P & F Date Night

Date night is for you to enjoy some 'child-free' time while your children are supervised by GGOSH staff. It is on Friday 28 August from 6-9 pm.

Children will be fed pizza, watch a movie and have a snack. The cost is $5 per family and payment can be made via the QKR! app. Please make sure that you fill out the form on Qkr! to include all children's names and an emergency contact name and number for catering and staffing purposes. Please note, only children over 3 years of age and out of nappies can be catered for at GGOSH. If your children are already in GGOSH after school, please speak to staff about giving your permission to sign them out of GGOSH and into Date Night. We will advise you of the movie when it has been decided.

Lutheran Laypeople's League (LLL)

Regular pocket money can help a child to learn the advantages of saving while earning pocket money by completing chores can teach them the value of money. Find out more in the LLL blog.

If you need any further information or assistance, the LLL’s helpful staff are contactable via

online enquiries

or on 1800 556 457 during

office hours

GGLPS Umbrellas for sale

P & F have purchased umbrellas with the school's branding. They are available for sale for $30 in the uniform shop.

Post-COVID

Assembly/Worship: Parents are more than welcome to join us at these two corporate activities. Please note that chairs will be placed around the back of the Worship Centre at a distance of 1.5m. apart. These are not to be moved as adults are still required to practise physical distancing (as a school we are not expected to do this with the students). Families are able to sit closer but it is expected that this protocol is adhered to otherwise we will not be able to welcome parents to these two events.

Volunteers

Volunteers are welcome into classes once again. Teachers will provide information on this in their cluster newsletters.

Camps/excursions

Camps and excursions will be held during the term.

Classroom access

Parents are welcome to be in classrooms once again. However, it is expected that you physically distance in these spaces. The classroom is not a place for parents to congregate and mix socially. The purpose of classroom access is to speak with the teacher and/or to spend time with your child. Please don’t place teachers in a situation where they may have to ask you to leave if these protocols are not being followed. Interestingly, many comments (from parents) have been received on how much more responsible students have become without parents being in classrooms. You are encouraged to maintain the practice of allowing your child/ren to unpack their bags themselves (and carry it in), get ready for the day and generally be responsible for the ‘beginning of day’ set up. Maybe even only go into the classroom two or three days a week (instead of five).

Illness

One of the clear directions we have received in regards to being COVID aware/safe is to stay home if feeling unwell. While we had great compliance with this last term, we are noticing that some students are coming to school with symptoms of runny nose/headache. If a student presents to the office or the classroom with such symptoms you will be asked to collect them.

Father's Day Stall

Thursday 3 September – is held so that students can select a gift/s for their dad/important male figure for Father’s Day. Gifts are $5 each and parents can purchase a ticket for these items via the Qkr! App. Up to six gifts can be purchased by each student. Purchasing closes on 31 August at 5 pm.

Reports

All reports were sent home on Friday.

Teachers are more than willing to discuss the report with you, if you need clarification or wish to explore parts of the report please make an appointment directly with the teacher.
It is noted that there were some quite high absences during the first semester. Students were marked as absent if parents chose to keep students at home during the uncertainty of COVID prior to Easter. Once we had online learning students were marked as present if they were at school or logged in, in the morning class time. If you are concerned about the record of absences which are recorded please contact us.

Staffing

Mrs Kate Burton has returned from maternity leave and is currently working two days a week supporting the Special Learning Needs team;
Mr Paterson will be taking five weeks of long service leave from the middle of this term;
Our chaplain, Jason will also be on leave from next week, for four weeks.

School Photos

Unfortunately, the distribution of envelopes for school photos occurred a lot later than we had hoped. These were distributed Tuesday of this week. Could you please return these asap. To clarify the wearing of uniform for photos.

Foundation and Yr 1 students: short-sleeved polo shirt, tracksuit pants. The students will be asked to remove jackets, rugby tops so please make sure these are named.
Yr 2–6 students: Uniform as written in the Uniform handbook. Preferably we would like all shirts to be long-sleeved. There will be no ties, jumpers, jackets etc. worn in the photos.

The photographers are very good at balancing all photos taking into account this final year of our transition with the uniform.

Art News

We are excited to announce that the 3/4s are entering their artwork in the SALA (South Australia Living Artists) festival this year! They have been working on a piece called “A Seat Amongst the (Art) Stars”. They are transforming this chair into a work of art.

In groups, they have analyzed the work of famous artists and created their own designs inspired by their artist for a plank of the chair. You can see some of the planks in progress above. The chair will be on display at The Grove Shopping Centre in Golden Grove from the 6th -31st August as part of the 2020 SALA festival. We invite you to come along and see our art!

Middle Of Term (MOT) Breakfast

We warmly welcome all our community to join us on Wednesday 26 August from 8-8.30 am. Our P & F will be providing muffins and there will be coffee available to purchase from Café Connect.

Mural

P. & F. are funding the painting of a mural in the undercover area of the school. This mural, painted by a professional artist (Sam), will be completed by the end of the year. In the coming weeks, this mural will be designed from the results of conversations with students and staff. The Peer Leaders in each class are coordinating this response and will assist in the deciding on the final design. It is certainly something to look forward to!

Pupil Free Day

When our school calendar was devised at the start of the year, we, of course, had no idea of the chaos we would be thrown into! A number of our school events have been cancelled, others modified and others not compromised at all. A pupil free day was designated for Friday 4th September, which was to have been ‘Show Day’. As we know the Show has been cancelled for the year, however, we are still planning to hold this day as a pupil free day as it had been planned to use this as professional learning day for staff (Endeavour College and Good Shepherd are also designating this as pupil free). GGOSH will be available (with limits capped).

Volunteers needed

The canteen is in need of volunteers. We currently have one parent who helps out. It would be fantastic if we could get a few more. Even if you can fill in from time to time for an hour or two; each hour of help makes a difference.

Late arrival

We are concerned about the number of late arrivals to school. The courtyard gates are closed at 8:45 am and any children arriving after this time are recorded as late. Arriving late doesn’t allow students time to prepare themselves for the day ahead and can be quite disruptive for their learning and general wellbeing. While we can all have the acceptable, occasional ‘bad’ morning, please aim to be here no later than 8:40 am.

School events for the rest of the year

As a school, we have had to place a lot of thought into the large community events which can be held during the remainder of this year due to the restrictions which are placed on us for large gatherings and especially indoors. The following has been decided:

Any events that require a large gathering indoors have been cancelled for the rest of the year. Therefore:

SPA (Special Persons Afternoon) will not occur;
Carols in the worship centre. The P. & F. End of year picnic will still occur (Friday 27th November) but there will be no carols following the picnic.
MOT (Middle of Term breakfast): term 3 and 4. These two outdoor events will still occur.
Sports Day: Sports Day will be held on the last day of term 3 (Friday 26th September).Book Week 2020 – Curious Creatures Wild Minds

We are excited to announce our Book Week events for 2020!

We have decided to celebrate book week this term instead of in Term 4, we are aware of how busy Term 4 can get with other events leading up to the summer holidays.

Get your diaries out! – Pencil these dates in…….

Tuesday 25th - Book week dress-up day and parade

The theme for book week this year is Curious Creature Wild Minds, It gives students the opportunity to escape into another world, think a favourite book character/creature, nature, jungles, sea creatures, dinosaurs, imaginary or mythological creatures, adventurers, explorers and scientists.

Please note that when choosing a costume with your child/ren it does not need to be elaborate. We would encourage you to use dress-up clothes from home for the event. We ask that the costume including footwear is appropriate for the weather, play and learning activities.

Thursday 27th – Book week read around

Every year students participate in storytime sessions with non-teaching staff reading the short-listed books.

Library @ lunch activities –

Students will have the opportunity to participate in book week activities during the lunch break on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. These activities are all specifically related to the theme and shortlisted books.

Voting for Book week winners –

The Children’s book council of Australia will announce winners and honours on Friday, October 16th, we have decided to hold our own competition, voting for which ones we think will win. Students will have the opportunity to vote for the following:

Book of the year: Younger Readers

Book of the year: Early childhood

Picture Book of the year

Eve Pownall Award (Prime intention of documenting factual material)

Gallery

Assembly