SKiPPS Newsletter

Important Notices

Working Bee - Thank you

On Saturday morning our Buildings and Ground subcommittee held our first Working Bee of the year at the school.

 

I want to thank the small but tireless team of families who came along and helped us to complete a long list of small but important jobs around the school.

 

These included;

 

  • weeding
  • clearing garden beds
  • removing graffiti
  • pressure washing decks and concrete
  • fixing irrigation systems
  • clearing storm drains
  • sweeping and tidying the sandpit area
  • removing cobwebs
  • sanding and painting benches
  • removing rubbish
  • replacing torn basketball nets
  • pruning trees

In an ideal world, our school would have a maintenance team (or adequate funding) to do these jobs without resorting to parent working bees. 

 

Sadly, until such time as education funding in Australia is made fair, we truly appreciate those parents who go above and beyond to come and help us do the jobs that would probably otherwise not get done.

 

We hold a working bee each term and our dates for terms 2, 3 and 4 are below. Please add these to your calendars now so we can get even more done at our next event.

 

  • Term 2 - Saturday 18th May
  • Term 3 - Saturday 10th August
  • Term 4 - Saturday 19th October

Year 5/6 Camp

School will feel a lot emptier and quieter next week as our Year 5/6 students and teachers will be away for the whole week for their 2024 school camp to Canberra.

 

Our Canberra camp is a real high point of the year and links perfectly with the current 5/6 unit on Government, Civics and Citizenship.

Whilst in Canberra, the students will spend the week visiting sites of national importance such as the Federal parliament (where they will spend time with Josh Burns, our local MP), The War Memorial, the High Court, old Parliament House, the Australian Electoral centre, the Australian institurte of Sport and so much more.

 

Students will be given the opportunity to participate in a variety of educational programs with a focus on Australia’s history, culture, heritage, and democracy.

 

The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit the national capital as part of their Civics and Citizenship education. To assist families in meeting the cost of the excursion the Australian Government is contributing funding to our school in the amount of $45 per student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program towards those costs. The rebate is paid directly to the school upon completion of the excursion.

Harmony Week

We are excited to share our plans for Harmony Day 2024. 

 

All the different cultures that come together in Australia bring many things with them: different foods, ways of dressing, languages, customs and beliefs. Harmony Day is about celebrating these differences and learning about new cultures. 

 

This year at SKiPPS we have decided to turn Harmony Day into Harmony Week. We aim to use this week to focus on the positive things about cultural diversity and to support each other in countering the negative things. It creates a sense of belonging for all members of our community. 

 

During the week of the 18th - 22nd March, we will run a series of activities across the school and encourage all of our community to get involved. More details will be sent home next week but below is a taste of what we will be running;

 

  • Whole-school Home Learning Task & Open afternoon - ‘Stay for Dinner’ 
    • inspired by the amazing picture story book 'Stay for Dinner', we are inviting families to share their food stories with their children and to spend time making a meal that has some importance in their family. This may be something steeped in tradition and culture, a recipe handed down from generation to generation or simply a meal or dish that has a special place in the family for other reasons. We will then ask students to come into school and share a recipe, a story, a picture or a video of this with their classmates.

 

  • Multicultural picnic
    •  Following our open afternoon, we will hold a multicultural picnic at the school with a special (TBC) performer. Please bring some food to share and catch-up as a community.

 

  • Harmony Day Assembly & Cultural dress day 
    •  On Harmony Day itself (Thursday 21st March), we will hold a special Harmony day assembly. On this day we encourage students to dress in cultural clothing from a country they may have a connection to. Any students who do not have anything suitable to wear are encouraged to wear orange - the harmony day colour. 

 

  • Crepes for Change and Glenbrae Celtic dancers 
    •  On Thursday 21st we will have a special treat before school with the 'Crepes for Change' food van coming to SKiPPS for a french-inspired breakfast. Families are encouraged to get here early for special food and music from around the world. Later in the day, we will be visited by the Glenbrae Celtic Dance group to share a performance of traditional Irish dancing.

 

  • A SKiPPS map of the World
    • During Harmony Week we will put up a huge map of the world in the quadrangle. Students, parents, grandparents and staff members will be asked to add a sticker showing a place they are from, or connected to. We are sure that, by the end of the week, we will have a messy map that demonstrates the diversity and multicultural nature of our school.

 

  • Grandparents in harmony 
    • We would love to welcome any SKiPPS grandparents into the class during the week to share their migration stories or family histories - allowing our students to learn more about the different parts of the world that our families are connected to.

 

  • Classroom Activities 
    • Beyond the above exciting activities, class teachers will also be planning some exciting activities in the class during the week on the Harmony Day theme of 'Everyone Belongs'.