Leadership Report

A big thank you to Julian for taking the above snaps!!

Is there a better way to celebrate a newsletter than by discussing the Fete on weekend. What an absolutely incredible day! There were bands, food, clothes, animals and rides that kept everyone happy during their Saturday. Our school community at Newlands Primary School is truly amazing. We value respect, kindness, and collaboration, making Newlands not just a school but a supportive network where everyone’s contributions are valued. Together, we inspire each other and work towards a brighter future for our students. A big thank you to all of the parent volunteers who were involved throughout the day – We are just so lucky to have you all being a part of our community. We need to give a massive thank you to the PFA who have worked tirelessly in ensuring that Saturday was a massive success. I would also like to thank both Olivia and Claire, if you need to be inspired by getting things done – just look at them! A further thank you to: 

Claire Moore

Jess Petrie

Aggie Wray-McCann

Morag McKillop

Andrea Andric

Sarah Small

Adam Palmer

Lou Smith

Delphine Byrne

Marta Cifuentes Ochoa

Nicole Perez

Alberto Schulz Ferrada

Abner Mendoza

Nat Crewe

Mich Dedek

Rockin' Resilience 

Yesterday, we ran a parent session about resilience with Thao, our child psychologist, Raquel, behavioural therapist, and Andy Moreton, our local police officer, on how to support students to be resilient, circles of control, creating exposure for resilience and online resilience support. This was then followed by the Newlands Wellbeing Team running and organising a range of activities related on building resilience. It was a great afternoon with some solid BBQ work by Graeme. A big thank you to Sonya for organising the event. 

Foundation Session 4

It’s like all the students have been here for a year. Today, the students successfully transitioned into their first session by themselves. While the students thrived some of the parents found it very difficult! To help them out, we invited all of our new families into the staffroom for some morning tea as well as some information for next year which was ran by Sophia and Jill. Only one more session to go until we can hand on our hearts, say they are ready to get into Newlands in 2025. 

Foundation

Eliza and Sophia showed me their awesome bug house that they have been making in Inquiry. Their bug house has some flowers to attract different bugs to come and visit. While they are there they can lie on the red mat and enjoy the art piece they created. There are also many other leaves so they can choose their favourite to eat as well as a bottle lid which will be filled with water for any animals they may be parched from their long journey.  They have been loving making their bughouse. All the other students were just as excited to show their work!

1/2 

It’s a very big week at Newlands for all the teachers. This week lots of students are involved in completing many different Spanish and English literacy and numeracy assessments. There are a lot of happy faces on the teachers at Newlands who are ecstatic with some of the growth that has taken place. I came in to visit Christine today who hushed me away as Xavier was in the zone answering some Maths questions. 

3/4 

I sat with Jock who gave me an insight into colonisation. He told me that colonisation means people come into a country and they take over. They change the rules, traditions and sometimes the language of the place. This happened in Costa Rica when Christopher Colombus colonised the country in 1503. Unfortunately, it was very similar to what happened to our First Australians where lots of people were killed and land was stolen. Like the Indigenous Australians the Costa Rican Elders are dedicated to ensuring that they are never forgotten sharing stories, traditions and art. 

5/6

I walked into Karren’s silent room as all the students were working on their Spanish narratives. All the narratives have a setting in Costa Rica or some connection to the country. Artie’s story is about El Cadejo which is a mythical werewolf. The story says that if you go near El Cadejo you will smell like dead sheep. Artie’s story starts inside a maze with Liam who comes across El Cadejo. I won’t spoil what happens next! Sebastian also has El Cadejo as one of the main characters, but this werewolf is trying to stop an adventurer from finding lost Costa Rican treasure. Freddy’s story is about two boys who go to a famous festival named ‘Festives Palmares’ but there are no people – which amounts to some chaos. Finally, Martin tells me a horror story about Llorona. I won’t say much but the boys in the story are very thankful for the Ghostbusters! All the students were really excited about sharing their stories, I look forward to seeing the final pieces.

School Council

There were many decisions made at School Council last week including changes to our Holiday Program provider, the increase of payments to Out Of Hours Care program in 2025 as well as having our 2025 Annual Implementation Plan approved. For more information, please head over to the School Council page. Further information in relation to all of these changes will be communicated in the coming weeks.  

Next Week…

Newlands will be hosting the Executive Bilingual Network meeting. We are very excited to show Dr David Howes, Deputy Secretary, Schools and Regional Services around our amazing school to see our incredible bilingual program. 

1/2 Sleepover

Next Thursday night, the fabulous teachers at Newlands are hosting the sleepover event for the year. The 1/2s are going to be running around the school after school hours, indulging in lots of food and fun. Thank you to Kylee who has organised everything. We know it’s going to be locked in as a core primary school memory. 

No School next Friday! If you need to utilise our OSHC program, we advise you to book as soon as you can. 

We hope you have an excellent weekend!

Thanks, 

Luke