BOOK FAIR - THE BOOKS HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING!!!

Book Fair: Oh what a night! We were so blessed with the rain holding off for our annual book fair, parade and disco. Thank you to our staff for working so hard to provide delicious BBQ meal deals, books and entertainment and thank you to our parents for making the effort to attend with storm clouds looming and with organising costumes for the children. We enjoyed having the chance to connect with so many of our families in such a relaxed way.

The staff were present as Cruella de Vil and the 101 dalmations as the theme was: ‘Paws for Books: Come. Stay. Read a Tale!’

Children who were chosen as best book characters from the parade were rewarded with a book from our book fair and all of the preschoolers who paraded were given a prize from the novelty section.

Wii Gaay Learning Hub 2022

On Monday 17th October Ayden Coward & Ms Allan travelled to the Francis Retreat at Bonny Hills with 24 students, other AEA’s & teachers from The Armidale Diocese to participate in the final Wii Gaay Learning Hub for 2022.

The Wii Gaay Learning Hub consisted of 3 learning rotations: literacy, mathematics & IT. Three facilitators were invited to implement these lessons, taking place over 2 intensive days broken down into 45 minute sessions.The children rotated between these three classes with breaks for Morning Tea, Lunch & Afternoon Tea.

The cultural theme for Bonny Hills, Wii Gaay Learning Hub was songlines. Students discussed the information a songline contains about the land and how the traveller who is creating a songline should respectfully make their trip. Songline features included; locations, groups, journeys, landmarks, sites, laws, permissions, ceremonies and boundaries.

Ideas discussed between students for modern songlines included GPS tools, maps, compasses, sign posts and street numbers posing a stark contrast to those of our elders who would use landmarks, lines, memories, borders and travelled journeys passed down by others.

In my time as an assisting parent attending The Wii Gaay Learning Hub I was able to sit in on the IT sessions and assist students while they progressed through their Learning Intentions they were given at the beginning of their day. All of the students used exceptional communication skills by sharing ideas they could use to then create their own personalised songline using Google Earth. They designed an interactive songline and presented it to the learning hub for everyone to listen to and to learn from the student's individual journeys.

In Mathematics class the students were able to design a map by using various compass directions, estimated distance, symbols/legends and many significant natural features such as rain or mountains.

For English, the students learned to write a song following the beat of “From Little Things Big Things Grow” by Paul Kelly. Each line contained the individual students' own description of their songline.

Wednesday afternoon saw the kids being able to relax with some free time at Rainbow Beach where they were able to enjoy the rare opportunity of a guided tour of the local surf lifesaving shed. Students were able to explore what the surf life savers do and see the lifesaving boat in action for training out on the waves.

Following the beach trip we returned to The Francis Retreat for showers, dinner & then onto a night in the hall for attending students' presentations, acknowledgment of Mrs Taylor’s retirement & the year 6 Graduation.

To be involved in such a well throughout program is a great privilege & Aydens experience within the Wii Gaay Learning Hub will carry on with him into the future.

A huge thank you to Ms Allan for travelling with Ayden & being by his side for his time at Bonny Hills, Dubbo & Echidna Gully for his on site Learning Hubs & also your time in organising the online Learning Hubs when travel was made difficult over the last 3 years.

Mrs Taylor you have dedicated so many years to establish a wonderful opportunity for young Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island students within our diocese. The students come away from these Learning hubs being more culturally aware and a more independent & confident version of themselves. I speak on behalf of every one and say thank you for all you have done & all that you have implemented for these students to continue to grow long after graduating in year 6.

ATTENDANCE

It is a legal requirement that you log in to Compass to explain all absences within 7 days of your child being away from school, however it is so much easier if you attend to this on the day as soon as you receive the reminder.

You will not be able to complete this task after the 7 days has passed which means they will be recorded as Absent Unexplained.

If you are having a trouble accessing all of the Compass features, there should be a drop down menu on your home page which looks like 3 horizontal lines. Open this menu and choose 'open in browser'. This will help you access the school portal features.

SCHOOL FEES

Term 4 accounts were emailed today, the due date to have your fees finalised is Thursday, 08 December, 2022. Payment options remain unchanged and include via the Qkr App; EFT through bank (please use account number, under date on your statement & surname as reference); CentrePay and ADIG Direct Debit. We will have an update on school fees after we change over to the new system Tech One.

CANBERRA EXCURSION UPDATE

Due to technical issues with CompassPay and not being able to access payment for the Canberra Excursion, an email went out on 12 October, 2022 to parents still owing the final balance with details to EFT payment direct to the school's bank account, please note that payment has been extended until this Friday, 21 October, 2022.

10c Bottle, Can and Juice Box Donation Drive

Keep those donations coming. Don't forget, Sports Day = Donation Day!

Positive Parenting

It takes a village