Principal’s Update – Welcome back

I hope that everyone had an enjoyable break. Term 3 has begun very smoothly with 6 new students starting at our school. On behalf of the Duncraig Primary School I welcome those families to our wonderful community. I look forward to a very successful term.

Schools have just been notified that based on the latest health advice, Phase 5 due to be implemented on Saturday 18 July, has been pushed back. The new tentative date will now be Saturday 1 August. So for now, Term 3 will continue with the same procedures we had in place last term. I will provide an update through Connect after the Premier makes his next announcement and the Department of Education update their expectations of schools.

The P&C are holding their first meeting for the term on Thursday 30 July at 7pm in the staffroom. The school board’s first meeting for the term is Monday 3 August at 4pm.

The faction cross country is being held this Friday 31 July. Parents are welcome to attend but must remain on the Marri Road side of the oval and maintain social distancing of 2 sq. metres.

A Connect notice was put out last Thursday with the times each year level are running.

Parents are welcome to attend but you must remember to remain on the perimeter of the school oval and maintain social distancing at all times.

Tomorrow Wednesday 29 July selected students from Year 6 will be presenting their very own radio broadcast on Community Radio 89.7FM after the 2pm news next Wednesday 29 July. The School of Thought is a radio broadcast program that hands the microphone over to school aged students. It is a 45-minute community radio program on 89.7FM broadcast on Wednesday afternoons, starting after the 2pm news.

Students have researched their own topics of interest and will present to a large radio audience their thoughts and discussion points. The format is six talk segments of 6-7 minutes each, separated by music of their choice The broadcast takes place on the ECU Campus, Joondalup.

Program founder John Logan began the show six years ago and it is one of the most popular on the station. It encourages students to research the subject they are passionate about and present their ideas in a fun way. I am sure our students are going to do Duncraig Primary School proud! I have added the link to the radio station below so that you can listen live from a device if you can’t get to a radio. This program cannot be streamed in Internet Explorer 11. Please use an alternate browser such as Edge, Chrome or Firefox.

https://streamdb4web.securenetsystems.net/cirrusencore/index.cfm?stationCallSign=897FM

On Monday 3 August Tennis West and Tennis Australia are launching a promotion and racquet give away at our school. Apart from Matthew Ebden (Davis Cup) and Astra Sharma (Federation Cup), there is the possibility there will be a number of Media Outlets involved as well as officials. There will be a talk, followed up with Q and A, racquet presentation to the school and a tennis hit up with the stars for a short while after for selected students. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students. Be on the lookout for photos on the website after the event.

Finally, I would like to highlight some fabulous learning happening in our Kindy classroom. The children have been immersed in learning about Aboriginal art and culture. One activity involved painting split seed pods to make the Dreamtime Rainbow Serpent (after reading the story), creating a map of Australia using nature plus sand and shells from the Kimberley (after looking at different parts of our country and what the landscape is like), creating “rock art” inside our very own cave and we dip dyed calico in our homemade vegetable/fruit dyes to make a class bunting. They also explored Aboriginal symbols and used the block corner to create habitats for Australian animals.

One example of the school’s vision “every day in every classroom, every child is learning and achieving”.