The end of the term is only days away (don't forget 2:30pm finish) and I am so proud of the students, staff and community for another wonderful Term 3. Next term we have so many exciting events to look forward to.

Year 3 and 4 swimming - 3rd Oct to 14th Oct
The School Disco - Thursday 6th Oct
Family Working Bee - Sunday 9th October
Yr 1 Science Incursion - 13th Oct
Book Fair - 13 Oct to 27th Oct
Foundation excursion to Healesville - 18th Oct
30th Birthday Carnival - Sunday 23rd October
Transition for our 2023 Foundation students - commencing 27th Oct
Yr 6 Beach Safety Day - Friday 25th Nov
Christmas Concert - Monday 5th Dec
PLAY Training for 2023 leaders - 9th Dec
Yr 6 Graduation - 12th Dec
2022 Awards and 2023 Captain assembly - 15th Dec 9:15am

Even just this past couple of weeks has brought some amazing highlights for Karoo.

Victorian State School Spectacular

Mrs Kuusela and I were blown away when we were lucky enough to attend the Victorian State School Spectacular show at John Cain Arena on Saturday 10th Sept. All of the hard work our students have put in over the last 8 months in getting themselves ready for this big event paid off in spades!! A H U G E thankyou to Mrs Kim Davidson and Miss Claire Moyle who have led the group over the year, attending rehearsals and practicing with the students over lunchbreaks, as well as attending the 2 days of rehearsals in the city with long days, and supervising the students on Saturday until they were picked up after the show at 10pm. I was so incredibly proud of the enthusiasm and dedication that were shown by all the that were involved in the production. It certainly was SPECTACULAR!!!

Teaching and Learning at Karoo

Over the last few weeks, Karoo has been recognised by the region a number of times for the work that we are doing around teaching and learning, and specifically literacy.

On Thursday 1st Sept we hosted another school who came to watch our teachers implement a writing lesson. This involved teachers, educational support staff, their leadership and Principal coming to spend the day at Karoo. The morning involved talking to our students to hear the impact of the teaching and learning at Karoo, and then they observed lessons across the school.

We also hosted the Boutique Schools Network which is made up of approx. 6 schools. They visited our school last week and Mrs Amy Ellis, Mrs Fiona Marker and Mrs Karen Corrales presented a showcase of strategies that we have in place to build vocabulary and student voice at Karoo PS. Teachers from across all 6 schools then visited our classrooms and learnt from our classroom environments. Mrs Kuusela goes into more detail on the teaching and learning page about the topic of the presentation. This is a huge credit to the work of our staff and the exemplar practice we have at Karoo PS. I was incredibly proud of our teachers, the students and the hard work that everyone does each and every day to ensure we impact student outcomes.

Camps

In the last month our Year 3s and 4s have returned from very successful camps. We were incredibly proud of all of the students and the way they conducted themselves throughout both camps. Camp staff commented that we were without a doubt the best school they have had in a while as the students were polite, responsible, clean and respectful. A huge thankyou to all the staff and parent helpers who went on these camps.

Some of the other highlights of Term 3 were:

*NAIDOC Celebrations

*Saturday School Tours with the School and Student Voice captains

*Year 6 BINGO

*Real Schools learning for staff and parents

*Year 1 Hoop time

*100 Days of School for Foundation students

*Year 1 and 2 Swimming

*Zones of Regulation learning for classes

* ICAS Opportunities

*Science Week activities and incursion

*Book Week activities, parade and author incursion

*Hoop Time for Year 3 and 4

*District sport events all term

*R U OK Day

*Fathers Day Night

*Working Bee

*Year 2 Hoop time (tomorrow)

Student Voice and 2023 Captains

Last week Mrs Kuusela and I were fortunate to receive this letter from Ojas in 5D. Student voice is incredibly impoartant at Karoo and this is the perfect example of how students can have an impact on the future of Karoo.

Wellbeing Captains

Hi Mrs. Heatley! I’m Ojas from 5D and I got the idea for a Year 6 leadership role, the Wellbeing captain. Now we have began to welcome two therapy dogs to Karoo (Barkley and Archie) I had the idea of a Wellbeing captain. I know that there have been a lot of wellbeing activities and other things like that (For example: Buddies, Lunchtime clubs and Student Leadership). Mrs. Davidson says it’s an awesome idea to have wellbeing captains at Karoo. This isn’t my speech, by the way, but I believe I will be a great wellbeing captain!

There are lots, and lots, and lots of wellbeing activities at KPS. A wellbeing role will be a really important role to decide what those activities are, some new activities and how the current activities can improve. Just like how I’m putting my voice in this letter, the Wellbeing captains can put their voice in all of those activities, events and programs! It will be a huge improvement for some other children who may not like the current wellbeing things, and the Wellbeing captains might as well change and improve the program, activity or event. Children have minds that are a little bit alike, so the Wellbeing captains know what most other children could like. Sure, the school council reps can do a form but that will have very specific opinions and will be quite hard to change.

Now we are beginning to introduce therapy dogs at Karoo, it’s really good for the kids’ mental and emotional health. You can’t just leave the dog and let them do their own thing! There needs to be someone to walk and take the dog to other classrooms! It can’t just be the teacher. First of all, if two kids walk Barkley or Archie the children will gain responsibility. Second of all, it can’t always be the teacher. After all, the teacher needs to teach the children and do other things. And there also needs to be two people taking him to other classrooms. When Wellbeing captains take the dog to other classrooms, they also need to make sure no one is touching the dog’s tail or hurting it. The wellbeing captains can also organize the times the dogs are coming.

Thirdly, the Wellbeing captains can be in assemblies if something new changes. Like I said in the second paragraph, Wellbeing captains can make changes. They need to tell the school, because most of these changes are important. For example, if there is a new curricular activity, the Wellbeing captains must tell the school, so everyone is informed and it’s also not just a staff member telling them. This adds extra leadership and confidence. Like how the Sports captains works with Mr. Maroney, the Art captains work with Ms. Cole and Mrs. Main and how the science captains work with Ms. Batchelor, the Wellbeing captains can also work with Celeste, Mrs. Flemming, and most of the other student support staff members. I honestly think it’s a great idea and will help a lot!

I hope you want Wellbeing captains at Karoo! And these aren’t all the reasons there should be Wellbeing captains at KPS. There are probably WAY more but I definitely can’t fit all of them in. Student wellbeing is something really; really important at Karoo and because of all the wellbeing events, activities and programs there should be Wellbeing captains to decide this sort of stuff.

By Ojas Chauhan 5d

The leadership team have certainly been influenced by this letter and have spoken with the teachers. We all think it's a wonderful idea and will be introducing Wellbeing Captains for 2023. The Year 5s will begin the process of selection early in Term 4. I look forward to hearing their speeches and discussing the future badged leaders for 2023. I strongly believe that all of our students are leaders though, badge or not. We all can influence others and be a role model for all students.

In other exciting news, our crossing lady Sue has been nominated for Crossing Supervisor of the Year!! This is an award that comes around every 2 years. We are so lucky to have her keeping our students safe on Karoo Road - along with Stewart on Murrindal drive :)

2023 Plans

We will continue the process of planning for 2023 in order to know how many classes we will need, I ask that you advise the front office if your child will not be returning in 2023.

Enrolments for 2023 are still open for prospective families. Transition sessions for our 2023 Foundation (Prep) program will begin in October. We look forward to welcoming new Prep students and their families to our school!

Have a relaxing and well deserved holiday break,

Danielle Heatley

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