The foundation and year 1 class would like to share about all the exciting things they did in Book Week!

Students have been focussing on two nominated Book Week books for the CBWA awards this year. We loved reading “Bear and Duck are Friends” and “Can you teach a fish to climb a tree?”.

Students made bear and duck puppets and used these to practice retelling the story of “Bear and Duck are Friends”. In the story, “Can you teach a fish to climb a tree?” we discussed how each person is talented at different things! Students made made posters of all the talents that they have.

In Book Week, our class was lucky enough to visit the Berri Library. We read “One Little Duck”. Students then made Duck Headbands with the library staff. It was so much fun!!

Students loved dressing up as their favourite characters on Thursday! They created posters of themselves in their dress-ups. Please enjoy looking through these!

What an awesome week!

SAPSASA Girls' Football

On the 23rd of August, 11 girls from Year 5 and 6, competed in SAPSASA girls’ football at the Berri Oval. Throughout the day, the girls played 6 games and managed to win 1. As the day went on, the girls grew in confidence and worked well as a team. Xanadu was fortunate to be awarded the Team Spirit Award on the day. The girls have trials coming up for the SAPSASA girls football carnival held in Adelaide next term. Good luck to all the girls who are trying out.

Girls' Football Clinics

On Monday week 6, girls from Years 1-6 particpated in football clinics at school with Kayla Mudge. They participated in various skill building activities and had lots of fun.

"I liked kicking the football." - Elsie (Year 1)

"We did games and we were playing with the footballs." - Lilli (Year 1) 

"We learnt how to handball and it was really fun. We learnt how to kick far and learnt more techniques." - Ada (Year 5)

"It was really fun and a good experience. We did lots of drills and a game where you could only handball." - Ally (Year 6)  

Hot Shots Tennis

On Thursday the 29th of August, the Year 3 and 4 students competed at Hot Shots tennis in Barmera. This was a great experience for the students as they got to engage in a coaching clinic followed by some game play. Each team played four games and showed a great level of skill and sportsmanship. At the end of the event each school was awarded two sportsmanship awards. These were won by Laura Geyer and Sriyan Gudipati. A big thank you to Mr Dunn, Kirrilly and Mel P for supporting ths students on the day and giving them this opportunity.

Last week, our amazing OLOR choir performed at the Riverland Primary Schools’ Music Festival. Last Tuesday they attended a dress rehearsal during the day and then returned to the Chaffey Theatre that night for their performance. They did a fantastic job representing our school and were confident in their lyrics and choreography throughout the concert. Congratulations to all those involved!

Miss D
Arts Coodinator

We understand that parent/ caregiver engagement goes hand in hand with student wellbeing and success and productive communication with parents/ caregivers is an essential feature of a positive school culture.

Digital technologies have greatly assisted in this regard and the use of parent/ caregiver information apps, social media (for general school information), school website, SEQTA and the use of email communication directly with staff is now routine.

We appreciate that parent/ caregiver expectations as to staff accessibility have evolved in the context of enhanced digital communication practices. While representing efficient modes of communication, the breadth of digital communication options can create ‘availability creep’ where school employees become more accessible in locations and at times of the day, weekends and during periods of leave when they should be able to disconnect from work. Indeed, recent laws have taken effect which provide school employees a right to disconnect.

In the interests of respecting the rights of our staff and recognising the importance of facilitating and promoting healthy communication, we are introducing the following as standard protocol during term time:

- Noting our staff spend a significant amount of their workday focussing on teaching or other activities applicable to their roles, staff will endeavour to respond to parent/ caregiver communications requesting a response within 48 hours, noting staff will discern whether an urgent matter requires a shorter response timeframe; and

- Parents/ caregivers are encouraged to contact the school front office in the first instance for general information.

We ask that parents and caregivers be mindful and supportive of the above. Thank you for your understanding.

Why Talking with Babies is Super Important!

Talking with babies helps them learn to understand and use words, which is key for their brain growth and future learning. Here’s how you can make it fun and helpful:

Talk About Everything: Describe what you're doing, even if it's boring. For example, say, "I'm washing dishes now."

Repeat Their Sounds: If they say "mama," you can say, "Yes, mama loves you!"

Show Interest: Look into their eyes and smile when they babble or talk.

Talk About What They Like: If they play with a toy train, say, "Toot, toot!"

Read Together: Look at picture books and name what you see. Point to a cat and say, "Look, a cat! Can you say cat?"

Praise Them: If they point to a dog and say "dog," you can say, "Well done for pointing out the dog!"

Ask Questions: Even though they can't answer, asking questions helps them learn about conversations. For example, ask, "Do you want your teddy bear?" and then give it to them.

Doing these fun activities helps babies learn to talk and gets their brains ready for learning more as they grow!

A reminder to please inform the school each day when your child is absent from school, as we need to record a reason for their absence (illness, family reasons, appointment etc). You may message on Seesaw, fill in the form on the Schoolzine app (SZapp), or phone the school. If we do not hear from you, student absences are recorded as 'Unapproved Absences' (and if there are too many of these throughout the term it is automatically reported to the government as persistent unapproved absences). 

We do send SMS messages each day to try and find reasons for any unapproved absences, and appreciate parents responding to these messages.