Dear families,

Welcome to another week of our school newsletter. This week has seen lots of exciting learning in all the classes. The teachers have commented on the students manners and positive attitude displayed.

On Thursday, Laura from Hockey Victoria visited our school for an introduction to hockey. She ran a session for both the junior and senior classes and the students loved it. All the students received an invitation to continue learning about hockey and improving their hockey skills. The sessions are at Pedrina Park in Hamilton and are run by the Glenelg Hockey Association. Further information is included in the newsletter.

Assembly

Each Monday morning, we hold a formal assembly out in the undercover area at 9am. This is led by our school leaders - Addison and Jack. We sing "Advance Australia Fair', acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, say our school pledge together as a community and share what is happening this week.

School assemblies provide the opportunity for students to develop their confidence by speaking up and sharing their ideas or experiences.

On Friday afternoon at 3.15pm, we come together as a school to celebrate our week and present certificates to the students who have demonstrated our learning values or citizenship or have made a positive growth in their academic learning.

Families are very welcome to attend any assembly.

Sounds Write Training

Miss Gray will be beginning her Sounds Write training next week. This course goes over four days and she be attending these in Warrnambool. Mrs Bell will be taking her classes on the days when Miss Gray is away. Sounds-Write is a structured synthetic phonics program which provides classroom teachers with a comprehensive approach to teaching reading, spelling and writing. It runs from Foundation to Year 2, and can then be fine-tuned throughout Years 3 to 6.

Choir

This semester, we have added in a set time each week for our whole school to practise together as a choir with Mrs Huf on Mondays at 12.30pm. We are very excited to have Mrs Shirley Mailes returning to volunteer in our school as the pianist to assist Mrs Huf preparing the students for the Eisteddfod in the second term. We look forward to seeing Mrs Mailes soon.

SGSSA Swimming Carnival

The SGSSA (Southern Grampians Schools Sports Association) Swimming Carnival will be held on Friday, 24th February at the Dunkeld pool. This is only for senior students (9, 10, 11 and 12 year old age groups) who can comfortably and competently swim competition strokes over 25m and 50m distances. A note has been sent home with those students that are interested in participating in this event. Please see Miss P to discuss further or collect a permission form as soon as possible.

School Council

Just a reminder that we will be having a meeting for our School Council next Wednesday 15th February at school at 7pm.

Have a lovely weekend.

Lisa Ferrier

Gardening