We have had lots of activity at school this fortnight. Thanks to Craig and the Dads of Richmond Kids team for the billy cart racing on Sunday; to Mike, Kathy and the P&C and year 6 parents who helped with the Halloween disco on Friday; and to Liann for organising family photo day on Saturday. The community support was wonderful.
We really enjoyed Outdoor Classroom Day last week – thanks to staff for their planning. We also sang a song with 3000 other schools across Australia for Music Count Us In day (thanks Mrs Bertolini). This week we have started swimming lessons with yr1-3 students.
We have had more good news – the Department of Education plans to upgrade our administration facilities in semester one next year to bring our facilities more in line with newer schools. Our current administration area equates to just 38% of the modern generic brief. The planned upgrade will include:
- A defined entrance to the school, with a portico.
- A larger foyer with better security within the entrance area.
- A medical room, with a bed and storage for medical equipment and files.
- A meeting room.
- More general storage space.
- A dedicated comms room.
We have now moved to the DoE communication system, CONNECT. All parents should have received an email advising them of their username and password. Please could you look out for this. Semester 2 reports will be sent home electronically using CONNECT.
Our strings (violin, viola, cello) program is set for an exciting change. We are working with John Curtin and local schools to set up a beginners’ strings program for primary students to operate from JCCA. This will be coordinated by IMMS (Instrumental Music School Services – formerly SIM). Letters have been sent home with year 2 and 3 students inviting them to express interest in auditioning. I encourage interested year 2 and 3 parents to discuss this with our music specialist Moyanne Bertolini.
Our testing for the year 5/6 instrumental music (IMSS) program in clarinet, brass and flute is currently underway in year 4 and we look forward to lots of new instrumental music students joining the program next year.
Finally, good luck to our year 6 cricketers who will represent us at the district competition on Thursday!
This will be the last emailed newsletter. Our website will, I hope, go live next week and from now on I will write a weekly blog and have a Facebook feed to the website landing page.
For 2019 our main methods of communication are:
- Website for general information, calendar of events, my weekly blog.
- Facebook page where I will continue to post a photo a day of life at Richmond (this is also visible on the website).
- CONNECT – the DoE approved communication system from your child’s class teacher – all parents should now have a user name and password. End of year reports will be posted to CONNECT. If you have encountered problems, please let us know.
We will, of course, all still be very accessible by phone, email and in person.
Hopefully the improved electronic communication will help to keep everyone connected.
Lisa Dentith