newsletter - · pdf filewelcome barbecue - thursday 23rd ... ers and flesh out the 2017...

Newsletter

Wangaratta District Specialist School

Date 3/03/’17 Ph. 5721 7424

[email protected]. Fax. 5721 8601

Dates to Remember

O.T. - Paula - Monday - Thursday

Speech - Shannon - Monday - Friday

Welcome Barbecue - Thursday 23rd March 5.00pm—7.00pm

School Council Meetings - 5.00pm 21st March & 2nd May

The halfway point already!

Hard to believe that we are already into the second half of the term! Time flies when you are having fun. It has

been wonderful to see so many parents and carers visiting our school over the past few weeks to meet with teach-

ers and flesh out the 2017 Individual Learning Plans for students. Our aim as always is to have a collaborative

approach to all student learning goals and we value your input, as you clearly know your child better than any-

one. This becomes increasingly important as students reach their final few years of school as it allows us to better

map a smooth transition plan for students into a sustainable post-school pathway.

2017 School Captains

We will be presenting badges at assembly on Friday 10th March

but in lieu of this, James Elkan and Sarah Lord have been elected

by their peers as the 2017 School Captains. James in in his final

year at school and Sarah is in her second last year with us. Both

James and Sarah are very excited at the opportunity and I am in-

credibly pleased to have them in these roles. I am confident they

will continue to model our school values each and every day and

represent our school proudly at many events throughout the year.

Welcome BBQ

Speaking of visiting our school – our welcome BBQ is only 3 weeks away

and we are looking forward to having as many members of our school com-

munity as possible to come along and enjoy a chance to catch up informally.

If you have not already, please let us know if you will be attending and how

many of your family will be coming so that we can have enough food for all.

Students, families and friend enjoying a previous “Welcome Barbeque”.

2017 School Captains

Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.

Stirling - Jacinta and Emily

Principal’s

Awards

Chris Harvison

Principal

Week 3

Stella Fitzgerald-Baboussouras for being safe by always wearing her hat

Xavier Simpson for being a learner and calling the buses each day

Lachlan Jacobs for being respectful by keeping the yard clean

Week 4

Kortney Hutchinson for being respectful by helping another student with her shoes

Maddie Hill for being a learner by doing great writing while “playing school”

Samuel Villella for being a learner by reading the book “Getting Around” clearly

and confidently

Toby Crawford for being safe by displaying excellent awareness while bike riding

We have been very busy in Stirling over the past two weeks. We went and meet the Collingwood players; we

have made pancakes, been swimming, set up a train track in the classroom for us all to play together and of

course been busy learning.


Mt. Beauty - Kate M, Tina and Sarah

Bogong - Leanne and Tyler

A big welcome to Mark to Class Bogong 2017! Each morning Mark comes into our classroom with a big

smile on his face. Ready for Learning, to be Safe, in addition Mark is always RESPECTFUL! A great Role

Model for our school.

Last week Bogong students cooked sausage rolls during our cooking program. We are so lucky to have a Vol-

unteer to help us during our cooking program. Mick volunteers every Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, he is

retired now being a teacher for many years teaching both adults and secondary students in our local area.

Tyler is

helping me

learn!

I need to practice more

using my left hand when

writing.

Brain Gym

We are making pancakes!

Mt. Beauty students have been enjoying weekly community access sessions. We are being learners, respectful and safe on our trips to the library, supermarket and park. At the Library we are respectful of others by using a quiet voice, safe by walking and not running in the library and being learners by reading and borrowing books. We love our trips out in the community!


Hotham - David, Lea and Chris

Kosciusko - Richard, and Luke

The highlight for most students in the last fortnight was having a sit down lunch with Collingwood players at

“The Glasshouse” at the Wangaratta Indoor Sports and Aquatic Centre. The Magpies spoke in a relaxed setting

about playing at AFL level, and students told players about their school and sporting lives. Later, the players

ran students through a range of skill-building activities at The Showgrounds.

Coby: “It was fun because we got to tackle the tackle bag. We got to do tricks on the jumping castle, backflips

and front flips. You could have the players throw a ball to catch when you did a jump.”

In week 3, our student of the week was Craig, for always working quietly and conscientiously in maths and lan-

guage block. In week 4, Jordan was selected as student of the week for being elected to Junior School Council.

We in Hotham have been having a wonderful time both in and out of class.

We have settled into our new learning routines beautifully and our specialist programs are in full swing.

We have participated in;

Drumming with Robyn

Art with Jodi.

We have also made the

most of the warm

weather by visiting the

Splash Park.


Stanley - Renee and Simon

Mt. Emu - Frazer and Jack

Stanley Crew

Sorting and delivery the fruit to the

school.

We have had a jam-packed 2 weeks in Mt.Emu. Our school was lucky enough to

be invited to the Collingwood Football Clinics down at the Showgrounds for

some games and interaction. We were even luckier to have some of the players

come to the school and answer some questions and sign some autographs!

We have been working very hard during class time. Our Ned Kelly and Aboriginal work has been very fascinating. There have been a lot of intriguing questions being asked! On the 20th of March, we will be taking a trip to Glenrowan to visit some of the historical plac-es that surround Ned Kelly. We are very ex-cited!!


Warby - Judd and Lizz

~Employee of the Month- Breanna Barlow-Weir~

Breanna began doing volunteer work at the

Wangaratta RSPCA last year. Breanna started two

hours a week and her hours have recently been in-

creased to four hours!! Pictured Below.

‘I look after the cats area, I’m in charge of keeping

the area clean and I give them food and water.

Sometimes when they get a new cat I clean the

whole area so they don’t get sick’. Congratulations

Breanna, Judd and Lizz are really proud of you and

your great work ethic.

Congratulations to Simone Hodgetts who was elected the Warby Junior School Councillor Representative and Brydie Kensington who was elected our Vice Representative. Pic-tured Right.

Warby students have been very busy in the last few weeks! We have enjoyed going on a weekly bike ride and practising our bike safety skills. Students have been taking responsibility for making sure helmets are fitted correctly, bike seats are at the correct height, wearing high vis vests, and looking out for their class-mates on the ride. Tim Marengo took home one of last weeks students of the week for being a respectful friend and caring for a class mate who had a fall during last weeks bike ride. Congratulations Tim! Our biggest highlight in the last week has been our new senior students receiving their ‘senior school’ shirts. These students have been displaying since day one back at school how they can be respectful to their peers, teachers and members of the community, learners in the class and safe in the class, yard and community. This behaviour is what we expect from our senior students as they are role models in our school. Congratulations guys!!

Cobbler – Lee and Alicia


A lot has happened in the past few weeks for the Morgan class. In our cooking program, we showed our expert cooking skills by making some delicious sausage rolls completely from scratch. Not only did they look amazing, but they also tasted better than any bakery sausage roll I have ever had (James Richards, 2017). The group has shown great learning in our community access groups, having gone to shops such as Kmart and the op shop and made purchases for the classroom. They have been working really hard on their money skills, as well as their inter-actions with community workers outside of school, and the results show they’re a confident bunch when it comes to community access. We have also celebrated Amy Cooke’s birthday! Amy turned 14 on the weekend, so we de-cided to celebrate it as a class with cake and candles.

The time for junior school council has also come, so the candidates of the class created speeches they presented, on why they would make a good representative for Morgan on the junior school council. After their speeches, the class voted, and the elected junior council representative for Morgan in 2017 is Amy Cooke! Big congratulations to Amy and all students involved in our election. This week’s assembly was an eventful one for Morgan, with Kane Swain taking out the Student of the Week award for being safe and respectful during his first few weeks at school.

Morgan also demonstrated their drumming skills with local bongo wiz and music guru Robyn in an amazing per-formance of rhythm that blew the audience away. The proudest moment for Morgan thus far in the year was seeing three students called up on stage to recognize their generosity. Andrew, Kira and Amy all received recognition for donating their hard earned goldies towards the children’s hospital, proving they have hearts of gold.

Morgan - Ryan, Stella and Jill

The rest of the class was privileged to meet the 6 Collingwood

players the following day. The students listening intently whilst the

players told them a bit about themselves. Then it was the students

turn, they were given the opportunity to ask some questions. Ai-

dain said that his favourite thing was getting their autographs, Mat-

thew said his favourite thing was getting to meet them and Bran-

don said that he liked listening to them and getting to see how nice

they were, even if they were Collingwood players!

On Tuesday February 21st, two of the Mt Cobbler students had the op-

portunity to attend a football clinic with some of the players from the

Collingwood Football club. One the students was Jayden. Jayden had a

great time and said that his favourite thing was the fact that they taught

them about ball skills and how to wave to get other players attention. He

also had the opportunity to get all of their autographs and take them home

to his Mum.


Feathertop - Kate E and Fiona

Mt Typo

As part of Mt Typo's weekly timetable we cook our lunch every Friday. The person who is student of the week gets the chance to choose whatever they would like to cook the following week. So far we have had quiche, spaghetti bolagnese, and mini pizzas.

Here are some activities and writing from the Feathertop room.

The Monster Trucks came to Wangaratta Speedway and I went to the track to watch them - Scott

Feathertop made hamburgers in cooking.

James is eating a hamburger. It was cool on

Thursday. – Dylan

James is eating a burger, bread, sauce and zucchini. James is eating at the table. - Trent

I am cutting yellow watermelon on a board. It was easy. It tastes like watermelon. I cleaned up after it. -Sirus

MUSIC

With Robyn

Another busy two weeks in Music at WDSS. We’ve had great fun making xylophones from bottles filled with water and discovered that different water levels produce different sounds or notes. The more water in the bottle the lower the note. Of course colouring the water added to the enjoyment!

We have discovered that Shannon, our Speech Therapist has been a Choir leader and was a member of the Australian Girls Choir in Mel-bourne for many years! How wonderful for us! Shannon has begun leading a music session for students during Friday lunch break. Last Friday was great fun and students learnt some new silly songs about a moose named Fred and a house in New Orleans. Thanks Shannon for sharing your time and talent with us.

I want to let families and carers know about “Music is Awesome” – a program developed by Beth McMillan from DHS which celebrates music for people with disabilities. It is held on the second Sunday of every month between 1.00 and 4.00 pm at the Masonic Centre Hall in Wangaratta, on the corner of Appin and Esmond Streets.

You don’t need to be able to play an instrument to join in, there are people there who will happily provide the music! Just come and enjoy the music being made and feel free to join in if you’d like to. Af-ternoon tea is also on offer – an added bonus!

The next “Music is Awesome” gathering is on Sunday 12th of March. Hope to see you there.

Congratulations to the Music Students of the Week in Week 4…..

Lucas Jacobson, Aiden Fallon and Sirus Walsh

…and in Week 5…

Sam Villella, Morgan (Class) and Faith Clark

WELL DONE TO YOU ALL!


Buffalo - Phillipa, Lisa C and Darlene

Taminick - Lisa, Liz and John

It’s been very busy in Buffalo as the kids are all settling into routines and getting used to school activities.

There is so much fun to be had and the class are loving their art, PE and music sessions. They are working on

their learning in class as well.

In Taminick the students have been continuing to enjoy some great experiences that help with their communi-cation (talking to each other) and learning to work together as a group. Here are some of our fun photos of the last couple of weeks.

Sensory - Toby has been working hard with John, and Aiden M is enjoying a relaxing massage.

Fantastic cooking for Shaneevah and Madeleine, and a foot spa for Aiden. Awesome activities.


Mt Pilot – Jacqui, Treena, Sharon and Molly

On Saturday the 25th of February 18 current and former students came to South Wangaratta for the come try soccer day, and to register for the Just For Kicks All Abilities Soccer league that will commence in April. Jack McNeilly was on hand to put the kids through some skill drills and general fitness activities. There was a soccer match at the end of the training session. It was great to catch up with Josh Jose and Nathan Camp-bell. Nathan was the same positive encouraging person who left us last year, Josh was very happy to see his old classmates. There is still time for more players to sign up for the season that will kick off next term, and run till September, then 10 lucky players will travel to Melbourne to represent our League in the AAA state championships. As you can see from the happy smiling faces the kids had a ball. There was good representa-tion from across the entire school Middle and senior years.

Jack’s Soccer News

This past week has seen us add to our Lego collection in the Mt Pilot classroom. We have enjoyed some down time on those hot afternoons where the girls have built tall buildings, castles and homes whilst carefully follow-ing the instructions. They are currently building a city landscape which looks fantastic.

The students are developing a really good routine in the classroom and are very organised with their take home readers and student planners. This week saw the class go off to the local Splash Park as a special part of their Physical Education program. It was a great afternoon and they really enjoyed themselves. Keep up the good work Mt Pilot.

ART WITH JODI

Wow what a busy two weeks.

We have been focusing on “Construction Art” at the moment, with lots of Balsa

Wood Glider Planes, Paper Mache Volcanos, Dreamcatchers and Balloon animals

everywhere. The students have really taken to these activities and are producing

some really creative pieces of work.


Buller - Kellie, Mab and Sheydin

We have had a busy week in the Buller classroom!

We celebrated the beautiful Emily’s 18th birthday, and what a special one it was!

We had a special visitor, Allan, came and joined in the celebrations too! We enjoyed singing

happy birthday, eating cake and celebrating the day with Em.

Emily has been at our school for 12 years now and was very excited to celebrate amongst her friends.

Emily loves to be out of her chair and on the floor. She enjoys propping her head up against the wall and

keeping an eye on her favourite staff member, Mab.

This week in cooking we cooked pasta. We focused on

chopping, boiling water, browning mince and grating

cheese. It was a huge hit amongst the girls!

We had a visit from Meg and Max!

Montana working hard in Science.


This year we are offering the VCE subject of Outdoor and Envi-

ronmental Studies to our second year students. Our focus is

about enjoying and respecting the natural environment. This

week we have been in the Warby Ranges learning some bush

craft. Students were split into two teams, given a length of rope

and asked to construct a stretcher. The students displayed

great team work and problem solving skills. Once the stretcher

was completed the teams raced against each other carrying

their patient.

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