10 February 2023: Term 1 - Week 2

Principal's report

Welcome to the 2023 school year; Chinese Year of the Rabbit, a year of ‘hope and change’ .

In particular, I would like to welcome all those families and children who have started their learning journey at Linden Park Primary School for the first time. I am again amazed at the independence of our Reception students as they bravely farewell their parents and form new relationships and routines with classmates and staff.

  Room 9 Receptions lining up on day 2 

The children have quickly developed their learning and classroom routines, excitedly forming new friendships and positive dispositions towards their new classes and teachers.   

Communication

We are grateful to be able to start the year by welcoming family’s onsite and sharing information face to face rather than remotely.  Acquaintance Evening are scheduled for Week 3, starting 13 February 2023.  We will retain some of our learnings from the past three years and have asked staff to use Seesaw as the main communication between families and class teachers, (responsive to the parent survey 2022). Administrative information and permissions are shared via Szapp through the front office.

Volunteers

Linden Park Primary School prides itself on the exciting excursions and incursions that are designed to provoke wonderings and curiousity leading into our PYP Units of Inquiry. Class teachers are able to organise these experiences with parental (volunteer support). This extends to our swimming programs, sports and whole school events where we value and rely on the support of families to keep the cost of these events as low as possible.

We really appreciate when we can involve a range of different cultures and languages as part of our programs, with the key requirements for joining our classes; the Working with Children Check (WWCC) and RRHAN-EC training. The RRHAN-EC training (RRHAN-EC training) and WWCC can be accessed online or by contacting the front office. If there is enough interest, I am happy to organise a group training session.

Many teachers are sending out invitation to parents to help inside classrooms with reading and learning support; again your time is appreciated.   For this support only the RRHAN-EC training is a requirement.

Fiona Voigt, Principal

Governing Council 2023

Dear Parents/Caregivers

An election is to be conducted for parent members of the Linden Park Primary School Governing Council Inc. Being part of the Governing Council is a wonderful opportunity to work with the Leaders of our School and to make meaningful impacts for the children and broader School community.

Successful candidates are required to attend Governing Council Meetings and to join and work on one of our committees – which equates to approximately three  - four meetings per term and some commitment to progress committee initiatives.  Full details of our committees can be found on the School’s website.

A Nomination form is available on the link below and must be lodged at the front office by 3:00pm on Tuesday, 21 February.

The ballot will be conducted at the Annual General Meeting to be held on Monday, 27 February 2023 @ 7:00pm. Following the closing of nominations a list of the nominations received will be posted at the school. There are currently seven vacancies for elected parents members of the Council. The term of office is for a two year period.

Nominees may be required to present at the AGM in support of their nomination.

If the number of nominations is less than the number of vacancies, a notice to that effect and calling for further nominations will be posted in a prominent position at the school. 

If at the time of the ballot there are more nominees than vacancies then a contested election will be conducted at the AGM.  All eligible nominees will be listed on a ballot form. 

Any nominee wishing to appoint a scrutineer to be present at the counting of the ballot must advise the returning Officer of their nominated scrutineer by 3:00pm on Tuesday, 21 February in writing to the school.

Please note:  Any additional information or questions in relation to this process should be directed to the principal as returning officer to address.

No campaign literature supporting candidates or groups of candidates may be distributed or posted in the school and no school resources whether human or material may be used to support particular candidates or groups of candidates.

Staffing news

We are fortunate to have seven new staff members join our dedicated team at Linden Park Primary School.

Please welcome:    

• Brooke Stevens (Teacher)
• Petrea Smith (Teacher)
• Melissa Montgomerie (EALD)
• Jo Casey (EALD)
• Tash Hrstich (SSO Front Office - Admin)
• Christina Sapio (SSO Library)
• Jess Martyn (SSO Classroom)  

Welcome to the Library

Happy 2023 everyone.   Welcome to our school library. Our school library is named the “Margaret Gately Library”. For those who are not aware, Margaret Gately was the librarian at Linden Park School from 1961 to 1976 and was honoured in 2010 by having (the newly built) school library named after her.

The Library is open for students each day from 8:35am to 3:25pm. Families and students are welcome to visit, browse, borrow or read before school or after school. It’s a great way to connect with other students and their families as well as starting the day on a calm and positive note.

Apart from the student’s weekly borrowing time with their classroom teacher, the students may also borrow books before, after school and at lunchtimes.

This year sees a few staff changes in the library. The library team for 2023 consists of myself Russell Hanson (Teacher Librarian); Christina Sapio (Library Technician & School Support Officer) and Caroline Regan (School Support Officer).     We look forward to a book filled year!

Russell Hanson, LPPS Teacher Librarian

SEEK Week: 2023

Social Emotional Education and Kindness WEEK

What an amazing way to start the school year!

SEEK Week this year was a huge success. For our new families to the school, SEEK Week is run during Week 1 of the school year. During SEEK Week all the educators on site are committed to using this week to;

• Spend time getting to know the students on a personal level. Listening to their stories about family, interests, strengths and hobbies.
• Supporting students establish friendships with their new peers.
• Present activities that support students develop a strong use of emotional language, a stronger sense of their own learning styles, how to collaborate and work with other students in their class, and how to regulate their emotions.

Feedback gathered from students towards the end of 2022, indicated that they wanted to get to know the other teachers better who work in the same year level. For the first time, all students rotated classrooms and the different teachers, in the same year level, ran workshops about social and emotional learning. By doing this we hope that all students at Linden Park will continue to develop strong relationships and can approach a range of teachers at our school if needs be.

Sadly our whole school picnic to end SEEK Week was cancelled due to poor weather but we hope to re-schedule it.  All students will be having a picnic lunch on the school grounds with their buddy classes. Spending time with buddy classes was another area that students asked us to increase throughout this year.

Please have a look at our photo display of the many activities and aspects of SEEK Week 2023.

Student Wellbeing Leaders

Rachel Pontifex (Student Wellbeing Leader)

Greenhill South Partnership Student Leadership Conference

On Thursday, 9 February the Student Wellbeing Leaders proudly hosted five other schools from our partnership for the first Student Leadership Conference.

The Wellbeing Teacher Leaders from the partnership schools, in collaboration with the Wellbeing Student Leaders, have been organising this conference over the last nine months.

The purpose of this conference was to discuss what it means to be a Leader.

During the morning session, Active Ed came and worked with us, teaching us skills or working together to achieve goals. The middle session was led by Highgate Primary School sharing with us the work they do with their students on Interoception exercises (calming our bodies ready for learning). During this session, Henry Nicholson from LPPS gave us an inspiring and heartfelt talk about his experiences of developing his own values and leadership through experiences of being on Australian Survivor and teaching in Tanzania. The final session was led by Linden Park. Each school analysed their state wide Wellbeing data (WEC data) and wrote action plans, filled with strategies that each school group will start embedding at their own sites.

We hope to meet again in Term 3 to talk about the success of our action plans. It was a wonderful day where friendships were formed and our year 6 Student Wellbeing Leaders truly demonstrated agency with their own learning and the teaching that happens at our school.

LPPS Student Wellbeing Leaders

Korean student teacher visit

Linden Park Primary School values our connection with International Education Services. In the past we have hosted International Study Tours, International teacher exchanges and International teacher training programs.  We believe that by welcoming people to our school from all around the world, we are encouraging our students to become active, compassionate, lifelong learners and global citizens, who understand difference and value diversity.

This year we are excited that we welcome back international trainee teacher training programs. 6 trainee teachers from Cheongju National University of Education (CNUE) are visiting our school from Monday,  6 February to Friday, 17 February.  Over the two week period they will be  shadowing teachers and learning the philosophy of the PYP used in our classrooms. They will participate in a variety of information workshops with a focus on PYP, wellbeing, literacy and numeracy. This experience will provide them with the opportunity to deliver their own lessons about Korean culture.

The President of CNUE also visited Linden Park Primary to meet our Principal, Fiona and have a tour around the school.   Thank you to our ambassadors Tinaya and Harshitha, who lead the tour with our guests. 

Nicole Scrivener,  Deputy Principal

Sports news

Tennis:  Metro vs Country State Hotshots Final at Adelaide International

On Friday, 13 January, Linden Park Primary’s Year ¾ Hot Shot Tennis team competed at the Metro vs Country State Final at the Adelaide International held at the Memorial Drive Tennis Club.

It was a very warm day with the forecast predicted to go past 38 degrees so the start time had to be changed from 1:00pm to a 9:00am start.  It was a rematch of the Metro Final between Prince Alfred College and Linden Park Primary, with the winning team moving into the grand final against either Maitland Lutheran School or St Joseph’s Clare.

It was very tight contested match against PAC, with both teams playing some great tennis. It was neck and neck in each match. At the end of the 20 minutes, it was all tied up at 4 games each. Which meant there needed to be a count back on points. Linden Park were just narrowly ahead on points and progressed to the grand final.

Our opponents for the big match were St Joseph’s School Clare who beat Maitland Lutheran School in their qualifying match. Linden Park performed extremely well, working terrifically in their doubles pairings and making it difficult for St Joseph’s Clare to get any momentum. Linden Park Primary’s class continued to show and the team came away comfortable winners.

To go along with the Metro Championship in early December, Linden Park Primary School were also crowned Tennis SA Hotshot State Champions. A wonderful achievement for a great bunch of students who always played the game in the right spirits. A big thank you to the parents for their support and a huge shout out to Jeremy X, Danny G, Chuyi P, Elaine W, Oliver D, Lucas S, Ken B, Nicholas N and Aayan K for their fantastic efforts.

Tennis SA will be attending an assembly in Term 1 to present the State Championship to the team in the coming weeks.

Harry Slee, Sports Coordinator

Australian Junior Chess Championship

National Champion U10 Division

Cindy and Charlotte C attended the 2023 Australia Junior Chess Championship held in Melbourne during the school holidays. This is the first time they participated in a national competition. For three consecutive days and eight rounds of games, Charlotte finished in 4th place in the U10 Girls division.   What a fantastic achievement for Charlotte!

Cindy played outstandingly as well and won the National Championship in the same division! In the past twelve years this trophy has not been won by a student in South Australia, Cindy is very happy to be able to bring the trophy back to SA for the first time in the recent decade.

Great work to both Charlotte and Cindy on this tremendous result.

Harry Slee, Sports Coordinator

School snap shot - Room 25

Room 25 has kicked off Term 1 inquiring into Who We are by reflecting on what makes them unique, how they learn best and discussing what we want the classroom to feel, look and sound like to collaboratively come up with our Essential Agreements.

In this photo we were in the midst of learning about Processes, Participants and Circumstances. 

Lesley Kong, Teacher

Year 5 Incursion

Introduction to Portraiture Art Incursion

As part of our Unit of Inquiry “How we Express Ourselves” and the Australian Visual Arts curriculum, the Year 5 students attended a two hour “Introduction to Portraiture” workshop on 8 and 9 February. 

A trained facilitator from the South Australian Art Gallery guided the students through a series of drawings exploring facial features, mark making, proportion and tone before beginning a final portrait. 

Prev

Showing images 1 - 8 of 11

Next

Room 2 - Chinese New Year

Room 2 have been learning about Chinese New Year.   We have experts in our class that have helped us answer questions.  We also investigated tangrams and made some magnificent lanterns.

 Annie Christie / Liz Dawkins, Teachers 

Reconciliation Action Plan

We need you……

Linden Park Primary School would like to invite you to join our Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group. We are looking for members of the community to establish a diverse working group that ensures the responsibility of implementing reconciliation.

What is a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)?

The Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) program provides a framework for organisations to support the national reconciliation movement. Schools and early learning services can develop a RAP through Narragunnawali.-Reconciliation in Education. Narragunnawali supports all schools and early learning services in Australia to foster a higher level of knowledge and pride in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and contributions.

RAPs are making a difference across Australia in workplaces, universities, schools, government and community organisations.

The RAP framework enables organisations to contribute to reconciliation by:

• building and encouraging relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, communities, organisations, and the broader Australian community
• fostering and embedding respect for the world’s longest surviving cultures and communities.
• develop opportunities within your organisation or services to improve socio-economic outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities.

Anyone can join our RAP working group. If you are interested, please email Nicole Scrivener with your interest at Nicole.scrivener83@schools.sa.edu.au.

We will then organise a day and time to have our first meeting. Reconciliation is everyone’s business. We hope to hear from you soon.

Nicole Scrivener,  Deputy Principal

School photos- 20 & 21 February

Our School photos are booked for Monday,  20 February & Tuesday, 21 February (a class and sibling schedule is currently being prepared and we will advise via SZapp closer to the date.)

We ask that all students please wear full school uniform on both days.

All orders must be placed online before the day of photography. 

PLEASE NOTE: All Online sibling orders close midnight on 19/02/2023

HOW TO ORDER: 

1. Go to www.advancedlife.com.au and enter this code: YFQ 42Y L6C

2. Payment can be made using Visa, Mastercard, PayPal or Latitude Pay

School payments

The annual Materials & Services charge and Excursions cost must be paid prior to 31 March 2023 unless you have been approved for a Payment Plan or School Card Application.

Tax deductable donations can be made to our Building Fund $60 or our Library Fund $80 via Qkr.

Our preferred method of payment is via the Qkr phone App or click here for the Qkr Website

Payment may also be made in the front office by cash or credit card.

APPLYING FOR SCHOOL CARD

School Card Applications are now ONLINE:

1. School Card must be applied for annually, please click here for website link.
2. Select the type of School Card you would like to apply for (for example ‘Type A’) and follow the prompts.
3. Complete all mandatory fields.
4. Once you have completed a page click on the ‘NEXT’ button.
5. Once you have filled out all pages click the ‘SUBMIT’ button.

Please note: if you exit the form without clicking ‘SUBMIT’ your details will be lost.

 PLEASE NOTE:

If you are ‘Eligible’ for School Card this covers Material & Service Fees ONLY and Excursion Fee of $150 is still required

Payment Plans can be applied for by emailing dl.0647.finance@schools.sa.edu.au

No payments are to be made via the school bank account.

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

Sue Gaden, Finance Manager 

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.

Community notices