Welcome Back Everyone:

Welcome everyone to the beginning of 2020 at Yarrabah School. We say hello and welcome to all our new families and congratulate them for choosing Yarrabah School. It's often a challenging and nervous time getting things ready to start school. Routines need to change, parents need to make adjustments to their usual schedules and children get very tired at the beginning. All these changes can be trying, particularly when what is planned doesn't always work out as intended.

Well, I’m here to say that this is very normal. In fact it’s usual. Things will take some time to fall into place, for some it’s quicker than others, but there is always an adjustment period. If you are finding the adjustment difficult, then please contact the school and we will try and support you through this process.

Welcome to all the students, families and staff who have come from another school, moved into the area or started their new educational experience. You will find transitioning into Yarrabah is easy with lots of support and guidance from the staff. Your children will adjust quickly to routine and structure. We have gone to all lengths to ensure this happens. Social stories and plenty of time spent over the past 7 days to get to know your child. If you have any questions, just ask the teacher.

Focus Areas:

We have three school improvement goals for 2020.

to maximise the potential of all students in communication
to maximise the potential of all students in becoming independent in life skills
to work in professional learning communities (PLC’s) to ensure we maximise all students' potential across the curriculum

Even though we are focussing on communication, life skills and working as a PLC, we maintain a strong focus on reading and writing across the school. Yarrabah also has a strong focus on Mathematics for life. Our travel education programs are very important as are the social and emotional programs that students undertake each week. The school continues to focus on School Wide Positive Behaviour Support with the leadership of three Learning Specialists, supporting staff to better engage students. Our leading teacher in the Secondary level will support staff and families in transitioning and pathways.

Yarrabah Therapy is focussed and specific to student needs. It is practised within the classroom environment and ensures all students receive therapy across disciplines each week.

Building Update:

This year is the final stage of the building works. All secondary students are expected to begin in the new areas before the end of the year. The Hall, Pool and staff building will be complete, the manual activities area will be completed and the back oval will have started to transform into what will eventually be an amazing space to hold school events and inter school activities.

Over the course of the year sections will start to pick up and drop off from the main entrance on Mill Street. Some sections and students will begin using the entrance over Term 1. It has not been decided if we will maintain the two entrances. You will be notified of this decision over the year.

Programs:

This year we welcome back many new and old extra curricula activities and programs for students and families. ‘Come See’ days will return to the term timetable for families to visit their child working in their classroom, inter school sports, section camps and student showcase evenings will also occur. Students from Middles to Seniors will participate in swimming during the year, until such a time that our pool is ready to go, at which point we hope to introduce water familiarisation to younger students.

Programs like ‘fun with food’ and ‘food explorers’ are planned to be rolled out more widely across the school this year. The kitchen garden will begin to be developed again in the allocated area. The sections will draw on our newly developed curriculum overview to ensure all areas of the curriculum are taught over a two year period. Learning groups will continue from Upper Juniors to Seniors. Learn to play will be a huge focus for the younger students with the EEP and Lower Junior teams working more closely together to share and support the transition process.

There are more programs and activities to speak of however I will leave those for future newsletters.

School Start Times and Gates:

The school day begins at 8.50am. Buildings will be unavailable to all students before 8.45am. From 8.45am you can escort your child to the allocated common room for your child’s section. Supervision of your child is required until 8.50am at which point the classrooms will be open to all students. The gates remain open until 9.15am. Gates will close at 9.15am unless the buses are running late.

If you are unable to arrive before 9.10am in the morning, we recommend that you park on the Mill Street entrance and proceed to the front office. Reception will notify your class and a class staff member will meet you in the courtyard. We are aiming for all students to arrive from 8.50am.

If you are finding it difficult to make the start of the day, please call or speak to the school. We are trying to reduce the interruptions at the beginning of the school day. We aim for all students to start the day in a well supervised and structured manner. When students arrive late, added pressure is placed on the team and programs get interrupted. Please do your very best to arrive on time. They will love you for it, and so will we. We do however understand that life does not always go to plan.

Communicating with our Community:

I encourage you to join in with the section Seesaw posts, join our school's Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/yarrabahfundraising/ and watch the website closely http://www.yarrabah.sch.vic.edu.au/.

We have been researching many forms of communication with families over the past few years and have decided to make a huge jump into the world of Parent Portals. This year we will be rolling out Compass. Compass will provide each parent their own unique access point with the school. We will maintain the Seesaw App communication system but end our relationship with Flexibuzz. We are very excited about this development and look forward to how it will transform the ways we communicate with families.

Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you around the school soon.

Matthew Harris

Principal

Yarrabah School

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