From the Principal's Desk

Welcome to Week 3, Term 1!

Yes, you read that correctly - we are technically midway through Week 3 of Term 1 already! Staff returned on Friday 31st of January (Week 1), completed four full School Development Days (pupil free days) and we welcomed back the smiling faces of our students on Thursday 6th February (end of Week 2). Despite how fast time is moving, this is an eleven week term, which is packed with many exciting learning and enrichment opportunities for our students. 

Our students participated in the Thunderbolt Alliance Small Schools swimming carnival on their second day back and made parents and teachers so proud! What a huge effort for Day 2 of school and some great results were achieved. We have welcomed four new families to our student cohort this year, with 40 students in total enrolled at our school. It's lovely to see our school community continue to grow. Welcome to the Gibson, Te Whiu and Waters families; we are excited to show you how much Rocky River has to offer!!

New Staff

Summer Holiday Works

During the holidays, all services were relocated from Building A, into Mr Ridley's classroom (it being our only permanent classroom outside of the original school building). Building A is now ready for demolition, and we will be notified in due course when a date is set, early this year.

The back boundary fence was also replaced to ensure it is stock proof, and our students remain safe whilst on school grounds. Students can still enjoy the company of our neighbouring sheep... at a distance!

Student Lunch Orders

At the P&C meeting on Monday, it was decided that student lunch order day will now be on Fridays instead of Thursdays. This works well with some of our school timetable changes this year, and gives students something to look forward to at the end of the week.

Please remember to send your child with lunch tomorrow.

Secure Alert - Snake Sighting

Yesterday we had a brown snake sighting on the school grounds. Thankfully, all students and staff are safe and were unharmed. I commend all students on their calm demeanour during this procedure, and we have revised with students how to safely respond if they come across a snake.

Working Bee

Our wonderful GA has been working on minimising hiding spots for snakes at our school. After the snake sighting this week at our busy morning drop off and student pick up point, we are calling on anyone who can spare some time to assist Tim in his endeavours. Unfortunately, the snake was not found to relocate, so, we are cautiously trimming and removing undergrowth to ensure we can guarantee the safety of students, staff and visitors to the school.

Date: This Friday 14th February 

Time: 9:30am (for as little or long as you can offer)

Light refreshments on offer to thank any wonderful human who can help us out!

Uralla Show 2025

We are pleased to report Rocky River have won "Best School Entry" at the Uralla Show for our fairy inspired submission. 2024 Year 6 student entry from Cailey has also received first place for "Champion Girl" in the schools section. LOTS of hard work, effort and time goes into the Uralla Show submissions, and we are so proud that our students receive such fantastic recognition for their efforts. A huge thank you to our dedicated and hard-working Miss Miller who designed and led the fairy inspired project with our students, to achieve this great result!!!

P&C Meet and Greet

On Monday of Week 6, we are holding a parent information session at 4:30pm, before the P&C meeting, to assist families in setting up the parent portal for School Bytes. The P&C are also hosting their infamous Pizza & Disco meet and greet evening that night, which will allow parents to find out how they can get involved and meet the committee, whilst a supervised evening of fun can be enjoyed by children.  A note will be sent home to families next week regarding this exciting night.

Our next assembly

Our first Term 1 assembly will be on Friday 28th February at 2:15pm. We look forward to seeing families attend and celebrate what we know will be a strong start to the year.

Thank you: Uralla Golf Club & Moon's Bakery

The generosity and support from the wonderful local businesses of Uralla cease to amaze me... 

The Uralla Golf Club have so kindly offered our school access to their facility free of charge this term, every Friday for school sport. This means we can use our limited funds on transporting the students together as one group, safely on a bus. The wonderful staff at Uralla Golf Club informed us this week that they will supply a free BBQ for our students, as an end of term celebration, on completion of their 9-week golf program. 

Further to this, our Foodbank order for breakfast club was delayed, so I made a quick trip to Moon's Bakery this week for some bread loaves. As soon as they found out what the loaves were for, the bread was kindly donated for free to ensure our students had fresh toast this week. 

These were both unexpected acts of kindness and generosity which we really appreciate. Every dollar saved goes towards other strategic spending which supports our students. Thank you to the Uralla Golf Club and Moon's Bakery - Rocky River students are so lucky to be so well supported by our local community!

The 2025 Commemoration Day Service

The Armidale and District National Servicemen’s Association is holding a Commemoration Service at our Monument in Central Park Armidale on Sunday the 16th February 2025 at 11.00am.

The service is in remembrance of the national servicemen (conscripts) who were killed in action during WW2 and Vietnam, who died during their service and those who have passed away since completing their military obligations as well those who served Australia since 1911.

Year 6 leaders have been invited to to lay a wreath in memory of departed nation servicemen. I will organise a note to go home so we who who can attend by Friday. 

Attendance

Reasons for absence

Thank you to the families who have been vigilant in notifying the school of their child's absences, including the justified reason of why their child was absent. It is important that this communication comes through to the school via the correct channels:

• Phone call to the school office: (02) 6778 4122
• Email to the school email address: rockyriver-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au 
• Notification through the school Audiri app

School mobile

The school mobile will no longer be used as a contact point for parents to communicate with the school. The phone will not be switched on over the weekends or after school hours, and is not able to be regularly monitored during teaching hours, so please do not rely on messaging or calling this number, as your call or message may be missed. 

The purpose of this mobile phone is for outgoing contact from the school, in the event of an emergency, when we must evacuate or if we are at on offsite excursion and need to call a parent.  All communication must come through our regular communication channels as listed above, to ensure families are able to access the correct support through the approved school channels. 

This change is in line with our NSW Department of Education Secretary, Murat Dizdar's, announcement for improved wellbeing, to help school staff 'switch off' when outside of school operating hours. If you have any concerns around this change, please arrange a time to meet with me.

Extended leave

Thank you to the families who have used the extended leave form to notify us of planned family holidays during the school term. If you haven't yet done so, please complete the form to Anne below, and send through to the school office.

Kindest regards,

Dani Clyde-Smith

Principal