It’s that perennial primary school institution this week, book week! Susan Catalano is doing promotions in the library and everyone gets to dress up as their favourite book character tomorrow for a parade around the quad. We will start at 9.00am and everyone’s welcome to watch. It’s usually very cute.
Our Dads of Richmond Kids group is as busy as ever, with a Fathers’ Day Cafe in the Quad on Friday 3 September, from 7.30 am to 8.45 am. There’ll be free coffee for dads and games for dads and kids to play… including a handball challenge, giant chess and table tennis. I hope lots of dads can come along (of course everyone else is warmly invited too, just without the free coffee!).
The dads’ group will also be holding the 5th running of the Richmond Cup Billy Cart Race on Sunday 17 October on the school grounds. Further details to follow from the DoRKS… but start planning and building your billy carts to join in this great family event!
It’s a frenzy of diggers and construction in the pre-primary nature play area, with everyone spell-bound by the building. It will be finished in a week.
It’s also exciting every lunchtime as Richmond’s Got Talent auditions hot up. For those who are new, this is our much-anticipated annual student talent quest for budding singers, dancers, musicians, magicians, comedians and anything else you can think of to entertain the crowd. The final show is scheduled for Friday 10 September at 9.00am. Everyone’s welcome to audition and to watch the final.
We will start next term with two weeks of swimming for year 4-6 (and year 3 from room 6) in weeks one and two. The permission letter is here: swimming note. Thanks for getting this back to teachers before the end of this term. If you’re unsure how much you have in your lump sum, please just give Elaine a call to check and possibly top it up by credit card.
As always, we’re trying to give children as many opportunities as possible to find something they like and to give them the joy of participation and belonging. None of this is compulsory, but we’d love everyone to give it all a red-hot go. They just love these annual events and any time we suggest changing any of them, we are met with howls of protest! Traditions are important.
Finally, thanks for bearing with us with the large number of relief staff we have had in recently. I have a number of staff on sick leave, and as any school will tell you, securing relief is really difficult this year. We continue regular high-touch surface cleaning as per COVID guidelines, but still cold and flu viruses creep in with so many people on site. Thanks so much for keeping sick children at home until they are well.
Enjoy the week, let’s hope the recent sunshine is here to stay!
Lisa Dentith