Dear Parents/ Carers,

This is a brief newsletter as a more comprehensive one will be issued next week. Welcome to 2020 and to our new newsletter format! This newsletter has a variety of features which we will use as we gain familiarity with them but the most important feature is the translation button which can be clicked on top so it can be translated into any language.

We were excited to welcome our Preps and new students to Craigslea this week. We also want to welcome new staff to our school, Miss Duong on Year 2 and Mr Brush who is working in 6J and 6K whilst Mrs Jones and Mr Kleidon act in the Head of Curriculum position for Term 1.

We now have an access path down to the bottom oval and we eagerly await the completion of the top oval which at this stage is scheduled for early March.

This week, all classes visited all the different areas of the school, eating areas; tuckshop, office, the hall etc to learn about the behaviour expectations in these areas. This is an important part of our Positive Behaviour for Learning Program and one of the many strategies we use to proactively teach what appropriate behaviours look, sound and feel like in all the different school settings.  

Our full model of inclusion commenced this week which has a Targetted Learning Teacher and teacher-aides assigned to each year level. This team which includes classroom teachers, meets fortnightly to plan programs to meet the needs of all students across the year level.  A number of our Special Education Program (SEP)staff have moved into these broader roles and in doing so we have used school funds to increase greatly the number of teachers and teacher-aides supporting classrooms.  After receiving some excellent ideas for re-naming our SEP building we settled on “The Kubbi.” This is an Aboriginal word  for possum. There is a possum that lives nearby in the 2/3 eating area sharing its space with our students. It is also a homonym (a word that sounds the same but has a different meaning) for the word cubby that is a child-centred, happy place which is what we would like to create for all our students at Craigslea. “The Kubbi” is a calming space where programs can be run to meet the academic, social and emotional needs of students and where therapies can take place. We hope to make the most of this great space at playtimes to provide some alternative programs for students who need to be there or would like to be as a preference.

First Junior Assembly will be next week on Tuesday February 4 at 2.15pm.

Parent Teacher Nights will occur as follows:

Tuesday 11 February
Prep - Year 1        5.30pm - 6.30pm
Year 2 & 3            6.30pm - 7.30pm

Wednesday 12 February
Year 4 & 5            5.30pm - 6.30pm
Year 6                  6.30pm - 7.30pm

We hope to see all parents at Parent/Teacher Nights so that you can hear the plans your child’s teacher has for 2020.  Free childminding will be provided. We will advise of those details next week.

Have a good week,

Kathy
PRINCIPAL