DATES TO REMEMBER
Monday 22nd Mar – 1st April
10.30am – 12.30pm Grade 5/6 Swimming Program – 9 Day Program
Monday 29th March 5/6 Girls Football
Wednesday 31st March 3:15pm – 3:30pm Brief Parents Club Meeting
Thursday 1ST April 9:00am – 2:30pm Final day of Term 1 – Please note early dismissal
Monday 19th April First day of Term 2
Tuesday 27th Apr- 7th May
11:30am – 1:00pm Grade 3/4 Swimming Program – 9 Day Program
Student of the week
Congratulations to the following students whose efforts, behaviour and attitude have been recognised
Teddy M Prep C For always being willing to have a go at hearing and recording the sounds in words whenwriting. Well done Teddy, you always have a positive attitude and try your best!
Annabel R Prep G For doing a wonderful job using your Sound Waves chart to help you sound out words in Writing and for always being a kind and caring student in Prep G. You’re a star Annabel!
Tuesday G 12L For believing in yourself and asking for extra hard challenges in Maths this week. I’m so proud of you Tuesday!
Ben D 12M For doing such an amazing job this week, using his zones of regulation knowledge to produce his very best efforts!
Max M 12S For his super reading. Well done for using some great strategies to work out new words.
Fantastic job Max!
Sopnil A 12T For being a positive and enthusiastic learner. It is wonderful to see you approach all tasks with a growth mindset.
Archie T 34C For continually producing work at an exceptional level. Archie is a hard worker, who always works to his full potential and is always up for a challenge. Keep it up Archie!
Mason W 34E For demonstrating excellent word choice and writing stamina while writing his persuasive piece about why reading at school is important. Well done Mason!
Jolie P 34M For a wonderful first week at Belmont Primary School. Jolie always displays a positive attitude and is actively involved in all classroom activities.
Luke C 56L Luke comes to school each day with a big smile, positive attitude and puts 100% into everything he does. Well done Luke!
Oscar D 56R Oscar has been a kind and caring classmate, helping and looking out for his peers. Oscar has also been participating and contributing to class discussions, sharing some great thoughts and ideas.
Oliver H 56T For an outstanding week in the classroom, in particular your written pieces relating to Harmony Day. Your poem was brilliant!. Well done.
Hamish G Italian For reading a book to Signora M in Italian. Great pronunciation. Bravo Hamish Zachary H P.E. For always giving PE a go and participating in class every single week.
Esme L Visual Art For your amazing Layered Self Portrait work this week. Your efforts to complete your portrait were fabulous and you really must be so proud of your final artwork. Well done Esme!
Declan H Performing Arts
For your wonderful participation in Performing Arts this week. You were able to keep the beat and show how to use body percussion during our song and group time. Well done Declan!
BELMONT PRIMARY SCHOOL Mt Pleasant Road, Belmont Phone 5243 2972 Fax 5241 1182
www.belmontps.vic.edu.au
e-mail: [email protected] Facebook: www.facebook.com/belmontpsvic/
Principal: David Houghton Learning Specialist: Sharon Long
BELMONT BULLETIN
No. 8 25th March, 2021STUDENTS OF THE WEEK
PRINCIPAL’S REPORT Retirement news
Mrs McDonald was set to return to our Belmont shores soon but has made the decision to retire from the Department (after roughly a 40 year association with some breaks here and there) from the beginning of Term 2.
Mrs McDonald has given an outstanding service to our students and wider community here at Belmont for over 20 years starting with just 1 day a week at the very beginning. Yvonne has seen the school transformed in this time, many staff come and go and growth from around 100 students to over 300 now. The Art work produced by our students over this time is very often a focus for any visitors to the school and is testament to the passion and experience Yvonne has been able to bring to the school and encourage in our students. Yvonne is our third longest current serving school staff member. Only Susie and Jacqui are a year or two longer.
Yvonne has worked in many settings including:
Laverton, Colac West, Learmouth, Deer Park, Lethbridge, Norlane, Corio West, Barwon Heads and Lethbridge Primary and also time at Geelong
Grammar.
Yvonne will come to our final assembly next week and will join staff for a morning tea in her honour. Yvonne has many ideas and projects she is looking forward to pursuing and we wish her well for this next chapter.
Yvonne has made a significant contribution and will be missed. She has however planted many artistic seeds in our students here and has certainly met the brief of one of the world’s greatest artists Picasso when he said- “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
Thanks Mrs McDonald!
A MESSAGE FROM MRS MCDONALD
Dear Parents and Students of Belmont Primary School,
It has now been 42 years since I graduated as a teacher (wow! how old am I?!!) and I have made the decision to move on from teaching to pursue other things.
The art room at Belmont has felt like a second home to me for just over twenty years now so it was not an easy decision. I will not miss meetings, committees, timetables or performance plans but I will certainly miss the extraordinary students that we have at our school. I will miss the fun and learning that we have enjoyed together in the art room and the look of pride on faces when amazing artworks have been created. I have a lot of happy memories of my time at Belmont Primary.
Thankyou all for your support and friendship. You will no doubt see me around as I live around the corner so don’t forget to say hello when you do.
Goodbye from me, Yvonne McDonald Art Specialist
Last week we saw ……..ride, walk and scoot to school as part of national Ride to School day but also come dressed in warm colours (Yellow/orange/reds) to celebrate Harmony Day. After the hands up count, 205 students either walked, rode or scooted to school.
Gold coin donations from Harmony Day will go to a group called Diversitat. Not sure we have ever tried two school wide activities on the same day! Look for the photo bomber in the whole school shot…no surprise really.
This was not a staged photo but a lovely moment at the end of lunchtime.
Congratulations to Autumn, from 5/6R who last week was honoured to receive a bursary from Bob Badham representing the Lions Club of South Barwon. Autumn was selected by staff as a student who models the values of the school, has demonstrated leadership qualities and is above average in academic potential and performance. Well done Autumn!
House Captains for 2021. Finally we have been able to get them all together. Congratulations to the following school leaders.
THOMSON Red House
Captain: Oscar D
Captain: Grace B Vice: Harry M Vice: Lucy F
PLEASANT Blue House
Captain: Joe N Captain: Jada B
Vice: Xavier T Vice: Scarlett H
Captain: Riley L Captain: Heidi A Vice: Riley W Vice: Ava A
Parents Club The school is formalising this group to meet the guidelines set out by the Department.
Recently, interested parents met and will again meet in the last week of term to establish an Interim
Committee and begin work on a formal constitution. It all sounds very official but once our Club is recognised formally by the Minister, we should be full steam ahead to involve our parents in social activities, fundraising and helping out around the school. Our next very brief meeting will be at 3.15pm-3.30pm Wednesday 31st March. All interested parents welcome.
Who’s this hiding in the oranges? Mmmm?
Maybe ask Mrs Keating.
Dance groups practising their ‘stuff’ caught on camera last week
And some ‘chilaxing’
Student safety We have had a recent report from a parent about a male individual in the general Belmont area approaching a local kindergarten. I believe police were notified but it is a reminder to all parents of the need to revisit this with their children if appropriate but in a way that does not cause worry or concern. Always a tricky balance for parents. There are many websites on the topic with one example here below.
Say goodbye to “stranger danger.” Try using the following language when talking to your child about safety:
Say: You should not approach just anyone. If you need help, look for a parent with children, a shop owner with a nametag, a police officer or security guard.
Say: It’s important for you to get my permission before going anywhere with anyone.
Say: Tell me right away if anyone asks you to keep a secret, makes you feel uncomfortable, or tries to get you to go with them.
A wonderful website with information on all sorts of child related topics and sound advice is the Raising Children Network. I strongly recommend this site to all parents with children of any age.
https://raisingchildren.net.au/school-age
Gastro in our community Unfortunately, the recent reported outbreak of gastro cases in local kindergartens and day care settings reached our shores last
week with a very small number of cases still remaining at this stage.
This was been reported to the Department and the school is making efforts to increase handwashing and increased cleaning of these high use areas here at school. See last weeks newsletter for further information and link.
Swimming for more than 80% of our Year 5/6s began this week. We thank parents for this excellent uptake and wish all of our students continuing success in this 9 day program. Parents are welcome to attend but must follow the expectations around COVID safe practices on entering the pool area. Next term our 3/4s head to the pool.
Tomorrows assembly from around 9.05am is packed with features including a very short presentation by our Prep students and presentation of Junior School Council badges. Next week a farewell assembly for Yvonne Mc Donald Thursday 9.00am. and our regular features.
Enjoy your weekends and don’t forget to check in on someone and ask ‘Are you okay?’
Regards
David Houghton (Principal)
The Grade Three and Four students have been very busy in the Art room creating inspiring artworks. They have been learning new and exciting techniques and taking inspiration from several different artists.
We used circles as our chosen style of artwork and created wonderful overlapping circle designs inspired by the bright and popular artworks of Brazillian artist Beatriz Milhazes. She uses solid colours and patterns in her designs and has a real flare for the use of circles.
Our second artwork is a fabulous Self Portrait which has been inspired by the works of another Brazillian artist called Romero Britto. He is quite a famous artist and has designed for a lot of big brand companies.
Britto uses bright colours and black lines to form patterns. The students loved seeing some of his designs and having a try at turning their self portraits into a Britto patterned design. Both of these artworks are on display just outside our Italian room and look amazing as a whole wall of colour.
We have discussed the elements of art and how artworks are made up of various components. Our recent line and colour topics have also included some Piet Mondrian designs. The students used the vertical and horizontal lines to create their plates and used only the primary colours to fill a few of the rectangles.
Currently the students are working on a lovely watercolour of Koi fish after they drafted their designs and followed along a 'how to draw'.
Looking forward to sharing the creative designs by our grade 5/6 students next week.
Kerrianne Hobbs
Maths Challenge
Task 1
I own 5 cars and a very large garage. If I can see 2 cars parked outside the garage, how many are inside?
How many different ways can I park my cars inside and outside the garage?
Task 2
Matiu and Ariana have agreed to work for their Mum over the holidays. The pay they get will vary. Ariana will get $10 for the first day she works and two more dollars for every day she works after that. Matiu will get
$1 for the first day he works, but for each day he works from then on, his pay will be doubled. Who would you
rather be and why?
Task 3
In a class in the school down the road, everyone plays tennis or golf or both.
In fact 80% play tennis and 70% play golf. What percentage play both games?
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