Colac Primary School Newsletter March 18th, 2021

Phone: 5231-2560 (BH) Website: www.colacps.vic.edu.au

Athletics: Our whole school Athletics, held on Tuesday this week was an extremely successful day

with perfect weather, great enthusiasm and really good sportsmanship displayed in all areas. Thank

you to everyone who assisted by helping to set up, marshall events, cheer on students and pack up at

the conclusion. Mr Tillack will provide a full report in today’s newsletter. A special acknowledgement

of our House & Vice Captains for their work to support and encourage students to have a go in the

many events on offer.

Harmony Day: Colac Primary will be celebrating Harmony Day on Monday

March 22nd. Students are invited to wear national dress or colours of a chosen

country (for example red and yellow for China as the colours on the flag, or

for Italy green red and white). All students will undertake a lesson on the day

that expands the theme of ‘Everyone Belongs’ and classes will have guest teachers to lead this work.

We look forward to a great day that celebrates our school value of RESPECT.

Tutor Learning Initiative: The Tutor Learning Initiative enables

schools across Victoria to engage qualified teachers as tutors to work

with small groups of students and support their learning. The initiative

is consistent with Australian and international evidence, which shows

that small group tutoring is one of the most effective educational

interventions available to support students to progress in their

learning. The Tutor Learning Initiative is additional targeted learning

support that our school will be providing to 83 students this year. This

additional support is available in 2021 through the Victorian Government’s investment in the Tutor

Learning Initiative, which supports schools to address disruptions to students’ learning as a result of

COVID-19. Our Tutor Co-ordinator Mrs Launer commenced working with students this week and this

work will continue in 6 week blocks for the remainder of the year to support students in the areas of

Reading, Writing and Maths.

School review: Today saw the commencement of our School review. All schools must participate

in a school review every 4 years to provide assurance of ongoing compliance with the minimum

requirements for school registration, and to inform the development of the four year School Strategic

Plan. Our review team, which consists of our School Council President (Mrs Harper) an external

reviewer, two challenge partners, a DET Senior Education Improvement Leader and representatives

from our school Leadership Team undertook some classroom observations today and examnined the

schools results in curriculum and wellbeing. Our school policies were also reviewed as part of the

Victorian Regulation Quality Assurance process and School Council are to be commended for their

work in this area as the school remians fully compliant. Thank you to students in Rooms 2, 7 and 9 who

were working hard during our observations today and spoke to the review team when they visited.

Stay safe & well, Shelby Papadopoulos – Principal

Social Services: This terms Social Service fundraising will be donated towards the Royal Children’s

Hospital Good Friday Appeal. Students are asked to bring along any loose

change for their class social service collection to go towards the overall

school donation.

To ensure our money is ready to go in time for the appeal, we will hold

our Term 1 Casual Dress day on Friday March 26th.

To support the Royal Children’s Hospital, students and staff are invited

to wear their pyjamas or leisurewear and bring gold coin donation to add

to our fundraising. Please support this worthy cause and watch out for

our school donation to be announce as part of the Good Friday Appeal telecast.

Calendar

Mar 19th National Ride2School Day

Mar 22nd Harmony Day

Mar 26th Casual Day for RCH-gold coin donation

Mar 26th Colac Division Athletics-qualified yr 3/6’s

Mar 29th Colac Secondary College Open Night

Mar 30th School photo day-family & spare envelopes available

Mar 31st Colac PS house cross country-whole school event

Apr 1st Last day of term – Easter raffle drawn - 2.30pm dismissal

Apr 19th First day of term 2

Our value of the fortnight is PERSONAL BEST

It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, just do your personal best.

Office News Parents Club News - Easter Raffle

Parents Club are asking for Easter egg donations for their Easter raffle this year. Please bring donations

to the office. Tickets will be sold in classrooms for 50 cents.

Harmony Day

On Monday the 22nd of March, Colac Primary School will be celebrating 'Harmony Day'. Students and

staff are encouraged to dress in the national dress or colours of their chosen country. Think the colours

of a flag or traditional outfits/costumes!

School Photos School photo day is Tuesday 30th March. Family envelopes are available at the office if you’d like the option of a siblings photo taken. Spare envelopes are also available in case your child’s envelope has been misplaced.

Breakfast Club Update Our Breakfast Club operates on Tuesday and Thursday mornings in the stadium from 8.15am to

8.45am. All students welcome.

What a week we have had! We have been working extremely hard in all areas of the

curriculum and had a fantastic time at our Athletics Day.

Carson doing a great job in the egg and

spoon race!

Grade 2 girls having a go at tunnel ball.

Caleb’s amazing response to ‘Where’s My

Teddy?’

Lexie, Ned, Milly,

Caleb and Mineth

proudly accepting

their 25 nights of

reading stickers!

Room 3 and

4 extending

their

knowledge of

Place Value

and MAB

blocks. Room 3’s Truffula Seed writing wall.

We speak for the trees!

Making Connections

In Reading lessons this past week we have been

learning how to make text-to-self and text-to-text

connections. This has involved us engaging with a

range of texts and discussing the connections we can

make to them. Have a look at some of our student’s

ideas for ‘If they were Prime Minister’.

We encourage you to discuss the connections your child is making with their at home reading books.

This week in Grade 5/6, students have enjoyed leading the school on the Athletics day, well done to

everyone who had a go at the events, dressed up and cheered their house on!

In Maths, we have been exploring how to read, create and interpret different types of graphs. Students

have used the Athletics day to plan and conduct surveys, then represent information effectively.

We have completed our focus on descriptive language in Writing, and it was great to see so much

improvement over the last few weeks in students adding descriptions to their stories! We are moving

on to a unit of persuasive writing now.

For Reading, students have been practicing clarifying words in context, and are exploring figurative

language. Students have also been working on expanding their vocabulary knowledge in spelling.

Please remember students should be reading each night, and working on their spelling and maths

homework. It was amazing to see some of the awesome BTN ‘All about me’ reports that students

submitted over the last few weeks.

Inspired by a poem in the ‘Last Peach’ by Gus Gordon, Grade 3 & 4 students have been writing a letter

to their favourite fruit. As a lead up students have become ‘adjective collectors’; using the text, Roald

Dahl’s ‘James & the Giant Peach’ & 5 sense adjective charts as sources. Please see some creative

responses below!

On Tuesday we held our Athletics Sports here at school. It was a wonderful day for all involved, with the weather turning it on and lots of family members in attendance throughout the day supporting and cheering on our athletes. In the end the KOALAS won the day, a huge congratulations to them and their captains, Dallas, Jack, Jess and Sophie. For the 10, 11, 12 and 13 year old students, they will be finding out if they have made it through to the Colac Division Athletics on Friday the 26th of March over at the Central Reserve. As I have explained to the students, the top 2 in each event will more than likely qualify, although in some events there are certain distances or times that have to be met to make it through. If there are any 9 year old students who have outshone their 10 year old counterparts, they will be asked if they would like to go on the 26th of March. Students that have qualified will have to choose no more than 5 events for the day, that is including relays.

Age Champions A huge congratulations to the following students who were age champions. Both Will Mc and Ava S were overall champions for both the boys and girls. Abbey D – 5 x 1st 2 x 3rd Rupert E – 5 x 1st 1 x 3rd Ava S – 7 x 1sts (every event) Alex T – 6 x 1st 1 x 3rd Chloe B – 6 x 1st 1 x 2nd Harper L – 5 x 1st Jess D – 6 x 1st 1 x 2nd Will Mc – 6 x 1st 1 x 2nd Athletics Records Holders A large number of students have also broke CPS Athletics records that have been recorded over the last 5 years. This is a huge accomplishment and will go up in the foyer when entering the stadium. Well done! Ava S – 800m, Triple Jump Will Mc – 800m, 70m hurdles, High Jump Jess D – 800m, 1500m, 70m, 70m hurdles, High Jump, Triple Jump Brock W – 1600m Mila T – 70m Rupert E – 70m hurdles, Shot Put, Triple Jump Chloe B – 70m hurdles Carter W – Discus Abbey D – Shot Put Harper L – Shot Put Olivia A – Triple Jump

Upcoming Sporting Dates – Term 1

Thursday March 26th – Colac Division

Athletics @ Central Reserve (Selected

Grade 3-6 Students who have qualified

at CPS Aths)

Wednesday March 31st – Colac Primary

School Cross Country @ CPS (Whole

School Event)

CPS Sporting Star – Week 7

Hint: This person loves to run. She is in Grade 5 and has an

older brother that used to go to CPS.

Reminder: Put your name, room and

who you think the sporting star is in the

box in the stadium foyer.

CPS Sporting Star – Week 7

The Sporting Star from last week

was Phaze from Grade 1. We had 5

people pick correctly, but the

winner who got drawn out of the

hat was Crystal from Room 8 she

will be able to collect her prize in

the stadium.