Mount Pleasant Primary School

NEWSLETTER Newsletter No. 11 19th May 2020

Dear Families, It is with much excitement, that we begin welcoming back our students. As you will have read in my email on Monday there are some strict guidelines that remain, to ensure the health and safety of our community remains a top priority. Importantly there will be adjusted drop off times, these are as follows:

- All students will be met at the gate by a teacher or education support member each day - Drop off - school gates will open at 8.45am – 9.00am, staff will meet our children and each child will need to

hand sanitise upon entering school grounds - Children will line up outside with their teachers to go inside at 9.00am - Pick up – school gates will open at 3.15pm – 3.30pm

There are also some changes to school operations, these are as follows:

- There is no access to the Administration building, please call the office on 5332 3646 if required - There are restrictions on access to the school site for anyone other than immediate school staff and students.

We have been given strict advice on this and will only be allowing parents on site with prior arrangements. We understand that some families may feel anxious about this move back to classroom teaching and learning. I can assure you that this decision has been taken on the basis of the best health advice available to our state. More information about the return to school and coronavirus (COVID-19) can be found on the Department’s website, which will continue to be updated: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/department/Pages/coronavirus.aspx

Coronavirus (COVID-19) advice

This page includes advice as of 22 February on the emerging

outbreak of novel coronavirus. For early childhood education

services. For TAFE and training providers. On Saturday 22 February

the The Minister for Education, James Merlino, along with

Commonwealth Ministers for Education and Health, and Chief

Health Officer, announced that ...

www.education.vic.gov.au

Most importantly, we all want this to work and do not want a return to remote learning. We ask that everyone in our community follow the correct processes and procedures. Sometimes this may not be as convenient as we would like things to be, please keep the bigger picture in mind. Now more than ever we need to partner together to best support our students and our community. The map included in this newsletter will indicate where you child/ren need to be dropped off for school until the end of Term 2. This may be a different entrance to what you have been using, this has been arranged to avoid a staggered start time which would have been a far larger disruption to families. Extend After School care will begin next week – please contact Extend directly on 1300 366 437. Thank you for your continued support and patience during this time. We look forward to welcoming our students back to the classroom. Warm regards, Kate Robinson Principal

MPPS Movie Night In- success!

Thanks to everyone that participated in our Movie Night In. We hope you enjoyed your popcorn, lollies and glowsticks.

It was fantastic to see photos of staff and families enjoying themselves!

May the 16th was ES (Education Support) Appreciation Day. We are so lucky with the fantastic ES that we have at our school, who work diligently with teachers, students and the Mount Pleasant Community giving 100%. During the week we collected words from the Mount Pleasant Community that describe them all - it made such a beautiful artwork! Thankyou to Mrs Eames, Mrs Schulze, Ms Currie, Sarah, Jason, Jenna, Kylie and Michelle for everything that you do.

Art News Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our whole school mural. It looks fabulous! I have been so impressed by the students' creativity in all their art endeavours during remote learning that I will set up a display of photos of their artworks (from Seesaw posts) for when they return to school, so please email me photos of any additional works that you would like included - maddaford.kellie-anne.k@edumail.vic.gov.au.

Year 6 update

With the Inquiry topic “What’s my impact?” the year 6 class have been learning how animals

have adapted to suit their environment and investigating what animals are endangered and

why. Students have begun writing an information report on an endangered species and

describing the human impact on the animal’s habitat and survival.

Based on some of the student responses so far, it is clear that they have a deep appreciation

for our natural environment and a growing understanding of the human relationship to it:

Bryce: “There are 880 Mount Gorillas left in the world due to war in the 1990s in Rwanda and

poaching to illegally sell their body parts…they also take baby Mountain Gorillas for private

zoos and illegal pets. Cutting down trees and farming and building close to Mountain Gorillas

habitat have pushed these apes higher and higher in the mountains. If this keeps going on we

could wipe out the Mountain Gorillas and make them no longer endangered but extinct”.

Johnny: “People aren’t listening to other’s about poaching but soon the animals will be extinct

and at this rate the human race will die because when one animal goes extinct we will move

onto another and another until we poach ourselves out of existence”.

In Math’s, we’ve been looking at measurement (distance, mass & capacity) and some students

have been weighing and recording how much plastic and general rubbish gets thrown out at

home every day. I look forward to repeating this exercise in the classroom to see just how

much plastic, food waste, and general rubbish we throw out each day/week/month and

consider what actions we can take to reduce our impact of waste on the environment.

Year 1/2 Update

Year 1/2 participated in their first ‘WebEx’ meeting as a class last week. It gave all the students the chance (and

Mrs Lacny) to be able to talk to each other, see how each other are going and ask any questions they might

have. Mrs Lacny was so excited that it went so smoothly we will continue to hold these meetings with the

students this week (information in emails and on Seesaw). Our Reading focus was based on learning how to

‘Visualise’ – creating pictures in our mind/running a movie we read a text. Mrs Lacny has recorded herself

reading a text, students underlined the important information that would help them to draw their picture. We

have recapped what is ‘counting on’ using an Open number line and 120 chart to find the answer of Addition

number sentences.

Congradulations to Annemarie and Zachary for their fantastic reading over the ‘Learning from Home’ reaching

50 nights and 100 nights.

Don’t forget the importance of a brain break or two throughtout the day. This could be mindfulness colouring,

running around the backyard or doing star jumps.

Year 1/2 and their parent/carer/sibling, please email or response on See Saw with any questions you might

have – I’m only a click away.

Mrs Lacny

Year 1/2 teacher

ENTRANCE RED Surnames M - S

ENTRANCE BLUE Surnames T - Z ENTRANCE YELLOW Surnames G - L

ENTRANCE GREEN Surnames A - F

DROP OFF/PICK UP PROCESS:

- Drop off time strictly 8.45am – 9.00am

- Pick up time strictly 3.15pm – 3.30pm, AFTER SCHOOL CARE is available if you require a later pick up time

- Children will be unable to be dropped off or picked up from the school Admin office

- Please use the gate allocated for your surname

- Parents please DO NOT congregate this makes it difficult for staff but especially children developing new routines

ALL CHILDREN WILL REQUIRE A DRINK BOTTLE.

Please note there will be no access to bubble taps when school returns. Each classroom will have

a space for children to leave their drink bottles.