The Kingswood Newsletter

Wellbeing and Community Engagement

Patrick Halpin 

Assistant Principal 

Mother's Day Breakfast 

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Mums in our community.  We hope you managed to make it to the Mother’s Day Breakfast and recieve some nice surprises on Sunday. 

A special thanks to all of the Dads who got out of bed very early on Friday morning to prepare and serve a delicious breakfast to all our mothers grandmothers and special ladies, and thank you to Parent Club for pulling it all together. 

Prep Information Night

Our third value, ‘We thrive in a team culture’ was demonstrated strongly on Wednesday night as we welcomed the parents of our prospective Preps for 2019 at our Information Night.  The presentation lasted one hour and, as well as the Prep Team Leader, Amy Cameron, providing an insight into a typical day in the life of a Prep student, we had

  • a parent, Victoria Lemmer, speak about the transition process,
  • the School Council President present on all the opportunities available to parents to be involved in,
  • the Specialist Team Leader talk about our specialist program,
  • our Thinking Cultures Leader discuss Habits of Mind and Visible Thinking and
  • Principal Class advising parents how we manage the wellbeing of our students and the use of digital technologies at Kingswood.

It was a very well attended night and we look forward to welcoming many new families to Kingswood in 2019. 

The closing date for enrolments is June 29th so please make sure you hand in your paperwork to Jo at the office as soon as possible.  Please spread the word to parents, for whom Kingswood is their school of choice, so they don’t miss out. 

Open Day and Open Night

Open Day begins at 9:30am on Monday, May 21st.  The Year 6 students will offer school tours while the Principal Class Team will be available to answer questions for all visitors.

This will be followed by our Open Night events, which begin at 6:30pm.  This year’s theme is the Learner Profile, which we developed in 2017.  The students will be given a passport and, as they move around the school, they will be asked to complete activities to demonstrate that they are persistent, resilient, independent, creative, knowledgeable, engaged and reflective learners.  They will collect a stamp at each year level and will then return to the office, where they will receive the ‘learner’ stamp if they can articulate their experiences.  Students who collect all 8 stamps will be entered into a draw and two winners will be drawn at assembly on Friday, May 25th – one junior (Prep – 2) and one senior (3 – 6).  We look forward to seeing you all there!

NAPLAN                       

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy assessments will take place next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for students in Years 3 and 5.  If any student misses an assessment, they will have the opportunity to catch-up on Friday, May 18th.   These dates are strictly enforced so no alternative arrangements can be made.

While we really want our students to do their absolute best in NAPLAN, these assessments form only part of what we assess.  At Kingswood we aim to educate the whole-person, not just their ability to read, write, add and subtract. So no student should feel stressed or worried about these assessments.  Remember the Habits of Mind – strive for accuracy, persist, think flexibly and take responsible risks. 

Shake n Wake

We have received feedback that the students are more inclined to get involved in structured dances as opposed to free dancing.  This aligns with research on the topic and with the aim of the program as structured dances help to prepare our brains for learning as the steps are predictable and controlled.  It also has community building impacts in that we are all able to participate and work together. 

We have therefore decided to go back to the familiar songs with set dances – Birdy Song, Macarena, Saturday Night, Nutbush, etc.   Our second song will continue to be a pop song requested by the students so remember to contact the office if you have a particular request. 

Term 2 Classroom Helper Sessions

We will hold 2 Classroom Helper Sessions in Term 2. Our first session will take place on Monday, May 28th at 7:15pm and the second will be on Tuesday, May 29th at 9:15am.  We are asking everybody to sign up via Compass this time so please log in and respond electronically.  Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any difficulties. Or speak to Jo in the office if you are unsure of when you last attended training.

Snapshot Survey

Thank you to all of the families who responded to our latest snapshot survey, Parent Information Sessions, and to those who forwarded the link to friends and extracurricular activity teachers.  We had 96 responses, representing all year levels in Kingswood Primary School and parents of children attending other Dingley schools, sports coaches, dance teachers, etc.

The most popular topic which parents would be interested in learning more about is Building Emotional Intelligence (72%) followed closely by Parenting for Resilience (64%) and Building Independence in Children and Young People (63%). 

76% of respondents would be willing to contribute financially to the cost of the presentation, depending on the cost and how interested in the topic they are. 

If anybody else is interested in responding, please click here. 

I will begin to make plans to hold a parent session in the coming months so watch out for details in the newsletter and on Compass.