15 February 2019

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Message

Welcome back to the school community and a very warm welcome to new families who are joining us for the first time. I sincerely hope you all had a restful break and are completely refreshed, ready for the new school year. Our students have already made a great start, settling into their new classes with ease and rising to the challenges set by their teachers. Their positivity, energy and enthusiasm reminds me of the following quote from Dr Seuss:

Teachers will certainly harness this youthful energy to ensure all achieve their potential this year. As I am sure you have noticed, our staff are working hard too, setting up classroom routines and establishing expectations for the coming year. These will be outlined in a letter from each class teacher which will ensure you are informed of what is happening in your child’s classroom. If you haven’t already received this, you should do so in the next few days. This written communication will be followed up with individual parent interviews later in the term. During these appointments, you will be able to discuss things that relate to your individual child. I am sure you will find these meetings extremely beneficial in gaining an understanding of your child’s achievement and how you can support him/her throughout the year. More information will follow regarding the organisation of these meetings.

You will have noticed a couple of new names added to our staff profile this year. I would like to welcome Miss Kate Doleman, who is teaching Year 1 in Room 7. Our students and parents have already given her a warm welcome. You will also have noticed a few changes in terms of existing teachers. Mrs Sandy Magyar has joined the Y3/4 teaching team and Mrs Libby Davidson is teaching Year 2. Finally, we have one name change. Congratulations to Miss Laura Southworth, who got married during the summer break and is now Mrs Booth; hopefully, this will not cause too much confusion! All staff, new and existing, are looking forward to working with you this year to create the best experience for your children. Remember that if you ever have a concern or worry, pop into the office and have a chat or visit your child’s teacher. You are always welcome.

In the meantime, have a great weekend.

Caroline Booth
Principal

Dates to remember

Term Dates for 2019

Student Leaders

Talking of new, our head boy and girl, Cash and Riley, have made an excellent start to their new role. Their first 2 weeks have been spent organising announcements over the PA and helping their Year 6 peers organise sports equipment at lunchtime. They have now been joined in their work by a team of student councillors. Elections took place this week, with potential candidates presenting speeches to students in year 3-6. All voters have cast their votes and the following students were voted as councillors for semester 1: Jaida, Cohen, Elijah and Billie-Rose.

Their badges will be presented in Line Up on Monday morning.

Although we can only appoint 4, all would-be councillors should be incredibly proud of themselves. Each individual prepared a well thought out and persuasive speech which they delivered calmly and confidently – a daunting task in front of such a big audience. Those who weren’t successful will have the opportunity to try again when we appoint councillors for semester 2. In addition, other leadership roles, such as Faction Captains, Library and Environment Garden Monitors, will be available in the very near future.

Our new leaders

Our First Week at Mullaloo Heights

Our new kindy and Pre-primary students settled into their life at school with ease last week. Of course, there was the added excitement of starting the year in newly renovated classrooms, albeit a week late for our Pre-primaries. These, along with a wide range of interesting and challenging activities organised by our Early Childhood team, meant tears, were few once mums and dads left. Every time we visited, children were engrossed in their work. Here’s a taste for what they got up to.

Learning is fun in our Early Childhood Block

A big thank you to the team of parents who helped teachers unpack and set up both Kindy and Pre-primary classrooms, post renovation, so that they were ready for the children. Your help was really appreciated!

Values Passports

Last year, an outstanding number of students achieved their 100 Club Badge for reading and Gold badge for Mathletics. These homework programs will continue this year and it is great to see how motivated our students already are: many have set themselves targets to do even better this year. Please support them in this endeavour by encouraging then to complete their home reading or Literacy Pro tasks and Mathletics. Talk to your child’s teacher to find out how best to this.

Back to School

There were no complaints from our older students on their return to school last week. They have embraced the changes set by their new teachers and knuckled down to hard work with a smile on their faces, as you can see from the photos.

Getting back into the swing of school

Parent Information

Rangers Parking and Community Safety – Safety around Schools – 40km ZONE

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 near schools.

As part of the City’s continuing effort to provide a safer environment for everyone City of Joondalup Officers conduct patrols of school parking in the mornings and afternoons throughout the school term.

As part of this initiative Officers use 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.

Please see the link below for a copy of the City’s School Parking brochure which provides additional information in relation to parking near schools. This is a reminder for parents and caregivers of their responsibility in ensuring that they park correctly near schools.

Mobile phones

A reminder that mobile phones and ipods etc, need to be signed into the front office at the commencement of each school day. These are stored away for the day and students come back at the end of the day to collect them.

Communication to or from parents or carers, during school time, regarding any issues relating to students is the responsibility of the school and will be managed by the school. Parents who need to contact their children during the school day can contact our school on 6206 2100.

Mobile phones can be an effective means of communication between parents and their children before and after school hours. However, during school time, they are a distraction to students and have the capacity to negatively impact on the learning environment and the safety and well-being of students.

Crunch & Sip

Our school is a Crunch and Sip School. All students are encouraged to have a water bottle in their classroom, every day: not juice or cordial, only water. Students are also encouraged to bring in a small container of chopped fresh fruit and/or vegetables. Students will have a break at about 9.30am in class. Popcorn, dried fruit, oranges and fruit tubs are not approved. Your child is encouraged to participate in Crunch and Sip, but this is not compulsory and your child may choose to only eat at recess and lunch time. If you have any concerns, please speak with your child’s teacher.

Sun Smart

Our school is a Sun Smart School. We encourage all students to wear our school bucket hat. Should a student forget their hat or choose not to wear it, they will be required to play in the covered assembly area. Students are encouraged to put on 30+ broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen before leaving for school or they can apply the sunscreen at school. Sun screen is available in every classroom.

Student Health Form 2019 (Excursions)

A hard copy of the 2019 Health Form for Excursions has been sent home with students. Could parents/ guardians please complete these forms and return them to their Class teacher by Friday, 1 March 2019.

Parent/ Guardian Contact details

If you have changed any of the following details, could you please notify the school, as soon as possible;

• Residential address
• Contact numbers – home, mobile
• Emergency contacts
• Email address

Medical updates

If there has been any change in your child’s health, that you may feel the school needs to know, for the safety of your child, for example; If your child has an anaphylactic reaction to anything, an allergic reaction or asthma, please notify our school in writing so that we can update our medical records.

Chaplain’s Corner

Dear Parents,

Welcome back to school! I hope you all had a great break and enjoyed your Christmas and New Year. I would also like to welcome all the new families to Mullaloo Heights Primary School. I hope that you are settling in well and I look forward to meeting and getting to know you all.

This year I am excited to run the BUZ (Build Up Zone) program with a number of classes. This program covers different social and emotional issues including resilience, self-confidence, conflict resolution, bully-proofing and feelings management. I will also run other programs throughout the year that will support individual classes and students, assist with the school’s health program, and run the values program.

Much to the students’ delight, Girls and Boys Club will start again this year. This will include workshops, games, crafts and activities for each year level during lunchtime.

As we begin a new year, I would like to remind you of my role at the school as a Chaplain. Please also see the flyer attached with this newsletter. As a Chaplain, I offer social and emotional support to the school community, including students, families and staff members. This includes having one-on-one conversations where I’m able to listen, empower and provide practical help and support to those in the school community, running pastoral care programs and activities in classrooms, engaging with students in small groups, assisting the school with whole school events, linking the school with the community by providing information on support services and agencies, and linking families with these support services.

I am available every Thursday and Friday from 8.15am-3.20pm if you have any questions or if I can help in any way. I can be contacted through the school or by email: Jessica.Smith@youthcare.org.au

Please see the article below: “Keep your stress bucket from overflowing” by Beyond Blue for tips on coping with stress.

Imagine you have a bucket. This bucket represents your capacity to cope with the ups and downs in your life. We all have a different sized bucket that’s determined by a range of factors, like your genetics, personality and events that have happened to you. Stressful events are the water poured into your bucket. Money problems? Add a cup of water. Relationship issues? Add a cup. Excessive workload? Add another cup. Most buckets have room to manage a few stressful events at a time – but when water keeps being poured in, you can get close to the limits of what your bucket can hold.

Kind regards,
Jess Smith
Chaplain

P & C News

Welcome to 2019

Can you believe the new school year has begun already?

We’d like to start this newsletter with a huge heartfelt Welcome to our new Mullaloo Heights families! We hope your cherubs settle into their new environment with minimal fuss, we’re sure it won’t take long before they feel at home in our MHPS community.

P&C AGM & General Meeting – Wednesday, 20th February commencing at 6:30pm in staff room

‘DON’T PANIC’

This year the P&C really needs your help.

We are looking for Mums, Dads and carers who are interested in making their children’s learning environment the best it can be.

As a 2019 member of the P&C you can contribute in many different ways:

• Be on the general or executive committee and have a great time with friendly and fun people
• Be on a subcommittee to help organise special events (more info to come)
• Organise a specific function eg. Pizza Day, School Disco, Cake Stall, Sausage Sizzle, Free Dress Days etc
• Be a volunteer for BBQ’s, supply shopper, equipment set up and pack down etc
• Volunteer for School Banking or in the canteen
• Write grant application letters and other sponsorship/donation requests
• and this is just to name a few!

But we need your help! We can’t continue the amazing support of our kids’ school environment without an enthusiastic and diverse group of people.

MHPS turns 40!

This year MHPS celebrates the 40th year since the official opening, and we will be holding a memorable 40th Birthday Celebration in Term 4 to celebrate in style. We require people to assist with organising this brilliant day. One person cannot do it all so with your help it will become a much easier prospect. Come along to our next meeting on Wednesday, 20th February, and become a P&C Member ($1 Membership fee) and help us make this year a year for our kids to remember.

P&C funding

Some recent items funded by the P&C include a subsidy of the Year 6 Graduation excursion of $20 per student, a $750 contribution towards the end of year Family fun Day, Awesome Kids Morning Teas, recent incursion subsidies of 50%, and upgrades to the K/PP storage space. We are also pleased that through the efforts of ongoing fundraising events, we were able to contribute $25,000 towards the new nature playground.

We are thoroughly excited to give back directly to the kids of our great little school in this way.

P&C committee

The P&C is a lovely bunch of parents who are working tirelessly to improve and maintain the high standard of learning environment for our kids. This takes an entire team and we are always on the lookout for new members, ideas and feedback. We would like to encourage you to get in touch to let us know how you are able to help. It may be that you are great at writing grant applications, liaising with sponsors, working in advertising, were an accountant in a previous life or maybe you cook a mean snag! Help in any form, whether it be for one hour or many, is always appreciated.

If you’d like to know more or have a voice within the school, we encourage you to get in touch with a P&C member or attend a meeting. All are welcome.

If you would like to know more about what we do or how you can support our awesome school community, please contact:

Shane Porter on 0409 884 365 or shane.porter14@bigpond.com

Community News