Newsletter Term 1 Week 9
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
I hope that you have all enjoyed the Easter break. Thank you to all of the parents and friends who came to the school last Thursday and helped us celebrate Easter with our annual hat parade. It was great to see so many parents and grand parents here to support our students on the day. I know that the sausage sizzle lunch went very well and at the same time raised valuable funds for our hard working P&C. Congratulations to the winners in our Easter raffle. I am sure that the prizes will be enjoyed by those who won.
The Role of the School Counsellor
The school is allocated one and a quarter days per week counsellor time, however this time can also include training and meetings outside the school. Melissa Cameron, our counsellor, has qualifications and experience in both education and psychology and her role is to provide psychological support to the school. This includes:
• Assessment of students’ ability and behaviour, and compiling reports about these assessments.
• Advising staff and parents on the management of students and their specific needs.
• Participation in and advice to meetings about whole school issues and specific students’ needs.
• Assisting in the application for support, resources and class placement for students with special needs.
• Referring students or families to agencies concerned with the health and welfare of students and liaising with these agencies.
• Providing reports and recommendations when students have received long suspensions (5-20 days).
• Providing therapy and counselling to students - individually and in groups.
It is important to discuss any issues relating to your child’s academic, social and emotional progress with their class teacher before contacting the School Counsellor, as most referrals come through the Learning Support Team. This team meets weekly to determine the level and type of support and intervention students require. It may be more appropriate to seek help from an agency outside school if the issues are not related to school. I have included a list of agencies which may be able to provide assistance:
AGENCIES Phone
Anglicare 44231018
Centrecare 44218248
Family Support 44215499
Mission Counselling 44220455
Aboriginal Medical Service 44286666
Nowra Community Health Centre 44228111
Or consult your Local GP
Collecting Students from School
From time to time parents collect their children from school early. This is usually to attend an appointment or for some other special circumstance. When this occurs parents are required to sign the student out at the office. Sometimes another family member or friend will be asked to collect a child. In these circumstances the school needs to be sure that the person collecting the child has the authority to do so. This can be confirmed by checking the student’s emergency card to that the person collecting the child has such authority or by the parent proving a note giving the person authority to collect the child.
The school is unable to prevent a parent from taking a student from school except where a court order has been supplied to the school prohibiting the parent from doing so. It is important to realise that the school MUST have a copy of the court order to enforce it.
Newsletter Term 1 Week 8
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
After Easter we will be changing the way that money is collected and counted at school. At present students take money and permission notes to the classroom where teachers record the amount of money and collect the note. From here the money is sent o the office for receipting and banking.
As from Easter we will be changing this procedure. All money will be taken to the office and posted in the letterbox on the left hand side of the counter. All permission notes and money should be placed in this box. Money will be receipted on Monday and Friday. I will put a reminder in the newsletter next week so that parents are aware of this new procedure.
Medication at School
There are times when students need to take medication at school. As schools are drug free zones students are not permitted to self medicate. This means that when your child needs to take medication you need to bring the medication to the school office and sign the necessary form to allow this to happen. We cannot administer any for of medication without the necessary form being filled out.
All medication is to be kept securely in the sick bay. Our office staff are prepared to administer the medication at the appropriate time. In many schools this is not the case and parents are required to come to the school and administer the medication themselves.
Boys Cricket Team Play Well
Yesterday our boys cricket team played against Nowra Public School in round 1 of the NSWPSSA State Knockout. Our boys batted first and were bowled out for 44 runs. Curtis Hodgetts was the best batter scoring 14 runs not out. Nowra passed our total after losing 8 wickets. Our best bowlers were Lachlan Deudney Moore and Robert Mirabito. As a team we the played very well and I was quite prod of their performance against a team with far more experience.. Well done boys!
Easter Celebrations
Just a reminder that our Easter Hat Parade will be held on Thursday at 12:00pm. I have seen some of the great hats that have been made by kindergarten with the help of their buddies. As well as the hat parade we will be drawing the Easter Egg Raffle.
The P&C are running a sausage lunch with parents invited to stay and enjoy with their child. Order forms were attached to he newsletter last week. Orders can still be made by contacting the canteen or sending a note with your child.
Parking At School
All parking in the school grounds is for staff and departmental use only. The only exception is the one space for disabled students to be dropped off. Under no circumstances should parents park on the driveway as this reserved for buses only. When parents park in the car park or on the driveway this creates problems with student safety. Please assist the school to keep our students safe by parking outside the school.
A happy and restful Easter to all students, parents and staff,
David Hogg
Principal
