Hi Parents and Carers,

Wow, halfway through the term.  Time flies when you are learning.

Next week we start Naplan testing for Year 3 and 5 students.  As previously communicated, here is the schedule of testing:

Looking forward to seeing our students trying hard and having a go.

Play First.

Next week we are trialling to the end of term, Play First for our Year 1 to 6 students.  This means students at morning recess and lunch breaks will play first then eat.  This has been successfully implemented in lots of WA schools and has shown the following benefits:

Morning Recess is from 10:40-11:00am. This will be structured as follows: 

10:40 – 10:50 am (Free play)
10:50 – 11:00 am (The music plays, and everyone returns to the quadrangle to eat their recess)

Lunch Break will be from 12:30-1:20. This will be structured as follows:

12:30 – 1:00 pm (Free play)
1:00 – 1:20 pm (The music plays, and everyone returns to the quadrangle to eat their lunch)  

At any stage, any student may eat if they choose instead of playing. The critical point is that all students must come and sit together at the end of each session before returning to class. P&C Canteen orders will remain the same on Wednesdays except Yr 1 to 6 students will eat at 1pm.

Kindergarten and Pre-primary students will remain with the traditional eating then playing in their separate Early Childhood playground due to their age.

At the end of the term, we will gather feedback on this trial and any modifications that need to happen for it to continue.

Please see this link to read about the successes this concept has achieved in other schools.

https://thewest.com.au/opinion/editorial-wa-schools-reverse-lunch-concept-is-making-a-huge-difference-c-11407040

Have a great weekend.

Thanks

DARRYN MARTIN

Principal

In previous weeks we shared a little about our approach around our students' wellbeing needs. That is something really important to us as we do our best to cater to their needs; all students are unique and currently almost 10% of our students receive system funding for disability, and 34% of our students have a form of recognised disability (around 24% of whom do not qualify for system funding). This is why we spend a lot of time resourcing (through staffing, time, PL & expenditure on equipment and space). But also, is why we are taking a Universal Design approach where we put in place practices that are designed to eliminate barriers to learning and thriving for everyone. Of course, this is a journey and it will take us time to both embed that approach and make sure that what we do is evidence-based and practical; it's better to get it right through being considered, than to go ahead and potentially create chaos.

Alongside all of this though, curriculum is still a bedrock of what we do at LGPS and we continue to focus on excellence. This year we continue to refine our whole school programs and practices to reflect our students' needs. This year we are reviewing and refreshing:

*our STEAM approach (Science, Technologies, Engineering, Arts & Maths) which includes planning for a whole school Marine Science approach from K-6 from 2026

*our Maths teaching (refreshing our skills in a hands-on and explicit teaching approach)

*our early years' literacy by including a new phonemic awareness program from Years K-1 

*using new software that quickly and easily helps teachers identify gaps in their students' learning so they can spend more time preparing quality learning experiences and less time analysing data

We are embedding approaches we trialled last year including:

*Best practice numeracy & literacy interventions

*A new program for engaging writing in our senior years

With the help of our school Teams (that all of our staff contribute to), new Level 2 Senior Teachers who have chosen areas of responsibility and the development of our in-school coaching model, we are lucky to have the personnel with the skill and will to help LGPS continue to deliver excellence in education.

This week we had our first Student Parliament sitting, where representatives from every classroom from PP-6 joined the Year 6 Leadership Team to engage in decision making.

This term the two decisions the group made on behalf of their peers involved; deciding on our Groovy Grover Acknowledgements for the year and coming up with ideas to make our Outdoor Prac spaces an engaging place to be when they have to come to school early.

The ideas our students decided on for our GG Acknowledgements are:

15 minutes of extra play for every time we reach 1500, 3000, 4500 & 6000 points.

750 points: Icy poles!

2250 points: Sports Afternoon

3750: Movie, Pizza, popcorn & softies 

5250: Teddy Bears' picnic on the oval with board games and school community

It was very exciting to see our younger members of our school joining in and taking on a leadership role today. They actually contributed the ideas that ended up being chosen as our whole school reward sessions!

We look forward to continuing to run our Student Parliament in this way, mid-term every term to focus on gathering student voice and providing more leadership opportunities throughout all of our year groups.

Nights of Reading: there has been some confusion about what kind of reading can be entered into students' Reading Logs, but we can confirm that any reading can be entered. We look forward to handing out the first 50 Nights of Reading stickers at Muster sometime soon!  The purpose of our Reading Log is to acknowledge students engaging with their home readers, but also to help foster a love of reading as a lifelong habit that our students enjoy and keep with them for the rest of their lives. So please do allow your children to read material that is of interest to them; whether that be a traditional book or something else like a graphic novel or any other modes of text that young people enjoy reading these days!

As of week 6, we will be opening the library during lunch everyday! This is an opportunity for the students to read, draw, make origami and generally relax in our beautiful library. We will not be accessing the computers during lunch breaks, but instead spend time engaging with each other and books! 

We have had a couple of origami sessions already with Mrs Lilly who is developing her folding skills too! If there is an origami master who would like to spend some time with us, please let us know! 

We look forward to making lunch time even more enjoyable for our school community! 

In 2025, LGPS will once again partner with UWA through their Children’s University Program. Last week, we had the pleasure of welcoming Natalie Jarvis, who coordinates the program for the Great Southern region. She provided the students with an overview of the program and explained how they can accumulate hours to "graduate" at the end of the year. 

Registration forms have been distributed to the students. While the original registration deadline was set for March 7, 2025, it can be extended for any students who still wish to sign up. 

For more information about the program, you can visit their website at: Children's University : The University of Western Australia  

Alternatively, you can contact Chappy at: [email protected]. 

To register, please complete the following forms: 

Come and join us for a sausage sizzle when you come to vote! What better way to spend your day voting than having a catch up with parents and enjoying some yummy treats! We can’t wait to see you there.

Please if you have time, could we ask for parents to help with donations towards our cake stall. Drop off can be made on the day before 8:30am, thank you.

Did you know we are holding a movie night??? Come and join us on the 21 March, for a night of fun entertainment.

Scan the link below to order your tickets, it’s going to be a great night!

I have attached our Calendars from compass below of term 1 and 2, these are so handy for keeping up to date with upcoming events. Please check in at the calendar on compass for the most up to date items, as these ones posted may change and the dates on the live Calendar in Compass will be the correct ones at any given time.

Here are the dates for term 3 and 4

For further events or detailed information about upcoming events, please view the schools event calendar on Compass.