Hello Currambena!
Hope everyone had a lovely break. Lots of things were happening here at the school. Upgrades were being done around our IT and phones, trekking around various tile and bathroom showrooms to purchase new bathroom accessories, conversing with the tradespeople stripping out and renovating the staff bathroom, emergency tree surgery for falling gum branches and in between all this I did have some time at home which I spent buried in my garden making and planting out new vegie beds. The only challenge in all this lovely activity was come Monday Coordination day I was feeling a wee bit puffed!
But as usual the beginning of the term started in full swing. The phones were not working, tradespeople needed answers, emails were not sending,numerous phone calls to telstra, the staff fridge gurgled and whinged all through staff meeting then died, both phone lines were diverted to my mobile, more instant decisions needed with the bathroom renovation and then I left my mobile at home Wednesday…………. So today my first call is to apologise if your calls were not answered but at last we are back on track and all technology is up and running again. Hope it is all Cool Running for next week.
THANK-YOU
To Amba for coordinating our holiday care and to all those who helped with the supervision
To Amba again for being up at an unnecessary hour to open up for the tradespeople every morning
To all the energetic people who were here on Sunday getting our gorgeous Currambena all ship shape for Monday
Canteen. The roster will be up on the notice board for canteen. Please fill in the blanks if you can. I will be putting the roster in the newsletter each week so everyone is aware of whose on canteen the following Monday or not.
Phew, what a week!
With love,
Julianna
Posted October 22nd, 2009
in Coordinator
by juliannam
Thank you to everyone who supported vacation care these last holidays. Once again it went really well and the children had lots of fun. Thank you to Michael who worked wonderfully every day and to Celia, both providing great care for our children.
With the help of volunteer parents who came in the mornings, we had 2 adults on all day. This enabled us to turn a small profit, without the volunteers help we would have been unable to cover standing costs – so a big big thank you to Tony, Helen and Kasia.
See you next holidays.
Amba
Posted October 22nd, 2009
in Casp
by Newsletter
Posted October 22nd, 2009
in Photo of the week
by Newsletter
Building the Education Revolution
Commonwealth funded
Primary School in the 21st Century (PS21)
National School Pride (NSP)
Hi Everyone,
Welcome back – I hope you all had a lovely break and that you’re ready for the countdown to Christmas.
You may be wondering why the building project has not begun by now as we had anticipated. Unfortunately we are estimating a delay of between 4-8 weeks at this stage.
During the break we received tender results from 5 construction companies. These came in at significantly more than we had anticipated and have available in our budget. There are several reasons for this and one significant factor is that there are so many other school building works being undertaken in the state at the moment. There is an over-demand for builders and therefore the prices available are not very competitive. We are also facing the very common step of having to work through the project in detail with builders to make sure we are getting the best value for money and to see where easy cost-savings can be made.
We have met with our architects to discuss a way forward and our intention is to negotiate with the 2 construction companies that provided the lowest tender results. In addition we will also need to make some adjustments to the design of the building which may then require an additional application to Lane Cove Council for an amendment to the currently approved development application. Our guiding principle in making amendments will be that the building should be completed for the amount budgeted. This process needs to be done thoroughly and will take some time to work through.
We are still confident that at the end of the project we will have a beautiful new classroom to move into early next year.
The NSP grant money however is on track and the bathroom renovation in the main building is well under way. We anticipate it will take another couple of weeks to finsh.
Jess (jkimber01@bigpond.com or 0411220111)
Posted October 22nd, 2009
in Building the Education Revolution
by juliannam
Hello Everyone
Thank you to everyone who cleaned, washed and tidied preschool at the end of last term and to all the people who did maintenance in the holidays. Thanks to Elina and family for looking after the mice, Matthew and family for looking after the chickens and Ann, Sienna’s grandmother, and Chris, for looking after the silkworms who ate and ate and grew and grew….boxes and boxes of very hungry caterpillars!! Some of the silkworms are spinning their cocoons now.
It’s going to be a busy term. Please diarise the following dates-
Monday 27th October – ”Mr Insektus Insect Show” – 12.10 -1.30 pm. There is a cost of $8.00 per child please. Please pay a.s.a.p. Thanks!
Wednesday 4th November – STEPS Vision Screening – 9.30 am onwards – for all preschoolers aged 4 and over. You can attend with your child if your child does not come to preschool on a Wednesday. There is no cost for this. Please fill in a permission form. They are on the teachers’ desk.
Friday 13th November – Currambena Concert – 6.00 pm sharp at Tambourine Bay.
Thursday 26th November – Preschool Afternoon Tea – 2.00 – 3.00 pm.
Monday 7th December – Orientation Morning for all children going to Fran’s and all new preschool children coming in 2010.
This week we have been practising out concert song, sowing seeds and talking about a new safety drill called ‘lock down’ (a drill required by the Board of Studies to prepare for the unlikely event of a dangerous person entering the school). We have also put up a map of the world and are asking families to put where they are from on the map so we can see where we all originated.
Today Max V. and his mum, Mariann, are coming to have “Greek Day” with us. Max is going to teach us the Zorba dance and they have made rizogalo (Greek vanilla rice pudding) for us all to try. Thanks, Max and Mariann.
We love it when families borrow the journals to read and write in, but there are quite a few journals missing after the holidays. Please return them promptly after borrowing them, as we work on them continually. Thanks!
Please maintain twice weekly headlice checks and treat if necessary.
Love from
Sue, Chris and Gabriela.
Posted October 22nd, 2009
in Preschool
by sueg
Hi Everyone, welcome back to school. I hope you all had a great break.
Already this week, we have decided we would like to go to CSIRO in Ryde for a session on force and movement. This will link in nicely to a science theme we will explore later on in the term. For the first half of the term however, we will be more focused on the school concert which is at the end of week 4. We are also having a visit from Mr Insektus next Monday (26th October) to check out some weird and wonderful species in the insect world.
There has been some discussion between some of the children in the class about growing up and changing bodies so I thought now might be a perfect time to explore this within the whole class group. I will also take this opportunity to discuss protective behaviours as well as puberty and some drug education if it arises from the children. If there is anything you would like to talk to your child about first please do so in the next week as we will start these themes mid next week.
Well, summer is definitely on its way and we have begun to talk about our needs when the weather is hotter. I would like to ask that all parents ensure their child is putting on sunscreen at the beginning of the day. I remind the children to put more in the middle of the day. I will also ask them to put more on if we are leaving the school along with a hat. Please make sure that your child has a hat to bring (possibly one that stays in their trays) to school.
This term we will be doing swimming for sport. We will be going to Lane Cove Pool each Monday afternoon so please pack swimming costume, towel and goggles. Sarah (from Fran and Jo’s and CASP) will be coming up and teaching us some water safety skills for a few weeks so that we will all be prepared for our camp to Mowbray Park (canoeing and swimming in the dam) and summer. Having said that, there will be no swimming next week because we are having the visit from Mr Insektus.
Yesterday, we walked up to the Lane Cove Library to borrow some books. We will be doing this again every second Wednesday. If your child does not have a library card, please fill in a form that has been sent home or pick one up from the library. Once you have filled it out please take it to the library to receive the card. You can keep your card at home but please leave the card number at the desk under Olivia’s class at Currambena. That way no cards get lost at school. Having said that, all the books that your children borrow are on their own cards and responsibility is on them to keep the books safe and returned on time. We have a Lane Cove Library box in the classroom so that they can stay safe at school which we take up to the library on each visit.
I think that’s enough for this week. Have a good week!
From Olivia
Posted October 22nd, 2009
in Olivia's Class
by oliviam
Hi everyone
We are very busy planning our performance for the concert at Tambourine Bay, and have just three and a half weeks to come up with a thrilling spectacular. Rest assured that the ideas are flying thick and fast (and numerous and varied- it’s going to be interesting putting them all together).
We had an important discussion this week about lock down procedures. We have discussed what we will do if a person we are concerned about comes into the school. We talked about the importance of having a plan to be safe, just as we do for fire and evacuation situations. We will be discussing this as a whole school at school meeting on Friday.
We plan to start swimming again next Tuesday, leaving the school at 12pm to drive to Greenwich Baths. If you can drive us there and/or stay while we are at the baths please let us know.
We are thrilled to welcome four new people to our class. Welcome to Ewan and family and Philip and Christian and their family. We are also lucky to have Sisse with us for three weeks. Sisse has been in preschool last term as part of her internship and now joins us before she will move into the other classes.
Have a good week,
Jo
Posted October 22nd, 2009
in Fran & Jo's Class
by franm
Hello Everyone
We are in the wonderful position of possibly having waiting lists for each class next year, thanks to extraordinary efforts in marketing and magnificent community support.
We are always mindful of Currambena’s core value of small classes, and think carefully before going over 22 children per class. We will only do so if all of the existing children’s needs are being catered for, and this decision must be passed by Council. The Articles of Association stipulate that the maximum for each class is 25 students.
The teachers are continuing to have regular discussion about the needs of all the children for 2010. It looks as if we might have 84 students in Primary next year and we are looking at the best possible ways to organise these children into groups with their teachers and class assistants wherever possible. We know that things still change for families as the end of the year approaches, so please make sure you let us know if your intentions for your child in 2010 change.
With the exciting prospect of a new classroom, which will be completed next year, we are having a lot of discussions about the logistics of how to best use our existing spaces until Fran can move into the new space. We have developed a number of ideas for how to do so and will be investigating these ideas with council on Monday night. If you have any ideas, concerns or issues please talk to us before then so we can consider these in our discussion.
Posted October 22nd, 2009
in General
by franm
As someone said on Tuesday, it’s our Year 6’s last first week of term!
This is the term when we make the most of every minute and count down the days. It’s only nine weeks long and there is so much to fit into it!! We have the class play in a few weeks, three student teachers, spending time with us, Italian and French lessons starting, a couple of new classroom activities, Orientation for next year and, of course, our camp at Jervis Bay for a week! And all this is on top of our usual workload and completing curriculum content for the year! Wow!
It was wonderful to see the kids on Tuesday, many of them looking taller or browner or both!! Some had worked extremely well on their text books over the holidays!!! I am so impressed… except that there’s so much for me to mark!!! This week our main aim is to get our play written… but we also have an Information Morning to run and sex education lessons to fit in!
The teachers have started planning classes for next year. I have eight children leaving this year for High School and we need to know asap if any other children will be leaving so that we can organise the best possible arrangement of children and classes for each individual who will be here for 2010. Please speak to me or email now if there are any changes to enrolments. We have so many enquiries coming in we may even have to start waiting lists for next year!
I have asked the children to start talking to you at home about camp… who wishes to come and what tents you might be willing to lend. The Jervis Bay site at Bristol Point is a well serviced group camping area in Booderee National Park and we will be in tents for the week using the showers and toilets on site. We cook on a portable gas BBQ and engage in activities such as swimming, canoeing, bushwalking, bush tucker walks, campfire story telling and all the joys of life in the Australian bush. On the last night there, we usually have a special ceremony down at the beach when we say our farewells to the Year 6 Leavers. Please let me know asap if you are willing and able to come with us leaving school on Monday 30th November and returning on Friday 4th… or staying for the REUNION WEEKEND 5th and 6th December.
I think that’s all for today! Love, Wendy
Posted October 22nd, 2009
in Wendy's Class
by wendyp
