Leadership 

Dear Families, It has been a massive week at Newlands as we continue to navigate our way through Remote Learning. It has been fantastic seeing some of the work that students are uploading online and the teachers have been excited and feel that many students are going above and beyond expectations. It has been fantastic to work with teachers as they continue to refine and identify new ideas online to further engage our students and meet their needs.

The Foundation/1 team have sent out Individual Learning goals this week in all areas of the curriculum. The feedback has been overwhelmingly supportive by the parent community and families have already sent back videos of students working on these goals.  

The 2/3 team have just flown to Italy, where they have been learning facts, cultural celebrations, landmarks and food. The students had to create their own Learning Tower of Pisa using any materials they had at home. It was great to hear students discuss their strategies on how they made their towers lean and not fall over. The key word I heard was ‘Persistence’ and not giving up!

The Grade 4/6 team have been incorporating our newly developed Maths Continuum onto Seesaw which has allowed teachers to really pinpoint learning experiences to meet the needs of the students. They are the first cohort to implement this strategy and upon refinements, it will be commonly used throughout the whole school. 

A big congratulations and thank you to the School’s Parents & Friends Association. The Lockdown trivia night was an incredible evening that raised over $2900. Unfortunately, the teachers were unable to take home the victory due to some late withdrawals and injuries. Congratulations to Newlands top teams the ‘SantaMarias’ and the 'NPSMasketeers' who both finished in the top 15. A huge effort considering there were over 500 teams competing for the title.  

Here are Newlands top 6 teams:

SantaMarias – NPS

Paul & Lucy Santa Maria (They didn’t need anyone else!)

The Masketeers

Lucy Neville, Joe Sciglitano, Rachael Dean, Maddy Butler, Hannah Robert her partner Caitlin, and assorted family, and pups, and Ingrid Smith (prep families)

Foggy Glasses

Augusta Zeeng, Melissa Alexander, Andrew Higgins, Mim Patience, with some ringer-ins from outside school.

Never Going to Quiz You Up

Dung Nguyen, Nikki McGar, Justin Farmer, Liza Field, Craig Peebles. Grade 1 families

Newlands #1:

School Staff

Mt Beauty Crew: Mira and Barry (Clyde’s family, grade 1) and Mel Miller-Yule, Hamish Yule (Eadie’s parents, prep).

Dan and the Curfews:- Emma Beale, Rachel Brown and some teammates from outside the school.

 …And a special mention to Bantha Fodder – NPS. Alumni Declan was responsible for the LEGO hot air balloon that was featured during the quiz.

Thanks everyone for participating in the Trivia night.

The school has offered and confirmed enrolments for 2021 families. The foundation and specialist team will begin our transition program virtually from next week. They have been fantastic in their organisation and creativity in how to provide an alternative program remotely.  

This is just a message to families that their will be no check ins in Week 8 & 9, as it will allow teachers to conduct assessments in literacy and numeracy. These assessments will allow teachers to make relevant adjustments to the planning and delivery of Term 4 content.  Teachers will send out further information to families through SEESAW.  

I would just like to finish off by encouraging families to call the school if you are in need of support for Remote Learning. We understand that this is a very challenging time and the school will do all it can to not only support our students but families as well.  

Have a great weekend. 

Thanks, 

Luke Cripps