Parkhill Primary School Newsletter
Issue 21, Friday 14th August 2020
Dear Parents/Carers
It’s hard to believe we are halfway through term 3. This peculiar year continues to be exactly that…
I guess we are starting to feel the pressure of home learning and that juggle of your own work and the children’s learning. There are a few tips, tricks, and tools you can try implementing to keep your kids motivated.
Here are three ways to get your children excited and motivated.
Motivate with goal setting
Goals are a critical component of learning. They motivate by letting children know exactly what it is they need to do for learning to happen.
Motivate with rewards and praise
We already know that praise and reward are better motivators than punishment.
Motivate with meaningful feedback
Timely and thoughtful feedback is a massive motivator! When your child has achieved their goal or made a step towards it, take note. Give feedback about how well they have organised themselves and how proud you are of how they achieved it. You can comment on the strategy they have used or the progress they are making.
As parents you are uniquely placed to motivate your children at home. Carefully read the communication coming home from the class teacher and check your child’s learning tasks so that you are well placed to answer questions if they need help or redirect them back to their class teacher for support. Set up a learning space in the home for your child, with pens and pencils and learning materials ready and accessible.
Helping your child to access the class meets is super important to help maintain personal connections and relationships. Set up calls and ‘meets’ with their friends also helps to keep them connected.
When your child is part of a small group with their teacher or a member of our Education Support team it is important that you leave them to participate by themselves. This time is for them to be connected with their key adults from school and to learn with their peers. Having mum, dad or carers sitting with them in this environment is not really helpful! Take the chance to have a cuppa!
At the end of the day whether in school or at home it is important to remember that education is part of life in Australia and is something children have to do! It is such a privilege to live in a country where education is part of childhood.
Planning Week
Next week is planning week. Teachers across the school will be planning the content of our remote and flexible learning programs for the rest of term.
It is important to note that our School Improvement Team will be heavily involved in all planning meetings across the school. As a result they will not be as active in their classrooms during next week. Mrs. Crane, Mr. Davies and Miss Schlack are members of the School Improvement Team - they will not be as available next week to run Google Meets and give feedback to student learning that has been submitted.
The table below shows which day your child’s teacher is planning next week. During the planning days the children will have no learning tasks posted and will not be required to submit anything.
Learn From Home Packs
The Learn from Home packages will be made available from 10am every Monday. Please keep the work that your child completes so that you can return it to school once we are back onsite.
I hope you are all well and that you are staying safe. Please reach out if you need support, help or have any feedback at all to offer elaine.brady@education.vic.gov.au
Take care and best wishes,
Elaine Brady
Principal
Lightening The Lockdown Load
A FREE WEBINAR FOR PARENTS IN VICTORIA
WEDNESDAY 19th AUGUST, 8pm
Lockdown is hard. It hurts our kids and it’s a drain on parents. The first time was tricky. There were challenges. For some, it was horrible. But most of us managed ok and got through it. This time it’s different. The pressure is higher. The demands are greater. The children are more oppositional. The home learning stretch will be longer. There’s work stress, family stress, and stress about being stressed!
While we can’t click our fingers and make it magically disappear, there are real strategies that parents and children can rely on to not just survive, but thrive – even in a far-too-long lockdown. They’re simple ideas that you can start on right away.
Join Dr Justin Coulson, one of Australia’s most trusted parenting specialists, as he shares 4 secrets to make it through the pain of the winter COVID-19 Victorian lockdown. By the end of this FREE webinar, you’ll:
- Feel reassured, with less stress and pressure around your kids, their schooling, and life
- Have concrete strategies you can start on immediately to make your family happier
- Know how to be on the same page as your partner
- Be able to develop habits and practices that will ensure your children – and YOU – can get your daily work done, even while everyone is stuck at home
Some fantastic work being uploaded again this week!
4/50 Have been continuing their writing tasks
WALT: Continue the story using the sentence starter
WILF: Half a page of writing
Your task today is to continue the story in your own words. Be as creative as you like! Remember to think about topic sentences. Your first sentence lets the reader know what’s to come in the story. Aim for three, short paragraphs. I’m really looking for exciting adjectives and interesting words!
Dark was a sorry, spoiled place; a broken and battered place, but yet lit with the love that still lights up the village, even today. There was no sunshine, no clouds, no lovely streams where the water trickles down and splashes upon the heavy, sunken rocks, nothing grew except the eagerness of the village to one day see the sunlight reach the darkness.
Dark wasn’t always that way. Long ago dark didn’t even exist, but the constant piling of the dirt, the heavy, clear rain that once ran down our streams, the tall oak trees that provided shelter to Earth’s creatures, had all fallen creating the home we have lived in for centuries.
When I head out of our loving home built with care, I never look back, for I run and gallop in the direction of the cracks and crannies where the light peeps through, I go everyday, and look out into the untouched, unknown land where no one had set foot on in what feels like forever, it gives me hope, hope that one day we will breakthrough and let the light be our new home.
Milan.
Dark was a sorry, spoiled place; a broken and battered place. Nobody had any hope. Except one day, when a little child named Peterboy found a small, broken, bundle of hope named Idaduck. He put Idaduck into his finding bag and rushed back to Dark. Grandpapa looked at the bag moving around and asked ‘What's in the bag?’
‘Grandpapa you must fix this poor little duck’ Cried Peterboy.
‘I will fix it but you must not keep it’.
‘Why not!’ yelled Peterboy
‘Ducks live for the feel of wind in their wings. Don’t get too attached’
Grandpapa pulled his tools out of a backpack and started trying to fix her. Peterboy waited anxiously in another room, when Grandpapa came out and whispered ‘She’s just sleeping for now but she’ll wake up later.’ When Idaduck woke up Peterboy was sitting on a rock right next to her. ‘Come on Idaduck let's go play!’ By day they were jumping around in the finding fields, by night they were dancing by the fire, listening to Oompapa on Grandpapa’s curley brass tube.
But one day Winter became Summer, and the weak breeze became strong wind. Grandpapa told Peterboy that Idadck must go and feel the wind.
‘No! We must do something that would make her want to stay forever!’
‘We cannot. But we can give her such a great farewell that when people speak her name stars shine brighter.’
Peterboy fetched the other Dark children and brought them outside. The young sang on the cliff while the old danced. Grandpapa played Oompapa on his curley brass tube. Idaduck flew away, quacking which meant thank you. And Dark had hope.
The End
Max P
TASK: Using a pencil and your learning journal (or you can do it online also if you wish), create your own visualisation showing the different decimal place values.
National Science Week!
Next week is National Science Week, and Parkhill challenges you to put your science spectacles on and see the world in a different light.
The theme this year is Deep Blue: innovation for the future of our oceans, enticing you to learn more about the water all around us.
There are hundreds of activities online and virtual - just punch in your postcode and away you go!
Chaplain’s Corner
We’ve gone from a time of relative prosperity and great personal freedom to increasingly stringent restrictions in a fairly short space of time. We know it’s for our own good but the strain in palpable, it’s certainly been a tough couple of weeks. So I thought this week instead of writing a long piece I’d just include a selection of memes to give you all a bit of a chuckle and hopefully lift your spirits.
Getting veggies into the kids has never been such a challenge!
And for all you sci-fi nerds…
Stay safe, enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful flowers as we head towards spring and do reach out if there is anything I can help you with.
Suzanne Carmody
Chaplain
Book Club
Click on the links below of you need any Graph or Dotted Thirds Templates to assist your home learning
PFA News
Committee Office Bearers
President: Rossanne Clay
Vice President: George Andrakakos
Treasurer: Maria Andrakakos
Secretary and Communications: Kylie Touloupis
If you would like to be on our email distribution list and receive communication and minutes from our meetings please email parents.friends.secretary@gmail.com
Next PFA meetings will be at 8:30pm on the:
10th September
19th October
12th November
From the PFA President
Dear Parkhill Families
We have now finalised our team of office bearers for 2020 and we continue to have our previous office bearers Vanessa and Sumi supporting us in our new roles. I've learnt that there are many committed members and I look forward to meeting you all soon.
Although I'm new to the school, I know that being part of the PFA provides opportunities for you to connect with other families and potentially create lifelong friendships as your child journeys through Parkhill. So please don't hesitate to reach out to any of us using the parents.friends.secretary@gmail.com email address. We are always welcoming new and returning members. We have been meeting online and will continue to do so until the restrictions ease.
Given the COVID situation this year, you would have noticed that we haven't been able to maintain the events previously planned for our community. However, we are putting together some opportunities for our school to be digitally connected during this time with some fun events. If you have any ideas you would like us to explore please let us know.
Things to look forward to:
Father's Day virtual event for parents
Family Trivia hour
Children's Fun-A-Thon
Keep an eye out in the next newsletter for more information. Until then enjoy your week.
Rossanne Clay
PFA President
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Parkhill Primary School
Email: parkhill.ps@education.vic.gov.au
Website: www.parkhillps.vic.edu.au
Location: 4A Parkhill Drive, Ashwood VIC, Australia
Phone: 03 9807 2239