A message from Margie

Covid... again!?

Is it too early to say we're coming to the end of our Covid outbreak? I don't want to jinx things, but we've had no new cases all week, and I'm hopeful that it's over, at least for now! 🤞I'd like to thank all families for their support in testing their children and keeping them away at the first signs they were unwell. We always feel so fortunate to have such wonderful support from our school families.

We are now ready to welcome you all back to our Acquaintance Night Take 2, next Wednesday, 25 February. We hope to see you all there!

Goal Setting

We've had a great start to our theme for the term, goal-setting. Students are learning that setting goals helps them clarify what they want to improve, track their progress, and reach their targets more easily. This is what some of our Year 6s had to say today about setting goals:

Ruby: "I always set goals because even if you don't achieve them right away, you can keep working towards them afterwards"

Tilly: "I set goals because they help me think of doing something specific with my time, especially like, if I want to really nail a piece of writing and I have a specific goal, I know I won't get distracted onto other things."

Layla: "I set goals because it gives me something to achieve, and if I achieve it, I feel really good about it after."

Klara: "Having goals can be really good because it helps you remember what you want to do. Instead of just saying, oh, I need to do that, it's like, this is my goal, and I'm more likely to get it done."

Visit from the Deputy Premier Kyam Maher

We recently had a visit from the Deputy Premier and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Kyam Maher, and the Heysen candidate for Labour, Narisa Bell, to view our Acknowledgement Sign and Reconciliation Garden. Bec Edser, Lou Turner and Deanne Hanchant-Nicholls joined me in welcoming them and sharing our Reconciliation journey (pictured above). We were so pleased to be recognised for our achievements in Kyam Mayer's Facebook post:

Reconciliation is about understanding and sharing culture. Uraidla Primary School have done a lot of work on their vision for reconciliation, including bringing to life their Reconciliation Garden. An absolutely fantatic initiative.

FrogGO Communication

We are pleased to share that the new FrogGo communication messaging system is working well and being actively used within our school community. Almost all families are now signed up and communicating with us using the app.

As with any new system, there have been a few minor issues, but we are working hard to correct these asap wherever possible. Our technical team (in other words, Tracey!😏) is working to ensure all functions are running efficiently, and we appreciate your patience as we work through issues.

Here’s are a few tips on ensuring you get the most out of the communication side of FrogGO:

Announcements: Announcements are messages sent to a group. If you reply to an announcement, your replies are private between you and the sender. This is perfect for sharing important information that may require a confidential response.
Chat: The chat feature allows for group messaging, so that all replies are visible to everyone in the group. This is ideal for communicating important information about your child with one person or a small group, for example, with school leaders, front office staff and class teachers. In this feature, everyone can read the comments of others in the group.
Notifications: You can adjust your phone’s personal settings to enable pop-up notifications. This means you’ll always be alerted when the school sends a message, helping you stay updated on reminders, news, and events.

We encourage all families to explore FrogGo and make the most of these features. If you have any questions or need assistance setting up notifications, please reach out to us at the front office.

Supporting safe online behaviour

You may have heard that as of 16 February, new legislation came into effect which criminalises the sharing or publication of material depicting criminal conduct, known as “posting and boasting”.

Any offender over the age of 10 can now face up to two years’ detention for posting and boasting. Sometimes children do not understand the very serious consequences of passing on images or defamatory information about others. This has become even more complicated with the rise of Artificial Intelligence. I encourage all families with children approaching this age to make their children aware of these risks Online safety – talking with your child about online risks, and to support them to be safe online Online safety – talking with your child about online risks. This second link has some helpful sentence starters for discussing these issues with your children, and some excellent links to other e-safety resources.

Footsteps

We are excited to announce that our Parents and Friends group has generously donated $4,000 to support Footsteps dance lessons for all students. This funding will help make the Term 3 dance program more affordable for families. The dance lessons will be a great chance for students to have fun and learn new skills as part of their Arts curriculum. We'll be working with the instructors to polish one dance for each class to present at our End of Year performance—something we’re all looking forward to!

Thank you once again to everyone in the Parents and Friends group for your commitment and generosity.

Have a wonderful fortnight, everyone!