We continue to be very busy!! There is much going on but at this stage of the year, I cannot emphasise enough how happy I am that we are still at school. While there are challenges, we are still onsite, interacting with each other and learning.

Book Week

It was glorious to see all those students who got into the mood and dressed up for Book Week this week. The students were excited to share their costumes and the books that their characters come from. It was such an exciting day and a huge thank you to those parents who came to see them parade their costumes throughout the day. It was a little chilly out on the oval for many, but it didn’t stop that ripple of excitement.

Staff Absence

I would like to thank you all for your support and understanding around staff absence. I am sure you can all appreciate that staff are taking leave for illness and various personal reasons, and we want to support them as much as we can because we are a community working together for the benefit of our children. It is very challenging at the moment because of the lack of a CRT workforce. As mentioned previously we are working very hard to minimise disruption for the children by trying to split them to their year level so they can work with peers in their own year level. This means they are still engaging with their own programs as the teachers collaborate together when planning programs. When children are split, leaders are trying to ensure that readers are changed before they attend their new classroom for the day.

Sometimes we are not able to split to the same year level because of the staff who are away on that day; this is something we cannot predict or have any ability to change at times. However, we take every day as a new day and work to provide the best we can for all children on that particular day.

R u OK Day- September 8th

We will be holding a well-being day on September 8th. This will be a day that focusses on the social and emotional program. The teachers are collating data at the moment of the types of incidents and challenges that the students are facing and will be tailoring their program to address some of those issues and there will be some extra teaching around them.

It could be a focus on social skills; how to approach others to play; how to resolve conflict in a group; how to express your emotions etc. This will depend on what the teachers find is most relevant for their cohort.

We are asking that the students wear yellow on this day. This could be a splash of yellow or they could be wearing yellow all over!! DCC could look like a field of daffodils if everyone participates.

Fundraising for a cover for our Multi-Courts

We are running out of space!

Next year our PE classes will need to rotate around the gym, multi-courts, sports field and the classrooms weather permitting. In order to combat this moving forward, we have obtained a quote to build a shelter over our multipurpose courts, so we have an all-weather space to run PE, whole school assembly and such.

Our school council are supporting us to pursue this amazing facility, but it is at a cost to us; not something that the Department of Education will provide. The current quote sits at around $800,000. As a school we will set aside money in our budget each year, but we will also need to apply for grants and fundraise as a school.

Please see photos below of our proposed cover so you can all see what it may look like and are going to begin with a cookie dough fundraiser. Please keep your eyes out for this information and please participate. There are many different types of cookie dough and makes baking with younger ones very easy!! The sooner we can raise the money, the sooner we can begin the process of applying to and building our structure.

For those who have asked previously about making donations, please contact Samantha McDonald, our business manager, if you would like to pursue this further.

Outdoor Education Program/Camps

We have our Year 3 and Year 4 camps to Lady Somers Camp coming up in November. The Year 4 camp will be held from the 14-16th of November and the year 3 camp is the 16th-18th of November.

The Year 2 Sleepover at school is proposed for the 27th of October. This is to be confirmed.

Teachers will keep you informed of the costs, dates and requirements.

Celebrations of Learning

We have changed the days of our Celebrations of Learning for year levels in the last week of term to provide flexibility for parents who may not have been able to attend the other days.

Please make the effort to send a family member or friend as we see it as such a valuable learning experience for ALL year levels. It is part of the student’s program to be able to share with a trusted adult, their learning, achievements, goals and progress. If you value this experience for the students, they will too. Research tells us that this builds motivation in students to achieve. How wonderful it would be to have all students motivated to challenge themselves to continue to achieve.

All Celebrations of Learning occur from 2.30-3.00pm.

Prep- Wednesday 14th of September

Year 1- Thursday 15th of September

Year 2- Monday 12th of September

Year 3- Tuesday 13th of September

Year 4- Tuesday 13th of September

Year 5- Thursday 15th of September

Year 6- Wednesday 14th of September

Year 7- Monday 12th of September

Prep Transition Days

We are currently preparing to run some transition sessions for our new 2023 Prep students. During this time, we give the new students an opportunity to see what coming to school looks like and this helps alleviate some anxiety. It also gives us the opportunity to see students interact together which assists a little in preparing classes for 2023 so we can find a balance between males and females; a breadth of abilities and personalities and an opportunity to meet new peers and hence develop new schools. This information will be sent to you if you have a child starting in Prep in 2023.

BYOD Program for Years 5/6 for 2023

We will be introducing the Bring Your Own Device program to Years 5 and 6 next year. This is to build the digital literacy skills of our Year 5/6 students to ensure that they have sufficient skills and understanding when they begin Year 7. With the growth occurring in the school, we have found that the 5/6 students need to have access to technology every day and this is not something we can provide. There is also positive research around competency increasing with their own device. We also believe that together we have a responsibility to teach the students to use their devices responsibly, understand the repercussions for using technology inappropriately and access to devices everyday will allow us to build these skills more readily.

Parent Wonderings

I have had a couple of parents talk to me lately about how to manage disappointment in their children or negative experiences they have had. At the time, they expressed their desire for their children not to have negative experiences.

Whilst I would like all children to have mostly positive experiences, we need to acknowledge that it is important and realistic to think that children will have negative experiences at times. It is also a life skill to be able to navigate a negative experience, have some skills to proactively manage it and know it will pass. If we don’t practice it when we are young, how do we manage it as a teenager or even as an adult? It is unrealistic to think they won’t have any and our duty of care to help them manage them effectively.

Sometimes a negative experience is a teaching opportunity.

Why did this happen and how can I avoid it in the future
How will I manage this situation- what steps will I take?
Is this situation in my control? I can’t manage how somebody else reacts, but I can manage how I react to or manage this situation.
Where does it sit on the catastrophe scale? Is it a small issue, medium issue or a monumental issue?
Who would I go to for help in this situation?
What am I feeling? Is that ok? How would I describe it?

Below are some websites which may be helpful to you:

https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/how-to-help-kids-cope-with-disappointment

https://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/development/social/helping-kids-deal-with-disappointment/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/3-handy-ways-to-help-your-child-overcome-negative-thinking#1

https://hadfieldelc.com.au/help-kids-cope-with-disappointment-build-resilience/

https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/negative-children-how-to-deal-with-a-complaining-child-or-teen/

https://education.nsw.gov.au/parents-and-carers/wellbeing/mental-health/talking-to-your-teen-about-disappointment

We still have several weeks of school to go. As always, if you child is sick keep them at home. Continue with the raid antigen testing- this helps keep us all safe and keep our staff at school. Please participate in our cookie dough fundraising activity- information will follow soon.

It is always important to remember to communicate with the classroom teachers if you have concerns or questions and if you need further assistance, contact the administration team and they will direct you to the member of leadership who can help you.

Take care and fingers crossed we get more sunshine soon.

DCC Community Hub