9 June 2023: Week 6 - Term 2

Kaurna acknowledgement

Niina Marni. As we feel the earth beneath us, the wind around us and the sun above us, we acknowledge the Kaurna people, the traditional owners of this land. We pay our respects to past Elders and will work with present and emerging Elders to protect and care for this unique land of ours. We also extend this respect to other First Nations peoples.

Principal's report

Dear students & families,

LPPS Governing Council and associated committees have all started meetings and planning their actions and events for the year. As always, Fundraising Committee is already in full swing having held the Mother’s Day Stall,  ice-block sales and the Student Learning Committee have hosted the first Q&A on Hay with a well-attended forum focussed on Literacy.

Governing Council is your opportunity to have voice and agency into improving the school in areas such as the facilities and grounds, our uniform, IT policy etc. Whilst all policies sit within the Legislation and the Departments’ framework, there is certainly opportunity to make a difference.

The Linden Park Primary Governing Council sub committees include:

• Community & Fundraising: Chaired by Brooke Robins and Mel Sandery
• Campus Development: Chaired by Maged Shenouda
• Sport & Health: Chairperson: Gemma Morath
• Student Learning: John Wang
• OSHC: Anokhi Parikh

The committees are chaired by Governing Councillors and include parent volunteers and staff who are passionate about the scope of the committee.  We are currently establishing a working party that explores and expands the green canopy of our school.

Parent Volunteers also contribute to the development and implementation of our Reconciliation Action Plan Committee (RAP).  

Student lunches

It has been brought to our attention some parents are going directly to their child's classroom during lesson time to drop off school lunches.  To avoid class interruptions during student learning, parents must check into the front office to drop off their child's lunches and not the classroom.  The front office staff will ensure lunches are delivered to the child at an appropriate time.

Face time calls or videos on school grounds

For privacy, confidentality issues and security concerns of all students at LPPS, parents/caregivers must not make face time calls to their child on school grounds or take video footage in spaces, e.g. the playgrounds where other children may be captured.  Some social media and websites allow people to tag images with names and may also use facial recognition to identify the subject of a photo.

Eary Years Assembly Awards:  9 June 2023

Congratulations to all the students listed below, who demonstrated the Learner Profile Attributes this past fortnight in R -6.

Fiona Voigt, Principal

Library news

Advanced Notice - Book Week 

Monday, 21  August - Friday, 25 August 2023 (week 5 - term 3).

2023 Theme 'Read, Grow, Inspire'

During Book Week our students will be able to participate in the following events:

Scholastic Book Fair:  Monday, 21 August - Friday, 25 August. 

Students and families will be given opportunities during the week to view and purchase books for sale from Scholastic Australia.

 Sustainable Book Trading Day:  Monday, 21 August.

All students are encouraged to bring in a used book from home (in good condition) to trade within their year levels.

Author/Illustrator Incursion:  Tuesday,  22 August & Wednesday, 23 August.

Reception to Year 3 students.

Year 4 to Year 6 students will have their author visit incursion on the 2 August. 

Whole School Buddy Class Picnic:  Thursday, 24 August.

Book Week Parade and Assembly:  Friday, 25 August.

All students are encouraged to dress up as their favourite book character or under the theme of 'Read, Grow, Inspire'.

Russell Hanson, Teacher Librarian

National Reconciliation Week

Last week was National Reconciliation Week. It is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories and cultures. In class, we explored how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation. Reconciliation is about strengthening respectful relationships between the wider Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.   The theme this year is ‘Be a voice for generations’. 

Below are some photos of projects classes have been working on:-

A small selection of this artwork can be found on The Art Gallery of South Australia Education Gallery:

https://www.agsa.sa.gov.au/education/agsa-student-gallery/early-years-and-primary-student-gallery/year-3-collage-linden-park-primary-school/ 

Nicole Scrivener, Deputy Principal Innovation & Learning

Wellbeing news

Student Action Committee (SAC)

As an SAC, we have continued to review the data from our Bullying Survey, conducted earlier this term. 

Of the students surveyed, 55.6% of students identified they had been bullied at some point, with 32.6% witnessing bullying as a bystander.

The SAC will use this data to develop whole school strategies to reduce bullying and promote being an upstander. We look forward to celebrating our actions on the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence on Friday, 18 August. 

Wellbeing Assemblies

The SAC and the Year 6 Student Wellbeing Leaders will host an Early Years and Primary Years Wellbeing Assembly later this term, teaching important anti-bullying strategies to students.

Assembly dates:

• Early Years: Friday,  23 June (Week 8)
• Primary Years: Friday, 30 June (Week 9)

Student Action

In week 4, Helena P. (Room 34) contacted the wellbeing office after noticing that some younger students were having problems with their friends in the yard. 

Helena proposed the re-introduction of older, designated students who are available to support younger students in the yard during play times.

The Year 6 Student Wellbeing Leaders will use the latter half of this term to develop an action plan which we hope to implement at the beginning of Term Three.

Thanks for taking action, Helena!

Wellbeing & Engagement Collection (WEC) Survey

During weeks 2-5, all Years 4-6 students had the opportunity to complete the Wellbeing & Engagement Collection (WEC) survey. This survey is a Department for Education survey that collects valuable data on student wellbeing and engagement within their schools.

We look forward to receiving the data early next term to develop responsive and targeted wellbeing initiatives at LPPS.

Parent Information Evening

The 'Growing Up Online' session with Susan McLean is suited for parents and educators of primary school age students.

• When: Wednesday, 14 June - 6.00-7.30pm
• Where: Sports Arts Centre, Unley Primary School
• Cost: $5.00 per person (tickets available via QKR).

You may be navigating your child accessing an electronic device, online gaming, group chats, social media, your child having access to a phone for the first time now or you know that it is coming.

You may think that you will have to 'deal' with this in the later years of primary school or even high school, but our young people need our support now. Your child may click on a 'pop-up' when playing an age-appropriate game on a device, your child might be at a friend’s house who has older siblings that 'posts' online or your child may have a friend who has access to a device and joins a group chat.

The importance of knowing how we can best guide our young people online will help support us as parents and educators when we will have to 'deal' with it.

We highly encourage you to consider making the most of this wonderful opportunity to hear from one of the very best Cyber safety presenters in Australia.

Please see the flyer at the end of the newsletter for further information and to make a booking.

Interoception

Our Pastoral Care Worker, Tegan Jolly, has been working with some students across the school on developing interoception skills. Let’s hear more from Tegan about interoception.

What is interoception?

Interoception is an internal sensory skill where the internal physical and emotional states of the body are noticed, recognised, identified and responded to.

What does that mean?

Inside our brain we learn things about our body and remember them. Sometimes we feel things physically which could be with our hands and feet, or it could be inside our body, our hearts and lungs. And sometimes we feel emotions that can be big or small.  

When we learn interoception we learn to notice (or recognise) that our body is feeling something, we identify what it is and where we feel it, and then we respond (or react) to it. 

Why is it important?

Interoception can:

• Help us understand our body.
• Teach us strategies to calm down.
• Help us to understand and regulate our emotions and body feelings.
• Help us to learn to respond to our physical and emotional feelings in a safe way.

Have a go yourself! 

Breathing Exercise

1. Close your eyes ...
2. Take a big breath in ... 
3. Hold it in for three  seconds … 1    2    3 
4. Breathe out for three seconds … 1    2    3    
5. Repeat three times ...

What do you notice?   Do you feel relaxed? Does your body feel calm? Is your heart rate slow?

Jane Angove, Student Wellbeing Leader (Acting)

Global citizens at LPPS

As an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme school, Linden Park embraces the philosophy of ‘international mindedness’ and ‘global citizenship’. Developing global citizens through the implementation of the learner profile and developing transdisciplinary units of inquiry is essential to the success of the program. Our aim is that intercultural understanding and international mindedness is a part of every child’s learning across all year levels.

To develop a whole-school focus on building intercultural capacity and understanding, LPPS has participated as a lead school in the ‘Internationalising Schools Grant Program’ since 2021.

Our goal was to delve deeply into the curriculum, giving careful consideration of the scope and sequence of the curriculum to include the development of intercultural capability across all units of learning and our program of inquiry.

Teachers and students worked together to map experiences and skills that promoted growing global citizens. Our Inquiry Ambassadors played a key role in this process. The Inquiry leaders worked in pairs to collaborate and brainstorm their own learning ideas around how to include culture in the units of inquiry, encouraging student agency in developing learning. These ideas were then added to the finalised Year 6 scope and sequence documents.

Nicole Scrivener, Deputy Principal Innovation & Learning

Green Canopy Project: Early Years

Dear LPPS Community,

Governing Council are very excited to begin work on the Green Canopy Project in the early years playground.   The Canopy Project improves our shared environment by planting trees across the globe. Since 2010, Earthday.org has planted tens of millions of trees with The Canopy Project, working worldwide to strengthen communities, working with global partners to reforest areas in dire need of rehabilitation, including areas with some of the world’s communities most at-risk from climate change and environmental degradation.

The Green Canopy Project will bring our school community together to create, improve and care for green spaces that form a vital part of any healthy, happy community, working together to improve physical health and wellbeing.  

We are calling out to our LPPS community for volunteers who can kindly offer their expertise or experience in the area of landscaping, horticulture or similar to bring this project to life.  If you would like to help, please email dl:0647.info@schools.sa.edu.au 

Thank you, Governing Council 2023

Interschool Debating: Debating SA

Over the course of the term, our Linden Park Primary debating teams had their first and second round of debates at Pulteney Grammar. Linden Park Primary has a total of nine teams competing in South Australia’s Premier Schools’ Debating Competition. The Schools’ Competition is an inter-school debating competition held each year from May to September. Each school team that enters, debates approximately every three weeks at Pulteney Grammar School on a Tuesday evening. Topics for debates are challenging and contemporary.

We have 54 students representing Linden Park Primary School across Years  5 & 6. Students have been attending weekly training and practice sessions since the mid-point of Term 1. Students receive their topics and have three weeks to prepare their arguments. Teams are either arguing for the affirmative position or the negative position.

The topics for the debates have been:

Year 5

• That cats are better than dogs;
• That trampolines for children are a good idea.

Year 6

• That schools should ban mullets;
• That schools should have a dog to reduce stress in the classroom.

Linden Park Primary School achieved some great results throughout the first two rounds of 2023, with some students taking out individual awards for ‘Debater of the Night’. We look forward to their continued growth for the remainder of Terms 2 and 3.

Harry Slee, Debating Coordinator

South Australian Schools Orienteering Championships

On Monday, 29 May Linden Park Primary had 21 students represent the school at the South Australian Schools Orienteering Championships. The students arrived bright and early and travelled by bus to Bonython Park for the Championships. Students had to navigate their way through the Parklands course, competing against other pupils from different primary schools in their age group. By far the biggest opponent on the day was the weather, with cold, wet and muddy conditions greeting all of the students.

Everyone completed the trail in impressive times, challenging themselves and representing Linden Park Primary proudly under some really challenging circumstances. The Linden Park PS team finished an impressive 2^nd overall on the day with a number of great performances. A huge congratulations to Cindy C, Harrison B, Leah F who all placed in the top 3 of their age group races. I would like to extend huge thanks to staff member, Mel Fuller who provided some expert tips and guidance for all of the students before their races.

Geoff Mills, PE Teacher

Years 4-6 School Sport SA Cross Country

On Friday, 26 June, 20 students represented Linden Park Primary School and attended the Adelaide South East District Cross Country carnival at Kensington Oval. Battling the cool and wet weather, the students put in a tremendous effort in their events and supported one another throughout the course of the afternoon. The cross-country course includes running up and down small hills and crossing a dry creek bed. Students participate either in a 2km race (2 laps) or in a 3km race (3 laps). We had some terrific results with students getting personal bests and pleasantly surprising themselves with the times they ran.

A special mention and congratulations to Thomas D (11 YR Boys) who came 2^nd in his 2km race and Lara T (10 YR Girls) who came 8^th in her event.

A big thank you to our parent volunteers for transporting their children and assisting throughout the event. As the carnival fell on a Linden Park Primary Pupil Free Day, the support of the parents was pivotal in the smooth running of the afternoon. Sports excursions would not be able to go ahead without the support of our parent volunteers, the school really appreciates it.

Harry Slee, Sports Coordinator

Year 4: Science Sustainability incursion

As part of our Inquiry into ‘Sharing the Planet' and the central idea 'There are many challenges in responsibly sharing earth’s resources' SciWorld visited our school on Tuesday, 30 May, running a 50 minute workshop.   During the workshop, students learnt about renewable energy (solar and wind), investigated energy conservation as well as environmental issues such as water usage.    With hands on activities and thought provoking questions and students investigated the future of renewable energy. 

Year 3: Animals Anonymous Incursion

The Year 3 students this week experienced The Animals Anonymous incursion.  This incursion was the provocation for our upcoming unit, 'Sharing the Planet'. We met a range of Australian animals; some super cute and some a little scary, even though it was nerving for some, we all tried to be risk takers and touched the animals, we even held the bit carpet python!  One of our favourites was Rocky the parrot and Rover the python!

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Reception: Cleland Wildlife Park

As part of the Reception’s Unit of Inquiry 'Sharing the planet' our Reception classes visited Cleland Wildlife Park to explore the diversity of Australian native animals and some of the animal groups they belong to.   The key messages in this learning experience were:-

• Animals have a variety of external features
• Animals can be classified into different groups according to their features
• Movement of living things depends on their size and shape
• Animals are supported by natural environments
• Animals possess particular features to help them meet their needs for survival
• Native animals live in a wide range of habitats
• You can care for the environments that support our animals

Home Languages Matter survey - 2023

Reminder to please complete the 'Home Languages Matter Survey 2023' link emailed to you recently. 

If you have any queries, please email dl.0647.info@schools.sa.edu.au 

Parent Forum

Monday,  19 June 2023

Parents and carers of children and young people with disability are invited to a parent forum where you will have the opportunity to hear about The Department for Education’s Special Options processes and supporting young people to manage transition changes.

 ** Lunch/refreshments provided **

For more information got to http://web.seru.sa.edu.au/parent-forum/

• WHEN: Monday,  19 June 2023
• TIME: 9.45am - 2.15pm
• WHERE: Special Education Resource Unit (SERU) - enter via Northey Street 
• ADDRESS:  72A Marlborough Street, Henley Beach SA 5022
• PHONE:  8235 2871

Please enter via Northey Street 

Contact:    Education.ParentForum@sa.gov.au if you have any questions 

Lunch/refreshments provided

Register via:  Parent Forum 19 June 2023 Registration, Mon 19/06/2023 at 9:30 am | Eventbrite

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