Alawa Primary School Newsletter

Well as we roll into Week 7 of the term the weather is changing, less rain and a tad warmer through the day. We remind all families it is best for students to have a water bottle at school to hydrate through the day and to always ensure they are in full correct school uniform.

Along with Mrs Baines and Ms Katie I have started our weekly sessions with the Alawa Student Commissioners who form part of the Northern Territory Learning Commission for 2021. We have started unpacking our 2021 Annual School Improvement Plan and discussing what our focus areas are. Next we will commence looking at our data to pin point why we have chosen the focus areas we have. From there the Student Commissioners will do some deep diving into the areas to form their own views on what they as commissioners can investigate further on through the year to inform our improvement plan. In recent years they have focused on Reading as well as how we teach Critical and Creative thinking at Alawa - both years their work has informed our future directions. Student agency at its best. I am already super impressed with their passion and commitment to making a difference at our school.

Monday night this week our team hosted an information session and Expo for parents focusing on literacy - great to see so many come along and super huge thanks to our team [Mrs Donohue, Mrs Griffey, Mr Lotherington, Mr France, Ms Jeffery, Ms Hartley and Ms Hughes] as well as our parent supporters such as Sarah Dowden-Parker.

Yesterday we were all excited to have Mrs Henschke and her bub Hudson come to visit for the first time - they are doing well and were beaming with pride in their Manton shirts!

Parents of students in Years 3-6: Have your children shared with you their email? They are checking this weekly, reading the school newsletter and many are having a go at the weekly quiz.

Have a great week,

 Sandy Cartwright [Principal of the Best School in the Multiverse]

Well here we are, week 7 already.

Literacy Expo

On Monday night we held our Literacy Expo. Thankyou to both teachers and parents who presented some excellent information to share. We hope you enjoyed the night and that we answered any questions you had about how we can support your children at home.

NAPLAN online

Next week we will begin our online practice test for NAPLAN. This is an opportunity for our system to test the online platform, the devises and capacity of the system. It is also an opportunity for all students to experience the conditions for the official tests in term 2. The year 5 students will participate in two different tests and the year 3’s will complete one. Any questions please let me know.

Genevieve Donohue, Assistant Principal

Last Friday our latest Honour Distinction student was recognised at our Assembly. Ms Aliyah Maddern was joined by her Mum and Dad for the special award and she then spent the day as principal.

Aliyah certainly and some views on how she needed to spend her day and took the time first up to write up her schedule for the day to ensure she did not miss anything. She walked around handing out merit awards, checked on the Preschoolers, sat in on an ICT meeting with Ms Cartwright and Mrs Sullivan and helped out at Muster.

Sure to be a CEO in the future!

Hello Alawa Families,

 Last week two lucky children got to take ‘The Everywhere Bear’ and his special journal home with them. The real life (and very cuddly) Everywhere Bear, dressed in his own special Alawa School shirt, is inspired by the beautiful Book The Everywhere Bear By Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb. This Story is about a Bear that belongs to a class and goes home with a different student each week. He goes missing and has many adventures before he is found and returned to his home in class 1.

Just like the bear in the book, the Alawa ‘Everywhere Bear’ returns to Preschool with his book (and his child) and the class get to learn all about their shared adventures. The bear’s special visits help to build the connection between home and school and encourages the development of oral language skills -they are also lots of fun!  On his return to preschool We ask ‘Where have you been Bear and what have you done?’ and each child gets to respond by talking about their adventures with The Everywhere Bear and also showing these experiences through drawings, photographs and stories capturing their unique adventures together.

Alice, Emma, Kelly and Flor. 

Students at Alawa receive raffle tickets [house points] for their attitude and behavior in the playground and out the front of the school at the end of the day, as well as having a go at the weekly quiz. These are then counted on a Friday along with the points from the activity after recess on Friday where we count the students in full uniform, wearing house shirts etc.  At the end of each term we also include the points earnt through the recycling project and water bottle checks.

In Week 6 of Term 1 Manton is ahead of Goyder and Finnis. 

Goyder is still in the lead for the year!

Our Wraps and Noodles topic has had more of a focus on the wrap part with a week of delicious crepes and a week of breakfast wraps.

The crepes were fun to make and we also got creative with some of the fillings. Some of the most popular ones were scrambled egg with herb, apple and cinnamon and the berry lime and citrus.

Breakfast wraps were a great success with the teams making their own tortilla wraps then filling them with yummy ingredients from the farm and extras such as bacon, onion, mushrooms and cheese.

On Friday Year 5/6 Hammond took part in a Stephanie Alexander Mystery Box challenge and 4 teams entered. They had to come up with a dish using 3 of the following- parmesan cheese, double cream brie, milk, butter as well as 4 types of fresh produce. We had 4 incredible recipes and the energy and enthusiasm was amazing. We had a risotto, fettuccine carbonara, a pizza and steak with mash and seasonal salad.

This week the other 2 classes will be taking part in a different 3 ingredient challenge to test their creative cooking skills.

Home Made Tortilla wraps

Ingredients

180 g plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

90 ml lukewarm water

30 ml olive oil

1/2 tsp baking powder

Method

●     Combine all ingredients until a dough is formed.

●     Divide dough into 6 balls.

●     On a floured surface, roll out a ball as thinly as possible.

●     Over a medium to high heat, place the rolled out dough into a dry non-stick pan. As soon as bubbles start forming turn over and quickly brown the other side.

●     Once cooked place set aside on a plate and cover with plastic wrap.

Tina Sullivan, Kitchen Teacher

Being in the Defence community we often hear about services or organisations that are available to us but sometimes we are not certain on what these organisations actually do, what services they provide or if we are eligible. One of those organisations available here in the NT is Soldier On.

The Soldier On Pathways Program enables veterans and their families to secure their future careers, in collaboration with Pledge companies and Education partners. Pathways staff, support veterans and their family members throughout their career transition from the Australian Defence Force. They can provide practical employment and education support, enabling you to secure long-term meaningful employment.

If you are interested in the services that Soldier On provides or would like more information here are the links to their pages.

More information: https://pathways.soldieron.org.au/

A link to March On: https://fundraise.soldieron.org.au/marchon

A link to our jobs board: https://pathways.soldieron.org.au/jobs/?_ga=2.178635364.1924160321.1611712744-1880134116.1611556165

A link to our NT Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/841778893233303/about

Katie Wedel, Defence School Mentor 

Literacy Expo - Monday night saw the Literacy Expo happening in the library with lots of information, tips, tools and takeaways all based around how you can support your child's literacy learning at home. If you did not have the chance to make it in and would like some information please feel free to pop into the library or contact me and I will get some information to you.

Puzzles - Lunchtime has seen many students engaging with our puzzles. Puzzles are great for building physical, cognitive and emotional skills.

• Physical skills -- including hand eye coordination, gross and fine motor skills.
• Cognitive skills -- including shape recognition, memory and problem solving. 
• Emotional skills -- including setting goals and patience.

At this stage the students have managed to complete all of the puzzles we have in the library. If you have any puzzles around you would be willing to donate for the students we are looking for puzzles ranging from small peg puzzles and 24-48 piece puzzles up to anything between 100 and 500 piece puzzles.

Sacha Evans, Library & ICT Manager

During our Tek Ninja time on Monday we had a bit more of a look and play with some of the Bebras Mini Challenge questions. Some of them have been really easy but some are a real challenge. If you would like to have a go yourself or see what it is all about head over to the CSIRO Website at https://digitalcareers.csiro.au/en/Bebras.

Sacha Evans, Tek Ninja Co-Ordinator

Year 1 Jeffery have just started their STEM block (Week 6-8).

As we have been doing artwork from Bronwyn Bancroft and read ‘Big Rain Coming’, we thought, “How can we make a rain stick sound like rain?”

In many cultures, summoning rain often includes the use of musical instruments. So, we will be making Rain Sticks, but before creating them, we have been sorting and measuring our tubes and imaging and planning our designs with our small group or partner.

Earlier this term, Year 1 Jeffery had a visit from the Tek Interns who taught us how to upload pictures onto our ClassDojo. We are excited to show our parents the process of designing and creating our Rain Sticks through pictures and videos on Class Dojo.

Our Mission— is to provide the Alawa School community with delicious healthy meals and snacks and to create meaningful links to our kitchen garden program.

LUNCHTIME SPECIALS: Week 7

Wednesday – Spaghetti Bolognaise *V option available or Chicken curry and rice

Thursday – Spaghetti Bolognaise *V option available or  Chicken Hamburgers

Friday – Pumpkin Mac and Cheese

[Serve $3.00 or large serve $5.50 Spaghetti, Gluten Free Spaghetti $6.50]

A reminder that our school Cafe is open Wednesday to Friday ONLY. Closed on Monday and Tuesdays. 

Order online at www.quickcliq.com.au  

It was another fun and busy week at Playgroup. We are making friends and look forward to each others company now which is so lovely to see.

Today we all took turns at the playdough table making birds nests and eggs, octopus and cutting out shapes. Our parents enjoy this activity too and love to sit with us a roll, kneed, and sculpt masterpieces!

We also enjoyed puzzles, the doll house and setting up incredible marine sea scenes on the felt boards. Outside we painted and trampolined but most of all we played in the sand pit. We love this space and create, work together and sometimes jump on each others work too. Miss Maria baked scones today as we were too busy so we all took one home with us.

See you next week for another fun week. We will visit the Farm so remember scraps for the chickens, your hat, shoes and water bottle! 

Miss Maria, Playgroup Coordinator

LIMITED TIME offer from Entertainment!

Support the Alawa Primary School Farm by purchasing your Entertainment membership.....and for a short time only, you receive a bonus JB HI-FI or Woolworths eGift Card.

Entertainment Memberships are instantly available, valid for a year and gladly accepted at numerous local venues and online.

Check out Entertainment online: https://au.entdigital.net/orderbooks/91168Z2

The Alawa school farm receives 20% of the purchase price.

Please watch out for any new and important updates required to be sent out via email from Ms Cartwright and in our Covid updates section in the newsletter each week.  Please note that birthday cakes etc can still not be brought in to school to share amongst students. 

Our bubblers are open and available for students to use so please ensure they have a water bottle to fill up each day. 

The Northern Territory Chief Health Officer has made a direction that requires any person who has arrived (or is yet to arrive) in the Northern Territory to be tested for COVID-19 if they were in any of the Sydney locations, on or about the relevant times and dates listed below.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL NT FAMILIES

The NT Chief Health Officer requires any person who has arrived (or is yet to arrive) in the NT to be tested for COVID-19 if they were in any of these Sydney locations:

·         The Bexley Aquatics Centre on Saturday, 13 March from 9am-9.30am;

·         Pancakes on the Rocks at Beverly Hills on Saturday, 13 March between 10.45am-12pm;

·         Train from Hurstville to Sydney city arriving at 6.30pm on Friday, 12 March.

·         Train from Sydney city to Hurstville leaving at 7am on Saturday, 13 March.

In addition, the same requirements apply to people who were in any of the following Brisbane locations on 11 March 2021:

·         Morning After Café, West End between 2pm and 3:15pm

·         Corporate Box Gym, Greenslopes between 5:45pm and 7pm

·         Stones Corner Hotel, Stones Corner between 7pm and 7:45pm

If you have visited any of these locations at the stipulated time, please follow the advice issued by the NT Chief Health Officer to:

-          Arrange for a COVID-19 test

-          Self- quarantine whilst awaiting for the results

-          Return to school only once a negative test has been returned and/or you have clearance from COVID-19 Hotline to do so (COVID-19 Hotline: 1800 020 080)

Refer to Northern Territory Government Coronavirus website for the latest COVID-19 Hotspots issued in the NT: https://coronavirus.nt.gov.au/travel/quarantine/hotspots-covid-19