Richmond Primary School

I have been really happy with the first three weeks of school. It’s a busy time for teachers and they have done a brilliant job of settling everyone in quickly.  Students seem to be happy and well into their routines. I know many parents are keen to chat to their child’s teacher and I encourage you to make an appointment so that teachers can give you their full attention. Before school is a really busy time to stop to chat as they have a lot to prepare for the day ahead.  Thank you to everyone who has written us positive emails about their child’s start to the year. It is very much appreciated.

The School Board met yesterday for their AGM.  They revisited the Board Terms of Reference and annual calendar, and inducted new members.  Kylie Telfer is the 2020 Board Chair.  Thank you to all who nominated, resulting in an at-capacity Board of seven parent and two staff representatives.  We are looking forward to a busy year. For more information, please see their page.

Parents have started to ask about how best to prepare their child for upcoming year 3 and 5 NAPLAN testing. This annual testing plots progress in literacy and numeracy against the national standard.  The writing test will be on 12 May and the other tests will be spread over the following fortnight, with two tests per week. There is a lot of information here: https://nap.edu.au/naplan

To get a sense of the ‘look and feel’ of the tests and to understand what types of questions are asked, a full set of example Naplan tests is available.  There is also a public demonstration site that I encourage parents to walk through with their child.

We have recently updated our website calendar, so if you get chance please do have a look. The main thing to note is that this term ends on a Thursday (9 April) and next term starts on a Wednesday (29 April).

Also, each year, school staff have three student-free days to do professional learning during term time.  This year, those days (when students do not attend school) are: 28 April; 20 July; 12 October.

Our main school photo day is 12 March and children will bring their individual code home tomorrow so parents can order here: https://www.kapture.com.au/

Everyone is looking forward to the Dads and Kids camp on our oval on Saturday 21 March. To attend, please register with TFP here:  https://thefatheringproject.org  Simply type Richmond in the search box and register your details to join.

Finally, a reminder to mark the P&C breakfast, wacky hair day and ride to school day – all on 13 March from 7:30am – in your diary.  The Town of East Fremantle will be joining us and giving free juice to those who ride. It will be a lovely start to the day as always. Last year we featured on the Today show.  Yes, that really was a year ago!

Lisa Dentith

Last night’s P&C Annual General Meeting saw a small but keen group of ten parents gather in the library to plan fundraising and community events for the year.  Thank you to those who came along.  All nominees were confirmed into positions, with Paula Sowden as President. A full list of office bearers may be found here: P&C Association.

The exciting news is that members decided to hold a fete this year on Saturday 14 November 2020, as a lead in to our centenary.  The first fete meeting will be this Tuesday at 7.30pm upstairs at the Left Bank.  All parents interested in the fete are warmly invited to come along to offer ideas and listen to the plans. This will be the main P&C event for 2020, and needs lots of volunteers in lots of roles. Of course the more ideas, the better! Thanks for helping to make this a great community event for families. Our students are already excited!

The other exciting news is that the P&C donated $4000 for reading books, and we have today bought a beautiful new set of books for our PP-2 early reading program. Thank you!

The P&C will continue to pay for Mathletics and Reading Eggs subscriptions for every student and to sponsor all our sports and subject awards. Your P&C contributions are very much appreciated.

On Friday 13 March, there will be a P&C big breakfast in the quad from 7.30am. This coincides with Ride 2 School day and wacky hair day, so it will be a fun filled start to the day! For new parents this is an opportunity to meet other families, and it’s always a really well attended and much anticipated event on the calendar. Just turn up and pay as you eat.

Our dads group is a very strong and well supported parent group and will hold number of exciting and enjoyable events during the year.  The first event will be the Dads and Kids Camp, on Saturday 21st March, on the school oval.  The camp is great fun and the perfect opportunity for kids and dads to cook dinner together, play games and enjoy a night out in the tent.

To attend the DoRKs Camp and other DoRKs events you will need to be a registered member of the DoRKs Group; so please register through The Fathering Project website.  Simply go to the homepage, type Richmond in the search box and register your details to join.  While you’re there, tick the box to receive the Weekly Tips and you’ll be kept up to date.

The DoRKs group has two main aims; to foster and develop strong relationships between dads and their kids and to support dads by bringing them together to share experiences of fathering and show support for one another.  For ‘dads’ we include all fathers and father figures but also mums who fulfil the role of dad.  For more details, please go to the DoRKs info page on the Richmond website, under the P&C banner.

Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to be a class parent rep.  Each class is looking for one or two reps. Please do let your class teacher know if you can help.

As you can see, there are many opportunities to be actively involved in the Richmond community.

Finally, we always like to hear about our former students and were happy to hear that Aden Lukan, who graduated from Richmond in 2014, has been offered a place at UWA in Medicine.  Aden went from Richmond to Melville SHS’s Gifted and Talented Program and scored an ATAR of 99.5. Well done!

Lisa Dentith

There are lots of benefits that come from being in a group or team, be it a sports team, a hobby group or a group immersed in an intellectual pursuit.  Participation helps children to build friendships, develop communication skills, feel a sense of community and learn to respect others.  It also teaches the importance of being a responsible team member.

At Richmond we strongly believe in the importance of ‘belonging’ and we try to offer opportunities to students in a range of areas.

This year we are operating running club before school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Over 30 children regularly attend.  Our popular lunchtime gardening club will begin on Thursdays as soon as the weather cools down a bit.  This year they will be growing herbs.  Chorale is also up and running before school.

We will field teams this year in swimming, soccer, AFL, netball, cross country, cricket and athletics.

Additionally, we have leased our facilities for after-hours programs that we feel will benefit our students: On Mondays and Wednesdays it’s lego workshops with Bricks 4 Kidz;  OSHClub continues to operate before and after school each day;  and Marshalls Tennis continues to offer lessons before school.  Details of all of these programs can be found here: Out of Hours

Extension classes are starting in PEAC and Instrumental music (violin, viola, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, cello, flute), and timetables have been sent home for relevant students.

At Richmond we have access to a number of online programs, which students can access from home.  They have all been given their logon details for Mathletics and Reading Eggs – two interactive literacy and numeracy programs sponsored by the P&C.  They also have their logon details for online language learning website, Language nut.  This is a fantastic international digital platform to learn new Italian vocabulary and consolidate classroom learning.  At one point last year Richmond climbed the Language nut table to be fifth in the world! Exciting. To access the website, enter your child’s user name and password here: http://www.languagenut.com/au/login

It’s also great for parents to be part of a group, and it’s good role modelling for children to see you participating.  All classes are looking for class parent reps to help organise social events to build community. It would be lovely to get a big turnout for the P&C Annual General Meeting, which is this Tuesday at 7.00pm in the library.   The AGM is an opportunity to see who is standing for positions, have your vote and have a say in the direction of the P&C for 2020. You can also get onto the P&C mailing list for minutes and agendas.  Don’t worry – you won’t end up with a job just by coming along to the AGM, unless you nominate yourself.

Classes seem to have settled really well and teachers are very much looking forward to meeting parents at their year group meetings.  All the details have been sent out on Connect.  If you have misplaced your Connect password, Lara will happily reset your account on request.  Please do feel free to also book an individual meeting to discuss your child with their teacher if you wish.

Thank you for your role in our smooth start to 2020.

Lisa Dentith