Learning about our School ValuesOur students across the school have been learning about what language and actions look like which enact our school values of Respect and Responsibility, in different school contexts.

Students have also been talking about their understanding of Bullying and Harassment. They have identifi ed different types of Harassment and also discussed the defi nition of Bullying. A priority has been to help students understand what Bullying is and what they can do about it at school if it is occurring.

2021 Governing CouncilOur recent Annual General Meeting was very well attended on Wednesday 24th February with 17 parents attending the meeting and 5 parents nominating for the three positions available on Governing Council. Thankyou to everyone that nominated for Governing Council and attended the Annual General meeting.

Congratulations to the following parents/caregivers that have been elected as Governing Council members for 2021. Our Offi ce Bearers will be elected at our fi rst meeting for the year.

• Swetha Choudry

• Corey Barrett

• Nicole Holmes

• Melissa Farnham

• Emma Burckhardt

• Olivia Defretes

• Bonnie Williams

• Russell Taylor

• Nicole Michas

The fi rst Governing Council meeting for the year will be held on Monday 15th March and further meeting dates will be shared in future newsletters. The focus for our work this year will be monitoring our 2021 Quality and Site Improvement Plans, planning for the Year 7 to High School transition and upgrading the surface of our covered court area. Our Cowandilla Primary School and Children’s Centre 2020 Annual Report and our 2021 Site Improvement Plan, will be placed on our website once approved by the Department for Education.

NEWSLETTER Term 1, Week 6

2021

COWANDILLAPrimary School & Children’s Centre

Student Learning Goal DiscussionsThankyou to parents and caregivers that have been able to attend goal setting parent/ teacher/ student interviews over the last two weeks. These discussions have been an important opportunity for parents to share with teachers, their child’s strengths and to work together to develop achievable goals with your child. A priority for us at Cowandilla is to ensure that students know where they are at with their learning, what the next steps are and how they will get there. Throughout the term children will be reflecting on their progress and resetting their goals to ensure they are being challenged with their learning. Please also remember that parents and caregivers can make a time to meet with teachers throughout the year if they would like to discuss anything.

Volunteering in our schoolIt is wonderful to have many of our parents and caregivers volunteering at our school to support their child’s learning and to assist with tasks that help the school to run smoothly. To make it easier for parents and guardians to volunteer their time, the Department for Education has updated its relevant history screening policy and procedures. As a result, parents and guardians who volunteer to directly support their child will no longer require a relevant history screening. This will mean many of our volunteers can help out sooner.

A screening is still necessary for parents and guardians who are volunteering at school camps and anyone volunteering on a regular basis.

As has always been the case, a screening is not needed to attend single events or activities at our school. These include concerts, fundraisers, swimming week or sports day. Screenings are just one measure used to help keep children safe. Everyone who works with children plays a part in child protection, including watching out for inappropriate behaviour.

Find out more about relevant history screening and keeping children safe at https://www.education.sa.gov.au

We require all volunteers to go through ‘Responding to Abuse & Neglect – Education & Care (RAN-EC) Training for Volunteers’ every 3 years. If you have any questions about screening or these changes, please speak with school staff.

Physical Education, Physical Literacy (PEPL) ProjectIn 2019, the department and a number of partners successfully received a $700,000 grant from Sport Australia to implement the Physical Education Physical Literacy (PEPL) Project in South Australia during 2020. However due to COVID-19 the project will now go ahead in 2021.

The project will implement the PEPL Approach; an evidence-based methodology to enhance teaching of the Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum in primary schools to improve physical literacy and physical activity levels of children, which evolved from the Lifestyle of our Kids (LOOK) study that demonstrated a relationship between the quality and quantity of PE classes and improved NAPLAN performance.

The methodology recognises evidence that suggests improvements in teacher competence and confidence to teach the Australian Curriculum: HPE delivers positive learning experiences for children, which in turn provides them with critical cognitive, emotional, social and physical benefits.

Our school has been chosen to participate and through the project, the PEPL Approach will be implemented in several classes across our school.

Year 7 to High School in 2022This year marks the start of a new phase for our education system, as we finalise our preparations to welcome your year 6 or year 7 child to high school in 2022.

It is a unique year, as year 6 and year 7 students will for the first and only time end their primary school journey together.

We want your child to have a positive experience in their final year of primary school. We understand the importance of rites of passage, such as graduation ceremonies, and we will do our very best to make this a memorable occasion for both year 6 and year 7 students. Our Year 6 and 7 students have their senior’s Polo shirts and are waiting the arrival of their Senior’s hoodie. They will also be attending Arbury Park Camp together in July.

This year, families of year 6 and year 7 students will both be applying for and enrolling in high school through the department’s statewide transition process.

If you are unsure of which high school zone you live in, you can use the ‘Find a school’ tool on the department’s website at www.education.sa.gov.au

Families will be sent a letter or email with their child’s URL to access their online registration of interest form in week 1, term 2. Instructions on how to use the online registration form will be available on the department’s website.

There will be an information session for parents about the 2022 Secondary School enrolment process on Wednesday 24th March at 6:00pm in the meeting room, which is located at the eastern end of the administration building.

ENGLISH Action/Reaction Sequence

In our class we have been reading a book called ‘68 teeth’.We have been learning descriptive language throughout this book! It has been interesting and we’ve even used a thesaurus to replace a few words from a page. We have been using this book to learn how to write a passage using an action reaction sequence. Read this! We recommend it to you!

P.S. This guy named James Moloney(the author of this book) managed to write 4 whole pages about one action packed incident where a crocodile kills a steer! In class we will use three different types of actions and reactions (Physical, mental and verbal) to write our own action reaction sequence.

By Makayla

NEWS FROM: Mr. Pollard’s and Ms Irene’s 5/6 classWe have had a great start to the year. The swimming lessons were great and all of the students learnt some valuable skills and have a much better understanding of water safety. Check out some some of the pics below ! Lots of fun !

Our studies in class are well under way and after a few weeks of learning about our disposition to learning and how to have a growth mindset we are focusing our learning across all subject areas.

Science (by Dastan yr 5) - We’ve been learning about solids liquids and gases! These states of matter are insanely interesting. We have learnt that the different states of matter can be changed by using temperature or pressure. For example, when a solid like ice is exposed to higher temperatures it changes state to a liquid and when gas is pressurised it changes into a liquid. There is also a 4th state of matter called plasma, which was discovered by an intelligent man named Nikola Tesla, and no, he didn’t create Tesla cars, that was Elon Musk. Anyway, here are some funny, yet informative comics from our media team to tell you more about it.

And just a final note from me (Dastan). Sometimes at school we need to extend our learning and if you’re interested in solving puzzles… you have just the right challenge here! Discover your potential is the perfect book for you. It has brain boggling puzzles that will keep you busy for months and months! And the pictures here only show puzzles 1 and 6! There’s 500 to choose from! Better start training your brain!

By, Dastan Mr Pollard’s class

Water safety lessonsWater safety lessonsOver the past few weeks, classes across the school have completed water safety lessons, including Mr Cailes’ class. They have developed their skills and knowledge around surviving in the water and helping others in danger, as well as practising a range of different swimming techniques. This has developed their competency, confidence and ability as swimmers to be successful in a range of different situations. They had a chance to reflect and recount their time swimming and what they learnt.

Over the past 2 weeks, Mr Cailes’s class went to the Cowandilla school pool to learn about water safety. The activities we did included doggie paddle, survival backstroke, compact jumps, star floats and more. My favourite activity was compact jumps because I got to go in the deep end and swim back to the shallow end.

We also went under the water so that we can do under water hi fives and we waved to each other under the water too. It was clear in the water so we could see each other.

My group went from the shallow end to the deep end without a life jacket and we all did it. I could not touch the bottom since it was so deep.

The good thing was we got to go in the deep end and played games. The worst part about swimming was it was really cold and some people were shaking.

Swimming was so fun and I felt happy and a little bit cold I wish I could do it again.

By Lucy Fullagar

Mr Cailes class went swimming in weeks four and five to learn water safety and learn how to swim in the pool (not the beach). We learned reach and throw rescues. We learned it so that next time we are in the water, we can be safe.

We did doggy paddle, star float, sinky toys, three cs, chicken star soldier, marco polo and “Marcus says”. Then we went to the deep end. I loved going in the deep end. The pool got really cold on the second week but on the first week the temperature was perfect. I got to play with a lot of the sinky toys.

Doggy paddle was a bit easy and generally it is very easy to master. It is also very reliable. It is like other ways to swim and helps your body become physically fit.

Star float is way to float without any floatation devices and is very easy to do. It took me three lessons to learn how to do it. It is used in many rescues such as when somebody gets caught in a rip tide, they can star float to help them survive.

The three C’s are call for help “HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY IS DROWNING”, Calm down, can you float? These are very effective if somebody’s drowning and no one can see the person that’s drowning. We learned these because we knew we would find ourselves near body of water so it’s good to know them.

Overall swimming was very difficult, but it was also very fun.

By Euan Trowbridge

Climate Change Student Group 2021A quick update on the Climate Change Group… We are about to get started for the year. The students have been asking when activities will begin, the answer is – very soon!

The organisers of the group had a fantastic problem to solve. There was so much interest in the group this year they had to come up with a new plan about how to structure its organisation. Last year there were 22 students involved – this year there is 55!

Along with the 55 students, there will be two class teachers working with Fiona Scott. The group will continue its work from previous years on projects like waste auditing, organic material collection and 10c container recycling. This year we will set a target for 10c recycling across the school. We will keep you updated at assemblies and in future newsletters about our progress towards that target.

Students in the group also have input about projects they might like to work on, so when we know what other activities we might be doing this year we will update you.

21 Jenkins StreetCowandilla SA 5033T 08 8443 7800F 08 8234 2445www.cowandilla.sa.edu.au

DATES

Monday 8th March Public Holiday NO SCHOOL

Tuesday 9th March Pupil Free Day NO SCHOOL for students, OSHC available

Thursday 1st April Sports Day

Friday 2nd April Public Holiday NO SCHOOL

Monday 5th April Public Holiday NO SCHOOL

Friday 9th April Last day of school for Term 1

2.15pm finish

Monday 26th April Public Holiday

Tuesday 27th April Term 2 begins for students

Playground Use After schoolDue to larger number of students attending OSHC, and in order for OSHC educators to provide adequate supervision for children after school, we ask students that are not attending OSHC to not play on the playground near the oval after school. This will help OSHC staff to better monitor the students that are in the OSHC service after school.

Students not attending OSHC are welcome to play on the play equipment and swings near the transportable buildings.

Thankyou for your help with keeping our children safe and well supervised.

2020 Parent Feedback SurveyThankyou to the small group of parents (41) that responded to the parent Feedback survey in December last year. The feedback that has been provided has been very positive with some good suggestions for further improvement.

When asked about what the school does well, parents always comment on the integration of all the students. They clearly appreciate the multicultural nature of the school. Parents really like that their children will be learning and making friends with other children from all over the world. They comment on the relative harmony amongst the student body in Cowandilla Primary School. A typical comment was "I love the diversity my children are exposed to here at Cowandilla Primary school and preschool.

Feedback from the 2020 Parent Perception survey indicated that:

• 88% agree and strongly agree that teachers at the school expect their child to do their best.

• 77% agree and strongly agree that their child is provided with useful feedback about his/her learning.

• 87% agree and strongly agree that their child feels safe at our school.

• 87% believe their child likes being at our school.

• 89% agree and strongly agree that they can talk to their child’s teacher about their concerns.

• 67% agree and strongly agree that parent's opinions are taken seriously.

Providing information and strategies for parents that help support their child's learning and providing opportunities to seek feedback from parents will continue to be a focus in 2021.

Children absent from schoolIt is a legal requirement with DECD that a child must have a reason for absence, late or early dismissal recorded on our system. Please phone 84437800 or text 0408873119 to inform the school that your child will be absent or late. If your child will be absent for 3 days or more for family reasons, you are required to complete an Exemption Form. Please contact the front office for this form.