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. 

G9 aka Tassie Devils Highlight “Off to a Great Start” Weeks 1 and 2

We can’t believe that the term is nearly over! Some of us think that the term has gone super-fast, others think that the important learning we did at the beginning of the term seems likes years ago! We all agree that it has been a positive and productive time.

The first two weeks we spent setting up our class, getting to know each other, working as a team to develop our identity, code of conduct and goals, as well as looking at our school values and character strengths. We really appreciated the time to set up who we are, how we want to learn together and what we want to achieve.

G6 Highlight STEM Weeks 3 onwards

With G7 and G8, we are investigating the problems with plastics. We are in explore and define stages of the Design Thinking Process.

Some things we found out…

• 40% of plastic produced every year is single-use plastic.
• In 2016, over 320 million tons of plastic were produced. As the population increases, so does plastic production.
• 8 million tons of plastic pollution ends up in our oceans annually.
• Plastic is an extremely durable material, when containing additives, they are even stronger and can take at least 400 years to degrade.

• By 2050 it is estimated there will be more plastic than fish by weight in the world’s oceans?

• Plastic pollution can be found on every beach in the world.

We are shocked and want to find solutions to help solve this plastic pollution problem. Watch this space….

G7 Highlight Harmony Day Week 7

On Harmony Day we learnt a dance with our Buddy classes and practised the song ‘We Are Australian’ for the whole school assembly. We found out about other cultures in our school and how you say “Good morning!” in many languages. G7 also did an activity with their Buddies in M2 when they decorated people chains to display around the school.

G8 Highlight Swimming Carnival Week 9

Last Friday we had Swimming Carnival, it was EXCITING!! We bussed there (singing along to the radio), we cheered with pride and enthusiasm and we swam our legs off! The sun came out and there was a lot of laughter and smiles. Excitement was in the air and everyone had a blast. We really appreciate all the hard work that was put into swimming carnival, We would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Mr Rowland and all the fantastic house captains for all their hard work. It was also awesome to have many parents there to enjoy the day. Overall, it was an incredible day, congratulations Dunks, Devonshire, Mellor and Selth for outstanding team work.

Our uniform helps to create a sense of community and belonging in all students and proudly identifies our students at all times. It ensures that students are well presented and dressed appropriately for a wide variety of school activities.

We ask for your support in ensuring that students wear the correct school uniform at all times.

Dress Code

The colours of the uniform are royal blue with gold trim, and navy and gold for Year 6 students.  The uniform consists of:

• Navy blue long pants for both boys and girls
• Knee to mid-thigh length navy shorts for boys and girls
• Knee to mid-thigh length navy skort
• Royal blue polo t-shirt and jumper with MPS logo - Year R-5
• Navy blue polo shirts and jumper - Year 6 only
• School summer dress (Term 1-4), skirt or pinafore in MPS plaid
• Navy blue hat with a wide brim

Jewellery

• One set of studs or sleeper earrings only
• Coloured nail polish and makeup are not to be worn
• Hair should be a natural colour and neatly tied back if shoulder length or more (boys and girls)
• Hair accessories may be worn in school colours only

Footwear

• Supportive and comfortable closed shoe or sandal in plain colours. Black, white or navy blue is preferred for shoes and socks, which should be short in style.
• Navy tights may be worn under the winter pinafore.

Please be aware that leggings and short sports shorts are not part of the uniform and should not be worn. Long sleeve MPS polo shirts may be worn in cooler weather, however skivvies and long sleeves should not be visible underneath short sleeve polo shirts or summer dresses.

District Swimming

Nine Mitcham students competed at our City South District Swimming Carnival at Marion Outdoor Pool on Wednesday 1^st of March. Well done to all swimmers and a special congratulations to Elijah K, Louis T, Sophie L and Thomas P for placing high or winning their events and now going on to represent the district at the Metropolitan State Championships on Thursday May 4^th.

District Athletics

On Thursday 30^th March, 34 Mitcham students travelled to SA Athletics Stadium to compete at our City South District Athletics Carnival. Many of our students placed high in their events with several collecting 1^st-4^th place ribbons. We are still awaiting the official results to find out which of our students made it into the district team to head to the State Championships.

Cricket

At the start of Week 10 of our boys travelled to Stradbroke School and played two matches over two days against Burnside PS and Stradbroke School. Coming up against Burnside first the boys kept the opposition to a reasonable score but unfortunately couldn’t match their batting performance and fell short of Burnside’s total.

In our second match against Stradbroke we showed improvement with the bat setting a higher score than Monday’s match. We bowled and fielded extremely well pushing Stradbroke to their final wicket but regrettably coming away with a loss. Well done boys over the two days, you never dropped your heads and kept pushing all the way to the final ball bowled.

Clint Rowland - PE Teacher/Sapsasa