Principal's Report

Welcome Back

I would like to wish you all a warm welcome back to school. It has been fantastic to see how well our students from Foundation through to Year 6 have settled in to the school year. 

Our fantastic staff members at Kalinda have put in a lot of preparation to ensure that the year starts in a highly effective, safe and enjoyable way for our students. This year we are focusing deeply on differentiation within the classroom - ensuring that all students have the opportunity to be working at their point of need in every single lesson.

Classroom Displays

You may have noticed that classrooms were set up a little differently this year. Whilst teachers have worked hard to make their classrooms comfortable and welcoming environments, we have deliberately not put many displays on the walls to start the year.

Research shows us that displays on the wall that are co-created by teachers and students, that can be referred to whilst students are learning, are a very important part of the learning environment. Any posters and displays that are up before the year starts can be distracting or ignored (just becoming wall-paper).

Throughout the year our teachers will continue to update the co-constructed displays in order to ensure they continue to be effective and support student learning.

New staff members and a farewell

Whilst we have the great pleasure of welcoming quite a number of new and returning staff members, we also will be saying farewell to a very beloved staff member. This Thursday will be Annie Koopmans last day at Kalinda.  Annie has done a magnificent job in the office for many years, caring deeply for the staff and students around her and making the work environment a great place to be. On behalf of the entire Kalinda community I would like to thank Annie for everything she has done for the school and wish her all the best for the future.

I would also like to welcome the following staff members who are either new or returning to Kalinda PS.

Melissa O'Rorke - Business Manager

Kyle Barnden - Yr 6 teacher

Jayde Gardiner - Yr 2 teacher

Carmel D'Amico - Yr 1 teacher (Thurs-Fri)

Steffie-Lee Ruggeri - Foundation Teacher

Andie Lowe - Yr 1 teacher (Thurs-Fri)

Tamara Anderson - Foundation Teacher (Fri), time release (Wed)

Brittany Hope - F-2 Performing Arts (Tues-Wed)

Before and after school supervision

A reminder that the school grounds are supervised from 8:45am in the morning and until 3:45pm in the afternoon. As such, students are not allowed in the grounds before or after this time without parent supervision. If you need to drop your child off early, or pick them up later, then they should be booked in to Out of School Hours Care.

Any students in the school grounds without supervision outside of these hours will be brought to  the school office and parents called. We want to ensure the safety of every student and we appreciate you working with us to do this.

In the case of an unplanned problem (such as your car breaking down) please call the school office and we will bring your children to the office and supervise them until you can get here.

Assembly

This year Assemblies will move to every second week as we will be having Kalinda Crews multi-age wellbeing groups on the alternate Friday afternoon.

Our first assembly for the year will be this Friday. As assemblies will be in the same week as newsletters, we will be publishing students of the week in the newsletter (please see them later in this issue).

We are kind. We are resilient. We are respectful.