Today marks the end of week 5, which means we are now half-way through term one. We’d like to remind everyone to continue to be vigilant with your efforts in keeping the community safe. Please do not send your child to school should they be unwell. We are continuing to have covid cases reported across our community and stress that should your child test positive that you register this with ACT Health and let our school’s front office know.

I’d like to remind families that we are currently opening school gates at 8:45am each morning. We are seeing a number of students being dropped off or arriving in the area well before this time and congregating at the playground on the far side of the oval. This area isn’t part of our school grounds and as such we are not in a position to provide supervision to students in this area.

Home Reading: Parent Information Session: We will be holding a reading information session for parents and carers next Wednesday from 5:30-6:00pm. This session will help you understand how children learn to read and provide you with tips to support your child along the way. The session will be tailored towards families of children who are beginning readers (generally in Kindergarten and Year 1). The session will be held online on google meet. More information surrounding this event is provided further on in this week’s newsletter.

Uniform Expectations: All students are expected to be in school uniform every day. As the weather gets cooler, it is important that all students have a school jumper or jacket in school colour. Lowes Gungahlin is our uniform supplier and our P and C regularly runs a second hand uniform with details in their newsletter section. We particularly see students in upper primary attempting to push the boundaries somewhat with wearing hoodies or non-uniform colour jumpers. We ask that parents of our upper primary aged students support us in ensuring their children wear appropriate uniform.

Reporting Student Absence: Should your child be away from school it is important that you justify their absence through contact with their class teacher or the school’s front office. As part of my role I am required to contact families whose children have had unexplained absence and request a reason for this. After seven unexplained absences a letter will be sent out with the dates of absence and a request to explain these absences. If we do not receive a reply after a fortnight, we will send out a second letter. The vast majority of student absence is reported and I thank families for their efforts with this. If you are experiencing difficulties with your child and school refusal please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s class teacher to discuss.

Term Overviews: You should now have received an overview of your child’s learning for this term. We made a change to last year’s design, hopefully making it more accessible and useful for our families. For our senior primary students, years 5 and 6, our students recorded a short video and sent these via email to their parents. One of our families has been kind enough to allow me to include a video of their son Micah in this week’s newsletter sharing his future learning for this term. To view the video, click here.

Oval: Many of you will be aware that we haven’t enjoyed the usual access to the school oval that we have historically had. The school has been in contact with Territory and Municipal Services to find out a little bit of background about what’s happening with this. We have been advised that over the summer a water pumping system malfunctioned and needed repairing. This repair has happened and to rejuvenate the area they have cored the ground and are currently watering the grass twice a day – 9:00am and 2:30pm for ten minutes. We are now ok to resume using the oval for our regular breaks and PE lessons in line with our previous use. We do hope the rejuvenation is successful and the oval returns to its former glory shortly.

Wednesday 9 March, 5.30-6.00pm

A READING INFORMATION SESSION FOR PARENTS AND CARERS

Help your child develop their love for reading!

We are very excited to present our Neville Bonner Primary School Reading Information evening for parents and carers.

This parent information session will help you understand how children learn to read and provide you with tips to support your child along the way.

Let us help you make reading with your child an enjoyable experience for you both.

When: Wednesday 9 March 2022

Time: 5.30pm-6.00pm

Where: Google meet

Google Meet joining info

https://meet.google.com/obg-gyyv-sgv