3 March 2023

Newsletter Articles

Dates to Remember

2023

From the Principal

I’m so pleased in the way our students have quickly adjusted to our school routines and positive learning behaviours. Each of our class teachers have been working with students to develop class expectations and strategies to assist student to regulate themselves.

Regulation is our ability to regulate or manage behaviour allowing us to focus when there are distractions, pay attention to the most important information, take turns, wait, follow rules, adapt to new situations, do what is socially expected, control outbursts of anger, and take on challenges. Regulation skills develop as children grow and learn how to do this over time. At Hillcrest we use a framework called ‘Zones of Regulation’.

The Zones of Regulation is a framework that develops awareness of feelings, energy and alertness levels while exploring a variety of tools and strategies for regulation, positive social skills, self-care, and overall wellness. This provides us an easy way to think and talk about how we feel on the inside and sort these feelings into four coloured Zones, all of which are expected in life.

Please ask your child about Zones and find out what they know about how they support their regulation at school.

Below is an infographic of the language that we use to associate with feelings and emotions:

Zones of Regulation

Our first Hilly Kids are Friendly Kids focus for 2023 was ‘Manners’ and it has been fantastic to see students using manners across all areas of our school, thanks you to 5/6K for sharing their presentation in our short reflective assembly last Friday morning.

For many of our school community who have visited our school over the past couple of weeks may have noticed some changes to our physical environment. It is exciting for our whole school to have the first stages of our environment upgrade commencing; this project is valued at over $1 million dollars and we are excited to see these changes and improvements. Some of the upgrades that have been completed include:

• Basketball court resurfacing
• Fencing around Kinder and other areas in the grounds
• A new asphalt path leading to the oval

Our recent environment upgrades

Our next stage of planned upgrades and improvements underway include:

• Complete Kinder playground upgrade
• Painting of the entire external buildings
• Significant changes and upgrade to the entrance and front area of the school
• New & upgraded school signage including relocation

Conversations began last year to coincide with this significant funding and upgrade to modernise and enhance the marketing our school with a refresh of our school logo and branding. Plans are underway with architects and graphic designers to provide us with draft proposals for this refresh. I will be sharing these initial drafts with our School Association meeting tonight and over the coming weeks will be seeking input and consultation from families, staff, student and school community members as we further progress our new branding, specifically our school logo. If you are interested in being involved, would encourage you to come along to our School Association meeting tonight, see further down for more details about our meeting.

School Improvement in 2023

Each year in every Department for Education, Children and Young People schools develop a School Improvement Plan (SIP), this document guides our focus to improve outcomes at our school. Leadership team members and staff work together looking closely at a wide range of data, including testing results, student report ratings, behaviour data, attendance rates, surveys and a number of other data sets. This enables our school to focus on what is most important for our HPS students.

Priority 1 focuses on reading, ensuring every student reads everyday and improves their ability to comprehend (understand) what they are reading. Staff will be focusing their work on developing their skills to teach using best practice and research based strategies to improve student learning.

Priority 2 focuses on student engagement, wellbeing and attendance, this incorporates the use and implementation of programs such as Zones of Regulation and Hands on Learning to improve our whole school attendance rates and for all students to be engaged in their learning.

Throughout the year we will be seeking your input again to help us further improve our work together, ensuring our students have the best opportunities to maximise their progress and achievement.

Our first assembly for 2023

Next week we will have our first assembly on Tuesday 7th March at 2pm. We will be recognising students from each class who will achieve awards as well as formally present and recognise our 2023 Student Leaders. We welcome family, friends and school community members to join us.

Our regular assemblies will be held in Week 5 and 10 of each term, this assembly is being held on Tuesday due to Northwest Athletics Carnival. Our next assembly will be held on Wednesday 5 April at 2pm (our last day of Term 1).

Students with Personal Learning Plans

Over the next few weeks, Mr Lane and/or class teachers will be contacting families of students who require learning plans to support adjustments for their learning. We will be inviting parents/carers to attend a Learning Plan meeting to develop goals and co-construct student learning plans in conjunction with the class teacher. An important part of students achieving goals is when families and school work in partnership together. Thank you for your support to ensure this partnership is established.

Help wanted!

Do you have a few spare hours on a Wednesday between 11:30 and 1pm – we are looking for some help in our canteen. Even if you can help on just one day, it would be greatly appreciated. No special kitchen skills are required!

If you can help us out on any Tuesdays during term 1, please call the office and let us know, we will pass your details on to Lyn Aherne, our canteen manager.

I encourage you to make contact with class teachers or myself at any time in regard to your child’s learning or wellbeing at school, you can do this by visiting in person, phoning to arrange a meeting or messaging through our See Saw app.

In partnership,

Georgia Perry - Principal

School Association 2023

Our first meeting for the year will be held TONIGHT, 2nd March at 7pm. All members of the school community are welcome to attend. I would like to invite anyone interested to attend as this is an important part of our school planning and decision-making processes. We need new parent members this year to ensure we have contributions from families who attend our school. Our meting will be held in the Meeting Room in the school office

The School Association Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held in April (Date to be confirmed) where we will be electing our new School Association Committee. Everyone is welcome to attend.

P-1 Bonney

In P-1 Lawes we have been learning about:

Last week we spontaneously saw a moth on our classroom window. We all had a really good look at the moth. This created some excitement among the children. It allowed us to engage in some really rich conversations about what we know about living things.

We went on an outdoor investigation to discover what living things we could find.

We have been researching and investigating what living things need to survive.

We have worked as a whole class and in small teams to put together our class living things floorbook where we can document all of our wonderings and learning.

Welcome to the LIFT Lounge

This year, we are pleased to offer our families access to our ‘LIFT Lounge’. The LIFT lounge is located in the Launching into Learning room, and is a space for parents to meet and connect with other parents and support staff of a morning. There is information, a computer and a learning resource library in this space in which parents and students can borrow learning games and books. Members of the leadership team and other support staff in the school will also be present in the space for you to chat to and seek advice if needed. Tea and coffee is available in the lounge, as well as a comfortable seating area. The ‘LIFT Lounge’ will be available to all parents each morning between 8.45am and 9:15am.

Launch into Learning

Launching into Learning news:

Thank you to all of the families who came to join us last week for our first Launching into Learning sessions for 2023. It was wonderful to see lots of familiar faces, as well as many new ones. On Monday, children had fun singing our nursery rhyme of the week ‘Five Little Ducks’ and enjoyed exploring books and games in our LIL Story Library.

On Friday it was all about construction and building. Our LIL children had a fantastic time exploring construction play of many forms, including Duplo, Lego, foam blocks, large wooden blocks, connector blocks, connecting tubes in the water trough and construction materials in the sand pit.

Coming up in Launching into Learning:

Friday 3rd March, 9:00AM-10:30AM: Stay, Play and Explore:

Play dough, Clay and Modelling activities. Time to get those little fingers wriggling and moving for this session. Come and engage in a range of activities involving play dough, clay and other modelling materials.

Monday 6th March, 8:45AM-9:15AM: Rhyme and Story Time:

Our rhyme will be 5 Little Bees and our story will be ‘Dear Zoo’.

Monday 6th March, 2:00PM-2:45PM: Parent Session - The Zones of Regulation

This parent information session will provide information about the Zones of Regulation and how it can be used at home to help children manage their emotions and feelings.

Miss Jane Lewis
Kindergarten and Launch into Learning Teacher

2023 Term 1 Canteen Menu

Hillcrest Tuckerbox

If we want our children to enjoy school and perform well, we should ensure that they have plenty of fuel for physical and mental activity. Any teacher will tell you that a hungry child cannot concentrate!

A healthy lunch and snacks are important. A healthy lunch box is one that provides a variety of foods from different food groups. The food groups are: bread & cereals, fruit, vegetables, meat & meat alternatives (eg eggs, baked beans, lentils) and dairy. It has been shown that eating patterns established by the age of 11 or 12 are likely to persist through to the late teens or longer.

• Don’t insist on varying sandwich fillings if your child wants the same one every day...it isn’t the end of the world! Add variety with other lunch food.
• Don’t include sandwich fillings or other foods which your child has never tried before. Such “surprises” are seldom popular. Introduce new foods after school, at home, instead.
• Pack small amounts of food in an appropriate number of separate containers so they look inviting. Too much of each or (surprisingly) too many options can be daunting to a small child.

Lyn Aherne – Canteen

Move Well Eat Well

Water is the best drink for children, especially in hot summer weather or if children are very active. Make sure your child has their own drink bottle so they can stay hydrated while at school.

Tap into Water Every Day:

• It’s cheap and easy to get
• Not drinking enough fluids causes dehydration with symptoms such as headaches and irritability
• Our bodies are made up of 50-60% water and we need to replace the water we lose every day from breathing, sweating, etc

Tips for encouraging your child to drink water:

• Get your child their own individual water bottle for school
• In warm weather, freeze your child’s water bottle to send to school
• Show your child that you enjoy drinking water, too
• At mealtimes serve everyone at the table with a glass of water
• At home, always keep a jug or bottle of cold water in the fridge and serve with ice
• Always take a water bottle with you when you go out

MWEW Committee

Bluff to Boatramp Fun Run