Whole School Excursion

The Werribee Open Range Zoo has been booked for our whole school excursion on Friday October 20th.

Final costing has been determined and it is $50 per student and will be $40 per parent to attend. The permission form for the excursion is available on Xuno.

Those students that have paid the excursion levy or have available CSEF, you will notice $0 payable at the time you complete the permission form, as your payment has already been applied.

For those parents who completed the expression of interest or advised the office they would like to attend, there will be an additional excursion fee raised on your account for $40 for your eldest child. You are welcome to change your mind, please just advise the office.

School Swimming Program

Our school swimming program will be going ahead this year and forms part of the excursion levy. We have received some department funding help deliver this program at a reduced price. Our booking is for for Week 1 of Term 4, each lesson is for 45 minutes each day for the week. At this stage, session times will run as follows.

Week One
2/10/2023	Toolamba Grade TBA	10:15 - 11:00
	Toolamba Grade TBA	11:00- 11:45
	Toolamba Grade TBA	12:00 - 12:45
	Toolamba Grade TBA	12:45 - 1:30

Grades have not been allocated to times slots. This will be done when we have final numbers and completed forms.

There will be a cost of $50 per student to attend the swimming lessons. This cost is covered by excursion levy. For everyone else, the charge will be invoiced per student. If your child will not attend swimming, please select no on the Xuno form.

The Xuno form requires you to inform us on their swimming ability so we can pass this information on to Aquamoves. The permission form is due by tomorrow and payment due by 13th September.

Camps

Thank you to those families that responded to our camps questionnaire, this helped us with calculating costs. We received a small contribution towards the Canberra camp and have now finalised our costings for camps below.

Grade 3/4 camp to Toolangi will be $365 per student (2 nights/3 day)
Grade 5/6 camp to Canberra will be $560 per student (4 nights/5 day)

Both these camps are on a user-pays basis and payment will be required prior to camp. Those that are eligible for CSEF, can use these funds towards your child's camp.

Fees have been raised on your account for those wanting to make instalments for these camps.

Preparing for camp

School camp is an exciting time for most students, however some students can have small or more significant worries about attending camps. Most of our camps occur in Term 4, however it is not unusual for students with these worries to start thinking about them as early as Term 1. The story in their head (the narrative) can be to focus on the negative aspects and the more the child dwells on these aspects the bigger they seem to become. Worries are like tomatoes – the more we feed and water them (with our thoughts) the bigger they become! The skills below can be a big help, but they need continual rehearsal so that they become second nature – like any skill we have to practice them.

Resource: https://www.counselorkeri.com/2019/05/12/help-kids-deal-with-worry/

This website has a really excellent guide for parents on how to start preparing their child to manage their anxieties about camp, which in turn makes sending a child to camp that much easier. There is a printable guide for kids on the website that is a fantastic way to start the conversations and build students’ confidence: https://www.superpowerkids.net/2021/10/14/school-camp-anxiety-10-strategies-for-a-stress-free-camp/

It can be helpful for schools to be aware of students who might be experiencing these issues well ahead of time so that they can support students in collaboration with families.

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