NPS 90210

It was meant to be an easy start back to term 3, but when you have all your 4/6s wearing goggles and slicing up the slopes of Lake Mountain, it all gets thrown out of the window! 

A big welcome back to our Newlands Community, I hope everyone had a relaxing break and got the opportunity to spend some quality family time together. It has been busy over the break as you can see the new buildings continue to evolve and take shape, the school has a brand new PA system for all of our Admin teams exciting announcements and to ensure all the students can dance to the ‘Waka Waka (This time for Africa)’ without the fear of it dropping out. 

The big topic of conversation in the 4/6 area over the last 10 weeks has been school camp. I was lucky enough to visit on Wednesday and see all the smiles, the rock climbing, the canoeing and the exciting discussions about the skiing that was to take place on Thursday. Newlands was lucky enough during the visit to have the Minister of Education, Natalie Hutchins mingle with the students and cheer on them on! A big thank you to all the staff that attended school camp and gave up home comforts to ensure our students had the best time. An extra special thank you to Jose who was the key organiser of the event. 

2024, the 4/6 camp is Canberra!

I walked into Katherine Watson’s room who was discussing her favourite number 24 to the students. Together, they looked at all the ways the tables and groups could be set up in the room. Eddie poignantly explained the difference between 8X3 and 3X8, helping me understand that it wasn’t just the same thing backwards. It was great to see all the F/1s settled and back into the routine of Newlands during the ‘Builders Program’ where students were helping each other as they were developing their understanding of Multiplication. 

More Importantly, we are finally able to provide an update about staffing in F/1EF. Unfortunately, Jacqui will not return to Newlands in 2023 and while we would love to keep Rebecca for the rest of the year, her family is calling for her return back to Canada. Newlands has loved and appreciated all of her contributions to the school and look forward to her return back to ‘Straya’ soon. We still have Rebecca next week who will help with the transition of Jon, who will be the F/1EF teacher for the rest of the year. Jon has flown from Spain to join the Newlands Community; we are very excited to use his knowledge and experience to continue to build our pedagogical approach. 

Eloise was very direct with me when I said that her Spanish Information Report was very impressive. She replied with ‘of course it is, we can basically do everything in Spanish!’. It was so great to see Angelica’s class and all the 2/3s working on their information reports. I asked Esme if I could take a photo of her draft and through some convincing I was successful! Here it is.

I would like to officially welcome Mel to the Newlands team who is replacing Lis for the rest of the year. The students have been really excited working with her.  Mel has been working at the school as a CRT over the last three years and it is great to be able to finally have her at our school on a daily basis. Lis has decided to return to school to do further study, but will still be working at Newlands 3 days a week running the Tutor Learning Initiative for Semester 2. 

This week is an important week on the Newlands calendar as students have engaged in a range of learning experiences to celebrate NAIDOC week. Students have been reading stories, autobiographies and watching short films to celebrate and recognise the rich cultural history that makes Australia unique. One of the highlights in the OSHC program this week was the creation of the Rainbow Serpent that is now being currently displayed in the space. 

We have another super exciting term at Newlands with many events and opportunities. For all the information you need, please head over to About Us | Newlands Primary School (newlandsps.vic.edu.au).

Have a great weekend and we will see you next week!