Principal's Chat

OLSC has been a hive of activity over the last couple of weeks with students, staff and parents being involved in both school and community events. Two special events come to mind, our inaugural Fathers Day breakfast & our most reverent Confirmation celebration.

Arriving at school before 7am last Thursday morning to begin cooking pancakes I was filled with some apprehension.  How many Dads would come? Would we have enough pancakes? Would we be able to keep up with the cooking?  These questions were soon answered and put to rest as some very eager & energetic mums & staff arrived to get the morning rolling. What a fantastic morning it turned out to be.  To see so many Dads at school with their happy smiling children was fantastic, the staff room and LC1 were overflowing with laughter, chatter and a spirit of community.  A special shout out to the mums and staff who came to help and to all the Dads who came to join in the fun.  A memorable morning at OLSC. 

Thankyou to the next crew of mums who arrived to run our annual Fathers Day stall on Friday.  The students always enjoy going shopping with the hardest part deciding what to buy. 

Friday night was a special night for our Year 6 students who celebrated the sacrament of Confirmation, officiated by Bishop Mark Edwards.  Congratulations to all our students, families and staff for helping to make this a very special celebration.  Bishop Mark congratulated our community for the reverence and prayerfulness of our celebration.  He proudly wore the chasuble designed by our Senior students.

Staff News:

We welcomed back Katrina this week to our school community after her leave. At the end of this term we sadly farewell one of our staff members.  Mark is leaving our community to take up a leadership position at another school. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Mark for all he has contributed to OLSC and wish him well as he continues his learning journey. Scott has been appointed to LC4 as a Senior teacher and will take over Mark's Learning group from the beginning of Term 4.

Reporting Survey Results:

Thank you to the 167 families who responded to our Reporting Survey.  The following is a summary of parent thoughts about our current reports.

As a staff we have analysed the results and are changing the look and content of Semester 2 reports. We will then gain your feedback again to see whether you find the changes beneficial.

P&F:

It was great to see many new faces at our last Parents & Friends meeting. Our P&F are responsible for many whole school activities and fundraising, without them many activities would not be possible. The next P&F meeting is on Thursday September 12 @ 2.00pm, all welcome.

Spellathon:

A gentle reminder to all families to send in the Spellathon money ASAP.  All money raised is going towards updating the  Chromebooks & iPads which our students use.

So far we have raised $2345.15. The student with the highest individual amount raised in each Learning Centre will be presented with a book award at our next whole school assembly in Week Ten.

CyberSafety Presentation

Wednesday night Judy from the Alannah & Madeline Foundation facilitated a Parent Information session on CyberSafety and the implications of screen time for children in todays technological world.  We were joined by  Sergeant Anita & her partner Joanne from the Proactive Policing Unit - Community Engagement.

It was extremely disappointing and embarrassing to only have two families attend this session, I sincerely thank these families for attending. One of the key messages from Judy is that as parents we need to be actively involved in the online world of our children in order to keep them safe.  Do you know which games you children are playing? Do you know the age restrictions on these games? Do you know which Social media apps your children are using?  Do you know the age restrictions on these apps? Have you checked the privacy settings on your children's devices? 

We have invited Julie and Sergeant Anita to return in Term 4 to run sessions for our Year 5/6 students.  It is vital that we give our students as much information as possible in regards to their interactions in the online world.

Naplan 2019:

Naplan results for Year 3 & Year 5 students  have been sent home today.

Cheers

Sandy