p c 10 grant street rincipal s omment · andrew broomfield will be coordinating this event. there...

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Family Name PRINCIPAL: Mr . Peter Steven

Deans Marsh Festival Congratulations to all students involved in this year’s choral singing at the Deans Marsh Festival! It was a fabulous showcase of what communities can achieve through music and a won-derful example of how various groups and individuals can collaborate to produce such a wonderful experience for everyone!! The feedback from students, staff and parents has been overwhelmingly positive and of course Louise Brown, who the person that is the key driver of this program deserves our full support and praise. She really is a remarkably talented and inspiring individual who is committed to collaborative music making amongst communities – our students loved what she was able to engage them in. School Bus We have had a few hiccups with the school bus recently. Could parents please communi-cate with Enid and the school regarding your child’s arrangements for any particular day especially when variations to that day have occurred. Working Bee It was decided at the last School Council Meeting to hold a working bee on Sunday the 14th April. Andrew Broomfield will be coordinating this event. There are details in the newsletter about jobs to be completed and if you can spare some time please come along to help out. School Fees Leanne has informed me that accounts will be sent home with the newsletter to all fami-lies for this year’s fees. Could parents attend to this as soon as possible? If you have any questions please see Leanne or myself Forrest PS web site Please note that this newsletter and dates to remember etc. is readily available on the schools website at –

http://www.forrestps.vic.edu.au/ Third Term Book Project Planning for this activity is happening and after a great deal of discussion between staff and Jiri/Greg the project began to take shape. It really is an exciting opportunity being presented to our students! During the week it was decided that our pre-school students would also be involved in this project- in some capacity! I will keep you posted about further developments as they happen.

PRINCIPAL’S COMMENT

MARCH 28, 2013

UPCOMING

EVENTS:

MARCH 28TH—TERM 1

ENDS 2.30 PM

APRIL 15TH—TERM 2

BEGINS

APRIL 25TH—ANZAC

DAY

Forrest Pre-School Inc

Reg No A00189741D Phone: 52366540

Forrest After School

Care

Bookings: 52366393 ASC: 52366540

Forrest Primary School

10 Grant Street

Ph: 52366393

Email: for-

[email protected]

http://www.forrestps.vic.edu.au/

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FORREST PRIMARY SCHOOL

Caption describing pic-ture or graphic.

Caption describing picture or graphic.

Harmony Day – Thursday 21st March

This year we again visited Carlisle River PS with Deans Marsh and Alvie Primary School’s to celebrate Harmony Day!

The excursion allowed our students to socialise and mingle with a larger school group. It also allowed staff to have profes-sional conversations with different school groups.

Apart from the obvious learning during activity times for me the real purpose of these days is the opportunity to meet and intermingle in a different setting. The students certainly responded well and they enjoyed the day.

Next year’s event might well happen in Forrest as we begin to rotate the meeting places around.

District Athletics Sports

Congratulations to Max Troughton for making it into the Divisional Athletics carnival held at Trinity School on Monday the 18th March and for performing so well in the long distance run!!

Student Absences

It is standard practise in any government school for all parents to notify the school when your child is away for whatever reason. All schools that I have worked in and especially secondary schools will ring parents after school has started if we have not been informed from about your child’s absence.

There are lots of reasons for the following of the above practise and one of them is for the safety of your child. Please sup-port the school with this request.

Family Day Care

Attached to this week’s newsletter are some surveys from the shire about our family day care arrangements. At this stage we are looking at extending the days to include Monday as well – please fill in the surveys and return to the Corangamite Shire.

School Council

Last Monday night we had our first meeting of the new school council. We combined this with our annual AGM. There were a number of items discussed and a new Forrest PS Healthy Foods Policy approved for our school. I have attached a copy so that parents can familiarise themselves with this revised policy. Please read the report in this newsletter that out-lines other items that your school council are working on.

Because of the holidays our next school council meeting will be on Monday 27th May starting at 6.30 pm.

Swimming Program

Our 2013 swimming program commences on Friday 26th April. It is part of our normal school curriculum, therefore it is

expected that all children will participate. Students will travel by bus to Heather’s Swimming School leaving the school at

approximately 12.15 noon and returning at about 2.45pm. We will have lunch at 12pm on swimming days. Costs have

been set at $45 per student for seven sessions throughout the term. The Country Education funding heavily subsidises

the swimming program each year and the cost remains the same as in previous years! If your child has received pri-

vate swimming lessons since the school program last year, you should notify the school in writing of their current level.

This will save any issues when we go to the pool and put them in levels according to our current information. Please fill in

and return the attached permission form asap.

Year 3-6 School Camp 2013 From the Wednesday 5th June to the Friday 7th June our senior students go on camp to Roses Gap Camp in the Grampians. The itinerary looks fantastic and both Craig and I, along with the kids are very excited. This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to interact with students from other schools too. We will be accompanied by staff and students from Alvie PS and Deans Marsh PS.

The cost of the camp is $260.00 per child. Parents can begin a payment scheme if you wish or pay the full amount in one go. Please see Leanne on a Monday/Thursday if you wish to make a payment plan

There will be detailed information/forms etc. closer to the date.

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Chook Eggs

We are currently back selling eggs that we haven’t been able to use in weekly cooking program. See Andrew with your $4.00 if you want some- get in early!

Holidays

School will resume on Monday 15th April. I hope that you all have a peaceful, relaxing and safe Easter break with your family and friends. Peter Steven

Principal Go Saints

WORKING BEE There will be a planned working Bee for Sunday 14th April at 10am. As many parent helpers as possible would really help in tidying up around the school. The following is a list of jobs to be attended to at the proposed

working bee:

Weeding

Mowing

Line trimming

Sweeping

Spreading scoria onto garden beds

Pruning

Line trimming

Rain gutter cleaning

Other tasks to be identified

Please bring line trimmers and chainsaws if you can, as well as per-

sonal protective equipment such as gloves, helmets, goggles and hear-

ing protection as appropriate. If you don't have such gear, we'll

provide it.

JUNIOR ROOM: All. Everyone has worked well in the class this week. Well done!

SENIOR ROOM: Max Troughton. This term Max has consistently focussed on high quality with his learning tasks. Over the past two weeks Max has shown excellent leadership and worked very hard in maintaining and creating gardens in our school.

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Senior Room

This Week

Garden: This week with the help of a team of willing recess and lunchtime workers, Mr Steven and a couple of sessions with the whole class, we created quite and extensive herb garden. It is located on the embankment in front of the cooking shelter. We mulched the entire site; covered it in weed mat; laid out the paths with 2 cubic meters of crushed rock in the shape of a peace sign; moved and placed 2 cubic metres of large volcanic rocks; topped the entire site with mulch and then planted it out with about ¼ of the herbs. Thanks to Sam Evans for res-cuing us with the last rock, it was just too heavy to move by hand, but nothing for the Manitou! We will be seek-ing some specialist herbs over the school holidays, and will plant them at the start of Term 2. The garden has really transformed the space and ties the campfire in with the Shelter and the rest of the garden. Early in Term 2, chil-dren will load photos onto our school blog to show the process of building the herb garden. Overall it was an amazing team effort by the senior class, thank you!

The 4 major garden projects will continue and will be completed by the end of Term 2.

Deans Marsh Festival – Anyone who attended the Deans Marsh Festival will have been entertained by the OMM Choir lead by Louise Brown. The children performed beautifully. It was an amazing effort considering that the Forrest children had practiced only once with the Deans Marsh children and never with any of the instru-mentalists or other adult choir singers. Forrest students managed to hold their own for their singing parts, espe-cially ‘Down Under’ and ‘Yellow’. In both of those songs Forrest had to sing quite different parts to the rest of the choir and in Yellow they sang in a different Key (intentionally!), which for anyone is quite a difficult thing to do. The Forrest students very much enjoyed the day and were uplifted by the experience. We hope to use one of the songs in our end of year performance. Hopefully we will get to perform next year!

This Term: This term we have achieved some important goals in our class. Firstly, we have been focussing on building on our positive learning behaviours in the classroom, which has resulted in a very focussed and productive group of learners. With a few refinements it would be my perfect classroom! Secondly, students are quickly de-veloping some new organisational skills and habits with their diaries, Markbooks, personal learning materials and homework. These important life skills are helping our students to be more productive learners and will particular-ly assist the more senior students to build the skills they will need to be successful in secondary school. Thirdly, everyone is aware of how they are performing particularly in the areas of literacy and numeracy and this is building a goal driven culture in our class room. Students have received constant feedback on their performance this term. This has allowed them on a daily basis to adjust their learning to meet specific goals. Fourthly, our students are working far more productively in teams and this is something we hope to build on in Term 2.

Although this term we have not completed and major integrated topics, we have focussed on core learning and established the right learning behaviours and habits to be very productive over the rest of the school year. Our term was made extra special with the chorale singing and performance, music lessons, garden projects, cooking, school sports and harmony day.

Thank you very much to all of the Forrest PS children, teachers, parents and helpers for their efforts this Term.

Forrest PS really is an excellent place to be! – Craig.

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Junior Room Ms Mac Reports…………………

As always it was a very productive week. The students’ pages for our classroom book have been completed and are waiting to be laminated. Admittedly a few of the photos were staged to ensure all students were depicted with their ‘vegetable’. Given that the stu-dents had complete artistic control I think the staged photos are hard to pick.

This week we also received a postcard from Sophie detailing some of the amazing fun she is having. In response to the students’ excitement our information report about an Alien, from the student’s imagination, changed to a postcard writing exercise. Most stu-dents chose to have the Alien write to them and so their postcards contained the student’s actual name and address. In theory they could be sent and make their destination, how-ever in the meantime we have made envelope pockets and posted them into the student’s published writing book.

I have also been trying to sort out all the different versions/levels of home reading books that are stored in the classroom, and reassessing the students’ reading levels.. Different ‘generations’ of home readers have their reading level classified according to numbers, letters or colours. Hopefully before the holidays there will be a greater assortment of reading material which is better targeted to your child’s reading level.

In gardening news our seedlings have started to grow and I will take them home to ensure that rapid and healthy growth continues.

I hope everyone enjoys a relaxing Easter break and I look forward to the start of Term 2.

WOOLWORTHS EARN AND LEARN

We are again collecting our spots when we shop at Safeway. There will be a box for For-

rest Primary School in Safeway and also at the school. A form to put your stickers on is

attached to this newsletter and there will be pages also available from the school. Please

support this program as we get some terrific educational materials from Modern Teaching

Aids. START COLLECTING FROM 8TH APRIL.

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HEALTHY FOODS POLICY

Rationale:

Healthy nutritional habits are essential to the growth and development of children.

Aims:

To teach healthy eating habits.

To ensure that any foods provided by the school are consistent with a healthy eating

philosophy.

Implementation:

The development of an appreciation of healthy foods and healthy eating habits is part of our

Health Promoting School strategy.

Lessons relating to healthy foods and healthy eating will form part of each child’s Health

curriculum studies.

The school will involve itself in strategies designed to raise an awareness of or to promote

healthy foods e.g.: Purchase fruit for AAS Program.

Local businesses /Neighbourhood House, providing the school’s lunch orders, will promote a

good selection of nutritious, tasty and attractive foods. School Council to approve lunch

proposals prior to the selling of food.

Local businesses /Neighbourhood House will not include soft drinks, lollies, crisps and fried

foods in lunch orders. School Council to approve lunch proposals prior to the selling of food.

Staff members will not use sweets as rewards.

Families are informed of the healthy eating policy and are provided with information to meet this

policy requirement through displays, newsletter articles and other promotional material

The principal will ensure that a supply of drinkable water is available at the school at all times.

Students will participate in State and Federal Government Free Fruit Fridays Programs.

Students will have access to their own water bottles during class lessons, and have a daily fruit

break. On Fridays, the fruit break will be in the morning when the fruit platters are delivered

to classrooms.

Fund raising activities will not focus on the promotion of unhealthy foods that do not

complement our healthy foods philosophy. School Council to approve fundraising activities

involving food.

Staff are to inform the principal of students who appear to be provided with

inadequate/insufficient lunches. Healthy sandwiches provided if students turn up without

lunch / snacks.

The Healthy Foods Program will include reference to the following programs where relevant:

Life Ed, Go For Your Life, Walk-a-Thon, Walk/Ride to School Days etc.

Evaluation:

This policy will be reviewed as part of the school’s three-year review cycle.

This policy was last ratified by School Council in .

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Is there a need for continuing Family Day Care in your area?

WOULD YOU LIKE FAMILY DAY CARE?

Corangamite Shire Family Day Care Scheme coordinates Family Day Care at Forrest Primary School and due to the resignation of Lydia Dickason the current Family Day Care educator we would like to take this opportunity to survey current needs for Family Day Care in this area.

If you are interested in Family Day Care for your child or children please complete this form and return by March 29 2013 so that we can assess the viability of advertising for an educator in your area.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE A FAMILY DAY CARE EDUCATOR?

If you are interested in earning a great income looking after children by becoming a Family Day Care educator please contact me at the address or phone number listed below.

With thanks in anticipation Christine Dewhurst

Family Day Care Expression of Interest Name:

Contact phone number:

Locality: Forrest Primary School In Venue

Please indicate number of children who would use care in each category

and the days of care that would be used

Monday Tuesday Wednesday

Children not yet started school care

Before school care

not offered not offered

After not offered not offered

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School Council

These are brief highlights of our School council AGM and meeting held on Monday 25th of March:

AGM

We thanked our school council for all of their work over the past 12 months and proceeded to declare our councillors for the next term.

As the nominations received equalled the number of vacancies, a ballot was not conducted. The parents nominated for school council were: Kim Coulter, Sarah Lane and Richard Schuhmann. They were therefore elected to school council for a period of 24 months. Sam Evans, Paul Troughton, and Andrew Broomfield still have another 12 months remain-ing.

We undertook the election of office bearers for the next 12 months and they are: President: Paul Troughton Vice President: Andrew Broomfield Secretary: Craig Donahoo Treasurer: Leanne Harty Committee members - Buildings and Grounds – Andrew and Sam Finance – Leanne Fundraising – Sarah Lane Preschool – Kim Coulter

School Council Meeting:

We welcomed our new school council and our new councillor Richard Schuhmann.

Leanne Harty presented us with a summary of our school financial position, indicating balances of various accounts and the incoming and outgoing payments over the period.

The Forrest Lions Club forwarded a letter regarding a 2014 Australia Day Festival invitation from Colac Otway Shire to submit Forrest’s interest in hosting this. Kim Coulter had kindly offered to attend the meeting on our behalf.

Peter Steven presented the highlights from his Principal’s Report. These included the completion of our Annual Imple-mentation Plan which documents the core focus for the school over the next 12 months. Our school is due for a De-partmental Review later in the year. Peter highlighted some of the special projects that we have running in term one, in particular the success of the Chorale Singing Program.

Kim Coulter gave an overview of what is happening with the Pre-school. Things are going well. -Kim’s has continued with discussions with the department to present her ideas on creative ways to ensure longer preschool times (15hrs) and extended day care. This may also allow parents to take better advantage of rebates. Kim has completed a grant application for a kitchen upgrade in the pre-school.

Buildings and Grounds:

We currently have following projects regarding our grounds

Master plan – School Grounds priorities set last year for 2013are – staff and visitors car park/ bike shed/ school entrance- to be coordinated by Sam Evans and completed by end of Term 3

Chook/vegie garden projects – ongoing and parents will certainly see structural and planting progress in this area

over the remainder of this year.

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Herb garden started last week. Limestone sculptures to be placed into front garden . Two new concrete tanks installed and ready for our freshwater ecosystems to be established.

We have decided to hold a working Bee on Sunday 14th March are the school. This is the last Sunday in the School Hol-idays.

Healthy Eating Policy:

We worked together to establish a Healthy Eating Policy for our school. This defines the types of foods to be eat-

en / served at our school as well as guidelines for food sold to students through lunch orders. The policy will

soon available on the school website.

STALL HOLDERS WANTED!!!!

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p c 10 grant street rincipal s omment · andrew broomfield will be coordinating this event. there...

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