeal

Rapid Antigen Tests

Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) will no longer be distributed from ACT public schools. Families can now
collect free RATs from ACT Libraries. Visit: www.library.act.gov.au/services.
Please consider disposing expired RATs by recycling the cardboard and paper and disposing the
remaining contents in general waste bins. If stock levels are too large for this to be possible, the
entire contents can be disposed of in general waste.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation. For more information, visit
www.covid19.act.gov.au.

Preschool

It seems incredible we are writing our last newsletter item for preschool. This is a time for reflection and celebration of everything the preschoolers have achieved in 2023; from learning how to negotiate the preschool space, making new friends and solving our own problems through to recognising and acknowledging that we live and learn on Ngunnawal Country and the importance of learning about Indigenous culture. This month we have been learning about ‘Change’ and preparing for our transition to kindergarten. This is an exciting time for preschoolers. It can be daunting as the children move from the comfort and security of what they know, to a whole new adventure. Transition visits, play time up at the playground and even visits from our big primary school friends help to make the process a more relaxed time. We would like to take the opportunity to say thank you to each and everyone of you for trusting us with your precious child/ren and giving us the privilege of being your child’s first school teaching team. Whether you are staying at Calwell or moving on to another school, we hope you say "hi" and stay in touch.

Veronica, Jacquie, Shanise, Larissa, Rhianna, Ellen, Annette, Amanda

Scrivener

This fortnight the kindergarten students were visited by Kenny Koala. He spoke to us about making kind and safe choices and encouraged us to think about our decisions and the impact they may have on others before we actioned them. Kenny also showed us his car and let us put the sirens and lights on. We have also been taking advantage of the sunny weather while learning how to bowl a ball and use a cricket bat in our cricket clinic.

Corin

Year One and Two have begun learning about food and health in the Food and Me unit. We have been learning about the different food groups and how food helps our body to Go, Grow and Glow. Look out for our cooking adventures coming soon!

Googong

In spelling students have been learning that contractions are words made by combining two words into one typically with an apostrophe. For instance, "can't" is a contraction of "cannot." They played board games, bingo and used mega blocks to consolidate their knowledge of contractions. We've also been working on writing step-by-step procedures, and the students have had a blast making playdough and haunted mansions. It's been a fun and educational way for them to practice explaining how to make different crafts.

This week students in 5/6 participated in a hands on and engaging workshop presented by Questacon. Students discussed, designed and prototyped digital solutions to real world security threats, through Questacon’s Secret Safari Park and linking those threats to cyber security threats they may deal with while online. Students were given design criteria to protect the confidentiality, integrity and access to the Secret Safari Park, whilst working collaboratively to design, build and evaluate their own digital solutions to the threats. Students have also been working on their financial literacy skills as they plan a trip to Taronga Zoo. They’ve had to look at accommodation, travel arrangements, cost of food whilst finding the best value for money.