The Australian Girl's Choir will be visiting Mitcham Primary School at 11.30am on Wednesday September 21, week 9, for a 30 minute workshop in the Kurraka building. It is open to all girls from reception to year 6. Flyer attached

I wish you all a relaxing, fun-filled and well-deserved holiday. Our students have worked extremely hard this term and certainly deserve some quality with their friends and families. I will miss being here to welcome the students back to school next term however, I am sure they will all be delighted to have Sue Blight as their principal for the term. I will think of you all as I walk the Alps in Switzerland and sample the local delicacies of Estonia, Norway and Ireland.

As I mentioned in a previous email, I was in the middle of finalising the last leadership position for term 3.  I am delighted to announce that Ms Sue O'Shaughnessy has been successful in her application for the short-term vacancy of Acting Coordinator for the term. This is a promotion for Sue and I wish her well in her new role. Sue will continue to work in N6 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of each week however, she will be based in our front office each Thursday and Friday. I am also delighted to inform you that Ms Kiera Mitchell is returning from maternity leave and will be working with the students of N6 on Thursday and Friday of each week whilst Sue is in the office.

We are still expecting the new gym to be completed and handed over during mid to late August. The builders have done an amazing job in building a gym that our community will be very proud of. We are currently finalising the landscaping which will include extra paving surrounding our current Junior Primary music room and an extension to our running track to ensure we continue to have the 500-metre length of track. 

We are experiencing strong interest from pre-schooler and Year 1 - 6 families looking at enrolling at our school for 2023. The leadership team have conducted many personal tours over the last few months to enable prospective families an insight into the wonderful teaching and learning that we offer here at Mitcham. Many families have been ‘shopping around’ the local schools however, on viewing our facilities have made the decision to enrol here. One parent commented that she’d heard that the school community vibe along with the programmes Mitcham Primary offered was amazing so wanted to see it for herself. Needless to say, she left us very impressed.

If you have a pre-school student who will commence school in 2023, please contact Lucinda at the front office on 8271 2227 for enrolment forms as soon as possible as we will be commencing our 2023 placement process soon.

Once again, I wish you a happy holiday and look forward to seeing you all again in Term 4.

Warm regards, Scott

Please find below some information about the grading you will see on your child’s report, to give you some insight into what each grade represents. Teachers plan, teach, assess and report students’ learning using the Australian Curriculum, which describes the achievement standards for all subjects at each year level.

Teachers use a range of assessment strategies to gather evidence of student achievement across the year.

The following table is a detailed explanation of what is expected in each level of achievement:

Term 3 is always busy in the library with Book Week, the Great Book Swap and completion of the Premier’s Reading Challenge.

Book Week is week 5. On Friday 26 August we will be celebrating Book Week with a dress up day. It would be wonderful to see students come to school dressed as their favourite book character or dress to the theme Dreaming With Eyes Open. If this cold weather keeps up I’ll be pleased to wear my dressing gown that day!!

We will be hosting a Great Book Swap during Term 3 Week 5 with all funds raised going to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. We ask that you send your child with a book/s to donate to the Great Book Swap. Books are being collected in the library now. During the Great Book Swap children can take home a book in return for a gold coin donation.

The Premier’s Reading Challenge closes on 9 September. School holidays are a great time for children to read and it would be appreciated if you could encourage your child to complete the Challenge. Forms are available in the library and more information can be found online http://www.premiersreadingchallenge.sa.edu.au/PRC/

Yours in reading,

Sophie and Sunyoung 

District State Carnivals

Congratulations to the following students who represented our City South Sapsasa District in state carnivals. Mitcham students trial against other students from across the district to make these teams.

Australian Rules Football - Hugo S, Toby S and Noah T

Netball - Kaitlyn B, Annabelle F, Grace C, Madeline D and Emma M

Hockey - Roscoe M

Soccer - Our boys side played against Colonel Light Gardens and Edwardstown in a day carnival on Tuesday Week 8. The boys fought hard to come away with a 2-0 win first up against Edwardstown. After peppering the goal in their second match against Colonel Light the boys finally put one past the keeper to take a 1-0 win to now move into the second round of matches.

Lunch orders via Qkr! will now close off at 9am each morning.  This will allow our volunteers to get started straight away and give us more time to prepare the orders.

  

On Wednesday 25 May, many of our classes participated in National Simultaneous Storytime. This event is held annually with children around the world reading the same book at the same time.

This year it’s estimated that over 2 million people simultaneously read Family Tree by Josh Pyke. Some of our classes read the book, others listened to Josh read it and then sing, some listened to Australian Children’s Laureate, Gabrielle Wang, read the story, while others viewed an AUSLAN version. After reading the story, classes participated in a number of activities.

We ran a school-wide competition with students creating collages of trees, nature and family trees, with many great entries received.

Mr Greenshields had the difficult job of choosing four winners. The lucky students were: Madeleine from M2, Freya T4, Lachlan G9 and Alishba from N7. 

Thank You

This term our students put in an outstanding effort to raise more than $15, 000 for our Lap-a-thon with a Splash of Colour fundraiser!!! This incredible support and generosity from our school community will enable us to purchase staging for our brand new Gymnasium.

The class that raised the greatest total was N2, reaching a whopping $1571. They will enjoy a pizza lunch as their reward.

Our top 10 individual fundraising prize winners are:

These students all received prizes and certificates at our last whole school assembly. Thank you to all those who made donations, big or small, your support is appreciated.

MPS Fundraising Committee

Here at Mitcham Primary School, a number of leadership opportunities are extended to our students. One of those opportunities is as part of the Year 6 STEM Committee. Students on the STEM Committee work on responsibilities such as organising technology resources, assisting with lunchtime STEM sessions, testing new equipment, and working alongside teachers as they use new technology.