From the Principal's Desk

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

NEW PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT

Our students and staff were very excited last Friday and were all out together to soak in the sunshine around our new playground equipment that was installed by Adventure+ playgrounds with a community grant funding of $20K going towards the project  provided by an ‘Invitation Only’ opportunity that Anne Aly put our P&F forward for a Stronger Communities Grant application. Our hard working P&F applied for this grant late last year, with the Liwara Netball Club as their sponsor, and were successful!  Thank you P&F and the LNC!

FIRST HOLY COMMUNION - The Sacrament of Eucharist

Our prayers, best wishes and congratulations go out to our Year 4 students and families on such a very special occasion and hope that by receiving Jesus they will grow in love, forgiveness and service for others. Thank you to our teachers, Mrs Karen Swift and Mr Barry McGilloway, Fr Elver and the Parish Sacramental Team who have been guiding and supporting our students through their preparations.  The Masses will be held over the next two weekends.  Your support and prayers for our children and families  at this special time is greatly appreciated.

KINDY 2023/2024 AND PRE KINDY 2023

If you have a child who is due to start Kindy in 2023, I urge you to contact our enrolment officer, Karen Rosser, to discuss the enrolment process as the places are filling steadily. I am currently meeting with future and current parents for our Kindy 2023/2024 & Pre Kindy 2023 interviews.

CIVICS AND CITIZENSHIP VISIT

Jessica Stojkovski MLA visited our Year 6 students last week and shared a lot of  interesting information about Civics and Citizenship and the Australian Government.  Following are some interesting facts the students shared about what they had learnt from the visit:

What we found interesting…

• Mrs Stojkovksi gets no annual leave or any sick leave!
• There is now a new rule that women are allowed to take their babies in with them when parliament is sitting!
• It will soon be a rule that you can’t have barrier bags at supermarkets.
• What I found interesting was just the amount of things she has to do each year!
• What I also found interesting is that she only won her election by 307 votes.
• She works 70 hours a week
• I found it interesting that there are many different departments responsible for different things like the Bureau of Meteorology.
• What I found interesting is that Mrs Stojkovski is part of the Legislative Party

FACILITATING LEARNING THROUGH IMAGINATIVE PLAY

Play is an essential part of life and can be fostered and strengthened in preschool classrooms to promote learning and growth.

If all pre-schoolers do is play all day, how could they possibly be learning? Outsiders might believe that play is just play, but to an educator’s eye, play serves a multitude of different and important functions.

Imaginative play is an outlet, a safe space where children can explore the world around them and process their experiences. They might work through their fears and apprehensions of their recent check up by playing the role of the doctor in their next imaginative play session. Perhaps they play the part of “mum” or “dad” to harness that feeling of control they very rarely have in their lives. Through these dramas, children have a chance to process their thoughts and feelings and explore their relationships with other children. Imaginative play is a great instrument to use to learn the rules of friendship making (and keeping), negotiation, and communication.

Imaginative play also serves the important purpose of allowing children to practice skills and concepts taught during teacher-guided learning. There are certain simple adjustments that educators can make to their classroom in order to facilitate learning through imaginative play.

Literacy skills are organically fostered in imaginative play as children communicate with each other and build coherent stories to act out. Imaginative play corners are turned into a restaurant where children create  signs for the restaurant and menus to give to their customers.

Keeping with the restaurant theme, children can practice their mathematical skills by figuring out how many plates, cups, forks, and spoons their guests will need. They can add prices to the menu and practice their addition and subtraction skills when settling the bill at the end of the meal. Finally, the children can employ their engineering skills to construct their restaurant using cardboard boxes or other recycled building material.

This is just one example of one period of play that utilizes skills from several subjects. The possibilities to incorporate integrated studies into imaginative play are quite honestly endless. Creating situations where our students can demonstrate or practice what they’ve learned through teaching, imaginative play is used as evidence of their learning.   Excerpts taken from an article by Maggie Sabin April 4, 2022