This Friday it’s the P&C Colour Run event on the oval from 2pm. Lots of work and planning has gone into this from all the volunteers and it looks like being a fun afternoon for students. Parent Reps have sent a lot of information home to parents via CONNECT, so hopefully everyone is in the loop.
Some specific points to note please:
- Participating students need to wear a white T shirt. Those with allergies have been asked to wear navy or black. Students may come to school in this T shirt, or change at lunchtime but must be wearing it to run. Having the correct T shirt will signal that the child has parental permission to be involved.
- Students should wear old clothes including shoes as they will get paint on them.
- Children will need to be collected from teachers at 3.00pm as normal – most classes will still be on the oval but some may return to class for dismissal, please check with your teacher.
- Students who are not participating will still go to the oval to watch.
- Parents are welcome and encouraged to come to school for the event.
- The P&C is providing hot dogs and icy poles.
This week’s plans include: The P&C Colour Run on Friday and the district cricket carnival (we are sending four teams) also on Friday.
Next week the interschool swimming carnival is on Tuesday (we are sending a team of 26 students); a number of middle primary students are going on excursions to the Perth Hills Discovery Centre and to Campbell Barracks; and our annual school ANZAC service will be on the last day of term – Friday 12 April – at 9.00am in the quadrangle. Please could parents send in a few flowers for the reps to make class bouquets on that day.
The DoET is starting our building program at Easter and the transportable admin building has now been delivered to the courts. This will be in operation for terms 2 and 3. My deputies, business manager and I will work in the transportable. The school reception (Lara) will operate from the library counter. From next term, please come to the library to speak to Lara, to collect children etc.
Richmond PS is part of a network of 11 schools ‘Riverside Network’ who collaborate on curriculum, professional learning and innovation. This week I presented on Leadership at the Riverside Network Leaders’ Day and two of our teachers are year group leaders within the network. Kate Bockman leads the Riverside kindergarten teachers, and Lloyd Tifflin leads the Riverside year 6 teachers. This collaboration and leadership at a district level really benefits our school.
I’d like to encourage parents to complete the twenty ‘tick-a-box’ questions on the National School Parent Opinion Survey. I have extended the link until 11 April and it is on CONNECT in two of my notices.
I will be using the survey data to plan for school improvement, which of course will involve allocating financial, physical and human resources to specific areas highlighted by the survey. For this to be useful, the data needs to be representative of the parent body. We all know that sometimes with surveys (or elections or referendums), trends are indicated that may not actually represent the popular opinion, perhaps because a lot of contented people don’t vote, or because people with a specific issue highlight that one concern. The way for our data to be valid, our planning to be useful and our future expenditure to be worthwhile, is ideally for everyone to complete the survey. If you are happy with the school’s direction, please say so and we won’t change direction. If you have a concern let’s see if others feel the same way and, if so, address it. I really hope everyone will help with this data and thank you in advance for your support of Richmond.
The School Board is holding an open parent meeting to discuss uniform on Thursday 9 May at 2.00pm in the library. On the agenda will be: girls’ shorts, leggings and tights, long sleeved tops and jackets. Please come along if you have thoughts or ideas on this, or other uniform suggestions.
Bicton PS have informed me of a reported incident which took place outside their school yesterday. A student from the school reported that a male person was acting suspiciously in the area of Foss Street, Bicton. The person did not enter the school grounds. The matter has been reported to WA police. As always we advise all students to take care travelling to and from school and report anything suspicious to their parents, the school and the police.
Next term starts on Tuesday 30 April. I have received word today that the Hon. Sue Ellery MLC. Minister for Education and Training plans to visit us for a tour of the school the next day – Wednesday 1 May. We look forward to welcoming her to our school.
Lisa Dentith