Welcome to Week 6, Winter is well and truly upon us. It has been a wet and windy few days!

There are a lot of puddles around, we have informed students that they are not to jump in these very inviting puddles but if you know that your child finds this hard to resist, we ask that you send a spare set of clothes with your child just in case!  It is not comfortable wearing damp clothes and shoes all day.

We are about the enter the cold and flu season, I encourage that if your child has cold and flu symptoms, that you continue to keep them home and get them tested for COVID, just in case. 

We will organise Three Way Interviews for our parent/caregivers to meet with your child's teacher early in Term 3.

If you need to have a conversation with your child's teacher before this please contact them on Seesaw and they will organise a time with you.

At the Reconciliation Week assembly that students and community members attended our students demonstrated our school values well, they were respectful and responsible throughout the event.

Unfortunately we have not been able to have many assemblies this year so it was pleasing to see the students display the expectations of being good audience members,  that we have for our whole school events.

Once again our students have impressed me with their respect and behaviour. I am very lucky to be a leader at our school.

On Thursday, 26 May Gemma from the Children's University came and spoke with our students in Years 3 - 6 about the Chidlren's University program.

Gemma was able to explain that this program helps students take control of their learning and encourages them to use their free time for learning.  It also gives the students the opportunity to learn new skills and to explore new interests.  Students need different opportunities and trying different things is important.

The Children's University Program offers all this and working through the school is a bonus.  Once this is up and running and students have their Passport to Learning (9 June) we will start offering  Children's University lunch-time activities in the Library, to support students to meet their learning hours goals.   

Christine MacLean will be the Children's University coordinator and will oversee the running and validation of Children’s University clubs or Restricted Learning Destinations in school.   

Students who enrol in the program will be given a Passport to Learning (on Thursday, 9 June) which is where Children's Universtiy members collect their learning.  Each activity is recorded along with the time spent, and validated with a stamp from the Learning Destination. As learning hours accrue, they build towards Children's University certificates awarded at graduations.

The cost to access the program is $16.50 (includes GST), per member per year.  This includes a Passport to Learning, annual graduations as well as validating local Learning Destinations and access to the Children’s University website and Portal.

If you would like to pursue this wonderful opportunity, please complete the Children's University Membership Form 2022 and pay $16.50 by Thursday, 9 June.  Payment on Qkr! is available, however, hard copy forms are required.  Membership Forms were emailed to parents/caregivers on Wednesday, 1 June, 2022.

The Membership form is also available here.

On Friday, 10 June there will be a Student Free Day, so all staff can undertake professional learning.

OSHC will be open on the day.  If you would like to book your child/ren into OSHC, please note only limited spaces are still available.  

Friday, 10 June is a Student Free Day so the Jumpstart at Pimpala program will not go ahead as all staff will be undertaking professional learning. 

We look to seeing our Jumpstarters at our next session on Friday, 17 June, 2022 at 9:00 am. 

Jumpstart at Pimpala is a free playgroup program for children aged 3-5 years with parent/caregiver which is held on Friday mornings from 9:00 - 10:30 am.

Please contact Barb in the Administration Office if you would like more information.  We would love to hear from you.

ABSENCES

It is a Department for Education requirement that all student absences and reasons for absence must be recorded by the school daily. 

If a child is absent, it is the parent/caregiver’s responsibility to notify the school.  This can be done by: 

• Sending an SMS message to the School Absence Line
  - 0427441857
• Leaving a message on the school’s answering machine (land line - 83260900) which is operational after school office hours;
• Ringing the school on the day of absence;
• Sending an email to dl.1059.info@schools.sa.edu.au;
• Using the school website to “Report an Absence”;
• Using the “Contact Us” page on the SZapp;
• Replying to a text message about why your child is not at school or was late to school.  PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THESE MESSAGES!

We understand that our teachers communicate with their students' families by way of Seesaw and so you may think this is a good way to let the school know of your child's absence.  However, often teachers have not had a chance to check Seesaw before doing the roll at 8:50am.  Consequently, absences can be missed, messages are sent asking where your child is today, and parents/caregivers can feel frustrated that the message didn't go through.  

Sometimes in cases of more that one child in the family, a parent/caregiver will notify a teacher to say the family is away that day, but the teacher is not aware that you may not have notified any other teachers, so absence notifications are missed. Also if the teacher is absent then the message may not be sighted or passed on to Administration.

In order to streamline our Absence process, we ask that the Administration staff are notified of all absences.

If the absence is for illness, a medical certificate is required for all absences over 3 days - (except for illnesses due to COVID).

EXEMPTION FORMS

If the child is absent as part of a planned absence eg. family holiday, please notify the school BEFORE THE ABSENCE! 

 If your child will be away from school for more than 2 days on a planned absence (not sickness) then an Exemption Form must be completed by the parent/caregiver to advise the Principal of this absence.  The Exemption Form is available from the Administration Office.

All students are expected to wear full school uniform each day.  Parents of students not in uniform will be contacted and reminded of their agreement and obligations to do so.

Reminder:  the school pants colour is navy and gumboots are not acceptable as school shoes - even though the weather is quite wet at the moment.

If there are extenuating circumstances, parents are asked to contact the class teacher in the first instance.

Thank you for your co-operation in giving all of our students a strong sense of belonging.

If you would like a tour of our school, please ring to make an appointment with the Principal, Belinda Finlay-Smith.  This enables any interested families the chance to ask individual questions and to provide specific information about your child/ren in a confidential setting.

If you or anyone you know is looking to enrol at Pimpala or find out more about what our school offers, please contact the Adminstration Office on 8326 0900 in the first instance to make an appointment.

We  still have a Saturday Principal Tour on 18 June, 2022 at 10:30am for those who are unable to attend appointments during the week.

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On Wednesday, 1 June we held an Assembly to acknowledge Reconciliation Week.  Ms Whitbread and Mr Scott's classes performed a Greeting from County song while Mr Burns' class demonstrated Australia's Reconciliation timeline.

Reconciliation week is the week where all Australia's (Indigenous and non-indigenous) people come together to create a plan to achieve reconciliation for our people. It's 'closing the gap' of diversity and inequality between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and non-indigenous Australians.

National Reconciliation Week (NRW) is celebrated across Australia each year between 27 May and 3 June. The dates commemorate two significant milestones in the reconciliation journey—the anniversaries of the successful 1967 referendum and the High Court Mabo decision.

This year's theme is Be Brave.  Make Change. 

On Friday, 3 June our Year 5/6 girls netball team had a successful day, beating two teams.

We played against St Johns in our first game of the day and started slowly.  At quarter time we were 6:1 down.  But we were able to pull it back and won 14:10.

Our second match of the day was against Flaxmill Primary School.  It was a hard-fought match until half time and then we pulled away winning 21:4.

We lived to fight another day and will compete in the next round in the next few weeks.

Thank you for Trish Mart and Emily Mooney-Doe for coaching and organising the event.  

As we now regularly utilise a number of different forms of communication with our community, including SZapp, Facebook, Seesaw,  email and Qkr!, we will reduce the number of newsletters we send out to twice a term, commencing from Term 3. These will be published in Weeks 5 and 10.

The school calendar, which is available on the SZapp and the website gives information about events which are planned during the year.