9 September 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principal's Message

We were halfway through Book Week when I compiled my last newsletter message. What a week it was! I suspect at the end you were feeling the same as we were – exhausted, but happy. It was certainly a lot of fun, enhanced by the enthusiasm of our students and the great support from the community. This was manifested in many ways: the library was filled daily with parents and students attempting to 'guess the book', the Mad Hatter's Tea Party had a huge attendance and tasty treats were plentiful, while special guest readers were welcomed and given full attention by our students as they discussed the impact of reading on their lives. This complete engagement in events and activities is the best reward is for organising something like Book Week. It is a distinguishing feature of the Mullaloo Heights school community and truly enhances programmes we provide at school. Thank you! It goes without saying that the Book Week assembly was attended by a huge variety of book characters books as parents once again rose to the challenge of providing creative costumes. This added to the atmosphere of this special finale to the week, making it an outstanding success. In case you missed out on any of our Book Week activities, we have added galleries of photos below; in this way, you can still get a taste of the fun.

NAPLAN Results

Our student NAPLAN results were recently given to families. In most cases, these will be something to celebrate with your child, the manifestation of hard work and concentrated effort. Where children are disappointed with their results, it is important to remind them we only ever expect them to do their best and no more. In addition, NAPLAN is just one test. It tells us what the students can do in literacy and numeracy at a particular point in time. This information will be considered alongside the work students do in class every day. If they are consistently doing their best, then we are always going to be happy. If you have concerns about your child's achievement, please make an appointment to discuss this with your child's teacher at any time. As I have stated previously, at Mullaloo Heights, the acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills is a priority and a strong focus of our teaching. However, we also believe that a broad, balanced education is essential and encourage parents to supplement homework with other activities when children are out of school, such as sports and performing arts. The pursuit of a wide range of interests will help students to put NAPLAN in perspective.

Swimming

Once again, our students have been praised for their excellent manners and behaviour by staff at Craigie Leisure Centre and the bus drivers taking them to swimming lessons. Of course, this isn't a surprise to us as we see this positive attitude and consideration for others on a daily bias. It's nice to hear this being acknowledged by the general public though.

Caroline Booth
Principal

Dates to remember

Community Kindy Buddies

Our friends from the Community Kindy paid us a visit during Book Week. They'd heard about our Mad Hatter's Tea Party and decided to join in the fun. Students from Room 12 welcomed the special guests and led them through a number of fun literacy based activities alongside students from our own Kindy. Of course, being Mullaloo Heights students, they did this with patience and kindness, impressing parents and teachers from the Community Kindy. Once the literacy fun was finished, the youngsters joined the rest of the Mulalloo Mad Hatters for a fantastic feast. What a great day!

Getting to know our Kindy neighbours

Book Week Memories

We have compiled a few galleries of photographs to remind you all of how much fun was had by all at Book Week.

Guest Readers

During the week, we were visited by sportsmen from the West Coast Eagles and Western Force, a racing car driver and members of the local community, including surf life savers and members of the police force. Although from very different backgrounds, they all agreed that reading was important. They shared their favourite books and told us how reading enhanced their lives. Here are some photos of our special guests.

Welcoming our special guest readers.

Guess the Book

Each day, cryptic clues were displayed in the library, teasing the students to try and guess a particular book. Our students love a challenge so, as you can imagine, the library was filled to capacity every morning while they excitedly attempted to solve the puzzle of the day.

Examining cryptic clues

Fair Dinkum

Our K-4 students enjoyed the musical extravaganza, Fair Dinkum, during Book Week. This performance combined extracts from the Children's Book Council Award (CBCA) shortlisted books with song and dance for a highly entertaining production.

Enjoying Fair Dinkum

Mad Hatter's Tea Party

The weather was idyllic, the food delicious and the guests, wonderful: our mad hatter's tea party was a great success! Thank you, parents, for providing us with a mountain of food. We can safely say, by the end of the morning, we couldn't eat another morsel!

Enjoying the feast at our mad hatter's tea party

Special Assembly

We got a chance to see everyone's amazing costumes during our special Book Week assembly. Earlier that morning, a couple of Crayola crayons popped into classrooms to attempt to award prizes for interesting costumes. After much head scratching and severe indecision, a couple of outstanding costumes were selected by our judges. We think they made some great decisions.

Winners of the Creative Costume Competition

Prizes were also awarded for our Book Week writing competition. Students in Pre-Primary to Year 4 wrote poems with a focus on precise descriptive vocabulary, while our older students designed book covers complete with a persuasive blurb. The standard was very high, but a number of deserving winners were selected. Their work is currently displayed in the front office on the 'Board of Excellence'- make sure you have a look next time you're in. Once winners were announced and prizes presented, the whole school settled down for a special performance of 'Max and the Wild Things' by our talented teachers. We may be biased, but we think this completed Book Week in the most perfect way. We're already looking forward to next year.

Winners of the Book Week Writing Competition

Having fun on the last day of Book Week

Western Force Visit

During Book Week, Western Force players Jono Lance and Angus Cottrell visited Mullaloo Heights PS. It was a fantastic visit where Jono read a chapter of the book 'Chance of a Lifetime' which was co-authored by his friend and fellow rugby star, Israel Folau. Following this, the players went on to speak about the importance of a healthy lifestyle, a good education, being your best, inclusion of others, positive mentors and meeting and overcoming challengers both on and off the field. Both players generously answered questions from the students, signed autographs including some student's rugby apparel and it was clear that they enjoyed the visit as much as the students while giving an insight into their world as a professional sportsman. They are two truly professional men and great ambassadors for their franchise the Western Force, and rugby in general. One of our students Harry said," this has been the best day ever at school, they are so cool."

Another interesting aspect was brought up as they were leaving; Jono Lance mentioned to the students that he would be telling his friend, Israel Folau of his visit to Mullaloo Heights Primary School and the role his book took in the visit. It's amazing how far a book can travel!

Western Force players Jono Lance and Angus Cottrell

Music News

Our students and staff were treated to a great show on Monday, 29th August, by "The Rhythm Works" from Musica Viva In Schools.

These talented musicians demonstrated their expertise playing acoustic instruments as well as looping technology in their music. We have been enjoying the songs and learning the musical skills for several weeks in class. The show was a wonderful culmination to that unit of work.

Enjoying Musica Viva

Thank you to all those who have returned the school choir shirts clean and ready for the next event. If there is still one in your laundry, would you please return it as soon as you can.

T. Ameduri.

Chaplain's Corner

Dear Parents and Carers,

Thank you for welcoming me into Mullaloo Heights. I have really enjoyed my first few months and I can't believe we're almost at the end of the year! These are some of the things I have loved being a part of:

• Assisting with the year 3 "Bounce back" resilience program
• Taking small groups of students out to do gardening and group activities, being involved in classroom activities
• Being a part of choir on Thursday mornings and attending the 'One Big Voice' Music Festival at Perth Arena
• Assisting with the 'Early beginnings' Pre-Kindy program
• Helping in school events, such as cross country, the faction athletics carnival and Book Week Literacy Rotation.

I am looking forward to Term 4 and to be a part of more exciting school events.

If you have any questions or would like to contact me, I can be contacted via email at jessicas@youthcare.org.au and I am available Thursday and Friday 8.15am-3.45pm.

Kind regards,

Jess

Parent Information/Reminders

Uniform Concepts – School Holiday opening days

Please note that the Uniform Concepts store in Joondalup will be closed for the first week of the term break and will re-open for the second week, dates below:

• Closed from Monday, 26 September – Saturday, 1 October (inclusive)
• Re-opens on Monday, 3 October.

Community News