15 December 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Message

I can’t believe I am writing the final newsletter of 2016. The year has flown by – a sure sign of just how busy we have all been. Despite the busyness, the final events of term have made the countdown to the Christmas break both memorable and fun. The Graduation Ceremony was a somewhat poignant opportunity to focus on our current Year 6 students and their contribution to Mullaloo Heights over the years. They shared the highlights of their time here and their ambitions and hopes for the future. Although a small group of students, their impact has been huge. They have been great role models for our younger students and will be remembered with fondness and respect. We wish them all the best for their adventures yet to come. I’d like to say the our Pre-primaries ended the term in style, but actually ‘in mud’ would be a more accurate description. As you can imagine, they had a fantastic time wallowing in it in on their special Messy Day on Monday. Have a look at the photo gallery below to get a taste of the fun. Finally, our Family Fun Day on Tuesday was a whole school reward for our students’ hard work and positive effort this year. It was a great finish to the term made more enjoyable by our students’ determination to have great fun. It was wonderful to see them enjoying themselves, having earned this treat and their forthcoming holiday. Thank you to the P&C and Jan Norberger, our local MLA, for contributing towards this exciting event.

Talking of the forthcoming break, students, please remember, in your holiday excitement, to stay safe. Think about road safety and wear your helmet when cycling. Also, keep in mind everything teachers and your parents have told you about stranger danger. We want to see you all back, safe and sound, in February ready to begin the fun again.

I would like to take this final opportunity of the year to thank all parents, on behalf of all staff at Mullaloo Heights, for your positive support throughout the year. Your efforts make a real difference to our programs and the things we can offer the students. We hope you have a really great Christmas and well-earned rest.

As you know, we are saying goodbye to Mrs Vickers, this term. I’d like to thank her for the huge contribution she has made to our school and wish her all the best for her future endeavours. We will also say goodbye to Chris Moody, our school psychologist, at the end of the year. He has been a great support and resource to us over the years. Good luck for the future, Chris. Next year, we will be welcoming Miss Polly Taberer to our teaching team and Mrs Priscilla Grainger as our school psychologist.

Happy Christmas and see you all in 2017

Caroline Booth
Principal

Dates to remember

Education Minister’s Christmas Card Competition

Earlier this term, our senior students were invited to design a Christmas card for Hon Peter Collier MLC, minister for education, as part of his annual competition. The winning design becomes his official Christmas card for the season and is sent to many recipients across the country. We are proud to announce that Tom in Year 6 won the competition and his design, labelled with both his and our school name, will be received by many this Christmas. The winning design is below.

Graduation Excursion: Outback Splash Reflections

Ty - At Outback Splash it was warm and humid. It was a fantastic memory sliding down the enormous slides, playing volleyball with Cooper's thongs and jumping up and down in the difficult maze with no shoes on! It stung my feet.

Tarquin - At Outback Splash it was nice weather for waterslides. It was really fun sliding down the gigantic waterslides. Playing on the jumping pillow was amazing! Getting lost in the maze was annoying because we had no shoes on.

Tasmin - At Outback Splash, it was nice weather but at times it was a bit windy and cold. It was an amazing day going through the maze, jumping on the bouncy pillow and sliding down the awesome waterslides. There was this bucket and when it tipped on you, it felt like you'd been dumped by a wave at the beach. Overall it was an amazing day!

Toby - At Outback Splash, it was a brilliant day to go on the waterslides! I enjoyed bouncing on the bouncy pillow and to go through all of the challenging mazes.

Jessica - At Outback Splash, I had a great time! The weather was warm and my favourite slide was the Plummet. You would climb so high and then fly down the slide. I managed to get Mr Adlam and Miss Southworth to go down the slide as well!

Pre-Primary Messy Day

Our Pre-Primaries had great fun frolicking in water and mud on their Messy Day.

Family Fun Day

The whole school had a blast on our Family Fun Day. There were lots of activities to try, including a giant Slip n’ Slide, a bouncy castle, giant soccer balls, sumo suits, and wacky relay races, just to name a few. Our students tried them all and worked up quite an appetite as they worked through each one. Luckily the morning finished with a giant feast provided by our generous parents. Have a look at the photos from this fantastic day.

Coding with Buddies

This year buddies from Room 7 and Room 11 have been working together, keeping the produce growing in our environmental area and learning about coding on the iPads.

The children had great fun creating their projects using ‘ScratchJr’ and just as much fun presenting them to the rest of the group. It appears we may have some IT experts in the making.

Whole School / Year 6 Special Photo Orders

Following our recent Year 6 Graduation, School Leaders and Faction Captains photos taken by Kapture, you can now view and order any of these special photos if you wish. Kapture has also made available the ‘Whole School’ photo that was taken earlier this year. This is the photo that was presented to the school on behalf of the Year 6 Class at the recent Graduating Ceremony.

If you wish to order any of these photos, please follow the below steps.

When visiting the link below you will need to enter our school code under the Sports & Event tab to access the gallery; Code: MVVTYN

NB: These photos are available to view and purchase for the remainder of this year, but will be removed from Kapture’s website at the end of the year in readiness for next years’ photos.

Parent Information/Reminders

Chaplain’s Corner

Dear Parents,

I can’t believe that Christmas is almost here! We have had so much fun leading up to the Christmas season. We saw every classroom come together to fill their basket with food for the Salvation Army to give to families who are struggling financially. Thank you for your generosity, many families across WA will be given a wonderful Christmas. The students also really enjoyed coming in free dress for the day, as they always do enjoy!

As the year comes to an end, so did the BUZ Friends Program for the year 3’s in Room 5. We enjoyed celebrating all we had learnt and each student received a certificate for their participation in the program, which was followed by a celebration with games and activities. In the words of some of the students: “BUZ helped me learn how to be a better friend and solve fights”, “BUZ taught me how to forgive people” and “BUZ was great because we learnt about emotions, friendships and fights and we could get so much out of it.”

Room 5 having fun at the BUZ celebration

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2017! I wish all the best to the year 6 students who will be starting high school next year and the families who will be leaving Mullaloo Heights. I am grateful to have gotten to know you all and you will be missed!

Kindest regards,
Jess

P&C News

Kids Self Defence Class

Mullaloo Heights Primary School held a Kids Self Defence Class during the week of Daniel Morcombe Day. Limited places were available and they were quickly filled up by excited attendees. Adults attended as a "team mate". Hosted by Stephen Walton of M1FC everyone had a great time!

We covered awareness theory and lots of fun practical but physical examples. The kids especially enjoyed the kick, kick and koala leg exercises. Surprisingly, the exercise where the children had to shout they were a bit shy! Yes, I know. Parents were shocked. Kids find it hard to shout as parents, were always telling them not to. Stephen pointed this out and told the kids this is your 1st line of defence is to shout for help.

All attendees took helpful experiences away from the class and look forward to next year. Profits were split between the P&C and the Daniel Morcombe Foundation.

I would like to thank all the attendees for coming as it was a huge success - See you next year for a refresher. A big Thanks also to Stephen Walton for such an inspired and fun night out. We welcome the school community and surrounding community to join in in 2017!

Marguarete Wettstein (P&C Mum)

Community News

Yabble is a website where parents can find and book holiday programs in their area that are fun and safe. We list all the best activities around Perth and aim to take away the stress and time it takes to discover and book extracurricular kids activities during the holidays. We have an array of different activities from cooking and arts and crafts to sports and tech camps.