Week 10 Update
Dear Parents and Carers
It has certainly been a busy and eventful term and I know that all staff and students are looking forward to a well earned break. Despite all of the interruptions due to Covid, with both staff and students being being absent, we have still managed to maintain our normal school programs. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our teaching and support staff who have ensured the maintaining of high quality education for our students during this time. Although having multiple relief staff across the school each day and week, staff happily filled in where necessary, were flexible in accepting changes at short notice and ensured students were provided with as much of their normal school routine as possible. Thank you, you hard work and efforts have certainly been appreciated.
As I mentioned, Term 2 has been extremely busy and we have certainly finished off with an action packed Week 10.
Science Day
This week we celebrated national Science week, with a our annual science day on Tuesday. Students from Kindergarten to Year 6 teamed up into different groups and travelled around the school completing different science and STEM based activities and experiments. The students made (and ate!) toffee and sherbet, they tested their boat building skills to try and carry different weights, made stained glass windows and balloon rockets and also did some coding work. On the day all of our teachers were very impressed with the leadership of our Year 6 students, who were tasked with looking after their junior primary team mates, well done. It was a fantastic day of different activities and we certainly hope that as our students progress through school they continue to enjoy science and explore the opportunities that will arise in careers in STEM based fields in the future. Big thank you to Mrs Ryan and Mrs Gullick for all of their hard work planning for the day.
Dianella Diamonds Assembly
This week Mrs Davey held our annual Dianella Diamonds Assembly. Dianella Diamonds is an opportunity for students to showcase their artistic talents through performance, in either singing, dancing or playing instruments. This year Mrs Davey made some slight changes to the program, with students competing in Year level finals in class, with the winners of each year level then performing at our assembly. Well done to all of our students who tried out for the competition and congratulations to our winners, runners up in each year level and all our outstanding hosts. There was some very high quality performances. Massive thank you to Mrs Davey for all of her hard work co-ordinating the event, she has spent a large part of the term giving up her recess and lunchtimes for rehearsals and coaching and spending countless hours at home preparing and then finally making her decision on the winners for each year level.
Finalists:
Year 1: Oliver, Sarah, Sofia, Sebontu, Eddie, Maheswari, Aditi, Olive, Kim
Compere: Sebontu
Winner: Maheswari
Runner-up: Oliver
Year 2: Divena, Emelia, Ali,Dawt Tha, Pony, Sophia, Medhanie, Poppy, Samaira,
Sadya, Eliza, Maryam, Lexie
Comperes: Adam, Kian
Winners: Divena & Samaira
Year 3: Mariam, Kirsten, Ben, Ashanti, Laura, Naabeeki, Ka Yarn, Samara, Charlotte, Nidhi, Saoirse
Compere: Oscar
Winner: Samara
Runner-up: Nidhi
Year 4: Mehran, Jeneh, Leon, Stefanija, Rayan, E Ni Sun To, Chelsea, Natalia, Nour,
Shance,
Compere: Billy
Winner: Mehran
Runner-up: Stefanija
Year 5: Elham, Jacinta, Elizabeth, Gaby, Lucy,
Elvis, Israel
Compere: Logan Stokes
Winners: Elizabeth & Andy
Year 6: Naya, Sarah, Maiza, Chloe, Nermin, Samiya, Bahar, Carlos
Compere: Bontu
Winner: Naya
Runners-up: Maiza & Sarah
Most Outstanding Compere: Logan
Congratulations to our Honour Certificate winners who also received awards at the assembly. Please see full list below.
Good Standing Reward
On Thursday and Friday of this week we have rewarded our students who have maintained their Good Standing Status for Term 2, with an incursion from Scitech. Students participated in either the Mix and Make show and workshop or the Element of Surprise show and workshop. All students and staff certainly enjoyed the performances and no doubt learnt a few science tricks to try out at home over the holidays! Students maintain their Good Standing through consistent good behaviour and excellent attendance and arriving at school on time. Although it is disappointing that some students missed out on the performances, due to not maintaining their Good Standing, it is essential that we reward and recognise the majority of our students who consistently demonstrate good behaviour and turn up to school on time each day. If your child did miss out the Good Standing reward, I would encourage you to either set behaviour goals with your child if required, or to improve your child's attendance and arrival time in Term 3. Good Standing resets for everyone at the start of each term and our goal is to have all students participating.
Interschool Sport
This term as you would be aware our senior students participated in interschool sports program against Koondoola PS, Westminster PS and Roseworth PS in soccer, netball and football. On Friday 24 June, teams participated in the Lightning Carnival at Koondoola PS, playing each of the other teams twice. Students from Dianella PC did extremely well in all sports, with students winning the Netball B, Soccer and Football competitions and coming runners up in the Netball A competition. Well done to all of our students for their wonderful efforts on the day and a big thank you to our team coaches for their efforts, Mr Fonseca, Ms Farmer and Ms Coppins.
Swimming
Students would have bought a note home this week outlining the dates and costs for the upcoming in-term swimming lessons. The swimming program will commence in week 7 of Term 3, Monday 29 September. Half of our students will go in Weeks 7 & 8 and the other half of the students will attend lessons in Weeks 9 & 10. All lessons will be held in the indoor heated pools. These split sessions are a result of the pool closure for repairs and maintenance earlier in the year. Ideally, we would like to send all our students in a two week block, as we are aware that this will have less impact on families, however, the benefit of having split sessions has allowed us to only attend lessons in the afternoon, enabling staff to maintain their normal morning teaching and learning program. Swimming is an essential life skill and all students are expected to attend lessons. If required, parents may enter into a payment plan to spread out the cost of the lessons, please contact the school office if you would like to do this. The cost of the 10 swimming lessons is $55 per student, which covers the cost of pool entry and bus to and from the pool. Full permission forms and specific dates will be provided in Term 3.
School Development Day
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our students and families a safe and relaxing holiday and I look forward to seeing all of our students returning on Tuesday 19 July. Monday 18 July is student free school development day.
Kind Regards
Anthony Middleton
