28 July 2017

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Message

Welcome back to what is already proving to be an exciting term! A variety of whole school events are already planned to enhance the great teaching already happening at our school. Luckily, staff and students returned from the mid-winter break with plenty of energy and enthusiasm for the weeks ahead. Our teachers spent the Staff Development Day exploring a number of innovative approaches to teach reading and maths and have already planned ways to implement these in class. I am sure you will hear about them from the students in due course. Talking of students, it has been lovely to see them enjoying the new seating installed over the holidays. The seats were funded by proceeds from the Lapathon and have been a very popular addition to the school environment. Thank you for supporting this fundraiser earlier in the year.

Sport is certainly a focus this term with AFL Football clinics taking place last week, the Interschool Cross Country Competition next week and the Athletics Carnival at the end of Week 8. Despite losses over the past few years, teachers are undeterred and already preparing for the annual race against parents and students. This could be our year.

It’s not all about sport this term, though. Mrs Ameduri is currently working with the choir in preparation for the One Voice Concert. Once again, our students are joining numerous children from schools around Perth for a performance at the Arena on Friday 18th August. This will be an amazing experience and a great opportunity for our students to showcase their talent in front of a huge audience at this iconic venue. In addition, Toby (Rm5), Milla (Rm9) and Philippa (Rm11) have been selected to sing at the Young talent section of the contest. This is a great honour and testament to their talent; as you can imagine, competition for this slot is tough. It’s going to be a great night and I’m sure those of you with students in the choir are as excited as we are about it.

The rest of us are looking forward to Book Week in Week 7. We have organised lots of fun events and activities to promote reading and immerse our students in literature. Just to give parents a heads up, we are asking students to dress as their favourite book character on Friday 1st September. This is the date of our special Book Week Assembly, which will include a costume parade, amongst other items, to mark the end of what is going to be a fantastic week. Start preparing student costumes now – prizes for the most creative will be awarded. Once again, we will be organising a Mad Hatter’s Picnic on Thursday 31st August at 12:15pm. All parents are welcome to join us for a shared lunch with our buddy classes. Note that attendance is dependent on wearing a hat – the sillier the better! More information on Book Week will follow in the next newsletter.

Finally, after the success of last year, Science week will take place in Week 9. Activities are currently being organised so watch this space for more information.

As I have already said, there is plenty to interest all this term. You just need to add the dates to your diaries and we’ll see you there.

Best Wishes,
Caroline Booth

Dates to remember

Councillors for Semester 2

We are pleased to introduce our student councillors for Semester 2, Tom, Zara, Ryan and Zoe. After facing tough competition from their peers, the four were democratically elected by staff and students from Y3-6. All students who nominated for these positions did a great job in preparing a speech to persuade voters and should feel proud of their efforts. It shows great strength of character, particularly when there are limited positions available. We hope that you will all continue to put yourself forward for future opportunities. In the meantime, congratulations to our new student leaders. We are looking forward to working with you in the coming weeks.

Our new councillors for Semester 2

Term 2 Lightning Carnival

Our annual Lightning carnival was held on Friday 23rd June at Kingsway Sporting Complex.

MHPS participated in Netball A, B1, B2, Soccer Div A, AFL Div A.

Results:

4th - AFL
2nd - Soccer
1st - Netball A
4th - Netball B1
5th - Netball B2

Thank you to Miss Southworth for coordinating netball, Mrs Edwards for soccer and Miss Carlson for AFL. and Miss Jess Smith for scoring netball.

Thank you to our wonderful parent coaches who gave up their time every Friday afternoon to coach our students.

Soccer - Sharon Rafferty, Ryan Syers
AFL - Brad Archer
Netball - Angie Brown, Neridah Deering

Thank you to all the parents, friends and teachers for their support on the day.

Out and About at Mullaloo Heights

The roving camera wanted to take a peek at what’s going on in our Pre-Primary since Miss Rachel Shaw, our newest member of staff, joined us at the end of last term. We visited just as the children were trying out some new costumes for size. They had great fun inventing characters and devising scenarios for them. What a creative bunch! We happened to pop outside and that’s when we discovered more exciting stuff - a new mud kitchen had been installed in the sandpit. We’d like to thank Meike and Brad Hiscock for donating the sink and Stuart and Claire Johnson for building the unit. The students love it and are really enjoying baking mud pies.

News from the Sports Shed

Last term, Mrs Thorby was able to purchase new sporting equipment with the help of funding from the proceeds of the Lapathon held in Term 1.

Vegetable Garden

At the assembly being held next week on Thursday 3rd August, there will be a table set up in the undercover area, with a variety of vegetables that classrooms are currently growing in their gardens. For a gold coin donation, you can purchase some of these freshly picked vegetables.

Parent Information

A Reminder to Parents - Safety around Schools

Initiated by the City of Joondalup

In an effort to provide a safer environment for everyone, City of Joondalup Officers will be conducting patrols of school parking in the mornings and afternoons throughout the school term.

Vehicles which park contrary to parking signage around schools are a major hazard and impact on the safety of children, pedestrians and other road users in these areas. It is imperative that drivers are aware of, and park in accordance with, the parking conditions which apply in near schools.

As part of this initiative, Officers will be using patrol vehicles which have been fitted with Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) cameras, to capture digital images of vehicles which are parked contrary to parking requirements near schools. Any infringement notices, issued as part of these patrols, will be sent via mail to the registered owner of the vehicle.

Woolworths Earn & Learn 2017 has started!

A reminder to Parents, don’t forget to collect!

We are excited to be taking part in the 2017 Woolworths Earn & Learn program!

Through this program we will be able to get new educational resources for our school and all we need you to do is shop for your groceries at Woolworths.

From Wednesday 26th July to Tuesday 19th September or while stock lasts, we are collecting Woolworths Earn & Learn Stickers. You will get one Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker for every $10 spent (excluding liquor, tobacco and gift cards). Place the Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker onto a Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker Sheet and when it’s complete, the Sticker Sheet can be dropped into the Collection Box here at the school or at your local Woolworths.

At the end of the promotion, we’ll be able to get some great new equipment. The range is extensive and offers lots of items ideal for our students – including resources for Maths, English, Science and some fantastic fun supplies for Arts & Craft, Sport and for our library. If you’d like to know more visit the link below

We are grateful for your support and look forward to a successful program.

School Choir News

Please note Parents of School Choir Students

Our choir is in the BEETHOVEN section. Make sure you book your ticket(s) in this part of the Perth Arena.

A reminder also to forward bus fare ($5) and permission note to your child's classroom teacher as soon as possible. Send your child to school with a plastic or cloth bag to bring home their choir shirt.

Thank you.

Mrs Ameduri
Music

News from the French Room

Chaplain’s Corner

Dear Parents,

Welcome back to school and to term 3! I hope you enjoyed the break and have settled back into the term well. This term I am excited to continue the BUZ Together Program with the year 5 and 6 students in room 11. They have loved doing the program and have especially enjoyed the fun activities that have taught them important lessons. So far they have developed their skills in managing their feelings, building their confidence, maintaining and restoring their friendships, resolving conflicts and for the last sessions they will learn some effective bully-proofing strategies.

This term the year 3 and 4 students in room 9 completed the BUZ Friends program and we finished with a celebration as we looked back on the skills they have developed and the lessons they have learnt. I am looking forward to continuing the small group programs to build on the skills the students have learnt in the BUZ program, as well as introducing some new programs and activities for the students.

Girl’s Club has been a highlight for the year 5 and 6 girls lately and began last term on Friday during lunchtimes. To start it off we began with a fun ‘get to know activity.’ The girls wrote down two interesting facts about themselves, I collected them and then read them aloud and the rest of the girls had to guess who had written it. We had lots of fun and laughs trying to guess who had written the facts. They have also been able to make some exciting things, including friendship bracelets, flower headbands and DIY Pom Poms.

If you have any craft materials that you are no longer using and that could be used for the Girl’s Club, could you please bring them to the Chaplain’s room, located in the Tern block? That would be greatly appreciated.

Please see the article below about ‘5 ways to increase good feelings (and reduce a toxic atmosphere) in your family’ by Michael Grose.

Strong families thrive on good feelings. That doesn’t mean that such families are devoid of conflict or criticism, but that they are generally pleasant environments to be part of. One way to increase good feelings in your family is to increase the number of compliments kids hear at home.

For the full article please visit the link below.

Jess Smith
Chaplain

Community News