A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRINCIPAL

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2019. An especially warm welcome to all our new students and their families. I hope you are feeling well settled in our fabulous school community.

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome our new staff;

Joining the therapy team we have Elyse who is a speech therapist, we have three new teachers; Mel who is a leading teacher and joins the senior management team, Pam who is teaching in room 25 and Grace who is teaching in room 28. Our new additions to the ES team are Sally in room 2 and Kahli in room 10. I hope you all enjoy working at Dandy Valley as much as I do.

It has been a smooth start to the 2019 school year despite a couple of unresolved staffing issues. We have been able to fill vacancies with some great agency staff. The feedback regarding head start from staff and a few families was overwhelmingly positive. Starting the new school year at the end of the old has been instrumental in creating a smooth transition to new rooms, new groups and in most cases new staff. The students who didn’t like the change at the end of last year went willingly and happily to their new classes this year.

A few reminders as we start the new year:

Please do not send sick children to school…everyone catches it. This year we have already had widespread chest infections and gastro. When staff get sick it costs the school a fortune to replace them.

If your child is absent please let us know. You can put a note in the diary if you know they will be away (for an appointment etc.) or you can call the school if it is a sudden illness, we have an answering machine so if the staff are not in you can leave a message. We now have to call you EVERY time your child is absent and we do not know why. This is a big drain on admin. resources.

Please contact the school if you have any issue or problem. This gives us the best chance of sorting issues out before they become big problems. We hate finding out on social media that things have gone wrong for you. We are here to help and support.

We have a family liaison officer available as well as a school psychologist. Please contact either me or Kim Lipari about these services.

Cheers Sue