Reminder - Mitcham Primary School Open Night is on Thursday 5th September 5.30pm - 7pm.

The year 3-4 Football team had a very competitive and physical game against Black Forest rcently and we came out on top in an epic win!! Finishing off this season as undefeated! I’ve been so proud of all the boys - they have displayed maturity, good sportsmanship, grit and determination, throughout the entire season; and each week they’ve improved as individuals and as a team.

Well Done!

Travis & Claire Modra - Coaches

As part of the government’s Languages in Schools initiative, the School of Languages has expanded the across-sector R-6 Languages Alive! program. The October 2024 program will provide students with interactive language learning opportunities in a range of languages, including Auslan, Croatian, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish & one language to still be confirmed. Please see attached flyer. 

Please see below the upcoming important dates and school events for Term 3 and 4.

Semester 1 Reception classes celebrated 100 Days of School on the first day back this term. Many children loved dressing up as if they were 100 years old. Others dressed in brightly coloured clothes or in items representing the number 100. 

100 was the focus of our STEM Investigations with the children enjoying challenges such as building pyramids with 100 cups, constructing a vertical 100 with Lego and designing domino trails of 100 pieces.

What an exciting way to start the term with lots of fun, laughter and beautiful sunshine! 

During Term 2, Year 5 students undertook a unit of work on Abstract Art in response to two works of Art at the Art Gallery of SA. Classes first collaborated to create large scale tangled/woven art with red wool and explored pencil colouring of geometric patterns. Then, following an incursion from a local Digital Artist, David, students created their own Abstract Digital Art using block coding with an app called “Endless Art”.

The resulting art was then displayed with Artists Statements. Many classes and Year 5 family members enjoyed visiting our Year 5 Art Gallery in the Innovation Centre on Friday in Week 9, including printed, animated and projected versions of the art.

“ It was a fun way to express your feelings. It made me feel empowered that I had made a creation that was fully made by the app and me.” Maddie

“ I liked how my design never ended and it didn’t matter what option you used it was always the same. I really enjoyed experimenting with different patterns.” Logan

Anthony Bryce, Tash Lawson-Forbes & Miriam Doull

Oliphant Science Awards

We were excited to have 18 Mitcham students enter the Oliphant Science Awards competition this year, including students from Year 3 to Year 6. Entries included Board Games, Posters, Photography, Computer Programming & Robotics, and Models and Inventions.

Congratulations to all of the students who entered – it takes lots of responsibility and resilience to complete these projects! Special congratulations to Micah in Year 5, who has won an award for his entry “Periodica” in the Year 5-6 Games category. Well done Micah!

Young Environment Leadership Program (YELP) Team news

On Tuesday in Week 2, eight members of the Youth Environmental Leadership Program (YELP) Team participated in a Student Forum on the environment run by Green Adelaide and hosted by Unley Primary School. We met with eight other school groups at Unley Primary School, to engage in activities focused on the improvement of sustainability practices in our schools and understanding and caring for our natural environment. We had perfect weather and enjoyed participating in a number of sessions.

The ”Planet Protectors” from Unley Primary School took us on a tour around the school to show us the range of initiatives they have developed over the last few years, including waste and recycling processes, Terracycle writing tool recycling, Tommy’s Garden nature play space & edible food garden, wildlife boxes for birds and possums that can be observed with cameras on long poles, and indigenous plantings. It was really interesting to see the things that another school is doing to improve sustainability.     

James Smith, Zoologist from FauNature talked to us about hollows and hollow-dependent species in Adelaide including brushtail and ringtail possums, many birds and bats. James explained that the Powerful Owl is the largest species in Australia that uses hollows, and they break the backbones of their prey as they hunt so they do not struggle and for ease of carrying in flight. James also told us how he has set up a Bat Roost/Condo in his roof space!

Did you know it takes around 120-150 years for hollows to naturally form? Branches may drop after fire or heat stress and termites eat the inner core of branches and trunk to create these valuable spaces. In urban areas human-made hollows and wildlife boxes are providing important spaces for a range of fauna to safely nest, shelter and breed. That’s why it is important to retain older trees in our communities. It was very interesting!

We then welcomed Hugh, from Green Adelaide, who generously joined us while on long service leave, to share the 20 year history of the Windsor Street Linear Trail. We then went for a local walk, through the Windsor St Reserve and Oxford Tce Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD). We stopped off at Hugh’s house to see the amazing River Redgum he has planted in his garden.

The Windsor Street Linear Reserve features locally indigenous vegetation and provides a natural corridor from near Fisher Street, Fullarton at its southern end, to Henry Codd Reserve at Parkside, at its northern end. The Oxford Tce WSUD provides an example of footpath design to support sustainable water flow.

We walked a section of the trail and observed a range of landscape elements that create habitat and attract wildlife including wildlife boxes, large fallen logs with water and rock features, and we even saw a koala! Hugh emphasised the importance of schools as urban green spaces for providing habitat for wildlife and ensuring students are educated in positive actions to improve our sustainability and environmental outcomes into the future.               

The YELP Team also spent some time continuing to develop our project focussed on adding more biodiversity to spaces around our school's grounds, using native plant species. Our work continues!

Thank you to Green Adelaide and Unley Primary School for this opportunity to improve our school and experience.

Year 6 YELP Team and Mrs Doull

During Week 3, the children in T3 and T8 were lucky enough to be visited by some past Olympians who have a connection to families at our school.

Rachel Sporn (1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens) who is a cousin to Evie (T3) and Cruz (G 1 ) and Laura Hodges (Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016) who is the aunty of Joe (T8) and Annabel (N3) were both kind enough to give up their time to come and talk to the children about representing Australia at the Olympics in basketball. 

The children were lucky enough to see uniforms, Olympic torches, mascots, stamps, photographs and medals in person. They learned a lot about the commitment, the dedication and skill behind Olympic athletes and the excitement of being involved in the Games.  

We heard all about persistence, having an idol to look up to and the importance of a growth mindset. We were fascinated to hear all about life in the Olympic village and enjoyed seeing all the past Australian gold medallist’s names printed on the inside of the Australian team jackets.

Mitcham Primary School is holding its annual Quiz Night on Saturday, 19^th October. This year’s theme is ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. With the support of our local community, the Quiz Night is always a very successful evening and is well attended by the Mitcham Primary School community.

This year, funds raised from the Quiz Night will be added to last year’s total to provide additions to our school playground and outdoor seating areas.

Quiz Night tickets go on sale via Qkr! on Monday 12^th August at 4pm. Tickets will sell out quickly so purchase your table early to avoid disappointment. No additional tickets will be available once the ticket allocation has been sold.

We seek your support for our major fundraiser which can take the form of naming rights, table sponsorship, and/or the donation of goods and services as prizes and auction items.

If you would like to contribute to this wonderful event, please contact Susan Bowler at 8271 2227 or Susan.bowler422@schools.sa.edu.au. We can arrange for donations to be collected from you, or they can be brought into the school front office. Logos can also be emailed to the above address for advertising purposes.

Thank you in advance for any support you may be able to provide.

Fundraising Committee. 

Term 3 is very busy in the library: with Book Week, Author Visits, the Big Read and The Great Book Swap.

During week 5 we will have two authors visiting our students. Mandy Foot will be speaking to the Receptions – year 2s and Adam Cece will be speaking to our year 3s – year 6s. They will be speaking about how they craft a story and giving the students some insight into how they were able to get their books published.

On Friday 23^rd August we will be celebrating with a Book Week parade. It would be wonderful to see students come to school dressed as their favourite book character or dress to the theme Reading is Magic. Hopefully we have lovely weather and we can welcome families to attend the parade at 9am at the basketball courts. Unfortunately, if the weather is not favourable we will need to hold a modified parade indoors for students.

We will be hosting a Great Book Swap during Book Week, week 5 of this term, 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 Book Week (week 5) children will have the opportunity to choose a book to take home in return for a $2 donation.

The Premier’s Reading Challenge closes on the 6^th of September. Please 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,

Vasi and Sunyoung