A message from Margie
Different start to the year
Well, what an unusual start to the year it has been! I'd like to congratulate all students, staff and families for making it so successful. Here at school we've had:
- Our new Reception class operating 'as normal',
- Year 1s working sometimes with just their own teacher and other times as one group while their teacher helped the Year 2s working from home, and
- The equivalent of one class of Year 2-6 students working all together on their remote learning program in the Hall.
Phew! Here are a few photos of the different groups. We can't wait to have everyone back on Monday! Please remember to bring back your devices and chargers. 😊
Welcome and welcome back!
We'd like to welcome all new students and their families:
Reception
Leonard Belton
Susanna Colquhoun
Lily Dalitz
Isabella Donner-Lombi
Lincoln Fitzpatrick
Tyler Fletcher
Zadie Geers
Sienna Gerrard
Lucy Howells
Riley Johansen
Mia Lovell
Bella Macha
Florence Madden
Cherry Nettleton
Hazel Nitschke
Evie Page
Margot Price
Ellie Ryan
Kimberly Schiller
Lincoln Smith
Abi Walsh
April Williams
Georgia Williamson
Reuben Wiskin
Year 1
Hazel Nash
Kobe Sloan
Year 2
India Stevenson
Ivy Kruckemeyer
We are also very happy to welcome these students and their families who were away for all or part of 2021:
Louise and Jameson Stewart
Benji, Innes and Jemima Staniford
Arlo and Finn Moore
Our numbers are growing every year and we now have 143 students enrolled at school!
Welcome also to our new staff members:
We are very happy to welcome the following new staff members to our school this year: Troy Welfare (Assistant Principal), Sam Irvine (Year 1/2), Henry Lewis (Year 3/4), Alex Berry (Year 3/4) and Mel Williams (SSO). I included a 'bio' about Sam and Troy in a newsletter last year; here is a bit of info about Henry, Alex and Mel:
Hi I’m Alex, I am delighted to have the opportunity to be a part of your school community this year and can’t wait to meet you all soon. I am an Adelaide Hills local and attended a small hills primary school myself once upon a time. I feel appreciative to live and work in such a beautiful part of the world. I completed my Masters in teaching while living in Victoria and spent four years teaching there full-time before moving back home in 2019. Since being home, I have had the pleasure of teaching middle- primary students and am excited to continue working with this age group this year. Before teaching I studied psychology and Philosophy which continue to be areas of great interest to me. I am currently learning to play guitar and love to sing. I enjoy spending time with close family and friends playing squash, board games, gardening and bush walking. I also enjoy visits from the native animals near my place such as bandicoots, kangaroos and koalas.
Hi, my name is Henry Lewis. I am excited to be joining the teaching staff this year
as part of a team teaching effort together with Stephen Tsiaprakas. I have recently graduated from the University of South Australia with a Bachelor of Education and a Diploma of Languages (Japanese). I spend a good part of my free time practising judo, watching sport, spending time with my friends and family, as well as planning future trips abroad. I am looking forward to getting to know everyone in the school community and enjoying what I am sure will be a wonderful year here at Uraidla Primary School.
Hi, my name is Mel and I am extremely happy to be working at Uraidla Primary School
this year! I am working in Sam’s year 1/2 class as an SSO and have really enjoyed meeting our lovely year 1s and can’t wait to meet the rest of our class next week.
I live in Mount Barker and have 2 children aged 15 and 13 and they are both heavily involved in all types of dance so I am always up for a chat in the playground about anything dance related. 😁
I love reading - it’s one of my favourite things to do! You will often find me sitting on the floor reading with students or building dinosaurs and dragons out of Lego.
Already I have noticed what a wonderful school and community we have at UPS, the students and staff have made me feel so welcome. I look forward to the year ahead, please feel free to come and say hi anytime you see me!
We would like to wish Lizzie Kemp all the very best as she begins her maternity leave. In case you missed the news, Lizzie is expecting a baby and will be on leave for the rest of the year. We are very pleased to welcome Alex Berry (see above) who will be taking her 3/4 class for the remainder of the year. We are so excited for Lizzie and can't wait to meet the new addition to her family ... and potentially a member of our 2027 Reception class?! 🤞 We will really miss Lizzie but luckily she is a permanent teacher at our school and we can look forward to seeing her back here before too long.
Engaged
Every term we have a focus theme to teach a different aspect of our school motto Learn ~ Stand ~ Give ~ Fly. Our theme for this term is engaged, under the heading of Learn.
In the coming weeks we will be working with the children to learn techniques to help them to focus and engage with their learning. We will be teaching how to be more mindful and how helpful it can be to notice signs in our bodies that tell us we need to move, have a drink of water or slow our breathing.
Engagement and mindfulness has been a big focus for adults too throughout the pandemic, and we welcome you to work with your children to teach any skills you may have learned. I personally use the Calm app daily and can recommend features such as the Daily Calm, the Daily Trip and sleep stories. If your children ever have difficulty falling asleep, a calm slow story can sometimes do the trick. If you have discovered some good mindfulness videos or resources in your parenting, I'd love you to share them with me! margie.sarre187@schools.sa.edu.au
New website!
We have updated our website and we're really happy with the outcome. Have a look! 😊
Uraidla Primary – Adelaide Hills – South Australia (uraidlaps.sa.edu.au)
Pupil Free Day
We will be having 4 Pupil Free Days for staff professional development and 1 school closure day this year. Our first Pupil Free Day will be Monday 28 February. Staff will be beginning training (online at present) in the Berry Street Education Model to support students' social and emotional learning. OSHC will be open for the full day; you can make bookings by contacting OSHC directly.
Catastrophic fire danger days
Our school has detailed plans in place to keep your child safe in the event of a bushfire:
- On catastrophic fire danger days in the Mount Lofty Ranges fire ban district our school will be closed and no one is permitted on site. Whilst our school’s bushfire risk rating is R3 (medium to low risk), we are in close proximity to a nearby R2 (very high risk) school.
- If a catastrophic fire danger day is forecast, we will inform you of a closure after 4pm the day before.
- If the CFS upgrade the fire danger rating to catastrophic on the day, our school will remain open for the remainder of that day. This is in line with the Department’s processes and allows us to more easily manage communication with parents and caregivers in the event that a closure of the school is recommended by the department.
- We practise Bushfire drills with the students every Term 1 and 4 so that students are prepared in case of an emergency. Our Bushfire Shelter is in the school Hall (OSHC room) in the main building.
- We also practise communication with families through text messaging system in case we need to contact the whole school community in case of an emergency. It is very important for this reason that we have the most up to date mobile phone number for your family at all times. You can expect a trial text message in the coming week.
We encourage you to read the Department’s Bushfire and your child’s school or preschool brochure for more information on school closures and how we will act if threatened by a bushfire. Search ‘bushfire information’ at www.education.sa.gov.au.
Playground improvements
When you come back to school on Monday you may notice some exciting new additions to the yard. We now have a new musical playground next to the fence, comprising:
- a double Musical Panel with 5 yellow metal gongs and aluminum xylophone tuning 2 octaves - C - C - C, both with mallets attached. There is an educational C major scale cut into top panel with corresponding notes.
- a Song Gong Cluster - each gong has 8 notes cut into top of gong - all gongs sound harmonious together, played with hands.
We know the children will enjoy creating their own original tunes together for years to come!
Kieran, Emily and Darren are also developing the Fairy Garden. Stay tuned for more photos of the finished product next newsletter!
These projects are part our Masterplan (developed with school community consultation in 2019) for the improvements to the school grounds. It is so rewarding to see them all taking place!
See you Monday!
That's all for this time. I am so looking forward to seeing you all here on Monday morning, with all classes engaging in face-to-face learning once again.
Margie