Term 4 Issue 2 | Caladenia Primary School

Dear Parents/Care Givers,

Your Move
We are entering a Program with the Dept of Education and City of Gosnells called ‘Your Move’. It is a program aimed at encouraging students and parents to walk or ride to and from school for health and safety reasons.

People who walk regularly have less heart and stress issues in life. It is a great way to be connected with the environment by feeling the breeze on the face, smelling the flowers and trees and enjoying the animals.

Our school Champion is Ms Wall (Year 3 teacher). She will be including updates of the Program in the school Newsletter. We will be encouraging students through competitions and connection to a healthier lifestyle.

This is as a result of Congestion of Traffic around the School. We continue to ask parents to:

Walk or ride with your children to school
Use the Kiss n Drive bays as drop-off only and fast-pick up arrangements.
Come into Bushy Gardens Drive from Boardman Rd and travel ONLY ANTI-CLOCKWISE around the school exiting via Westray St, Dornoch Wy or Beauly Pde onto Boardman RD.
This keeps your car on the school side of the road at all times for drop off and pick up, thus minimizing the risk of accidents with students crossing the road from your vehicle.
Please observe this at all times when school is attended.
Park your car around the school (street parking) and walk the small distance from the back of the oval into the school.

I have noticed many more parents and students walking to school in the mornings. It is so good to see – walking is a great way of maintaining fitness but also a great way of connecting with your children for a little longer each day.

Thank you to parents who are walking/riding with their children to and from school.

This week we received some criticism for the way we address traffic congestion around the school. I need to let you know that we are not responsible for the traffic situation around the school – we educate our parents and students on safe driving practices on a consistent basis but we have no jurisdiction over roads or footpaths at all. Our gardener, Mr Phil Crofts, supervises the drop-off and pick up each day but is not covered for this work at all. He does it from the goodness of the big heart he has for our school.

I repeat that we are not responsible for the traffic around the school – it is the responsibility of parents, City of Gosnells, Main Roads and agencies. Please try to not lay blame with the school – we are doing everything legally required of us but we do not own the verge and the roads nor are we allowed to insist staff control road or footpath traffic. Thanks for your understanding.

COVID-19 Phase 4 (Repeat)
The Premier issued a statement on COVID-19 on the 19 October, indicating that the current Phase 4 Restrictions will still apply until further notice.

This means that the restrictions on the 2m2 rule applies and parents will:

Not be able to enter classrooms as yet
Must adhere to the 2m2 rule – keep a 1.5m social distancing from another adult.
Restrict events, if held inside, to the social distancing rule.

Thank you.

Interschool Athletics
Our students are competing with schools in our local areas today. We are expecting our students to do well but in any case, we know they will be trying their hardest for success. I do love the way our students are so much part of the Team Caladenia experience and try so hard for one another. Go Caladenia!

Year 6 Camp
Our Year 6 students experience their school camp at Pt Walter from Sunday this weekend to Wednesday 11 November. We wish them well. I thank the teachers for their dedication to the Camp – it is not compulsory for teachers to take students on camp, so I appreciate the efforts in teachers being away from family and spending that time with their students. It says a lot for the teachers of our students at this school – thanks, staff.

Open Board Meeting
The School Board will be meeting in the Staff Room on 19 November at 7.00pm. This meeting is an Open Meeting so that all parents interested in attending can see how the Board works and the discussions and issues it addresses.

I urge you to come along to this Meeting if you are at all interested in becoming a Board Member in the future or just for information sake.

We would love to see many people at this Open Meeting.

THOUGHT: A random act of kindness, no matter how small, can make a tremendous impact on someone else’s life.

Keep well.

Kindest regards,
Ted Nastasi
Principal

Class News

Year 2 Room 25 – Miss Duffill

In Room 25 we LOVE to write! To start Term 4 we have been practising our persuasive writing skills. Our topic was “children need to reduce the amount of time they spend on technology!” I wonder if some of you agree?

We spent two weeks writing each paragraph, editing and publishing. Each of us worked hard to improve the vocabulary we used, follow the structure, persuading our reader and neatness. Miss Duffill is extremely proud of the final copies we produced!

Our students can be very persuasive:
Leon – “If you don’t want the kids to keep asking you a question, you can give them the phone and they will stop asking you questions.”
Ria – “As everyone knows, spending lots of time on technology means you get less exercise.”
Eboni – “It is clear that you can communicate with others.”
Angad – “Subsequently, it teaches terrible language to kids.”

Have we persuaded you to agree with one of our point of views?

Year 4 Room 29 – Mr Chandler

In Science this term, the students in Room 29 are studying the effect of forces on everything around us. We examined various games and looked at the forces that were at play throughout those games, including pushes, pulls, friction, gravity and magnetism.

This week, the students looked at friction and how we can increase and decrease the amount of friction in a game of tug of war. Things got very slippery once the dishwashing liquid was applied…

As the term progresses, our collaborative teams will plan, design, create and present original games, showcasing their new knowledge of forces and movement.

Year 4 Room 31 – Miss Beatty

Year Four, Room 31 have been learning all about Zoos and how they help conserve animals. We have researched and discussed how the Zoo uses donated money, and money from entry fees, to run breeding programmes for animals. Zoos in Australia all work together to protect our beautiful wildlife. Zoos have changed an awful lot over the past century, definitely changing for the better. All Year Four classes went on an excursion to Perth Zoo last week and met some amazing animals! We read that many of our animal species are endangered and that Perth Zoo is working hard to protect them.

Did you know that wild cats kill millions of wildlife creatures per day?! Or that kangaroos can put their pregnancies on hold until their body has enough food and water? Or that wild foxes pose a huge threat to wildlife? We learnt all this and more at our excursion and can’t wait to apply this knowledge to our Geography unit in the classroom.