30 November 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principal Report

Arts Afternoon

Thank you to everyone who came along to help us celebrate the Arts at Exeter Primary School at our recent Arts Afternoon. This year our Art Gallery was opened by local artists, Karen Revie and Kitty Taylor. We are very proud of our arts program and see this as an important part of a well-rounded education and in the development of the whole child. Through the arts children are encouraged to develop critical thinking and creative competencies. They are provided with opportunities to work collaboratively, problem solve and demonstrate initiative and innovation. If you did not have the opportunity to attend this event please drop in to view our new visual art gallery in the main corridor and our arts trail in the courtyard.

Pre-Kinder Break Up

Last Friday our Pre-Kinder families finished up their year with a celebration morning at Tresca. It was lovely to see so many families come along and enjoy some time together and children playing with friends they have made this year and will be going to Kindergarten with next year. Don’t forget our Kindergarten 2017 Information Evening is on this Thursday at 5.30 in the Kindergarten.

Bike Education

Bike education was lots of fun last week as our Grade 6 students learnt some important information about bike safety and got to ride bikes around the school.

Esk Band Extravaganza

Congratulations to all our wonderful young musicians who performed at the Princess Theatre on Friday evening as part of this year’s Esk Band Extravaganza. The bands played to a full house and displayed excellent musicianship. As always it is a pleasure to accompany these students as they are always exceptionally well behaved and represent Exeter Primary School beautifully. Well done to all our students who participated in the Esk Band Program this year, it is such a rewarding program and we are indeed fortunate to have access to such a high quality program. If your child is interested in joining this program in 2017, or you are interested in finding out more about the program please let me know.

Dance Fever

This Friday over 40 of our Grade 5 and 6 students will be performing at the Door of Hope in this year’s Launceston College Dance Fever. The students have been practising for many weeks and are now ready to join with a number of other primary schools to perform. The students will perform on Friday during the day and again in the evening.

Bus Arrangements and Change of Plans

At Exeter Primary School we take the safety of our students very seriously and to that end we work with our bus drivers to ensure that all children are delivered to and from school safely. To support this we ask that parents communicate all changes to after school bus arrangements to the school. This can be done by phoning the school office or preferably by writing a message in your child’s communication book. Invariably when a child is uncertain about after school arrangements we refer to the child’s communication book in the first instance to see if there is a message. Parents are also responsible for communicating directly with the bus company to ensure addresses and contact details are current. We thank you for your cooperation in this important matter.

Grade 2 Doyle Dawber Cookie Fund Raiser

To support the work the students have been doing around the welfare of the local wombat population and to apply their understanding of money in an authentic situation Grade 2 Doyle Dawber will be holding a Cooker Fund Raiser at recess on Wednesday 14 December. Cookies will be for sale at the price of 50 cents. So please bring along your money as money raised will be donated to Womsac.

Lift

Steve Biddulph

A reminder for our parents and school community that Steve Biddulph will be presenting his Raising Boys talk on Tuesday 7 March, 2017 and his talk The Secret of Raising Happy Children on Thursday 8 June, 2017. Mark these dates in your diary now! More information will be provided later in the year.

Here is a short excerpt from Steve’s talk The Secret of Raising Happy Children.

We are also pleased to advise we now have copies of Steve’s book Raising Girls for sale at our school office. The books are $20-00 each must be purchased by cash.

Respectful School

Growth Mindset

We are continuing to inform parents and families about the social and emotional learning we are undertaking as a whole school. We have been working on developing Growth Mindsets with our students for some time and so are sharing some informative YouTube clips that have already been shared with our students. This clip is the fourth in a series of 5 and the topic is The Mysterious World of Neurons.

We hope these clips will be the catalyst of some discussions on building Growth Mindsets with our students and members of their families.

Exeter Primary School Expectations

On Monday we held a short whole school assembly to remind our students of our Exeter Primary Expectations as we head towards the end of the year. We revisited:

• Whole Body Listening,
• Our Expectations of Be Safe, Be Your Best and Care for the Rest,
• Goal Setting
• Growth Mindset
• The Zones of Regulation

We also watched a video about how neurons connect and the importance of challenging your brain. Students were asked to set themselves a challenge to achieve by the end of the year. Please take a moment to talk with your child about their challenge and support them to achieve it.

Social and Emotional Learning

5 Ways to Bolster Your Child's Emotional Intelligence
(Part 2 of 2 Continued from our last newsletter)

3 Play games that build emotional intelligence.

We have a long list of many emotions that we act out in our home/school day. Yes, emotional intelligence is part of our curriculum. Acting out emotions with your bodies or with puppets or toys is a great way to build emotional intelligence. Look through magazines or books and talk about what emotions are shown on people's faces or give your child blank faces and various eyes, noses, and mouths to create their own faces. There are even some really neat toys that build emotional intelligence, such as Meebie and Kimochis.

Kimochis-toys with feelings inside

4 Use conflicts to teach problem-solving skills.

Rather than sending your child to time out when they go head to head with a sibling, teach them to look for a solution. “I understand that you are upset because your brother wants the same toy you are playing with. I won't let you hit. How can we solve this?” If your child does not offer up solutions, give them a few to choose from. “You can take turns with the toy. How does that work for you both?”

5 Set a good example

Handle your own emotions well, especially in front of your children. Rather than yelling or using a harsh tone, be direct and kind. “It upsets me when you throw your food” is preferable over “all you do is make messes and drive me crazy!” Be honest about your feelings without exaggerating or dismissing them. “I'm feeling sad right now. Sadness is okay, it passes,” and of course, if you're happy and you know it, let them know!

http://www.creativechild.com/articles/view/5-ways-to-bolster-your-childs-emotional-intelligence/1#page_title

Birthdays

Launching into Learning Pre Kinder

Reminder Lil Celebration Picnic

A reminder that our Launching into Learning celebration will be held at the Gravelly Beach Park on Monday December 12, 2016 at 9.30am. Each family is asked to bring along a small “healthy” plate of food to share and BYO drinks. We are looking forward to seeing you there.

Our Learning Community
What’s Happening in Our Classrooms?

Grade three Tulk have been trying to inspire the summer to come by creating beautiful palm tree and desert island art work. Using watercolour pencils, oil pastels and some clever thinking here are the results. Don't you think they're stunning?

School Association

Thank you for supporting School Banking

We would like to thank all of our students who have taken part in the Commonwealth Bank School Banking program this year. Not only does the program reward children for saving regularly, but it is also a great fundraiser for our school.

Keep an eye out for our 2017 Back to School launch in Term 1 next year where you’ll find out about our new theme, new rewards and the Grand Prize competition!

Our final School Banking day for 2016 will be Wednesday 14th December. Any tokens that have not been redeemed this year can be used in 2017.

Parents and Friends

Parents & Friends Fundraising Committee:

To help parents with book covering this year we have attached a link for ordering of reusable covers. Exeter Primary School Parents & Friends receive 15 cents per cover on all orders purchased by parents of our school.

Parents needs to select our school first from the drop-down box and then enter the promo code (EZ15) that’s on the A4 sheet download for any orders made online.

A guide for parents wishing to use this ordering system I have listed below the number of books that you may wish to cover.

Kindergarten - no books
Prep - 2 only A4; 3 only A3
Grade 1 and 2 - 6 only A4; 3 only A3
Grade 3 and 4 - 9 only A4: 1 only A3; 2 only Memo Book
Grade 5 and 6 - 11 only A4; 2 only A3; 2 only Memo Book

Christmas Hamper Raffle 2016

In the next week we will be sending home raffle books to every child for the Christmas Hamper Raffle. Tickets are $1.00 each, please return your raffle books back to school by Friday 16th December as they will be drawn on Monday 19th December.

There will be one grocery hamper for each grade and one large food hamper for the overall winner. This means everyone who purchases a ticket has two chances of winning.

Good Luck!

Reminder:

Parents & Friends Meeting on Thursday 8th December at 7.30p.m. in the staffroom, last one for the year. All welcome.

Sport

Triathlon

Congratulations to our Exeter Primary School Triathletes who participated in this year’s All School’s Triathlon held at the Devonport Bluff.

Thank you to Tim Templar who supported our team on the day and to all the parents and grandparents who gave up their time to ensure these students had the opportunity to compete.

Kinder Enrolment 2017

Kinder 2017
Parent Information Session

A reminder this meeting is in Kinder Freeman
Thursday 1st December 5.30-6.30pm

This session is for all families who have children enrolled to attend Kinder in 2017.

We will share important information about commencing kindergarten, answer any questions you may have, you can order uniforms and have the opportunity to meet other kindergarten families.

We hope you will be able to attend this informal session and we look forward to beginning our journey together supporting your child’s learning.

Child care available please rsvp through the school office 63 944 700

Celebration Service

Community News

The City of Launceston Basketball Club is a family friendly club.

If your child is interested in playing basketball, then join City.

City recruit’s junior players from the areas of Riverside, Trevallyn, Legana and Exeter.

The basketball season is usually from late Feb to late Aug.

City is one of five clubs within the Launceston Basketball Association area.

City is planning to hold trials for all ages and abilities on Saturday 10th December.

For more info, please email us at: cityoflauncestonbasketballclub@gmail.com

or contact the club President, Kate Emms on 0428 409 589, or see our Facebook page.