Congratulations to

Thank you to Special Thanks to

Bus Travel Walking School Bus—Friday 20th May

Compass will provide our families with access to their Semester 1 Reports. We have phased the use of Compass in over the course of this Semester. Our newsletter will provide families with information on new features of Compass when they become available to parents / guardians.

Student Led Conferences are happening tomorrow from 8am – 11am & 3.30pm – 5.30pm. Bookings can be made through Compass or by phoning the office.

Next week is the last week of Term 2. Students will be dismissed at the earlier time of 2.00pm. After School Care will run from 2-4.15pm. Please book your child in if you plan to use our After School Care service on the last day of term.

Term 3 starts on Monday the 16th of July. Every day counts and at-tendance at school is a strong factor in making sure your child does well and is prepared for secondary school. Start the new term with a goal of not missing a day!

Prep 2019 Open Week is on from Monday 23rd July to Friday 27th July. We would like to invite all prospective families to have a guided tour with our School Captains and leaders anytime during the week. This has been advertised at the local kinder, through our official Facebook page and in the Hill End Herald. If you know of any interested families in Prep or at other year levels, please alert them to this opportunity.

Families enrolled in our After School Care Service are reminded to return their Confirmation of Child Care Agreement Form, which was due back last Friday. These agreements ensure we remain compliant with the new Child Care Subsidy System.

Willow Grove School and

Community Newsletter 1 9 T H A P R I L 2 0 1 7 V O L 1 7 : I S S U E 0 9

TERM 2 2018

21st June—Student Led Confer-

ences

29th June—Last Day Term 2—

2pm Dismissal

DATES BEYOND TERM 2

16th July—First Day Term 3

23rd—27th July—Prep 2019

Open Week

23rd July—Lions Club Public

Speaking Competition—Selected

Students

20th—22nd August—Gr 3/4

Camp to Sovereign Hill

29th Oct—2nd Nov—Gr 5/6

Camp to Woorabinda

13th December—Presentation

Night

19th—20th December—Grade 6

Graduation Camp

MON TUE WED THU FRI

18 Student Led Con-ferences

19 MARC Van Build. & Grounds Meeting—7pm School Council Meeting—7:30pm

20 Brekky Club

21

Brekky Club Student Led Confer-ences

22 Brekky Club Lunch Orders

25

26 MARC Van

27 Brekky Club

28

Brekky Club Mobile Library

29 Brekky Club Lunch Orders Last Day Term 2—2pm Dismissal

June 2018

Find us at—www.willowgroveps.vic.edu.au

TERM DATES 2018

Term 1 29th Jan (teachers start) to 29th March

Term 2 16th April to 29th June

Term 3 16th July to 21st Sept

Term 4 8th Oct to 21st Dec

Like us on

Reminders

SUPERVISED HOURS: 8.45AM—3.30PM

VOL 18 : ISSUE 18 20TH JUNE 2018

Like us on

School Office Hours—Terms 3 & 4

Congratulations

News from Ann

School Working Bee—Saturday

NAPLAN

Parents play a major role in assisting and supporting their child to ac-quire strong literacy skills. Literacy learning started when your child was born. Parents play a vital role as their children’s first literacy teachers. Consider all the things that children learn before school as they mix with others, observe what others do and try to do the same things. Much of this learning happens naturally and within a social context. Oral lan-guage is the foundation of learning to read to write. Encourage your chil-dren to talk about and express their feelings and ideas. Provide experi-ences that expand their concepts and vocabulary. Children do not al-ways needs loads of money spent on them. Varied family outings, games inside and out, just pottering around with you as do jobs will ex-pand their notion of the world. They will bring their knowledge and under-standing of the world to their reading and writing. Literacy learning is a social experience because it depends on demon-strations from, collaboration with, and continuous feedback and re-sponse from, other people, it happens, at home and at school, when chil-dren are surrounded by people who listen, talk, think, read and write. Children need to see the purposes for reading and writing.

Here are some ideas for you to support your child develop literacy skills over the year levels. Share experiences (a picnic, camping, gardening, cooking, farming) which are then talked about at home Share books (especially stories) and talk about them with more experi-enced readers Have plenty of books to handle and read See print all around them Have models of how people read and write Have opportunities to read and write Know that people expect them to read and write Are given choices about what they read and write Feel free to ‘have a go ‘ at reading and writing (including spelling) Are able to talk about their reading and writing Experience feelings of success Feel responsible for their own reading and writing Have confidence in their own ability Understand what reading, writing and learning can do for them We need to work together, parents and teachers, to develop a part-nership which will support our literacy learners and to ensure a life- long learning. As adults we know that literacy provides the keys to life.

Can you help?

News from Ann

Winter

Student

P A G E 2

W I L L O W G R O V E S C H O O L A N D C O M M U N I T Y N E W S L E T T E R

With our families now logged onto Compass, I thought it would be an opportune time to take a moment and examine in detail the features already available to parents that have not yet been covered in detail through our newsletter.

Attendance

You can utilise Compass to keep track of your child’s attendance at school. We know that attending school is directly linked to improved academic outcomes for students. Likewise, if your child has regular days off, they will not do as well as their peers who turn up to school consistently. Remember, healthy attendance habits are formed early on in a child’s primary school journey!

The image below, found by clicking on your child’s profile and then clicking attendance, will give you information about your child’s attendance history. A good measure of overall attendance is the last column on the far right, ‘Schl %.’ You should be aiming to have this percentage sit at or above 95%.

What each of the tabs mean under attendance:

Approvals: This sub-tab provides a comprehensive list of approvals for your child. From this tab you can add absence notices, both present and future.

Unapproved: This sub-tab provides a list of all unexplained absences from class. From this tab you can click to approve specific absences.

Daily Activities & Attendance Provides a quick snapshot of today ’s classes and your child’s attendance marking.

Attendance Summary: Includes a summary of attendance in each class. For full de-tails about a specific absence click the appropriate number in the grid. For an explanation of a heading item, hover your mouse over the heading of interest.

When students are marked ‘Not Present’ in class this can sit in one of three different cate-gories. This information is found under the ‘Out of Class’ heading. These include:

- NP Schl—Not present in class and approved by school related activity. E.g. an excursion or sports day

- NP Parnt—Not present in class and approved by a parent approval.

- NP Unap—Not present

in class with no approval

entered.

Principal’s Report

School Office Hours—Terms 3 & 4

Congratulations

News from Ann

School Working Bee—Saturday

NAPLAN

Parents play a major role in assisting and supporting their child to ac-quire strong literacy skills. Literacy learning started when your child was born. Parents play a vital role as their children’s first literacy teachers. Consider all the things that children learn before school as they mix with others, observe what others do and try to do the same things. Much of this learning happens naturally and within a social context. Oral lan-guage is the foundation of learning to read to write. Encourage your chil-dren to talk about and express their feelings and ideas. Provide experi-ences that expand their concepts and vocabulary. Children do not al-ways needs loads of money spent on them. Varied family outings, games inside and out, just pottering around with you as do jobs will ex-pand their notion of the world. They will bring their knowledge and under-standing of the world to their reading and writing. Literacy learning is a social experience because it depends on demon-strations from, collaboration with, and continuous feedback and re-sponse from, other people, it happens, at home and at school, when chil-dren are surrounded by people who listen, talk, think, read and write. Children need to see the purposes for reading and writing.

Here are some ideas for you to support your child develop literacy skills over the year levels. Share experiences (a picnic, camping, gardening, cooking, farming) which are then talked about at home Share books (especially stories) and talk about them with more experi-enced readers Have plenty of books to handle and read See print all around them Have models of how people read and write Have opportunities to read and write Know that people expect them to read and write Are given choices about what they read and write Feel free to ‘have a go ‘ at reading and writing (including spelling) Are able to talk about their reading and writing Experience feelings of success Feel responsible for their own reading and writing Have confidence in their own ability Understand what reading, writing and learning can do for them We need to work together, parents and teachers, to develop a part-nership which will support our literacy learners and to ensure a life- long learning. As adults we know that literacy provides the keys to life.

Can you help?

News from Ann

Winter

Student Achievements

P A G E 3

W I L L O W G R O V E S C H O O L A N D C O M M U N I T Y N E W S L E T T E R

Adding a Note or Approval for Student Absences

If your child has any unapproved absences or late arrivals, you will receive an alert through Compass. You can use Compass to add a Note or Approval.

By clicking on this notification, you will be taken to the Unexplained tab for that child's at-tendance, where you can choose to add a Note or Approval for one or more absences. To add a note or approval, select one or more of the absences listed, then select the 'Explain with Note/Approval' button.

Please note that you cannot edit your notes or approvals after they have been created. If you do need to make any amendments please contact your school, as they can do this for you.

Adding a Note or Approval for a Future Absence

You can also enter notes and approvals in advance, if you know that your child is going to be absent from school. To do this from your homepage, click on the 'Add Attendance Note/Approval' link listed underneath the name of the rele-vant student. This will take you to the At-tendance screen, with a pop-up window to enter details of the note or approval. Here you can select the applicable date range - in the future if required.

Principal’s Report Continued

School Office Hours—Terms 3 & 4

Congratulations

News from Ann

School Working Bee—Saturday

NAPLAN

Parents play a major role in assisting and supporting their child to ac-quire strong literacy skills. Literacy learning started when your child was born. Parents play a vital role as their children’s first literacy teachers. Consider all the things that children learn before school as they mix with others, observe what others do and try to do the same things. Much of this learning happens naturally and within a social context. Oral lan-guage is the foundation of learning to read to write. Encourage your chil-dren to talk about and express their feelings and ideas. Provide experi-ences that expand their concepts and vocabulary. Children do not al-ways needs loads of money spent on them. Varied family outings, games inside and out, just pottering around with you as do jobs will ex-pand their notion of the world. They will bring their knowledge and under-standing of the world to their reading and writing. Literacy learning is a social experience because it depends on demon-strations from, collaboration with, and continuous feedback and re-sponse from, other people, it happens, at home and at school, when chil-dren are surrounded by people who listen, talk, think, read and write. Children need to see the purposes for reading and writing.

Here are some ideas for you to support your child develop literacy skills over the year levels. Share experiences (a picnic, camping, gardening, cooking, farming) which are then talked about at home Share books (especially stories) and talk about them with more experi-enced readers Have plenty of books to handle and read See print all around them Have models of how people read and write Have opportunities to read and write Know that people expect them to read and write Are given choices about what they read and write Feel free to ‘have a go ‘ at reading and writing (including spelling) Are able to talk about their reading and writing Experience feelings of success Feel responsible for their own reading and writing Have confidence in their own ability Understand what reading, writing and learning can do for them We need to work together, parents and teachers, to develop a part-nership which will support our literacy learners and to ensure a life- long learning. As adults we know that literacy provides the keys to life.

Can you help?

News from Ann

Winter

Student Achievements

P A G E 4

W I L L O W G R O V E S C H O O L A N D C O M M U N I T Y N E W S L E T T E R

Student Reports

We encourage you to logon to Compass to view your child’s academic reports. To do this, simply login to Compass and click on ‘View Academic Reports.’

Contacting Staff

Within Compass, you can also directly contact your child’s classroom teacher, as well as other members of staff. From your Compass homepage, one of the links underneath your child’s name will be an option to email their teachers. Clicking this link will open the email pop-up window, with all of the teachers for the student listed as recipients. You can select the red cross next to each recipient to remove them from the email, or click the 'Add Re-cipients' button at the top to add any other staff members.

As we continue to implement the full features of Compass, we will be keep you updated through our school newsletter. As always, please feel free to call the school on 5635 2271 if you need assistance or help troubleshooting any issues related with your Compass ac-cess.

Take care and enjoy the rest of the week.

Brendan Dawson

Later this week the eldest child will receive information on a program called Seasons for Growth. Seasons for Growth is program designed to give students the skills needed to cope effectively with change and loss on any level. I would encourage you to read more about the program later in this newsletter, and in the letter that will be sent home, and return the Expression of Interest by next Wednesday the 27

th of

June if you are interested in your child participating in the program.

Principal’s Report Continued

Notices Sent Home

School Office Hours—Terms 3 & 4

Congratulations

News from Ann

School Working Bee—Saturday

NAPLAN

Parents play a major role in assisting and supporting their child to ac-quire strong literacy skills. Literacy learning started when your child was born. Parents play a vital role as their children’s first literacy teachers. Consider all the things that children learn before school as they mix with others, observe what others do and try to do the same things. Much of this learning happens naturally and within a social context. Oral lan-guage is the foundation of learning to read to write. Encourage your chil-dren to talk about and express their feelings and ideas. Provide experi-ences that expand their concepts and vocabulary. Children do not al-ways needs loads of money spent on them. Varied family outings, games inside and out, just pottering around with you as do jobs will ex-pand their notion of the world. They will bring their knowledge and under-standing of the world to their reading and writing. Literacy learning is a social experience because it depends on demon-strations from, collaboration with, and continuous feedback and re-sponse from, other people, it happens, at home and at school, when chil-dren are surrounded by people who listen, talk, think, read and write. Children need to see the purposes for reading and writing.

Here are some ideas for you to support your child develop literacy skills over the year levels. Share experiences (a picnic, camping, gardening, cooking, farming) which are then talked about at home Share books (especially stories) and talk about them with more experi-enced readers Have plenty of books to handle and read See print all around them Have models of how people read and write Have opportunities to read and write Know that people expect them to read and write Are given choices about what they read and write Feel free to ‘have a go ‘ at reading and writing (including spelling) Are able to talk about their reading and writing Experience feelings of success Feel responsible for their own reading and writing Have confidence in their own ability Understand what reading, writing and learning can do for them We need to work together, parents and teachers, to develop a part-nership which will support our literacy learners and to ensure a life- long learning. As adults we know that literacy provides the keys to life.

Can you help?

News from Ann

Winter School Sports Competition—AFL and Netball—revised date

Student Achievements

P A G E 6

W I L L O W G R O V E S C H O O L A N D C O M M U N I T Y N E W S L E T T E R

Hot Chips Challenge—Student Report

On Wednesday the 3-4 class got their hot chips award for the attendance

challenge in May. We think that they were delicious and tasty (the whole

class thought they were yummy). Each table got 2 boxes of chips which

had 1 per 2 smaller tables. The reason why we got the hot chips is because

we came to school nearly every day. The reason coming to school is im-

portant is because you will learn more and get more work finished. Miss-

ing one day of school every 2 weeks for the whole year means you miss 4

weeks of school for the year. If you miss 4 weeks of school every year

from prep to year 12 you end up missing one and a half years of

school!!!!!!.

By Ronan North and Nina Gillies.

School Office Hours—Terms 3 & 4

Congratulations

News from Ann

School Working Bee—Saturday

NAPLAN

Parents play a major role in assisting and supporting their child to ac-quire strong literacy skills. Literacy learning started when your child was born. Parents play a vital role as their children’s first literacy teachers. Consider all the things that children learn before school as they mix with others, observe what others do and try to do the same things. Much of this learning happens naturally and within a social context. Oral lan-guage is the foundation of learning to read to write. Encourage your chil-dren to talk about and express their feelings and ideas. Provide experi-ences that expand their concepts and vocabulary. Children do not al-ways needs loads of money spent on them. Varied family outings, games inside and out, just pottering around with you as do jobs will ex-pand their notion of the world. They will bring their knowledge and under-standing of the world to their reading and writing. Literacy learning is a social experience because it depends on demon-strations from, collaboration with, and continuous feedback and re-sponse from, other people, it happens, at home and at school, when chil-dren are surrounded by people who listen, talk, think, read and write. Children need to see the purposes for reading and writing.

Here are some ideas for you to support your child develop literacy skills over the year levels. Share experiences (a picnic, camping, gardening, cooking, farming) which are then talked about at home Share books (especially stories) and talk about them with more experi-enced readers Have plenty of books to handle and read See print all around them Have models of how people read and write Have opportunities to read and write Know that people expect them to read and write Are given choices about what they read and write Feel free to ‘have a go ‘ at reading and writing (including spelling) Are able to talk about their reading and writing Experience feelings of success Feel responsible for their own reading and writing Have confidence in their own ability Understand what reading, writing and learning can do for them We need to work together, parents and teachers, to develop a part-nership which will support our literacy learners and to ensure a life- long learning. As adults we know that literacy provides the keys to life.

Can you help?

News from Ann

Win- ter School Sports

St

P A G E 7

W I L L O W G R O V E S C H O O L A N D C O M M U N I T Y N E W S L E T T E R

Change and loss are issues that affect all of us at some stage in our lives. At Willow Grove Primary School, we recognise that when changes occur in families through death, separation, divorce or related circumstances, young people may benefit from learning how to manage these changes effectively. We are therefore offering a very successful ed-ucation program called Seasons for Growth which will commence in Term 3. This pro-gram is facilitated in small groups and is based on research which highlights the im-portance of social support and the need to practise new skills to cope effectively with change and loss. The program focuses on issues such as self-esteem, managing feel-ings, problem-solving, decision-making, effective communication and support networks.

Every family will receive a notice later this week with more details about the Seasons for Growth program. If you think your son or daughter would benefit from Seasons for Growth we would encourage you to talk to him/her about participating in the program.

Willow Grove Primary School is pleased to be able to offer this important program and we are confident that it will be a valuable learning experience for those who request to be in-volved. If you require further information please contact Rita Smith, WGPS interim Chap-lain.

Seasons for Growth Grief Program

Learning to live with change and loss

Taylor R.

ROSTER FRIDAY 22nd June

Kate S.

FRIDAY 29th June

Gay T.

Community News