The last few weeks have once again been very busy at OLOR. We’ve had a couple of camps and swimming lessons, as well as our Multicultural Evening, to name just a few of the things going on. There is always so much happening in schools, and I would like to thank all the staff who constantly give up their extra time and energy to help great things happen.  

Two weeks ago our Year 4 and year 5 students had their camp at Illawonga Camp near Swan Reach. They got to take part in many adventures, from kayaking, cave exploring and ferry building, to team games and even some fishing. It was a great experience for them all and one full of many memories they will have for years to come. I would like to thank Mr Dunn, Ms Moll-Short and Mel Pfeiler for their support and organisation on the camp.  

Our Year 6 students had their Kangaroo Island Camp last week. This was a great adventure for all involved. Experiences included a visit to Clifford’s Honey Farm, going onto the beach at Seal Bay to get an up close look at the wildlife, as well as visits to Admiral’s Arch and Remarkable Rocks. The highlights for lots of students were the bird and reptile shows at Raptor Domain and the sandboarding at Little Sahara. It was a great experience for all of the students and I’d like to again thank Ms Moll-Short and Mel Pfeiler for their organisation and support on the camp. 

Our junior classes took part in swimming lessons this week at the Berri pool. Learning how to swim is so important in our region and our country. With water always a danger to those who haven’t learnt the skills to keep themselves safe, we are so pleased that we were once again able to provide this opportunity to our students. We were also very pleased with the weather as well, as more often than not, swimming week is cold, wet and windy. 

I would like share some staffing news with our community. Recently, Ms Fiona Moll-Short and Mrs Michelle Williams were successful in winning permanent positions at OLOR. We congratulate them on their positions and look forward to them being part of the OLOR team for years to come. Miss Gemma Stewart will be returning back to OLOR in 2025, after taking a year of leave this year. We will be farewelling Mrs Emma-Lee Schilling and Miss Shyla Lange at the end of the year, as they take up positions at Loxton Lutheran School in 2025. We will also be saying goodbye to Mr Thomas Smart, who is moving to the Adelaide Hills with his partner. We thank them all for their time at OLOR and wish them well in their new roles.  

We also have some ESOs who have won permanent positions at OLOR. I congratulate Miss Melody Pfeiler, Miss Kayla Tsorotiotis, Miss Breanna Michalski, Mrs Kirrilly Curyer and Mrs Melinda Halupka who were successful in winning these positions. We farewell Mr Brad Krollig and Miss Alexia Sourbis and thank them for their contributions at OLOR. We also congratulate Ms Karlie Vince and Mrs Julie Slagter, who will share the permanent Front Office position between them. 

Our classes and teaching staff next year will therefore be: 

Foundation- Miss Tori Martin 

Year 1 & Year 2- Mrs Jade Owens and Mr Luke Dunn 

Year 2 & Year 3- Miss Gemma Stewart 

Year 4 & Year 5- Mrs Michelle Williams 

Year 5 & Year 6- Ms Fiona Moll-Short 

PE & Science- Mr Luke Dunn 

The Arts and Science- Mrs Jade Owens 

Leader of Learning- Ms Melanie Steele 

APRIM- Mrs Rosie Perre 

We will be finalising class lists in the next couple of weeks and hope to hold a transition session with the new class teacher in Week 8 or 9.

A reminder that we have a Student Free Day tomorrow, on Friday 22nd Novemberfor staff professional development. Keeping staff up to date with professional learning around curriculum, wellbeing and good teaching and learning practice, is something that we know will lead to better outcomes for all students. This week we are working on finalising our PBIS plans for 2025, which will be our whole-school Positive Behaviour and Support program. This will be a major focus next year and I thank the staff for their efforts already, as well as the work we will do on Friday to make sure we are ready to go straight away next year.   

In a couple of weeks we look forward to our end-of-year concert. Mrs Owens and Miss Natalie from Rosie Clark Dance Studio have been working hard with all classes on their performances and it is coming together well. We look forward to sharing this with our whole community on Thursday evening in Week 8. It promises to be a night of fun! 

In Week 8 we also will be sending out End of Year Reports. Teachers have been finalising assessments and preparing reports for all students. I encourage all families to be mindful that grading has changed significantly since we were at school, and a ‘C’ grade means that a student is able to do what is expected of them at their year level. I also encourage families to focus more on the effort grades and comments, as these are a better indication of individual progress and how much a student has lived up to their potential. I thank our teachers for all of the effort that they have put into preparing our reports and all of the learning that has occurred beforehand. 

As you can see, Term 4 at OLOR is such a busy time, but also a fun and rewarding time. And there’s still so much to look forward to! 

OLOR Multicultural Celebration was a huge success on the evening of Saturday 9th November. Families, students and staff enjoyed a shared dinner with a wide selection of multicultural foods, and children were entertained with face painting, glitter tattoos, henna designs, making friendship bands and a disco. It was a wonderful evening of community and connection. Thanks to all who came along. We are hoping that we can hold a similar event each year.

On the first day of camp, everyone arrived at school at 6am to leave by 6:30am. We boarded the ferry at 11:30am, which took us 45 minutes to get to Kangaroo Island. Our first stop was at Clifford’s Honey Farm. We were given a tour of the farm and had the option to taste the honey samples that they had provided. We were then told that each month, the bees have different seasonal flowers that give a unique seasonal flavour to their honey. The workers told us facts about the farm, such as they take care of and work with Ligurian bees. Ligurian bees are originally from Italy, but they now remain on Kangaroo Island as an almost extinct species, which is the reason why you cannot bring honey onto Kangaroo Island. Afterwards, we headed to Seal Bay, where we had the opportunity to walk down to the beach and observe the adult seals sleeping whilst juvenile seals played around in the water.  

Day 2, we started the day at Stokes Bay for a morning swim. We then went to Raptor Domain where we watched a bird show and reptile show. Many of us had the opportunity to hold the birds and different reptiles.  We then went to Vivonne Bay to learn how to surf.  Everyone had fun and most of us stood up on the surfboard.  

Day 3 we visited Flinder’s Chase National Park. We went to an old lighthouse that had a great view over the ocean. Afterwards, we went to Admiral’s Arch where we walked down and watched some fur seals play around and have fun in the water. We went to Remarkable Rocks, and a lot of us climbed the rocks there. We enjoyed the scenery and view. We then made our way to Little Sahara where we were taught how to sandboard down massive sandhills. It was very tiring walking up the hills.  

Our last day on Kangaroo Island, we walked up Prospect Hill, the same hill that Matthew Flinder’s climbed when he discovered the island. There were over 300 steps on the way up the hill, it was very exhausting, but the view was worth the exhaustion.  

We would like to thank Mr. Slagter, Ms. Moll-Short and Mel for the amazing trip! We loved every minute and the opportunity to try different things.  

Written by Xanadu and Harriet

Raffle books were recently sent home with each familiy. Please return to the front office by Friday Nov29th. More books are available.

A special thank you to the families and community for your kind donations to our school for the prizes.

Monday 

We hopped on the bus at 9:00am, it was a long ride, but we kept ourselves busy by playing Mr Dunn’s game and using the Camp Illawonga booklet. When we got there, we had our fruit then went into our dorms to get changed into our swimmers. After that, we got our life jackets and went down to the river and split into two groups. One did the Illawonga challenge and the other did kayaking. In the camp Illawonga challenge, we had all sorts of puzzles and fun challenges. We also made a ferry and had to pull ourselves across the marina with a rope. Then we went back to the meeting place to have lunch. We swapped over and the people who were kayaking next had the Illawonga challenge. With kayaking, we practiced how to paddle before we got into the kayaks. While we were kayaking, we went into a lagoon where we saw some pelicans. We tried to get as close as we could to them. When we finished our activities, we walked back to the camp, hung our life jackets up and had some free time to get familiar with camp. For dinner, we had spaghetti with garlic bread which was so tasty and delicious. For dessert, we had custard and fruit. After dinner, we went to the gym. The gym was built for the Australian Olympic Gymnastics Team and in the gym, we listened to the instructors while they explained how to use the equipment. We also taught Mr Dunn how to do a cartwheel. We had lots of fun in the gym, but sadly we had to get ready for bed.  

Tuesday 

In the morning, we got up at 6:00 am, got dressed and went to breakfast, for breakfast we had cereal and toast with butter, strawberry jam, or vegemite. After breakfast, we had a chance to go head-to-head with the teachers in basketball, the teachers were winning, but we had to go to our activities. When we got to our activities, we split up into our groups. Our activities include Bugs Life, Aquatics, Cave Tour, and River survival. In River Survival, we needed to construct a raft using pipes, tyres, and ropes. Our challenge was to paddle the raft across the marina. This was a great test of teamwork and there was a mix of successful and unsuccessful teams. For the cave tour, we hopped on a boat and travelled to the cave entrance. We trudged about 200 meters into the cave where we faced challenges such as darkness and confined spaces. For bugs' life, we tried to scoop them up and examine them; we also had a choice to fish in one of the groups, one of the instructors caught a catfish and Miss Moll-Short caught a carp. We also did Aquatics, which includes pedalboats, swimming, and fishing. The day went by fast, and before we knew it, it was dinner where we had sausages and chicken tenders with salad. After that we had dessert which was vanilla ice-cream and chocolate or strawberry sauce and sprinkles. Then we had a quiz night with the instructors joining in. Mr. Dunn was the host. We had teams, and the instructors won, but they did not count so the Girly Pops won the chocolates. After that we got ready for bed. 

 Wednesday 

On day three, one group had Safari Trailer and the other had Pedal Karts, Maze, Archery. On the Safari trip, the instructor told us about the past of the people who lived in the olden day house. They had two primary areas, the house had an area where they slept, and an area was the kitchen was. The house had a long drop out the back (toilet) and a farm where they farmed horses to go to church and sheep used for wool and chickens for eggs and cows for milk. For the pedal cart, maze and archery it was a challenge where you got into groups and scored on each activity and whoever got the highest score won. For the maze, we had to find a bunch of different things in the maze, and we also had to go through the maze as fast as possible. For archery, you had to shoot at a target and try to hit the middle which was quite tricky. For the pedal karts, we had to ride around the course as many times as possible. After that we had to go onto the bus and then we kept ourselves entertained by playing Mr Dunn’s game and using our Camp Illawonga booklet. When we got back, we unpacked our bags and then went under the tree and got icy poles.  

We loved the people who were there, they were always helping us and encouraging us. We all loved the swimming, and the gymnastics gym and all the other activities. It taught us life skills. This is an amazing camp and in future years, I hope others will have the opportunity to come to this extraordinary camp and have as much fun as we did.  

 Written by Ashton, Lucia, Anna and Grace 

On Thursday week 5, we were lucky to be visited by the Questacon team. Questacon is an interactive ‘science circus’ that promotes the Questacon National Science and Technology centre in Canberra. The three junior primary classes gathered in the hall to watch the science circus first. They learnt the three steps of science inquiry, ask a question, make a prediction and then test the experiment. Miss Lange and some students were able to help the instructors up the front to test some experiments.

The first act was all to do with sound and the vibrations that create different types of sound. The second act was about force and how some forces can change an objects shape.

The two upper primary classes watched the circus next. It was a fantastic performance and many children loved it!

I went to the Saturday performance and loved the Fire Act – Hope Year 2/3

I liked the music made from the bottles – Catie 5/6

SAPSASA Cricket

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.