Parkhill Primary School Newsletter
Issue 14, Thursday May 23 2019
Principal's Message
Dear Parents/Carers,
Education Week has been such a lovely time to share with you the things we have been doing this year so far. It was lovely to see so many families join us during Open Day and Open Night to help us to celebrate our STEAM focus and to enjoy the performances from the choir, PA dance groups and some fun PHTV footage. I would like to thank Jan Tuck who helped to organise the events of Open Night and to the teachers for the time they spent preparing, but most of all to the children for being so wonderfully energetic about their learning!
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING:
Learning to see another person’s point of view is important for getting along with others and building positive friendships. Understanding others helps children know what to do in social situations and is the basis for developing caring and responsibility. It’s not always easy for children to see the point of view of someone who is different from them. Being different could mean having a disability, coming from a different country, being a different age or gender, or having different values and interests. Children who are seen as different may be left out of activities. They may face discrimination because others think they are not as good, as talented, or as important as they are. Discrimination can have very negative effects on children’s self-esteem and mental health and wellbeing.
Taking others’ needs into account involves values of caring, compassion and acceptance of others. It also involves emotional skills for empathy. Learning to empathise with another person means learning to ‘walk in their shoes.’ It means being able to recognise and value their feelings and needs, even though they may be different from your own. Skills for empathy develop over time and include:
recognising your own feelings;
recognising others’ feelings;
listening to others’ opinions;
thinking what it would feel like if you saw the situation their way;
thinking how you can respond in a caring way;
doing something to help.
Some children find it easy to tune into feelings. Others need more guidance to learn empathic skills. Adults have an important role in supporting children to learn kindness and empathy.
How parents and carers can help?
Research has found that the examples shown by caring adults have a big influence on children’s empathy. Parents and carers (as well as school staff) can also foster empathy by promoting values of caring and compassion and coaching children to be kind and thoughtful towards others.
Model empathy by tuning into children’s feelings (eg. “Ouch! That must have hurt,” or “You must be feeling disappointed that your friend can’t come over”).
Help children think about how feelings affect other people (eg. “How do you think your friend might be feeling?”).
Help children develop skills for understanding other people’s points of view by discussing the effects of discrimination and the importance of respectful and caring attitudes towards everybody.
Talk about situations that involve empathy (eg. “What I liked about the story was how kind the hero was,” or “That was a mean thing to do. Don’t you think she should have helped her friend?”).
Notice when children are kind and let them know you value their behaviour (eg. “That was a very thoughtful thing to do. I really appreciate it!”).
How to support children to accept and include others:
Teach children that there is nothing wrong with being different and that each of us is different to somebody else.
Teach children that everyone has a right to be respected.
Help children develop skills for positive friendships and cooperative play.
Parents and carers of children with special needs can talk to their children’s teachers about how to support their strengths and about encouraging other children to include them.
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE:
When managing conflict amongst the children at Parkhill we use restorative practices. Restorative practice is a strategy that seeks to repair relationships that have been damaged. It does this by bringing about a sense of remorse and restorative action on the part of the offender and forgiveness by the victim.
The link below has some interesting reading around this idea:
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/bullystoppers/Pages/methodrestorative.aspx
HEAD LICE:
Although not a nice subject to be talking about it is something we are all aware of and connect with primary school. We have had a number of reported head lice issues in classes across the school. It is very frustrating for you to be continually treating your child for head lice and can be quite distressing. Although we know that school and childcare centres are their favourite place, we really need to work together to ensure we are all doing regular checks of children's hair to try to minimise the spread of head lice at Parkhill. There are many ways to treat/prevent head lice – please check out the information in the link below. Regular combing helps with checking hair.
https://www2.health.vic.gov.au/public-health/infectious-diseases/head-lice
REMINDERS:
Education Week
Tomorrow the SRC is organising a dress up day with the theme ‘Celebrating Careers’.
Sick Children
There are a lot of yucky viruses floating around school at the moment. To ensure we do our best to keep these illnesses at bay please try to keep your child at home if they are sick. Coughing, sneezing and runny noses spread germs around the classroom.
Elaine Brady
Principal
Calendar of Curriculum Events
Friday 24 May - Education Week Celebrating Careers Day
Monday 27 May - GATEWAYS Journeys Program Day 1 (selected students)
Wednesday 29 May - F/Y1 Zoo excursion & Y3/4 Camp Information Evening
Monday 3 June - GATEWAYS Journeys Program Day 2 (selected students)
Thursday 6 June - Stargazing Evening
Monday 10 June - Queen's Birthday Public Holiday
Wednesday 12 June - Bring it Breaky
Monday 17 June - GATEWAYS Journeys Program Day 3 (selected students)
Wednesday 19 June - Friday 21 June - Y3/4 Camp Weekaway
Thursday 20 June - Story Time
Friday 28 June - Term 2 ends at 2:30pm
Student of the Week
F/1C - Ari S
F/1S - Elle L
F/1T - Kira B
2/3G - Samuel L
2/3L - Zaid S
2/3M - Hamzeh S
4D - Luxe R
4O - Christos P
5/6A - Millie K
5/6CS - Phyllis T
5/6H - Dylan W
First Aid
There have been reported cases of the following ailments throughout the school:
- Head lice
- Gastro
STEAM - Y4 Inquiry Action
We’ve been learning all about ecosystems in Y4 and the students were keen to diversify and support our school ecosystem by building birdfeeders as their inquiry action.
During our planning STEAM session we thought about the design requirements: a place for the seed, a place for water, a place for birds to perch, protection from the rain, a system to attach it high in a tree – the list went on.
On building day, students discovered all sorts of problems with their designs that they hadn’t considered during planning. Luckily, with creativity, logic and a focus on good communication skills they set about problem solving. Below are some of our designs.
We can’t wait to hang them around the school and observe their impact on our ecosystem.
Liz O'Meara & Alex Davies
Y4 Teachers
Y2/3 Woolworths Excursion
"On Monday the Y2/3s went to Woolworths for our inquiry project. The Y2/3s had a budget of $10 to make a meal for our family. I cooked spaghetti. We got split up into groups. It was lots of fun. We walked to Woolworths but on the way back it rained. There were lots of different meals people cooked. $10 is not a lot of money but you would be surprised by the meals you can make with $10." - Abigail C 2/3M
"On Monday the Y2/3s went to Woolworths for our inquiry. We had only $10 to buy a dinner meal for our whole family. We had to see if we didn't need to put anything back. Not many people had to put things back on the shelves, only about three or four people had to put items back in 2/3M. But I'm not that sure about other classes, they probably had about the same. We found it so fun." - Lucy B 2/3M
"I went shopping. I bought some food. I bought some ham and I got some wraps and I got some meat and some cheese and I cooked it and I ate it. It tasted good." - Alicia M 2/3M
Coats for Kids
Coats For Kids is a collection service that focuses on providing winter clothes for kids in need.
If you have any kids coats that are too small, please drop them off at the office in the tubs provided. These will be collected up until 24 May.
PFA News
Committee Members
Office Bearers:
President: Vanessa Cowley
Vice President: George Andrakakos
Treasurer: Sumi Sundram
Secretary: Nadine Phillips
Committee Members:
Shadow Treasurer: Fiona Crellin
Communications: Eva Conley
General Members: Jason Van Lint, Elle Delmee, Mark Havas, Lisa Jacobson, Wendy Douglas, Janneke Storteboom, Leanne Knight, Kylie Touloupis, Donna Edwards, Katrina Battle
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
TERM TWO KEY DATES - Please lock these dates into your calendar!
BOGAN BINGO - Don’t forget to get your tickets now! This event is on next Saturday!!!!!
You may be asking - what is Bogan Bingo? Well … one of the hosts calls out the bingo numbers and his budding DJ plays songs from the 80’s and 90’s that rhyme with those numbers. Then throw in some jokes, trivia, air guitar, Cold Chisel and your finest bogan dress ups and you have a bonza of a night planned. Tickets are $25 per person (BYO drinks and snacks). It is on Saturday 1st June. Doors open at 7pm, for an 8pm start. Organise a group of Parkhill parents or friends and get your tickets now via www.trybooking.com/BCOFW.
DONATIONS NEEDED FOR BOGAN BINGO
The PFA is looking for donations for the Bogan Bingo night. These donations will be used as prizes which will be raffled off, won or auctioned during the night. Prizes can range from alcohol, food, house and garden items, whatever you think parents would enjoy. All funds raised go to Parkhill Primary School.
ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS - Now available
Entertainment books are now available for you to purchase. They cost $70 and provide over $20,000 in discounts to all the things you love to do...dining, attractions, shopping, travel and more! They are filled with up to 50% off or 2-for-1 style offers, they are a great way to discover new favourites and enjoy the value at the same time. The proceeds of the sold books goes to Parkhill Primary School. Please order one now via this link:
DON’T MISS A THING!
Make sure you keep up to date with all school happenings by joining the ‘Parkhill Primary School Community Page’ on Facebook. This is a closed group to maintain privacy and can only be accessed by Parkhill Families. Search for us using the above name, send a request to join, the administrators will verify your details and then you can scroll until your heart’s content!
WOOLWORTHS EARN AND LEARN now on!
Woolworths Earn and Learn promotion is running again starting May 1st. Parkhill has been registered to benefit from this generous program - last time we collected over 17,000 stickers, an amazing effort which helped purchase much needed sports and robotics equipment for our school programs. Let's see if we can smash that this year and collect even more!
There is a Parkhill collection bin at our local Ashwood Woolies and there is also one placed in the office. If you can please collect a sticker sheet from Woolworths or the office to attach your stickers to before handing them in that would be very helpful. We cannot submit stickers that are not attached to a sheet - from previous experience kids find this quite a fun activity so let's get them doing the sticking for us. You can photocopy blank sheets if you need more.
The promotion runs from 1st May to 26th June and all stickers collected provide our teachers with the opportunity to order any resources they need from the Modern Teaching Aids website, a well known and valued online resource portal for all Australian education services.
Please ask all friends and family to contribute as many stickers as they can to the Parkhill cause.
Parkhill Primary School
Email: parkhill.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au
Website: www.parkhillps.vic.edu.au
Location: 4A Parkhill Drive, Ashwood VIC, Australia
Phone: 03 9807 2239