I trust you enjoyed the opportunity to attend the “Meet the Teacher Night” earlier this week. Many thanks to the teachers for such lovely presented rooms. This evening completed our beginning of the year activities that attempts to build positive relationships with parents through the Book-a-Chat meeting and the “Meet the Teacher Night.”
The next formal opportunity to interact with your child’s teacher are the interviews coming up later this term.
PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS
These interviews will be held in week 10, beginning March 30th on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
M – 3:15 to 5:00pm
T – 3:15 to 7:30pm
W – 3:15 to 5:00pm
PLAYGROUP
Our very popular playgroup begins again on Wednesday, February 12th. While it begins at 8:45am you are welcome to attend later if it suits. Playgroup concludes at 10:15am. This is a free service open to anyone in our wider community, you do not have to be connected to our school (so tell your friends).
SCHOOL ROUTINES
As school routines begin to take shape you will notice that homework is beginning to appear, the majority of which is reading. The importance of reading cannot be underestimated and has been the topic of thousands of pieces of research. For example, in a study of the out-of-school activities of fifth graders, Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding (1988) found that time spent reading books was the best predictor of a student’s reading proficiency.
Some examples from the study are…
Please keep in mind that when children bring home readers they should be quite easy for them to read. The rule of thumb is no more than 5 errors per 100 words, this is because the aim of reading is to comprehend the text.
ROSARY SCHOOL IS ALLERGY AWARE
Rosary School is concerned about the safety and well-being of all our students. Many of you will know someone who is affected by anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction. Our school does its best to be an allergy aware school. Staff have had training in severe allergy management and we have implemented lots of strategies to help keep students at risk of anaphylaxis as safe as we can. We have a number of students who live with the risk of anaphylaxis to foods and insect stings. Whilst these children are being taught to care for themselves at an age appropriate level, we ask that you help us educate your child on the importance of not sharing food with others, washing hands after eating and calling out to an adult if they think their friend with allergies is sick. With increased awareness and understanding of anaphylaxis, you will be able to help protect those around you.
A food allergy is an immune system response to a normally harmless food protein that the body believes is harmful. When the individual eats food containing that protein, the immune system releases massive amounts of chemicals, triggering symptoms that can affect a person’s breathing, gastrointestinal tract, skin, and/or heart. Anaphylaxis is the most severe form of allergic reaction and is potentially life-threatening. It must be treated as a medical emergency, requiring immediate treatment and urgent medical attention.
It is estimated that up to 400,000 (2%) Australians, including 1 in 20 children suffer from food allergies and some of them will experience a life-threatening (anaphylactic) reaction.
MILD TO MODERTE ALLERGIC REACTION:
SEVERE ALLERGIC REACTION – ANAPHYLAXIS
Peanuts are the leading cause of severe allergic reactions, followed by tree nuts, shellfish, fish and milk.
Adrenaline/epinephrine is the first line treatment for severe allergic reactions and can be administered via auto-injector, called the EpiPen®.
To learn more about anaphylaxis and food allergies, go to www.allergyfacts.org.au and www.allergy.org.au
As the only way to manage a food allergy is avoidance, the school has implemented several strategies to help prevent a severe allergic reaction. We can never totally eliminate the risk of an anaphylaxis but we can all do things that will help lessen the risk. Please consider the child with food allergy when packing your child’s lunch or when sending in food for any occasion, including school excursions. Foods that ‘May contain traces of nuts or nut products’ are fine for the non- allergic students to consume at school as long as they do not share food.
SCHOOL STREAM application is our major link to families delivering school alerts, information as well as our new electronic version of the school newsletter instantly and directly to your smartphone and/or tablet. In your devices “App Store” search for “School Stream” and follow the very simple instructions.
Useful links are…
ROSARY SCHOOL FACEBOOK SITE
This year we are continuing our Facebook site to celebrate some of the fantastic things happening around our school. On Facebook you can search for our site by using Rosary School Prospect.
SCHOOL HOURS
Just a reminder that children are welcome at school from 8:25am, when our gates are opened and a teacher is on yard duty.
At the end of the day we supervise children in the yard till around 3:20pm. Any remaining children are then seated in the front office and should be picked up no later than 3:30pm.
CARS AND CHILDREN
The safety of our children is paramount to the operation of any school and where our children and cars share the same space every care is needed. We make many appeals to parents about parking, kiss and drop etc. Sometimes we have neighbours and their visitors or workmen not paying attention to the parking signs. The council are quite vigilant at checking around our school over the first few weeks and I have already seen a number of police patrols before and after school.
PARKING IN STAPLES COURT AND BURRAGE PLACE
As part of the redevelopment of our School a number of years ago it was a part of the agreement that we would discourage parents from using these thin streets as drop off and collection points. The danger to young children walking down these streets is also quite real.
At times I have had residents from both streets come to the school to meet with me. They have complained about parents parking across parts of their driveway making it impossible to get in/out. There has also been a complaint from a resident about parents parking for up to an hour outside their house with engines running the whole time (they say the smell coming into their house is unbearable).
At Rosary School we try and work with our neighbours to make sure that we can share spaces in a safe way.
I ask you as parents to use Gladstone Road as drop off and pick up points in the interest and safety of all those in our area.
I also ask you to consider our neighbours when parking your vehicle.
Damian Weeks.