David's Message

Dear Sunshine Heights Parents and Carers,

Are you a gardening guru or a weed busting expert? Our community needs you! Starting on Sunday 25th May, Hayden will be starting up the monthly working bees for our parents. I will be there making free coffees for anyone who can come down and pull a weed or two.  Come down from 10am until 12noon, with a focus on maintenance of the Nugal Nganjin Gardens.  Come along to lend a hand, and/or have a chat and a coffee! You can call Hayden on 0428 996 077 or register your interest here:

https://forms.gle/9EtDaY42A9mo5yJX9

For the working bees later this year, we’ll be looking for volunteers to help with the extension of the garden spaces around the Specialist Hub, and would be very interested in enthusiastic volunteers who are keen to help with the next stages of work.  Gardens of course take time to establish, and so the broad aim for this year is to complete much of the hard-scaping as possible, in order that planting can begin as soon as possible.  Anyone with skills in gardening, digging, carpentry, metalwork, brickwork or general bodging who have time to donate should apply!  Pizza ovens might result.  Please contact me or Greg our Buildings and Grounds Chairperson to register interest - 0430 106 920.

We have a few exciting staffing updates to share with our community. first of all we wish Mrs Ashlee Langer the very best of luck as she leaves to start maternity leave on Friday 30th May. We will miss her very much and can't wait to meet her bub on their arrival! In the meantime, Miss Jade will be taking over the class and has will be in with us for a weeklong handover before Ashlee takes leave. 

Miss Hill, our amazing STEM teacher will be seconded to the department for two months to support the development of teacher resources as the Senior Project Officer for Science and Technology. She will return to us in week one of Term 3. 

This week we had fun in the gardens making bee hotels and learning about the 1712 species of native bees. Did you know out of all the bee species, only 11 make honey in Australia, most of the 1712 species are solitary and some of them can't even sting? In our homes we can support by planting native species (not hybrids as they often don't make nectar or pollen, or provide the right flower shape), not using pesticides and having bee hotels or areas of bare ground the bees can burrow into. May 20th is International Day of Bees, so this is a great opportunity to get your garden bee friendly. Find out more information at the link below:

https://www.worldbeeday.org.au

Finally, Saturday May 17th is the International Day Against Homo, Bi and Transphobia. This day allows everyone in our community to state that they are against discrimination towards other people on the basis of sexuality or gender identity. We have a number of community members including students, parents and staff, who identify as LGBTIQ; this section of our school is at significant risk of harm as a result of discrimination, and as a community we pledge to stand against discrimination. Being inclusive means we not only make space for everyone in our community - it also means not being bystanders, something we talk regularly to our students about. 

Best wishes,

David and the Sunny Heights Team