Sawubona

I am not sure whether I should celebrate that as of yesterday, there were 100 days until Christmas Day! I have looked over the calendar for Term 4 and wow… hang on!

We start the term with the Mt Pleasant Art Exhibition, to be held at the newly opened Community Centre. The exhibition opens on Saturday 15th at 6PM (pre-purchase tickets online for this here). This is an excellent opportunity to view the guest artists work in a relaxed atmosphere. The evening culminates with an auction of donated artworks. The event continues on the Sunday from 10:00AM. One of the highlights of this day is the artwork students create as part of this exhibition. Classes have been working hard to complete this work and this is always a highlight for both parents and wider community members. I have seen some of the work being prepared, and it is amazing!  

One of the regular enquiries I get from parents is regarding families going on a holiday in term-time and what procedures to follow. Firstly, schools are required to maintain attendance records under the Education Act and to monitor attendance of all students. We track this through our school management system and each time a child is away, we log this against a code that explains their reason for the absence. Therefore, it is important that you notify the office and the class teacher to ensure they are aware of the absence and the reason. Our belief is that there are huge opportunities to learn about the world at large during a holiday and therefore it is important to know that we do not provide work or resources during these absences. If you talk with the teacher they will give you some ideas of the things you can do while away. A Google search will also bring up hundreds of ideas.

A reminder on road behaviour. We have had several parents performing u-turns out of the parking bays or parking on the broken yellow lines. Just don’t do it. It blocks the vision of the people on patrol and is placing the staff, students and parents at risk.

Finally, we would like to thank our community for supporting us over this term with the early finishes. We have used these to continue our development of the IB Primary Years Programme and they have been highly beneficial. We have submitted and had our Application for Authorisation accepted. This means the IB team will visit on the 1st & 2nd November. This visit is to verify the documentation we have submitted, and to visit classrooms to give us feedback on our progress in implementing the programme. We look forward to sharing the outcome of this visit.

Hamba Kahle