Reynella Primary School Grapevine

Welcome to term 4; we hope you have all had a wonderful break and are feeling refreshed and raring to go this term. We would like to formally welcome Richard Kemp, our new Senior Leader, who has settled in very quickly to Reynella PS, making strong connections with children and families. Mr Paul Smith has also returned to us, working Mondays and Tuesdays in D6 and taking PE on Fridays. Ms Georgia Frangoulis will be working Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in A1 with Mrs Patterson.

Despite being the busiest term, term 4 always seems to go the fastest. Our priority is to maintain our focus on learning and we know that teachers and staff are planning many exciting opportunities that our children are able to participate in this term. End of year activities celebrating the year of learning, graduation and our End of Year concert to name a few. However, involvement in these activities is not an entitlement but a privilege and we look forward to everyone participating as they continue to follow our school agreements and make positive choices both in the classroom and the yard. All planned activities will be subject to COVID restrictions and please be aware that conditions may change at any moment. We will continue to be guided by SA Health and the Department for Education.

We have begun the very long and arduous process of class placement. Thank you to those parents who have sent in parent requests; it is important to remember that we are not considering friendship requests or requests for particular teachers. Although we will rely predominantly on teacher judgement when placing students, other information that might guide our decision is welcome. 

The internet is a fundamental part of our modern lives, providing easy access to services, social media, entertainment and, most importantly, education. Responsible use of the internet is everyone's business - this includes users, parents, schools and communities. Unfortunately, the internet can be a harmful place for users that are not equipped with the tools to navigate it safely.

This term, as a staff, we have narrowed our focus on cyber safety. We believe it is our collective responsibility as a community to raise the digital citizens of tomorrow - this means fostering awareness and critical thinking in our young people.

Alongside our efforts to promote cyber safety at school, we encourage families to start those 'hard-to-have' conversations with their children, preparing them for online risks such as cyber bullying, unwanted contact, online pornography and sexting. Research suggests that exposure to these risks is happening much younger than we sometimes think. Many resources have been created over recent years to support families and schools to address these issues.

We recommend checking out the eSafety commissioner website, which has a section dedicated to 'parents'. 

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents

Below is a brief information sheet about 'Helping kids to Thrive Online'. 

In term 3 we discovered new skills when we learnt to program and write codes for Edison robots, designed comfortable and efficient vehicles and were introduced to Maker’s Empire. Like many other classes we developed our collaborative skills when we worked in small groups to design and build our vehicles. We looked at the history of transport to see how it had developed over the years.

Term 4’s inquiry involves setting ourselves a research question about the oceans and seas in our world. David Attenborough has been helping us out with this as we have watched his Our Planet programs on Coastal Seas and The High Seas.

Here are just a few of the questions we are investigating

·         What kind of food chains exist in the oceans and seas and why are they important?

·         How are we connected to the seas and oceans?

·         What sort of creatures live in deep water and how are they different to others?

·         Climate change - how is it affecting our oceans and what can be done to stop the negative effects?

Look out for our presentations- COMING SOON!!!!!

This year for our big stem showcase the school focus was the future of transportation and our class focussed on programming and coding drones. The drones were a bit confusing to start with but we got the hang of it quickly then Mr Simmons told us to do a challenge to make us land the drones multiple times on some pads. I think that we got the closest to the pads because it looked like we landed on them. Mr Simmons taught us how to turn the drone and how to flip the drones and that was really cool. By the end of this task we learnt how to code the drones to do heaps of cool stuff like flipping and doing 180s. At the end of the showcase it was announced that we had won the most innovative solution award for our year level because we made it so that the carriage underneath avoided the sensors at the bottom of the drone so that it would land functionally instead of just going up and up. During this task we nearly broke the whole of the billabong ceiling because when the carriage was underneath it would make the drone keep going up and up until it hit the roof and made a mark on the tile. Whoops!!! Jack Dylan Brody

Cancellations will only be given a full credit, if the order is cancelled by 9am on the day of the lunch order, this can be completed on QKR before cut off time 9am for the lunch order day.  Of course the sooner the cancellation is made, the better.

No credit will be given if there has been no communication with the canteen or cancelled via QKR prior to 9am.

If you forget to place your child's lunch order and can contact the canteen before 10am and pay on Qkr using the "money owing to canteen" option this will reflect immediate payment and the order can be fulfilled. If immediate payment is not received by the school, only an emergency sandwich will be provided (ie jam, vegemite, cheese) as we do not want children to go hungry. Chasing up parents for payment is time consuming and unfortunately some parents do not pay outstanding amounts in a timely manner therefore this option has now been removed.  An emergency lunch is now the only option.

Pizza's are no longer available on a Friday's and this option is no longer available on QKR.

Canteen Contact Information

phone: 8381 1493 - option 2

email: dl.0379.canteen@schools.sa.edu.au

Friday 24 September - F5 & F6 AFL Max Excursion

Friday 24 September - C6 & C7 End of Year Concert T-Shirt order form

Wednesday 13 October - B6 & B7 Concert Costume order form

Friday 15 October - Bounce and Botanic Garden Excursion C7

Wednesday 20 October - Bounce Excursion F3 & F4