Congratulations Dunks!

On Friday Week 9 our year 4-6 students travelled to Burnside swimming pool to compete for their house in our Mitcham Swimming Carnival. The rain held off and our students had an amazing time.

Congratulations to Dunks for winning this year’s carnival. They led throughout the day and came away with the win.

Final Results

Dunks              1059

Devonshire       956

Mellor               908

Selth                 823

I want to thank all the teachers, students, parents and pool staff for helping throughout the day. I would also like to offer thanks to our House Captains who did a fantastic job all day long. Without you all the carnival would not be possible.

Clint Rowland - PE Teacher

What elements and features make for a sustainably-designed community to live?

This is the question our Year 6 students explored on Thursday of Week 2 when they visited Christie Walk Eco Village – in the heart of Adelaide City. In small groups, students were toured around the 44-person community and heard/saw first-hand, how this settlement has been designed with eco-practices in mind. Back at school, for the remainder of the term, we will be designing and building our own model eco-villages with justifications of our inclusions and design choices. 

This is one of the many facets of sustainability we are looking at across Term 2, linking in with our term theme of ‘People, places & practices on our precious planet’.

Have a look at some of the learning, through photos below, as captioned by our students:

As well as visiting the eco-village, we also popped into the Adelaide Central Markets. Students interviewed a stall-holder and asked questions as to how their business addressed sustainability. They also considered the idea of local vs imported food, and independent vs chain stores. In Whitmore Square, we enjoyed the sunshine and thought about how and why green spaces can be utilised in our cities.

Overall, it was a great day of learning & fun. Watch this space to see how we use our knowledge to create our STEM projects.

This year, we are making a change to the way that we distribute student academic reports. They will no longer be sent home as a printed copy and instead will be emailed to both parents at the end of Term 2 and Term 4. This ensures that all parents receive the reports at the same time and in a secure manner.

As we prepare for the reporting period later this term, it is important that we have the most up-to-date contact information for parents. If the email address for either parent has changed, please contact the front office on 82712227 or dl.0270.admin@schools.sa.edu.au to update our records.

Positive Partnerships will be holding a free 2-day workshop for parents and carers. This workshop will be held at a venue in Marion on the 14th and 15th June 2023.

The workshop is for parents, full time carers and grandparents. It will provide an opportunity for local families to learn more about autism and ways to strengthen the home-school partnership.
Registration details for this workshop can be found on the registration link below.

Registration - Positive Partnerships (arlo.co)

www.positivepartnerships.com.au

Positive Partnerships | World Autism Acceptance Month - new animation…

Kind Regards,
Anne

Citizenship Committee

The Citizenship Committee comprises Liyana, Poppy, Stella, Zoe and Lucca. The committee meets in the library fortnightly and helps out with:

• Distributing Scholastic Book Club orders and deliveries;
• Purchasing books for the library with Book Club rewards;
• Planning activities for Book Week;
• Promoting Book Week and the Premier’s Reading Challenge.

National Simultaneous Storytime

Next Wednesday a number of our classes are participating in National Simultaneous Storytime. Every year a picture book, written and illustrated by an Australian author and illustrator, is read simultaneously in libraries, schools, pre-schools, childcare centres, family homes, bookshops and many other places around the country.

This year’s book is The Speedy Sloth by Rebecca Young and Heath McKenzie.  

• It was finally time for the event of the year,
  Spike couldn’t believe it—
  THE GREAT RACE was here!
  The other sloths said it couldn’t be done,
  but Spike didn’t care, she was ready to run!

To help celebrate National Simultaneous Storytime, the library is holding a competition with a number of prizes to be won. To enter, students need to create a collage for display in the library. Entries close Wednesday 31st May (Week 5) and winners will be announced on the Friday.

Book Club Orders

Just a reminder that orders for the current Book Club close this Friday (the 19^th of May). All orders must be placed online and payment is processed through the Loop app.

Yours in reading - Vasi and Sunyoung

Entries for the Oliphant Science Awards close this week! Mitcham Primary School has a long history of entrants, and it would be great to see a range of entries this year - models, inventions, posters, photography, games, programming, and scientific writing are all options. 

Students who would like to enter need to give their completed and signed entry form to Mrs Doull by the end of the day on Thursday this week - either on paper or via SeeSaw or email. The projects themselves are due later in the year. Year 4-6 classes can check out SeeSaw for the form to download. You can see the categories and topics here. Good luck to our entrants!

Mrs Doull - Science Teacher

Our mobile phone and personal devices policy provides direction to students, staff and families about managing mobile phones and other digital devices that students choose to bring to school, including smartwatches and tablets. This policy applies while students are at school, or attending an authorised school activity such as an excursion, during school hours.

In line with Department for Education policy, students are not permitted to access or use their mobile phones or other personal devices during the school day. Students must turn devices off or switch into flight mode before storing them at the beginning of the school day. They will not be able to access their device until the end of the school day.

Mobile Phones:

• Mobile phones and devices will be stored in a lockable cupboard in the classroom during school hours.

Smartwatches:

• Smartwatches without cellular capacity may be worn, however are only to be used as a timekeeping device. The associated phone must be switched off or in flight mode and placed in classroom lockable storage.
• Smartwatches with independent cellular capacity are considered in the same category as a mobile phone and must be stored in classroom lockable storage.
• A smartwatch with independent cellular capacity that is remotely controlled by parents may be worn, provided that parents confirm that the cellular capacity of child’s smartwatch is switched off between the hours of 8.45am-3.15pm.

If your child brings a mobile phone, smartwatch or personal device to school and you have not completed a 2023 Device Information Form, please contact the front office or your child’s teacher.

The full policy has recently been updated and can be accessed on the MPS website.

Mitcham Primary School celebrated Harmony Day on Tuesday March 21^st. The students participated in a whole school celebration, which brought a tear to the eye. Some Year 7 students kicked off the celebration with an acknowledgement of country and the fabulous school captains hosted the morning’s festivities. More than 40 students greeted the audience in a language other than English.

It was incredible to see these students show courage and pride and share their cultural background with the community. We then had the entire school dance an Irish jig with their buddy class, which was a sight to behold.

‘We are Australian’ is a beautiful song that encapsulates the spirit of Harmony Day. Classes have been practising the lyrics and sang the song, as students wearing cultural dress walked around the court carrying coloured flags. They were led by four students carrying the Aboriginal flag, signifying the original custodians of the land.

Please see below the upcoming important dates and school events for the remainder of Term 1 and into Term 2

Grandparents and Special Friends Day will be held on Wednesday 12^th April. This year morning tea will be available from 9.30-11.30am in the Innovation Centre for all our special visitors. See flyer for details. If you are able to offer assistance with serving morning tea and/or providing a plate of store bought treats we would appreciate your support.

Please let your class teacher know if you are able to help in any way or email dl.0270.admin@schools.sa.edu.au . Donations of store bought treats can be given to class teachers or delivered to the School Office.

 We look forward to seeing you all for this special event.