28 April 2021

From the Principal

Welcome Back

As this is our first newsletter for Term 2 welcome back and I trust you all had a very enjoyable and relaxing holiday albeit being over a week ago. I also hope that you were all able to stay safe during our long weekend of lockdown. I have sent home a letter clarifying the school’s position in regards to the restrictions issued by our Premier on Sunday. Let’s hope that it will be further eased on Friday.

As you are aware this will be an eleven week term and we have lots of activities planned for our students, providing all goes well with any further COVID announcements. We hope to have a lot of activities happening over this time period. These will include:

Mothers’ Day Stall (Week 3)
Literacy and Numeracy (Week 4)
NAPLAN Testing (Week 4)
National Simultaneous Storytime (Wednesday 19th May)
Swimming Lessons for Years 1-4 (Weeks 6 and 7)
Cluster Lightning Carnival (Tuesday 8th June)
P&C Disco (Friday 18th June)
AEDC Data Collection for our pre-primary students. (Term 2)

Staffing

We welcome Mr Tom Palmer who will be backfilling the position vacated by Mr Puccinelli late last term. Mr Palmer has been appointed whilst we advertise the Physical Education position during this term. We also welcome Mrs Kelly Mclaughlin who will be backfilling Mrs Bunn from Monday to Wednesday in LA 29. Mrs Bunn will take on the Literacy Specialist position (0.6FTE) on these days. Mrs Bunn will be back in her classroom on Thursdays and Fridays. Congratulations and welcome also to Ms Emilie Murray who has been appointed as Education Assistant in LA 5.

School Review

The School Review is part of the Independent Public School accountability process and is done in every school on a three-year cycle. Two external reviewers from the Department visited our school and assessed the evidence provided by the school against a number of key domains. The review gives assurance to the local community, Minister for Education and Training and the Director General about the performance of the school. The review is now complete and I am pleased to say that we have performed extremely well. The report has been made available on the school website and ‘Schools on Line’ for the community to view.

Annual Report

The Annual Report for 2020 is provided to the community of Landsdale Primary School as an account of the school’s operations and achievements throughout 2020. As you are aware 2020 was a very different year and with a number of community restrictions and limited opportunities the school was still able to deliver its programs (albeit modified in some occasions). The Annual Report provides a detailed account of the progress the school has made to provide high-quality educational opportunities for all our students, as set out in the school plan.

The Annual Report will also be available on the school website and ‘Schools on Line’ for the community to view.

Kind regards,
Josh Jashari
Principal

Newsletter Articles

School Calendar

ANZAC Ceremony

Thank you to everyone who donated flowers for the ANZAC wreaths and attended the ANZAC service on Friday 23rd April. The year 6 student councillors and prime ministers ran the service beautifully and with a confidence beyond their years. We would also like to especially say a big thank you to Mrs Santoro who spent her morning making the wreaths.

This year specialist teachers also planned and delivered a week’s worth of ANZAC themed lessons leading up to the ANZAC service on the Friday. The photos below are a snapshot of some of the activities completed over the week.

Online Awareness

Our 1-1 Laptop program is designed to advantage our students in an increasingly digital world. Having a personal device provides students with the opportunity to manage, use and create learning experiences to enhance their education. We create the foundation for this by engaging students in activities that enable our students to be well prepared and aware of how to be safe and ethical online.

Teachers and parents/guardians need to be aware of the digital trends that young people are following that can affect their social and emotional wellbeing. Children’s online use is now more centred around mobile phones than computers.

At school we see very little inappropriate use of technology as use of mobile phones is not allowed and the laptops are monitored both physically and electronically by teachers. Unfortunately, we are receiving concerns from parents that some students are behaving inappropriately when using social media outside of school hours, using their phones or gaming consoles.

This can have an impact at school through an increase in friendship issues, confusion, anger and anxiety over things happening online. We address the behaviours exhibited at school, however we cannot get involved or take action on anything that is happening online out of school hours. We need you as parents and guardians to act, for the safety and health and well being of your children.

Please monitor what your children are doing online, if there are inappropriate messages in any group they are interacting with, make sure they remove themselves from the group and block any member who is inappropriate.

There are 3 key strategies to keeping your children safe online, they are:

1. Be engaged, open and supportive: share online time with your child, talk about favourite games sites etc. Keep the lines of communication open and reassure your child that if they are having issues you will help them.
2. Set some rules: ensure your child has input to the rules however consider age appropriate consistent rules eg. What sites and social interaction sites are appropriate, no devices in the bedroom, devices off after bedtime.
3. Use available technology: get to know the devices they use, set up parental controls and monitor and control screentime. Research on reliable sites what you need to know and monitor. Eg. https://www.esafety.gov.au/

These key strategies are from:

If you need assistance with dealing with inappropriate use online, please look at the government eSafety site, you can find information to help or you can report abuse. The police also have an information and a reporting service on their website:

Download the free Parent Online Safety Book:

Solar Challenge

On 16th March a small team of 4 Landsdale students from the STEM Extension program (Lily W, Aaron T, Nina S and Sienna I) attended the annual Synergy Solar Car Challenge

The objective of the day was to build a solar car in an hour with provided materials and race it in a series of knockout races. The Landsdale team had been chosen for the task as they had demonstrated excellent teamwork and organisational skills as well as being natural scientists; constantly testing and retesting their work to refine it. We had explored all aspects of aerodynamics, weight distribution and engineering for our little car and were very prepared for the challenge of the day. All of the work paid off as we managed to progress through 3 rounds of knockout races to get to the semi finals. Lady luck was against us, however, as a communication error from the adjudicators meant we ended up in last place in the penultimate round and unfortunately just missed out on that top 4 place. I was incredibly impressed with the maturity of the group, who accepted the mistake with grace and courtesy and saw the positives of the whole experience.

We have learned a lot from this first time experience at the competition and I could not be more proud of the efforts of the team and their efforts on the day. The professionalism and teamwork was outstanding, and their observations of how to make the car faster after each race showed the true essence of what STEM is all about. I am confident we will take the lessons of this year forward into next year and give it an even better go! Congratulations to our team and here’s to the next one!

Mr Caldwell

Tender of MacBooks

Landsdale Primary School has 6 MacBook Air model A1766 128GB purchased in 2018, available for purchase by tender. Members of the school community can place a tender for one or more MacBooks. All tenders must be handed into the school office in a sealed envelope, marked confidential and addressed to Leanne White, Deputy Principal. All MacBooks are sold in ‘as is’ condition. Students are not permitted to use these MacBooks at school as part of the 1 to 1 program, due to the age of the devices. Tenders close at 3.30pm on Thursday 6th May. Successful tenders will be notified on Friday 7th May.

NAPLAN Online – Information for Parents

Students in Years 3 & 5 will be participating in the annual NAPLAN tests in reading, writing, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy.

The assessment provides parents and schools with an understanding of how individual students are performing at the time of the tests. NAPLAN is just one aspect of a school’s assessment and reporting process – student grades are based on ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance, the NAPLAN results are not necessarily considered.

This year the NAPLAN tests will be held from Tuesday 11th May to Friday 21st May, 2021. The school’s testing timetable for testing will be provided early in Term 2. For more information, please see the pdf attached.

On the Ball …. With Mr Brown

Before School Tennis Coaching

Hot-Shots Tennis lessons with InStyle Tennis! Tennis lessons at school are held Wednesday 7.45-8.30am, starting April 28 ($145.00/ 8 weeks). Excellent for skill progression & learning the basics of tennis, and great fun.

All ages/ levels welcome! Details at instyletennis.com.au/ 0433 777 195. All kids enrolled receive free Hot-Shots t-shirt!

Runners Club

Congratulations on Shaylee H, Rachit P and Jevin P on reaching 100 laps!

Canteen Messages

CANTEEN INFORMATION

Canteen Manager: Sue Uyen
Phone: 0410 894 457
Opening hours: 8:30am to 1:45pm

Each Waste Free Wednesday (please remember to send a fork with your child if ordering) will coincide with our Wednesday specials. We will post these specials every Sunday on Facebook so don’t forget to hop on and have a look.

Lunch orders are on Qkr every morning cut off for ordering is 8.45am. Please do not hesitate to call us if you have any issues.

We have a huge range of yummy homemade treats available for the kids to buy at recess time ranging from 50c to $2.50. We would love to hear from your children if they have any ideas on any healthy treats they might like.

P&C News

Reminder of our Calendar for 2021. Please put the dates below in your diaries! We have a new date and event to share, Bogan Bingo is coming to Landsdale!

Mother’s Day Stall - Tuesday 4th & Thursday 6th May
School Disco - Friday 18th June
Bogan Bingo – Friday 17th September
Book Fair – Monday 1st November (week 4)
Colour Run – Friday 12th November

Our next General meeting is Tuesday 4th May @ 7.30pm in the staffroom, we’d love to have more new faces come along!

Just One Thing Project is this year online! Follow the link to our google form and complete to let us know what you would like to help with this year.

If you see me at school, please come and say hi would love to hear feedback or your ideas for the P&C in 2021.

Nat

Mother’s Day Stall

We are back! Mother Day Stall is on this year – Thursday 6th May (and Tuesday 4th May for Kindy A rotation). After missing last year we are very excited about the Stall this year and we know how much the kids love coming to do a bit of ‘shopping’, so make sure students bring along $5 to buy your Mum, Caregiver or special lady in your life a lovely gift for Mother’s Day. We will also have cards this year for $1.00.

We are also still looking for volunteers to help on the day, if you’re interested check out this sign up zone -

Mel Fuller
Mother’s Day Stall Organiser

Roadwise Committee

Kiss & Drive

Just a reminder that Term 2 (19th April to 2nd July) is Year 3 and 4's parents turn.

Thank you to the few parents that have already put their names down so far. Please remember that in order to make this a success your volunteering time is much needed. This term is a slightly longer term, so all your help is required.

Sign up link

If you haven’t done Kiss and Drive helping before and are unsure of what is required, please do not hesitate to contact your Kiss and Drive Co-ordinator Darshana Kika on lpspandcroadwise@gmail.com.

Uniform Shop News

For all uniform requirements, please contact Tudor Uniforms on Tel. 9408 2666 or visit the link below:

Their address is: Unit 1/75 Excellence Dr, Wangara.