Dear Parents and Carers,

Hope you enjoyed the long weekend which was to celebrate WA Day.  I know many parents and students attended sporting events or carnivals in Bunbury and Perth.  Students playing a team sport takes a lot of family time and commitment by parents but has huge advantages.

Team sports provide children with an opportunity to interact with peers and develop social skills. They learn how to communicate effectively and resolve conflicts.  Playing team sports has been shown to have positive effects on mental health. Children who participate in team sports have lower stress and anxiety levels and are less likely to experience depression.

Children develop a sense of accomplishment and pride in their abilities. Winning or losing as a team helps build self-esteem and resilience. Team sports allow children to learn leadership skills and how to work with others to achieve a common goal.  

Overall, participating in team sports is an excellent way for children to develop social, physical, and mental skills that will benefit them throughout their lives.

Thank you to those students who participated in the WA Day colouring competition.  We received a large number of entries so Mrs Bassett and I will be very busy admiring them and trying to decide the class winners.  These will be announced in the next couple of weeks.

Well done to all of our factions for reaching over 1500 points each! As a celebration for reaching this milestone our students were rewarded with an extra 15 minutes of play time at recess today. Keep up the great work everyone!

Just a reminder that next Friday 13 June, we are having our Faction cross country carnival, good luck to everyone attending, we hope you give it your best. I'm sure you will all show great sportsmanship to your fellow classmates.

Have a great weekend.

Mr Martin

Principal

National Reconciliation Week (NRW) is intended to celebrate Indigenous history and culture in Australia and foster reconciliation discussion and activities. Little Grove had a week full of learning activities surrounding reconciliation. Below is just another example of what we have learnt.

Have you had a look at our reconciliation tree? It’s in our junior prac space, and its looking glorious! Students were asked to write about what reconciliation means to them, put it on a leaf and add it to our tree. What a wonderfully creative way to reflect on our learning. Everyone is more than welcome to pop on by and have a look at the gorgeous tree!

A number of children from Little Grove have entered the Threatened Species Artwork Exhibition Competition. We would love it if families were to attend the sundowner to view the artworks on display on Friday June 13. It sounds like it will be fun evening and promotes environmental issues which the children are aware of and it would be excellent to see the children participate in more out of school learning about this.

More information can be found on the City of Albany website. The event is free. I hope to see you there!

Mrs Lilly

Threatened Species Evening and Art Exhibition—Friday 13th June 2025a celebration of creativity and conservation.

This special sundowner event will feature:

Pop in to look at the artworks or join us for the whole evening! The choice is yours!

This event is part of the Targeted Action for Highly Threatened Species in the South Coast Region project, aiming to raise awareness for our amazing threatened species. The event is supported by the Australian Government Natural Heritage Trust and South Coast NRM, a member of the Regional Delivery Partners Panel.

In the book and stage show Josephine Wants to Dance by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley, the main lesson is:

Follow your dreams and believe in yourself, even if others doubt you.

Josephine, a kangaroo, dreams of becoming a ballet dancer—even though others think it's silly because she's not "meant" to dance. But she doesn't give up, and in the end, she proves that anyone can achieve their dreams with passion and determination.

We all really enjoyed the show. Have a read of what some of Room 3’s star writers thought about the show…

We went to the Entertainment Centre, and we watched and watched. I nearly started to sleep! We watched Josephine Wants to Dance. There was lots of people. I felt good because I like kangaroos.            Griffyn

Today we went on an excursion to the Albany Entertainment Centre to watch Josephine Wants to Dance. First, we went on a bus and then we got off and went to the seats. I sat next to Luca and Ben. Then it started. First, we saw the kangaroos. Then Josephine started dancing. After that her brother can out and said you can’t dance’. But Josephine didn’t care so she kept on dancing. I liked the start the best.    Patrick

On Thursday Yongarup block went to the Entertainment Centre to watch Josephine wants to Dance. My favourite part was when the joey had a cap on its head. I liked his rap song. I thought there was a lot of people in the show but there were only four performers.          Leo

Today we went to the AEC to see Josephine wants to Dance. Joey the kangaroo kept saying ‘Josephine Kangaroo, don’t dance’. But she kept doing it anyway. Luca

Today Room 1,2,3, and Centre 2 in Yongarup went to watch Josephine wants to Dance. It took a while to start and then the lights finally went out and it was dark. One of the kangaroos did a rap some two times and it was cool.      Kobe

What else has been happening in Room 3

This term we have been busily working in pairs for our morning reading fluency. This is how we start our day and find that it's an exciting warm up for our morning. We have been setting personal goals in achieving higher word counts during this experience, along with commending our partners on their reading skills. Our weekly stories have a narrative focus and include our focus vocabulary for the week.  Our weekly reading passages come home at the end of each week.

Our Talk 4 Writing story is titled " The Desert Witch". We have been learning the key connectives to the story and highlighting important vocabulary within the text to help support students with adding extra detail within their pieces of writing. 

For Health we have been reviewing the importance of what a good friend looks like, sounds like and feels like. We have created our very own "warm and fuzzies" which are located on our back wall. The key messages of these personal envelopes is for students to be able to recognise when someone is demonstrating any of those behaviours and to then let their friend know by writing them a short warm and fuzzy message that is delivered into their envelope!

This term, we have also been using some exciting Top Ten Maths lessons. Together, with our teachers, we have been engaging "fish-bowl" methods to help hook and engage our students in new mathematic concepts. After these exciting experiences, students are required to find their "Maths Mate" in which they will work with for the remainder of the lesson. These lessons are hands on, collaborative and exciting. Ask your child who their maths mate is and what our fish-bowl term involves! See our photos for a greater insight into how it looks in the classroom. Our focuses for Numeracy this term have been Addition, Money and Subtraction.

Our Reconciliation Week was a huge success. We were very fortunate to have Aunty Eliza in our classroom to visit and share her valuable life stories with all of us. Our students learnt about where she was born and what her life looked like when she was their age. It was a very special experience for all students and one that captures their insights into the past. Together we designed our very own rag dolls, emphasis that toys don't have to cost a lot of money!

We have enjoyed transforming into resource rangers for science and collecting data around the school to determine if we are reducing the use of power, saving water, protecting the flora and fauna and recycling.  This week in science we will be collating our data and designing some small group goals on how we can show greater awareness for our classroom and wider school environment.

Our signs of the week are morning and afternoon. These signs are used daily at school in greetings and to describe times.

This week Room 4, 7 and 8 were lucky enough to have a day of Bike Ed. This program is fully funded through the Department of Transport’s Your Move: Connecting Schools Grant.
The sessions aim to teach students essential bike safety skills, road rules, and build confidence when riding. Led by qualified instructors, this fun and active learning experience will help students become safe and responsible cyclists. Ted and Jaimy put our students through their paces and what a wonderful time was had. Learning how to ride safely and correctly. Next week Tuesday, they return for another day of Bike Ed, and we can’t wait to hear more from our students on their thoughts of the lessons.

Please remember to bring your bikes on Tuesday 10th June for another fun day of Bike education rooms 7,8 and 4.

Once again, our little runners will be taking to the track for our 2025 Faction Cross country carnival! Our school Faction Cross Country Carnival will take place on Friday, 13th June. Students in Pre-Primary to Year 6 have been training hard and we’re looking forward to a great day of fun, fitness, and friendly competition!

Following this, the Interschool Cross Country is scheduled for Friday, 20th June. This year’s event is a special trial involving both public and private schools in the Albany region. A total of 13 schools will be competing.

The interschool event will be held at Centennial Park: Eastern Precinct (near the Junior Football Club rooms and oval). We encourage families to come along and support our athletes!

Students in Years 3–6 will be selected based on their in-class times as well as their performance during the carnival. Five students from each year level and gender will be chosen to represent Little Grove Primary School at the Interschool Cross Country Carnival.

Come and join us this Friday after the cross-country carnival. Our P&C will be cooking away at the skate park and ready to fill those hungry bellies after the carnival. Bring some cash and taste the delicious cupcakes and treats our ladies have made. This will be going towards our fundraising for the year, all the support is sincerely appreciated.

Lunch orders continue, please keep in mind that this is organised by a very small group of volunteers, please take into consideration helping with these lunches, in order for us to continue to provide this service. If you have a spare hour or two to help collect and distribute the lunches through the canteen, please place your name on our volunteer roster https://volunteersignup.org/EH7XW

If you haven't helped with lunches before, we have a really awesome guide to help you or we can have one of our wonderful P&C ladies come and show you the ropes. Please make sure orders are placed by 12pm TUESDAY via www.quickcliq.com.au. Please send us a message or email at [email protected] if you want to know more.

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