p FOUNTAIN GATE PRIMARY SCHOOL NEWSLETTER Prospect Hill Road, Narre Warren 3805 Tel. 9703 1187 Fax. 9703 2001 School No. 5072 Email: fountain.gate.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au Website: http://www.fountaingateps.vic.edu.au 05 March 2015 DIARY DATES Monday 16th – 27th February Monday 9th March Tuesday 10th & Wednesday 11th March Wednesday 18th Tuesday 24th March Wednesday 25th Friday 27th March End of Term All prep students start at 9.00am to 3.15pm. No school on Wednesday. Labour Day Holiday – No Students at school Ricketts Point Excursion – Grades 1 & 2 Tuesday 10th March: 1M, 1V and 1P Wednesday 11th March: 1/2C, 2H, 2M AND 2W Vet visit - Preps Casey Cup Soccer Tournament – Selected Grade 5/6 students only Waste Management Session – Preps 11.30-1.15pm All students will be dismissed at 2.30pm. Compulsory wearing of hats in Term 1 All students must wear a school hat during term 1 for recess, lunch and any outdoor activity YMCA School Holiday Program – Book now! The YMCA will be running an Autumn School Holiday Program in Strathaird Primary School, offering heaps of awesome activities, including Swimming Adventure, Circus Extravaganza, Crafty Wood Work, and more! Bookings open on 24 February, for full details and to book, visit: www.childrensservices.ymca.org.au. EBM Student Cover – Individual Personal Accident Insurance Policy. Information is available at the school office for interested parents/guardians. Principal’s Comments What help can I get? The school can offer a range of support options:  teacher working with the student in a supportive, counselling role  school student welfare co-ordinator working with the student What is my responsibility as a  provide a mentor for your child parent/caregiver?  home visits to identify the problem and help work it through with parents Make sure your child:  identify reasons if your child doesn’t want  attends school on ALL school days to go to school  is on time every day  strategies to help you encourage your child to go to school Make sure you:  develop an incentive program to encourage  provide the school with a written explanation your child to attend school if your child is away  link with community agencies  contact the school if your child does not want to go to school Must I send my child to  arrange doctor and dentist appointments out school every day? of school hours Yes, unless:  arrange personal shopping trips with your  your child is too sick or injured son/daughter or birthday celebrations out to go to school of school times  your child has an infectious disease  do not allow your child to stay at home for  the principal is provided with any other minor reasons genuine and acceptable reason for absence. Is regular attendance at school important?  Yes – from the first day. If your child misses the basic skills in primary school they can experience difficulties with their learning Do I need to let the school know if my child has been away? Yes – for the wellbeing of your child, Department of Education & Training has an attendance policy and teachers and schools  Regular attendance is essential to make are required to follow up student absences. sure learning is not disrupted. Regular learning provides building blocks for the future. Students who come late also Thank you and kind disrupt the class when they arrive. ..  Schools help children to develop important social skills, such as friendship building, teamwork, communication skills and a healthy self-esteem What can I expect from the school?  Monitoring of student attendance and review progress on a weekly basis  Strategies to help you as a parent encourage your child to go to school. Regards, Jenny Duggan STUDENT OF THE WEEK Prep B Yakta Abduhahi Being a thoughtful helpful class member. Congratulations!! For always completing his best work. 3G Prep R Keegan Lay 4M Nick Nazeri Prep S Areeb Riyaz Always working hard to follow classroom rules and routines. Well done!! 4P Roohbina Khan 1M Holly Anderson Being a great “Rebecca Rainbow” helper. 4R Ebrahim Obaid 1P Zenat Fazal Grouping objects together and creating a simple graph. 3/4E Neefisa Yaqub 1V Serenity DizonManai Always using beautiful manners. 5/6B Jessica Gogan 5/6C Erik Williamson Confidently sharing how to read a two digit number with the class during learning sequences. Showing respect when learning in the library, by returning his books carefully and always cleaning up. Being thoughtful and kind to the other students in the grade. You should be proud of yourself! 5/6J Lachlan Lim 5/6L Deakin Moon Attempting all tasks asked of him in the class. A great start to the year! Well done!! 5/6M Taneesha Ireland For really contributing valuable ideas during class discussions. 5/6T Bonnie Kennedy Being persistent and demonstrating an understanding of estimating the position of numbers on a number line. Using her deep thinking when visualising scenes from “The Chonicles of Narnia” 2H 2M Tahsin Fazal 2W Hayden Moore 1/2C Suliana Faaea 3C Bailey Asquith For the wonderfully enthusiastic attitude he displays on all classroom activities. Keep up the great work!! Staying on task and working so well to practise the concepts on the ‘place value’ maths learning sequence. For settling in well to FGPS and taking a positive approach to Writers’ Workshop. Good job Ebrahim!! Confidently explaining her thinking during a learning sequence launch. Thinking about the 5 senses when visualising to help her create a mental image of what is happening in the text. Fantastic!! Working hard and making terrific progress on his place value learning sequence. Keep it up!!! Independently learning a variety of ways to rename 3 digit numbers. ATTENTION JUNIOR SCHOOL PARENTS Dear Junior School Parents, Over the last couple of weeks the children in Prep have been learning “Advance Australia Fair” (our national anthem). This is sung at Assembly every Friday, so it is important that they feel part of the group. All Preps have been given a copy of the anthem and I hope the rest of the family can help them to learn it as well. The children in grades 1 and 2 have been revising the anthem and a copy is in the newsletter. Hopefully all the family can work together to learn the anthem. Meredith Dinsdale Performing Arts BOOK CLUB PLEASE NOTE CHANGES TO BOOK CLUB FOR 2015. We have decided to support a company called Lamont for our book club this year. This is the same company that we used for our Book Fair last year. Lamont is a 100% Australian family owned company and Victoria’s largest school library supplier with 25 years’ experience supplying books to schools. Being an independent distributor, they are free to choose the best books from every publisher. We will be participating in one issue per term, namely Issue 2, 4, 6 & 8. Issue 2 brochures will be distributed to students next week. There are only 3 brochures available in easy to browse age groups – •Prep to 2 – Junior •Grade 3 & 4 – Middle •Grade 5 & 6 - Upper Two options for ordering :•Students hand in order with a cash payment to the School Office OR •Parents order online using their credit card at www.lamontbookclub.com.au CLOSING DATE FOR ISSUE 2 MONDAY 23RD MARCH All orders will be delivered to the school for distribution to students at the beginning of Term 2.