Newsletter

Dear Parents/Care Givers, 

We had a real opportunity to practice what we have developed in our plans for an emergency last Wednesday. A whole school block was evacuated when a burning smell was coming from a classroom (Room 23). Within a short time, the children from the classrooms were taken safely away to the Undercover Area. The Fire Brigade and electricians/air-conditioning people were effective and quick acting. All of our safety mechanisms and processes worked very well.

The problem was a loose downlight connection that was fraying away. We have replaced all of the downlights and so the issue is resolved safely. The Dept of Education was marvelous in its checking on our safety and health.

Harmony Day Assembly

The Assembly was a celebration of a focused week of learning about various cultures and traditions from around the world. The Music Dept put together a fantastic presentation of sights and sounds from around the world. The Art and the LOTE and PE specialists also presented sections of the Assembly beautifully.

We have such a wonderfully cohesive community where culture, religion or any other feature from any country is accepted as one – children do not place restrictions on anyone being their friend and they play so well together without racial tensions. I am sure our children don’t even know that there are differences amongst them. We are blessed with great empathetic teachers who exercise wonderful modelling for the children. Thank you. I love our community.

Cyber Safety

Paul Litherland delivered one of his best presentations last night to our parents on cyber safety for our children. The main message was

• Know what you children are doing on the internet at all times
• Set time limits on the internet
• Know how to block sites from the danger

What an amazing resource Paul is to children. His sessions with the classes were very well received by the children and they now know what to do to protect themselves from cyber dangers – however, the message is still to parents – understand the pressures on children these days and help them through with  problems not yell at them.

Thank you to the 80 or so parents who turned up last night – you received the best from Paul and we intend to take him up on his suggestions and guidelines in navigating the internet safely and using professionals to solve cyber bullying and on-line dangers.

School Board and P&C

We are meeting with the Mayor and City of Gosnells personnel to discuss parking and traffic flow on 20 April. The Board and P&C are clear about what we need to do about this and how we would like it resolved for the safety of our children at Caladenia. It is a great joint planning exercise and I am thankful to both Caladenia community groups in coming together to show solidarity in this matter.

We are also planning joint activities together for the building of a tighter and joyful community of Caladenia people. We are excited by the potential this can have on our community.

Parking and Traffic

Thank you to the fabulous families who have started walking to school with their children. We have had more children walking and riding to school since we started the Your Move Program.

Please be patient in your desire to get to the same small area of the school to drop-off/pick up children. If parents would spread the drop-off and pick up from the full extremity of the school parking on the roads around the school and let children walk across the grass to the oval gate, it would be far easier and less congested. One of the problems is that everyone, within a short space of time each day, wants to be at the same gate on Bushy Gardens. If you could arrange to pick up your child from a different place around the school, it would alleviate some of the congestion. Also, if possible, try not to come into the car park to drop-off in the mornings – let your children out around the school and let them walk into the school on their own – they did this successfully during COVID last year without any problems.

Before School

Please remember that children should be at school by 8.15am in the mornings – teachers will let students in to class at that time. This time is used by the teachers to listen to children read, prepare for the day’s lessons and check homework.

Safety

We are trying our best to provide our children with the best safety and health practices we can. We have shown children how to be safe riding/walking to and from school and how to protect themselves from on-line abuse or misadventure. It is the responsibility of parents and adults to look after our children and know what they are doing all the time, to keep them safe from harm.

Best wishes.

Ted Nastasi

Principal