10 February 2022

From the Principal

Dear Parents/Caregivers,

Welcome back to the new school year and welcome to our new staff and families. The following are new staff who have commenced this year:

Teaching

Ms Rachel Starkie - Kindergarten/Pre-Primary
Ms Vanessa Robinson - Pre-Primary
Ms Ailsa Wooden - Kindergarten
Ms Melissa Bonnano - Pre Primary
Mr Will Ferrier - Music
Ms Laura Romano - Year 2
Ms Milena Kulikowski - Year 5
Ms Michelle Guest - Year 2
Mr Kyle Doughty - Year 6
Mr Aidan Jelley - Year 6

Education Assistants

Ms Natalie McIver
Ms Danielle Crane
Ms Sara-Jane Cook

School Psychologist

Ms Amy Patience

Administration Office

Melinda Wilcocks

As was the case this time last year our school will commence with an enrolment of around 800 students (final numbers will occur on the School Census date of 11th February). It does take a week or two for enrolments to settle.

The school has been able to manage the start of the year extremely well and it is wonderful to see all students settling into their new environment … apart from a few tears in kindy and pre-primary.

COVID Update

As we have seen the 2022 school year has been one of disruption for a number of schools. It also sees a number of operational changes as we face new challenges every day. Our main priority is to keep our students and staff as safe as possible and as practicably as we can.

As we receive updated information on a daily basis we do need to adjust our operations in response to these. We thank you as parents and caregivers for your continued support around this matter. At this point in time we have postponed or modified a number of school activities in line with the most recent communication from the Department of Education. This is to limit the number of larger gatherings to keep our students and staff as safe as possible.

• Assemblies will be postponed.
• Before School: Modification to seating arrangements for students who arrive at school before school (8:30am). If a student is accompanied by their parent or caregiver nothing has changed as they are to sit outside of the student’s room.
• Separate play areas will be in place as per usual.
• Lunch time library sessions will be on a year level roster.
• Staff meetings will have a different format.
• Staff access to staffroom will be limited.
• Masks are to be worn (adults): Mandated to be worn inside rooms and encouraged to be worn outside whilst on the school grounds.
• Parent Information Evening: This will take a different format. (as mentioned below).
• Parent Teacher Meetings: These will be done over the phone or online format.
• Parents are asked not to enter the classroom and drop their child off at the door.

As case numbers grow in the community I am sure there will be more modifications ahead of us. Again we thank you for your continued support.

Lawn/Oval

As a result of feedback from our parent community we have been able to increase the regular maintenance of the oval with our lawn contractors which will see improvements in the condition of the lawn area. The works that were occurring on the oval have been completed and fencing has been removed and new turf applied. This will now lead to our students to once again have more area to play on.

Cameras and Security

Our investment in cameras around the school seems to have paid off as we did not have any issues with unwanted visitors to the school over the holiday period. We will be increasing our camera coverage by installing some extra cameras to cover some identified ‘blind spots’. This should occur over the next term.

Parent Parking on Warradale Avenue

Parents are reminded not to illegally park, drop off or pick up students along Warradale Avenue. Please use the designated bays in this area to park your vehicle. The official school drop off and pick up area is the ‘Kiss and Drive’ bays at the front of the school. This is in place to ensure students are picked up and dropped off at school safely.

Parent Information Arrangements

Due to the latest instructions issued by the Education Department and the Chief Medical Officer we will be modifying our Parent Information Sessions scheduled for week 3.

Staff will be preparing information in print format and sending this home via Dojo. This will outline class procedures, agreements, overview of the year, timetables and any other information that may be relevant. Parents/Caregivers will be asked to respond once they have read the information by completing a section that will encourage questions and enable parents to set goals and aspirations for their child. Parents will also be able to use Dojo or email to clarify any questions. This should be received by the end of Week 3.

Kind regards,

Josh Jashari
Principal

Newsletter Articles

School Calendar

Student Update Forms

Student update forms will be coming home with your child/ren over the next week. Please check all details that appear on our system and return sheets by 18th February 2022.

It is imperative that all contact details are kept up to date.

1-1 Program 2022

Thank you to all the parents of Year Four and new students in Year 5 or 6 who have joined, or are in the process of joining, the program this year. Teachers and all students will spend the first few weeks establishing agreements that will give the grounding for high standards of self-regulation at school and safety online. Explicitly teaching how to responsibly and appropriately use technology and communication tools, provides students with the skills and knowledge to make informed and appropriate choices, now and in the future. To help keep informed about digital citizenship and online safety visit our digital citizenship page on our website.

In such busy times, inevitably some parents miss our annual information sessions in Nov/Dec. If you have questions, our website has information on our program and Frequently Asked Questions to assist you. Please remember that all student in Year 4-6 have access to a device, if you are not joining the program with a personal device, your child will have a school owned device allocated to them during the school day. We are able to do this due to the high number of parents who choose to join the BYOD 1-1 Program. You can decide to bring in an iPad or Macbook anytime during Year 4-6.

The technical aspects of the program are also being established in the first couple of weeks. When you bring your laptop in to school the technicians will join them to our management system. This means settings and software that are school specific are put onto the laptops to ensure a safer and more effective experience.

When the machines are prepared, a note is sent home with information regarding setting up passwords, more information and “how to” tutorials can be found on the Apple Support site. We have a technician onsite every day except Wednesday. You or your child can let the technician know of any issues with their machine by logging a job on the Helpdesk which you can access through the Helpdesk link on our website home page or by informing their teacher.

If your child is bringing in an iPad, the process is that they too are joined to our management system and school apps are loaded as well as settings for our network.

We are excited to begin the journey with your children to engage in rich learning tasks and teach them how to become responsible digital citizens.

Unfortunately at this stage due to our current COVID guidelines for schools, we are unable to offer the workshop for parents to come in to and explore the new 1-1 device. For now please check out the How to tutorials mentioned above.

Chaplain Chat

Hello!

I hope the start of term is going well for you all.

For those of you that are new to Landsdale Primary School I would like to welcome you and let you know of my services. I am the school Chaplain, and my role is to provide holistic pastoral care to students, school staff and members of the community, irrespective of faith or cultural backgrounds. The pastoral care provided includes one on one and group sessions addressing physical and mental health issues, social and values education, behaviour management, emotional support and professional referrals, where appropriate. Please know my door is always open and I am always happy to help.

If you would prefer that your child does not access my services, I would ask that you complete the attached ‘opt-out’ form.

My hours and days: 8:30-3:30 Tuesday - Friday

My email is: michelle.bispo@youthcare.org.au

Library News

WELCOME BACK FOR 2022! WE’RE OPEN!

Welcome back! The Library @ Landsdale is now open for student and parent book borrowing. We look forward to seeing our returning students and meeting families that are new to our school. The Library is a fun place to visit, as you will quickly discover! We hope to see you soon. The closing date for the return of all library books this term will be Friday 1st April 2022 (Week 9).

Opening Times

The Library is open for book borrowing at these times:

• Before school - 8.30-8.45am - Mon-Fri
• Lunchtime - 1.25-1.50pm - Mon-Fri
• After school - 3.00-3.30pm - Mon-Fri

All 32 classes have a weekly “Library Book Change Time” organised by their class teacher. Please check your child’s rostered borrowing day with their class teacher and assist them with remembering their library book and library bag on that day.

Parents and caregivers are most welcome to visit the Library with their child to borrow books before or after school, or at any time during the school day. While here, you may wish to browse through our range of LEAP (Linking Education and Parents) parenting resources which are available for loan. Parents can also sign up to become Library members.

Lending Rules

Students may borrow two books for a period of two weeks. Books may be renewed if not required by other readers. Overdue notices are sent to classrooms every week. Please remind your child to return his/her library books by the due date. Library bags must be used for borrowing. These are available from department stores. Shopping bags are also suitable to use as library bags.

Outstanding Loans from 2021

At the end of last year, we had 32 library books that were not returned, valued at $316. Invoices will be sent home to these families. Unfortunately, students who have not returned their 2021 library books will not be able to take books home from the Library, until these items are sent back or paid for at the Front Office or via Qkr! Thank you for your assistance.

Scholastic Book Club

Order forms for the first issue of Book Club have been distributed to classes. The due date for return of Issue 1 Scholastic orders is FRIDAY 18th FEBRUARY @ 9am. For ease and speed, use the LOOP Platform to order:

Alternatively, you can send your completed paper order forms to the Front Office by 9am on the due date. Unfortunately, late orders cannot be accepted.

P&C News

A warm welcome back to the 2022 school year! Our semester 1 activities are in the planning stages, check out the school calendar to keep updated during the year with what’s ahead.

Wednesday 16th February at 7:30pm is this year’s AGM. All positions become vacant and whilst some of our members are nominating to return we will have a number of positions available through to committee. The P&C is a wonderful way to be involved in your school community and ensuring the canteen continues to run as our small business.

If you’d like to get involved but unsure what it entails, come along to find out. Reach out to us via Facebook or any one of our current committee members and see what roles they do. I’m around every morning at the canteen from 8:45-9:15am, pop past say hi and ask me any questions you may have.

Roles to fill in 2022!

President
Vice President
Secretary
Treasurer Kellie
Lads of Landsdale Leader
Fundraising Group Leader
Health & Wellness (Canteen)
Roadwise Co-Ordinator
General Committee Members

All positions are declared vacant and nominations will be taken from the floor.

If executive positions aren’t filled, the P&C is legally unable to operate and the process of dissolving the P&C begins. This would mean no more community events or P&C supported projects/incursions/excursions in our school. The Canteen would also be closed and our staff will lose their jobs. Our P&C is more than it’s fundraising efforts as the canteen & staff rely on it as an employer.

I strongly encourage any new parents to be on the committee as a general member for at least one year before taking on a key role. This allows you to settle in, see how the P&C and school works, and find out where you think you would enjoy being involved the most.

We are continually wowed at the number of parents with an array of amazing skills in our community and we need your support to continue to do what we do best and that is to help support our children in their education and continue the sense of community within our school.

With the return to school we have been asked to take a slow approach to the year with fundraising, so we have held off on organising our Parenting Workshops for March. However, we are full swing in Mother’s Day prep for the kids and will see what Easter brings and the possibility of a Federal Election Sausage Sizzle.

Our canteen renovations are still coming! With the construction industry and pricing as it is we are working on ensuring we make the most of our funding from Margaret Quirk in the last state election. We are hopeful to have the project completed in 2 parts with the first over the July school holidays.

We hope to see many of the current and new members for our AGM on the 16th Feb, 7:30pm in the staffroom. Keep up to date via our Facebook page and event.

Nat

Roadwise News

Kiss & Drive Announcement

Last year we embarked on a new challenge and we nailed it! The new roster for Kiss N Drive Program worked so amazingly well and we are continuing the program into 2022.

Each Term has been designated year groups for parents to volunteer for a session to help Kiss N Drive on that afternoon. Parents are able to forward plan their session into the year and change as required. The roster updates in real time which makes changes immediate ultimately allowing for the roster to look after itself. A link to the roster is below. The Roadwise Committee will do the first week of each term as we return to school. It’s in this week each Thursday will double as a training session for those who wish to see how easy it is before you do your own.

As a thank you we will raffle the names on roster at the end of each term to win one of 2 $10 vouchers for the canteen and don’t forget you also have the use of a staff car park on the day you volunteer for Kiss N Drive. If you find it as easy as you thought it would be, roster in for a second or third session for more entries into the draw!!

This was Kiss N Drives first major change to how it’s been run in the schools 24 year history. The committee was so excited to see this come to fruition after much planning and to have it be so successful was an extra win.

Now it’s over to the parents of 2022 to help even Just Once to make it a success.

Contact our Roadwise Coordinator for any questions on lpspandcroadwise@gmail.com

Now it’s up to all of us! Please help us to spread the word by sharing and talking to each other about the roster. Parent Link will help to remind year groups through the year to communicate this to all our families as well. Let’s get 2022 off to a great start with our year 2 & 6 parents up first for term 1.

Canteen Information

CANTEEN INFORMATION

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

We have some wonderful ideas and creations coming for you this term. We will be continuing our Waste Free Wednesday Special every week starting from week 3! These will be on Qkr to pre-order and advertised on the P&C FB page the Sunday prior, please watch out for these!

Mid-Term Sausage Sizzles are back for the year. Please watch out for the information sent home each term so you know which week these will fall in.

Emergency lunches happen from time to time and we will never let a student go hungry. If your child comes home with a note from the canteen, the amount can be paid cash the next day or on Qkr via the accounts to pay menu.

Recess specials are becoming more and more popular as much as the special treat of an ice cream for lunch, it’s great to see familiar and new faces lining up at recess for in house made vegemite or spinach & feta scrolls, chicken wings, pasta cups, wedges as well as the favoured cheesie. Favourites are back already from last year and we encourage families to ask the kids what they had at recess and see what yummy things they are getting at school that they would be at home.

We are turning Waste Free Wednesday’s up a notch. In line with the phase out of single use plastics we are phasing out these and will bring in cutlery and plastic plates. Further information will head home closer to the time when this will phase in.

We are forever amazed at how well the canteen is supported and with the produce supplies as they are we are endeavouring to do our best to keep all items on the menu. However if you notice some are not available we apologise and thank you for your understanding. We will work our canteen magic at returning items to the menu as quick as we can.

Just a reminder that we are the same indoors as the students classrooms. If you do need to discuss anything with the canteen team please knock on the outside door and someone will come to help you. If you can remain outside unless asked in as it’s a catering space we’d be most grateful.

Thanks
Sue & the canteen team

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.