From the Principal Team
More Energy!
Welcome RNPS families to yet another year of learning, fun and friendship. It was wonderful once more to speak with the children this morning and hear about their holiday adventures, Christmas celebrations and tales of relaxation. Whether your family travelled near, far or nowhere, it's amazing what this 'reset' can do for us. Like a battery that has been sitting on the charger, this week will be a blast of energy that hopefully continues on throughout the term.
It was great moving around the school today and seeing how students were settling in and getting to know their new spaces, teachers and classmates. They were so chatty and happy to be back with their friends, it was really love to see. I especially enjoy seeing those students who arrive timidly, a little worried about what to expect, missing Mum etc. and when I check in with them later in the day the tears have cleared, they're engaged in the classroom and sharing a story about something goofy their friend has done. It's a wonderful transformation to witness.
We have a number of new staff in the school this year and we spent last Friday and yesterday (Monday) working together planning and preparing for a brand new year. Coming out of last year it became apparent that life had moved on and we might need to make some changes to what our school 'normal' has been in the past. With that in mind, there are a few tweaks to our structure that we wish to share with you.
Some things that we have been mindful to ensure don't change:
- Straight year levels for all English and Mathematics lessons.
- No changes to camps, excursions and other extra-curricular options
- A continued focus on connection and wellbeing
Refreshed Approaches
To start with, we have a few new roles in the school that may not be immediately apparent to parents but will support the work we do across the school:
- Health & Wellbeing Coordinator - Jono Trend
- Mr Trend is working with students, staff, parents and the local community as our leader of Positive Education. At RNPS we have a Pos Ed framework that we use for decision making and organisation, the priorities are as follows:
- Connection, Health, Optimism, Perseverance and Engagement
- These qualities and focuses are what we hope to enable, promote and instil in everyone in our community. Mr Trend will be working on projects and with classes to promote these throughout the school.
- As part of the 'Health' focus, Mr Trend will also be helping to run our weekly Physical Education lessons with the year levels, providing focused skills development and health promotion as part of our specialist program.
- In Prep, Lauren O'Kane will be running the PE lessons.
- Challenge Based Learning (CBL) Specialists - Vanessa Sango and Alison Jan
- These teachers will be working with year levels to develop rich, challenging units as part of our CBL units.
- Vanessa and Alison will plan and help to deliver these lessons throughout the week and are focusing on trying to extend our science and technology experiences in particular.
- CBL units are planned across 2 year levels, which is how the curriculum is designed, so Years 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, will be collaborating on some of these learning activities and experiences.
- CBL lessons run for 3-4 sessions per week.
- New teachers:
- We welcome Jessie Walters, Emma Brown, Anita Salems, Peter Humphreys, Jack O'Brien and May Chynoweth to our school.
- New education support staff:
- We welcome Will Constable, Mel Lawrence, Elizabeth Downs, and Donna Bramage to our school.
TIMETABLE CHANGES
- We have also made some adjustments to our daily timetable to try and value the process of building relationships in the classroom and to allow students more time to settle and share their thoughts, feelings, successes and challenges with their classmates. This includes a short period of 'settle and check-in time' after each break so teachers can follow up on incidents and help students transition into being 'ready to learn'.
- The new timetable is as follows:
- 8.50am classrooms open
9.00am class starts
10.50am - 11.20am recess play
11.20am recess ends
1.10pm lunch eating time
1.20pm - 2.00pm lunch play
3.00pm - 3.30pm Class Connect - We request that parents aim to make any early pick-ups as close to 10.50am and 1.10pm as possible. Collecting children at other times can create disruption across the school.
- Friday assembly will remain at 2.40pm - all parents welcome
- Throughout the term we will replace assembly with a Connect Group - these will run on Fridays from 2.10pm-3.30pm - dates for these will be communicated through the newsletter calendar.
- Just to emphasise - there are no changes to start and finish times, it's just the movement of students through the school during the day.
- 8.50am classrooms open
Good to Know
- Please note that the Canteen is open and operational now.
- To register with QuickCliq please go to: https://www.quickcliq.com.au/parents
- Instrumental lessons will start over the next couple of weeks. If your child is an existing student with one of the teachers, they should be in touch soon to confirm your enrolment for this year.
- If you would like your child to start studying an instrument, drop into the office and submit an enrolment form. See the handbook below for more information.
- NEW IN 2023! This year we are thrilled to be able to offer 'Singing' for instrumental lessons, too. Emma Jury is our new teacher and brings her singer-songwriter skills to the school with a passion for piano and singing.
Friendology Session for Parents
If you are new to the school or missed the wonderful 'Language of Friendship' online session with Dana from URStrong in May last year, don't stress, Eastland have kindly sponsored a session for the whole network that parents in the area are able to attend.
The FREE session will be held at Eastland on Thursday Feb 23 at 6pm.
See the flyer below for information or go to the following link to book tickets:
https://urstrong.com/event/language-of-friendship-at-eastland-shopping-centre/
Seats are limited so get in early, share with your friends and make a night of it.
