Newsletter Wangaratta District Specialist School From the Principal’s Desk Date 25/11/’16 Ph. 5721 7424 [email protected]. Fax. 5721 8601 Dates to Remember Cont. O.T. - Paula - Monday - Thursday Speech - Lily - Mon, Tues, Fri. School Leavers Dinner - Friday 9th Dec School Concert - Monday 12th December Last Day Term 4 - Friday 16th December at 2.00pm. Buses will arrive home 1 hour earlier. Banking details change from 14th November see page 2 for more information. Chris Harvison Principal Principal’s Awards Week 7 Aiden McMillan for playing safely with other students in the junior yard. Kingston Seefus for listening to teachers’ instructions and making good choices. Emily Barbary for enjoying being in the yard at recess with staff and students. School Review On Tuesday 22 nd November we had the first day of our School Review. This was a whole day affair and saw us wel- come a number of visitors to our school. Neil Pryor, our school reviewer (and my very first Principal) lead us through some in depth discussion about how our school has performed over the past 4 years. Joined by Alby Freijah (Senior Education Improvement Leader, DET) Alby McIntosh (School Councillor) Craig Johnson (Principal, Wangaratta West PS) and Brendan Nolan (Principal, Sunbury Macedon Ranges Specialist School) we toured our school and visited every classroom. Our school captains Jade and Josh lead us around for over an hour and answered lots of questions that our visitors had to ask about our school. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to introduce these visitors to almost all of our staff and students, get an authentic understanding of the complex needs of our stu- dents and showcase the sensational programs that are running across our school. We looked in great detail at the achievements we have made for our students, talked about the challenges we have faced and identified some areas for improvement moving forward. Our second and final review day is on Thursday 8 th December – we will spend this day looking in greater detail at a few specific aspects of our school practice and allow us the chance to set a fu- ture direction for our school over the next 4-5 years. New Staff for 2017 We have almost finalised our staffing for 2017 and we are incredibly excited to be welcoming a bunch of new staff to the WDSS team. Among those joining our team in the new year are our new Speech Therapist Shannon Leane (Lily is going overseas for a year with her sister to explore the world and has promised me she will be back in 2018!). New teaching staff across the Junior and Middle Units include Kellie Canning, Jacinta Elliot and Brittany Taurins. Many of you will also remember Richard Hall, who will re-join our teaching team neat year after an extend- ed absence. Nicola Coventry joins us as an Education Support staff member to replace Sam James for one year as she too does more travelling. Nicola is moving to Australia from New Zealand and has previously worked at Auck- land Girls Grammar School. We also welcome two gap year Education Support staff in the Junior Unit – Molly Nunn and Sarah Murphy. 3 weeks to go… Can you believe it?! The last 2 weeks will come with a rush so please keep an eye on our DATES TO REMEMBER which you will find below. Don’t miss our School Concert – I have seen the running sheet and the performances will be BRILLIANT. Do yourself a favour and get along to our end of year Christmas Concert on Monday 12 th Decem- ber. Also, please remember that ALL STUDENTS FINSH AT 2PM ON FRIDAY 16 TH DECEMBER.
School Leavers Dinner - Friday 9th Dec School Concert - Monday 12th December
Last Day Term 4 - Friday 16th December at 2.00pm. Buses will arrive home 1 hour earlier.
Banking details change from 14th November see page 2 for more information.
Chris Harvison
Principal
Principal’s Awards
Week 7
Aiden McMillan for playing safely with other students in the junior yard.
Kingston Seefus for listening to teachers’ instructions and making good choices.
Emily Barbary for enjoying being in the yard at recess with staff and students.
School Review On Tuesday 22nd November we had the first day of our School Review. This was a whole day affair and saw us wel-come a number of visitors to our school. Neil Pryor, our school reviewer (and my very first Principal) lead us through some in depth discussion about how our school has performed over the past 4 years. Joined by Alby Freijah (Senior Education Improvement Leader, DET) Alby McIntosh (School Councillor) Craig Johnson (Principal, Wangaratta West PS) and Brendan Nolan (Principal, Sunbury Macedon Ranges Specialist School) we toured our school and visited every classroom. Our school captains Jade and Josh lead us around for over an hour and answered lots of questions that our visitors had to ask about our school. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to introduce these visitors to almost all of our staff and students, get an authentic understanding of the complex needs of our stu-dents and showcase the sensational programs that are running across our school. We looked in great detail at the achievements we have made for our students, talked about the challenges we have faced and identified some areas for improvement moving forward. Our second and final review day is on Thursday 8th December – we will spend this day looking in greater detail at a few specific aspects of our school practice and allow us the chance to set a fu-ture direction for our school over the next 4-5 years. New Staff for 2017 We have almost finalised our staffing for 2017 and we are incredibly excited to be welcoming a bunch of new staff to the WDSS team. Among those joining our team in the new year are our new Speech Therapist Shannon Leane (Lily is going overseas for a year with her sister to explore the world and has promised me she will be back in 2018!). New teaching staff across the Junior and Middle Units include Kellie Canning, Jacinta Elliot and Brittany Taurins. Many of you will also remember Richard Hall, who will re-join our teaching team neat year after an extend-ed absence. Nicola Coventry joins us as an Education Support staff member to replace Sam James for one year as she too does more travelling. Nicola is moving to Australia from New Zealand and has previously worked at Auck-land Girls Grammar School. We also welcome two gap year Education Support staff in the Junior Unit – Molly Nunn and Sarah Murphy. 3 weeks to go… Can you believe it?! The last 2 weeks will come with a rush so please keep an eye on our DATES TO REMEMBER which you will find below. Don’t miss our School Concert – I have seen the running sheet and the performances will be BRILLIANT. Do yourself a favour and get along to our end of year Christmas Concert on Monday 12 th Decem-ber. Also, please remember that ALL STUDENTS FINSH AT 2PM ON FRIDAY 16TH DECEMBER.
Bogong - Jacqui, Jill and Lea
Mt Pilot - Lee and Tina
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
Important Bank Details
From the 14th November our Bank Details will be :- BSB 633000 Account number 157 634 783
As another week draws to a close, the students of Mt Pilot have been continuing to work together and get along with others. This week we have been working on the set for our concert item. The students with the help of Sam came up with the design. I wonder if you can work out what it is. The students have worked wonderfully with one another and should feel proud of themselves.
This week we celebrated Coby’s 13th birthday with a cake. Thank you to Tina for supplying the cake.
Although we are getting toward the end of the year, the Bogong girls have continued to put in a great effort. Much work has been put into maintaining friendships and being kind to one another at a time of the year where everyone starts to get a little tired. We have been discussing ways that we can look after ourselves to make sure that we continue to come to school ready to learn. The girls have identified eating the right foods and drinking enough water as an important part of keeping ourselves going. Sleep was also an important part of caring for ourselves.
School-wide Positive Behaviour Support Autism Spectrum
The most frequent complaint of most parents of children on the autism spectrum is that other people don’t understand why their children do what they do. The glares in the su-permarket, the mumbled comments about poor parenting or the child needing a good smack show that other people often don’t understand why challenging behaviour hap-pens and what to do about it. Challenging behaviour is persistent behaviour that causes difficulties and limits a per-son’s ability to have a good life. It’s called ‘challenging’ because it challenges everyone who supports the person to understand why it is happening and to work together to find a solution. Why does it happen? People on the autism spectrum have a range of strengths, abilities and specific support needs. For example, most people on the autism spectrum have some difficulty in being able to communicate and will feel strong frustration if they are not supported to com-municate their needs. In this situation a person may use other ways (such as behav-iours) to get their message across. Often, these behaviours ‘pay off’ – parents, teachers and others respond and give the person what they want and then the behaviour is learned over time (this isn’t to say you should just ignore behaviour). Over time, a build-up of challenging behaviour can result in fun activities being stopped, relationships be-ing strained and negative perceptions of the person, all leading to a poor quality of life for the person and their family. It can be difficult to escape from these situations. At WDSS we have many trained staff members on our Behaviour Support Team who have many years of experiences in the field working with students on the autism spec-trum. Please do not hesitate to contact our school for additional support. Together We Will!
Source: autautismspectrum.org.au/pbs#Resource
Art with Roz
Remembrance Day 11th November
The EYES have it!......aren’t they great!
Dramatic Dioramas
Pirates of the Carribean Sea
These shoes were made for walking…...but it seems they won’t make it!
Sea life. Our theme for this Term...WATER!
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
Morgan - Judd and Sheydin
Farewell Zara! This week we were sad to say farewell to Zara. Zara has been a big personality in our classroom and many of our students were sad to see her go. This was Zara’s second year at WDSS and we will certainly miss having her around. We wish her all the best on her new adventure and hope she continues to make good
choices at her new school. We celebrated Zara’s last week with us with a trip to Fun City in Shepparton. We played several games of laser tag and were lucky enough to have fish and chips for lunch! It was a fantastic send off and we all had
a great time.
Breanna – ‘I will miss Zara’s smile and when she would talk to me if I was having a bad day’
Colin – ‘I will miss her smile’
Amy – ‘I will miss her laugh’
Kira – ‘I will miss Zara’s goofiness’
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
Mt Emu - Leanne and Luke
Stirling - Kate, Stella and Lisa
Mt. Emu students have been learning about the importance of being SunSmart. Our school is at SunSmart school. Mt. Emu students are campaigning across the school community for all students and staff to Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek and Slide. The students have learnt about Ultraviolet (UV) radiation as part of their research. One fact was even when it's cool or overcast, the sun’s UV can still be damaging to our bodies. I have told the Mt. Emu students to watch weather forecast after the nightly news to find out what the UV rating will be for the next day. Before outside recess or lunch time break, community access, bike riding, all Mt. Emu students apply sunscreen on their face, arms and legs. This is part of our school’s expectations to be SAFE!
So Slip, Slop, Slap, Seek, and Slide.
Mt. Emu Students of the Week Hayden for being such a great learner during Math sessions. Jack, Zak, Aaron, Usher, Shannon, Zak for being respectful during our Interpersonal Development sessions.
Playing respectfully and
Healthy Eating Stirling students have learnt a lot this year about getting along and playing together. Students are doing a fantastic job at sharing, taking turns and encouraging oth-ers in activities. It is so nice to all get along and laugh together. We have also been learning about healthy eating and sometimes food. In cooking we have been creating healthy meals using lots of vegetables and making sure we try new foods each week! Well done everyone on tasting our healthy meals!
Taminick - Shardae, Sam and Emily
Last week Taminick were out and about for Community Access. We visited IGA where we practised using a visual shopping list for our groceries, finding and picking items and going through the checkout. Afterwards, we visited Apex Park, as it was a beautiful afternoon. We spent time playing on the swings and slides.
What a great fortnight. A lot of assessments
have been achieved and it has been great to see
the amount of progress all of our students have
made.
We have also been doing some great swimming and our
lessons have been going great. Bailey, Maddie, Matthew
and Ernie have been learning how to float and how to
use a kick board to go across the class. Victor and Stella
have overcome their shyness of the pool and Victor was
courageous enough to jump from the step to Phillipa. A
very proud moment. All of the students have had to
have a lesson prior to having free play and all have been
able to do this extremely well. They are a good repre-
sentation of the School.
Water play was also a part of this fortnight with lots of warm
weather. Need to start to putting in those spare clothes!!!
Buffalo - Phillipa, Fiona, Lisa and Alicia
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
Buller - Allan and Mab
Kosciusko - Frazer and John
Sensory activities are a very important part of our daily routine in Buller class. Stimu-lating one’s senses allows neural pathways to be accessed which can result in new learning. Our senses of sight, smell, hear-ing, taste and touch all contribute to how we interact with, and perceive the world around us. All Buller students enjoy experiencing ac-tivities that heighten their senses.
The KOSSIE boys have been working very hard – which is impressive so close to the end of term. We are pro-gressively filling up our Grammar Wall, which is full of new topics the boys have been discovering through our grammar unit. We are continuing our electives program, and everyone is still very much enjoying every part of it. As the weather warms up, our morning fitness and bike ride sessions have become a great opportunity to grab some much needed exercise!
Dave
Travis
Ewan
Chris(Richo)
Thomas
Michael (Xavier’s Dad)
Xavier
Logan
Hilly
Taylor
Ryan
Match the Moustache
As you know this month our class is participating in the Movember project. The Movember Foundation is the only global charity focused solely on men's health, so this Movember Hotham Class are getting on board. We're raising funds to tackle some of the biggest health issues faced by men: prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and poor mental health. Help us stop men dying too young. Staff, students and parents (mainly male) will be growing mo’s and beards to support this cause. If you would like to support us please do so. Access the below link; it takes you to the Movember page for donations.
https://au.movember.com/mospace/683984
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
Warby showed of their culinary skills by making sushi rolls last Friday. They looked and tasted fantastic!Students had to boil rice, cut vegetables, prepare, fill and roll nori sheets, cut into bite size portions and present their food creations on a plate.
Monday the 14th of November was the date
that VCAA required us to enter our student’s
results for the year. At VCAL we have been
working hard finishing off any outstanding
work. The results are in and entered! Happy
days for the VCAL students. At VCAL there
has been a flurry of celebratory extra-curricula
activities including canoeing on Lake William
Hovell, Laser Tag, visit to Winton Raceway
and the splash park. Additionally after com-
pleting the theory side of coffee espresso ma-
chine skill set, students have begun to practice
making a coffee using the school’s coffee es-
presso machine.
VCAL - Jodie, Rosie, Adrian, Jack and Ashley
Mt. Beauty - Lisa, Ranni and Helen.
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
Students in Mount Beauty have been enjoying swimming. The last couple of weeks they worked with Prue on
being safe in the water and using devices to help if you get stuck. These include life jackets, kick boards, ropes
and flotation devices. Some students even wore their PJ’s in the water, to see how tricky it is if you fall in with
clothes on. Well done everyone!
Stanley - Renee and Simon
Stanley Technology
WDSS Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program
GROWING, HARVESTING, PREPARING AND SHARING
FROM THE GARDEN: The gar -den is holding up well to the hot weather so far. I am very grateful for the showers we have been having about every week or so. With the lovely weather we have also spotted some visitors to the garden, including this butterfly. Snail numbers seem to be down – but no doubt they are just hiding until the next shower. Our chickens think they are best treat ev-er, and come running when you hold your hand out to them!
Our orchard is also performing well, we have abundant al-monds, nectarines and passionfruit. In our final newsletter I hope to show you the marvellous new outdoor setting that the VCAL students have been building, using old tyres and recycled Jarrah. It will be a masterpiece, which I can’t wait to sit down and have lunch at. We are planting: Eggplants, tomatoes, beetroot, corn, pumpkin, chives and basil. We are harvesting: lettuce, car-rots, herbs, silver beet, spring onions, spinach, peas, and beet-root.
FROM THE KITCHEN – Almond Tabbouleh – This is a tasty
alternative to regular tabouleh. I am loving adding seeds and nuts to
my salads, they give extra flavour, and crunch. Seeds and nuts are
interchangeable, if you haven’t got one try another!
Ingredients
1 cup flat-leaf parsley, fresh stems and leaves finely chopped
1 cup mint, fresh leaves finely chopped
1 large tomato, regular finely chopped
½ small red onion finely diced
½ cup cooked Buckwheat
60 g almonds, raw, unsalted roughly chopped
½ medium lemon juiced
Method
Combine all ingredients in a bowl, and season with salt and pepper
to your liking.
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respect-
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
Cobbler - Julie and Sharon
Feathertop - Kate and Lis
Last Tuesday we joined with other classes to visit the Per-forming Arts Centre in Wangaratta where we were fortunate to be able to view the dress rehearsal of Shrek performed by Galen College. We all enjoyed the show, it was very funny. Brandon especially enjoyed the funny noises made by Shrek. At the end of the production the actors were happy to have their photos taken with our students.
Feathertop room went to 15 Mile Creek for the day. The trip was paid for with the money that the class have raised through selling eggs. Thanks so much for those people who brought eggs to help the class learn valuable lessons in mon-ey skills: working for money, saving money and not spending it immediately, and good things take time to save up for.
Fresh, free range eggs are available from the Feathertop room for $4.00. We are saving up for a class meal at a restaurant.
We also did some writing around our excursion. Josh and Scott are in the canoe and are getting ready to go paddle in the dam. You can go swimming. Liz and Kate would not get in the water. Josh and I dipped the boat over. James tipped the board over, but could not get back in the boat. I got back in the boat, but Josh swam back. – Scott S.
Together We Will: Be Learners. Be Safe. Be Respectful.
