Weetangera Primary School eNewsletter

From Mel

Well it was silly of me to hope it wouldn’t happen, but it seems like the cold weather is here, and here to stay. Not my favourite time of year, but at least we have lots of fun stuff happening at school to keep us warm and busy!

June and July are HATS OFF months, which means that students are not required to wear a hat during outside play or outdoor learning activities. We will remind everyone when it’s time to put hats back on in August.

Our students know that taking care of their belongings is a way that they can be responsible, but winter also means many layers, which often get left all over the place. It definitely helps when all clothing items (especially jackets) are labelled to ensure they can get back to their owner when they are lost.

Playground Update

Exciting news! Work on the first of our playground updates is starting next week, when work begins on the Nature Play Zone. You will notice a fence appear and before too long we should have some nice new additions such as stepping stones, bark huts and more digging areas. It might not look exactly like the picture, but I think it will look pretty cool. How exciting!

Stay tuned for stage 2!

Wonderful Weetangera

Today, we acknowledged our runners! A few weeks ago we held our school cross country carnival. I’m always so impressed with the way Weetangera students give their all and have a go, even if running is ‘not their thing’. It was a great morning. I’m sure it will be just as great at our school athletics carnival later this term.

Of course, we do have students for which running is ‘their thing’. They will have received some ribbons in our cross country assembly today. Well done to all of those students. Also, as you can also see in Erwin’s update below, our students were very successful at the Belconnen regional carnival as well. Many of them will go on to the ACT cross country carnival on 14 June. I must say, the thing I loved hearing about the most was how our students conducted themselves on the day. I heard lots of great feedback about how they displayed the Weetangera PS values, but also some great stories about how they supported each other and cheered each other on. Well done Weetangera students!

But it’s not just running. I am always amazed at the diverse skill set of our students, and the different interests and passions that they all have. I love it when students come and share with me a story that they’ve written, an artwork that they’re proud of or a milestone that they have reached in their learning. What a privilege it is for me to witness this excellence and engagement every single day right across our school.

Recently I was excited to hear about the fantastic success of one of our year 4 students at the 2024 Australian Gymnastics Championships, held this month on the Gold Coast. Henry Kroon and his partner Noah (from South Australia) won the final of the National 5 Division Synchronised Trampoline event, taking home a very impressive medal. Henry only met Noah during the championships and had just two practice sessions with him before they went through to the final. Jumping, flipping and doing tricks on a trampoline is hard enough, but imagine having to do it at exactly the same time as someone you don't know very well who is on a different trampoline. Wow! Well done to both.

Speaking of amazing achievements, we also recently held our school rostrum finals. I am always very impressed to hear students perform their speeches in front of a whole room full of children and adults. I know adults that would freeze at the prospect of that! All of our finalists showed creativity, poise and excellent speaking skills. Well done to them! All speakers are judged using a standard rubric to determine a school representative for the Belconnen semi-finals. Congratulations and good luck to Sasha Heenan (year 4) who will represent our school on 1 July.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mel

Melanie.Bezear@ed.act.edu.au

Parent Portal at Weetangera

Parent Portal is now available. It is a secure online platform used to share student information between you and your child’s teachers.

Some reminders about Parent Portal:

If you already have a Parent Portal account, use this Parent Portal access link to start using the great features.
You can’t access Parent Portal directly through the ACT Digital Account website, you need to use the link above.
When you are logged into Parent Portal, we recommend saving the browser as a favourite or to the homepage on your mobile phone for quick access in the future.
The website can only be viewed using a web browser on your computer, mobile phone or tablet. An app is not available at this time.
If you still need to register, you will need an access key and a Parent Portal registration link via email to link your existing account to your child’s records. If you haven’t received this, please contact the school’s front office team for assistance.

Head to our website for all the details:

https://www.weetangeraps.act.edu.au/For_Parents/parent_portal

School Photos

School photos were sent home with students yesterday. There are extra photos available for students that participated in the following activities: School Leaders, House Captains, Year 5 Band, Year 6 Band. For information on how to order these photos, please see the flyer below.

scan_camilla_brown_2024_05_31_10_11_55.pdf

Hats off June / July

What's Happening in the Terrific Turtles

Term 2 in the Terrific Turtles has been action packed so far.

First day back of school we had the firefighters come and kick off our ‘Community’ inquiry. They talked to us about their role in our community and how they help us to stay safe. It was lots of fun getting to see the truck and having a go of using the big fire hoses.

During our group times we have been discussing ‘what is a job’, ‘what is a community’, ‘is Preschool a community’ and ‘what makes you a good member of our community’. These discussions have lead to some fantastic contributions from the children and lots of interesting information.

This week we got to visit a member of our school community! We got to go to the canteen and visit Belinda. She told us all about her job and how she helps our school. The best bit was getting to choose something delicious to eat.

We also got to start to ‘Buddies’ this week with our year 5 friends! We are really looking forward to their visits and thinking of fun things we can do with them! Thanks for sharing our lunchtime with us.

A big THANKYOU to all our parents who have bravely come in and spoken to the Preschoolers about their jobs and their roles in our community. We are very appreciative of it and have loved having our parents in our spaces.

We have also started our collaborative community mural and we are getting very excited to see how it is going to take shape. Keep a look out for it 😊

That’s it from the Terrific Turtles for now.

Laura Vernon

What's Happening in the Wombats

Over the last few weeks, the Wombats have been investigating art and why art is made. The students begun by walking through our school community observing different types of art, thinking about what materials were used to create it and why.

We then brainstormed places in which we had seen art in the wider community. Some places the students have seen art are:

The museum
The art gallery
At home
At school
On holidays

During a book study of the Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, the Wombats discovered that there is also art in books. We investigated the way in which Eric Carle made his artworks, by painting paper and creating different types of textures. He then cut out different colours and textures to create a collage used to illustrate the story.

The Wombats decided to create their own pictures of the Hungry Caterpillar using this technique. They painted paper and added texture using forks, straws, sponges, cotton wool buds, bubble wrap and oil pastels. They then cut out and layered different types of paper to create these amazing artworks.

Lauren Domio & Michelle Robinson

What's Happening in the Marvellous Matildas

Maths – Transformation and Position

In maths we have been busy learning about position and transformation. We have been building skills to locate and identify features on maps as well as following directions and pathways. We began our exploration by discussing and answering a few essential questions such as, what is a map? Why do we need to use maps? What does it mean to locate and identify?

We then enjoyed delving into our learning by becoming experts on giving directions to others around the classroom. To do this, we used topic-specific language such as clockwise, anticlockwise, forward, backwards, and left and right. We enjoyed consolidating our learning and understandings by playing games such as, ‘move the teddy’.

Scavenger Hunt

We had an awesome time this week getting to know our new school signage around the school by participating in the Scavenger Hunt!

In science, we learned about celestial objects and how Indigenous Australians use sky stories to inform them. Sky stories tell Indigenous Australians how to care for Country, when to hunt for food and how to navigate. We were lucky to have a visit from Indigenous author, Adam Duncan. Adam is a Biripi man and has recently published a book called “The Bunyip and The Stars” in collaboration with the National Museum. Adam gave a Welcome to Country in his language, Gathang. He shared some of his language with us: Wiyabu = Hello and Marrumbu = thank you.

“The Bunyip and The Stars” is about two siblings, Ngariin (big sister) and Wumbirr (little brother) and how they come across a bunyip in a time before the stars. Wumbir gets taken by the Bunyip and his brave, tough and super smart big sister comes to his rescue, placing the stars in the sky to use as a map along the way.

Kiri Davis & Chelsea Glenn

What's Happening in the Gang Gangs

Wow! Halfway through the term already and what an incredibly busy and fun filled term it has been. We have had some super star performances in the Gang-gang class this term, Charlie did an amazing job presenting his Rostrum speech to the whole school (so brave Charlie!). Congratulations to Marco, Dom, Celeste, Ava, Chloe, Eli and Amina who all ran in the Belconnen Zone Cross Country, we sure do have the speedy class!

We have been learning about community and change for our inquiry unit, with a focus on comparing life for different groups from the 1860’s to the present. One of our tasks was to read all about housing in the 1860’s to draw a labelled diagram of a settler’s hut. It will be interesting to compare our drawings with the real-life version when we go on our excursion to Blundell’s cottage later this term! Please enjoy a snippet of there work below.

Shelly Murdoch

What's Happening in the Shooting Stars

Year 5/6 Shooting Stars were very inspired by ‘The Bowerbird Blues’ the book for National Simultaneous Storytime this year.

First, before the read, we came in from recess and our teacher told us to pick a colour and we had two minutes to find as many items that were that colour as possible!

Next, we were shown the cover of the book and we put the live stream on the TV. Prior to the read, it was showing a video of a bowerbird and we could hear the interesting noises it was making. We really thought it was cute because it had a bottle top and a feather in it’s mouth! We researched facts about bowerbirds and discovered that they build nests called bowers and they choose their favourite trinket to do a dance with to attract their mate. They love to collect blue items and will even collect cicada wings!

Lastly, we wrote some haikus which are poems with three lines, five syllables, seven syllables and then five syllables about bowerbirds and what we had learned. We also had Tori come to visit us and show us pictures of a real bowerbird nest he found near his house which was very interesting!

Please enjoy poems written by Miles Cooper, Harriet Foley and Fergus Hurlstone.

Emma Cottam

Belconnen Cross Country

On Thursday 23 May over forty students represented our school at the Belconnen Cross Country Championships at Stromlo Forest Park. Well done to all our competitors for your excellent participation and school spirit shown, it was fantastic to see our students cheering each other on as they battled hard on the arduous course.

Each race had in excess of one hundred competitors and we had a large contingent of students running well, the following students just missed out on qualifying for the ACT Championships: Amina F 11th 8Y 1km, Noori W 11th 10Y 2km, Willow D 12th 10Y 2km, Vera S 13th 12Y 3km, Lewis B 15th 9Y 1500m and Marley B 14th 12Y 3km.

This year we had nine students qualify for ACT which is a great effort! This competition will be held on Friday 14 June.

Girls

Ava L 10th 10Y 2km
Maddy B 4th 10Y 2km

Boys

Steven Q 10th 10Y 2km
Joe P 5th 11Y 3km
Jacob H 4th 9Y 1500m
Harrison D 3rd 8Y 1km
Callum M 3rd 11Y 3km
Zac Q 1st 8Y 1km
Kai M 1st 12Y 3km

Great work everyone and best wishes for a successful run at the ACT Championships!

Thank you to all parents and carers for your support and for providing transport.

Erwin McRae

Christian Education in Schools

Christian Education in Schools volunteers will provide a session at Weetangera PS on Monday 24 June, 1.45-2.45pm. This session will be provided only to students that have opted in via the permission note. Please visit the school front office to get a copy of the permission form.

Piano Needs a Home

Weetangera Primary School has an older piano that is surplus to requirements. If you have a need or can find it a new home, please let the front office know.

The school is not able to offer delivery on this item.

PBL

Scavenger_Hunt_Newsletter_Communication_PBL.pdf

Communication at Weetangera

P&C Update

Movie Night

Have you planned your winter solstice yet? Looking for something better to do than be sad that the sun sets before 5pm? Join us for a winter warmer movie night!

On Friday 21 June we will be screening Migration! Doors open at 5:30 for a 5:45pm start. Weetangera Primary School Hall. SECURE YOUR TICKET before sales end on Saturday 14 June. $10 per child via the Flexischools app. Ticket includes popcorn and a treat bag.

Don’t have Flexischools? Email Paul at Weetangera.pc.treasurer@gmail.com and he can help you sort your ticket (or help get you onto Flexischools so you don’t miss all our canteen yummies!).

Trivia Night

Book the babysitter, the Trivia Night is back! Trivia will be on the evening of Friday 9 August at the Belconnen Labor Club. This is the P&C’s one event where the kids stay home and the adults have all the fun. Start organising your table of 10 parent besties now ready to book when sales open later this term.

If you could give us a hand setting up the room or to sell raffle tickets on the night, or would be able to share the load in talking to local businesses to secure some great raffle and silent auction prizes for the night, please get in touch with Ben via weetangera.pc.secretary@gmail.com.

Key Dates

Movie Night – Friday 21 June

Trivia Night – Friday 9 August

Lap a thon – Thursday 26 September

Fete – Sunday 17 November

Stay Connected

Stay up to date with what is happening with the P&C and the canteen by following us at:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/WeetangeraPandC

Instagram: www.instagram.com/WeetangeraSchoolPandC

The fete is back! Mark Sunday 17 November in your diary now!

First fete meeting

Planning of the fete starts early, and we still have plenty of important roles to fill! If you would like to get involved in the planning process or hear about ways you could contribute, join us at our first fete planning meeting on Monday 3 June from 7pm at the Southern Cross Club in Jamison.

Plant stall coordinator – can you help?

Do you have a green thumb? We are on the lookout for a coordinator for the plant stall at this year’s event. Plants and succulents are always popular at our fete, and we are looking for a new plant-lover to bring this stall to life for our 2024 event.

Your role would be to:

Work with the fete team to source plants and succulents for us to sell, including donations from businesses, local garden enthusiasts and, if you have the skills, from your own garden
set up early in on the morning of the fete and accept donations from our families of plants and succulents to sell
oversee the plant stall for the full duration of the event (we will help you find volunteers).

No experience is necessary, just lots of enthusiasm and willingness to help us plan and run the event (and keep the plants alive!). All costs associated with running the stall are paid for by the school P&C, and the fete committee and P&C will be there with you every step of the way.

Want more information or ready to commit? Please contact our fete coordinator Susan at weetangeraprimaryfete@gmail.com for further details.