Voluntary Contributions and Charges Voluntary Contributions and Charges were one of the topics covered at our recent School Council / Finance Meeting. The Council agreed that given the rising costs of school supplies and the reduction in school f u n d s , o u r V o l u n t a r y Contributions will be marginally increased in 2014. An increase of $10 per student for the school year will go towards making sure they still h a v e a c c e s s t o a l l t h e educational materials in the classroom throughout the school year. This money allows us to maintain classroom resources and stock so that no student will ‘miss out’ on any educational experience at Moorine Rock Primary School.

Every dollar you contribute toward the school goes directly back into education resources and programs for your child. More information regarding these changes have been sent home to families. If you have any questions or queries regarding the Fees & Charges, please do not hesitate to c o n t a c t t h e s c h o o l f o r assistance. Parent as Partners This week marks the launch of the Parent Support Packages for our K indy to Year 3 s t u d e n t s . T h e s e P a r e n t S u p p o r t p a c k a g e s a r e completed and will be uploaded onto the school website by this Friday 22nd November 2013.

We encourage parents to view these packages and look at the information that might assist you to work with your child at home (very helpful for the Christmas Break). Please do not worry about printing them at this stage as we plan to hand out a hard copy of each package on our Orientation Day later this term. They will continue to remain in digital form on the website so parents are able to print off digital copies at any point in time from home. We encourage all parents to closely review the documents (at least once per y e a r ) a n d w e w e l c o m e feedback on how useful you have found them and any suggestions for improvement into the future.

19th November 2013 THIS FORTNIGHT'S NEWS FROM MRPS...We are half way through our final term for the 2013 school year. While so much has been happening in the past few weeks there is still so much more to come.

Student Attendance One of our whole school focuses in Semester 2 has been to improve our whole school attendance data after some decreases in attendance levels. At Moorine Rock Primary School we pride ourselves on our high levels of attendance, which is something as a community we need to value and want to maintain over time. The Department of Education says the students are considered to be at risk if their Attendance levels drop below 90%, with higher risk levels the lower this percentage drops. To give you an idea of the impact this can have on a child over time, if a child maintains 90% attendance from Pre-Primary to Year 7, they will miss 160 days of Primary School. This is equivalent to missing more than 3 school terms (on top of holidays) over the duration of their primary schooling. If a child’s attendance drops to 80% these figures double. This is a substantial amount of time off school and equates to a great deal of work for any child to not only miss out on but be expected to catch up on. With this in mind, this semester we have introduced a number of strategies to combat these drops in attendance levels. These have included working directly with families of individual students

who are considered to be at risk but also acknowledge those students who throughout the year have continued to have a high level of attendance. Last term we introduced our first ever attendance reward to an immediate but mild effect. We set the benchmark as high as we could to real ly test those students over the last four weeks of term. The result was we saw immediate improvement with more that 40% of our students not taking a single day off school in the second half of Term 3. Based on the success of an incentive program the decision was made to continue the program for Term 4 and beyond. We are very excited to be able to announce that this has lead to e v e n m o r e s u b s t a n t i a l improvements in our whole school attendance data for not only this term but the whole year. The impact on our Attendance Data is clear. Prior to our focus on attendance last term, our whole school attendance level for 2013 at that stage had fallen to 91%. Since this time it has risen to 94% with Term 4 figures alone sitting above 96% for the whole school. This is exactly where we as a school need to aim to be not just this term but also into next year and beyond. While we acknowledge that at this stage we are only a little over half way through Term 4,

the data is telling us that taking a positive approach to attendance is having a major impact on improving student attendance across the whole school. In Term 4 to date, over half of the school has not missed a single day of s c h o o l t h i s t e r m a n d a staggering 92% of students are on track to attend our Term 4 Attendance Reward in the last week of school. We are aware that this strategy has caused some students unrest due to i l lness, but unfortunately clear benchmarks need to be set in order for these programs to have an effect. We ask that parents get on board a n d s u p p o r t t h e s c h o o l s strategies regarding attendance. T h e h i g h e r o u r s t u d e n t attendance the more opportunity for education success across the whole school. Occasionally students are going to miss out due to reasons outside their control. They need to use these circumstances as motivation for the future.

Dates to Remember: 29th November – YSSSA Swimming Carnival, 9am. 2nd December – MRPS Orientation Day

2013 Attendance Data

Regular

At Risk

Moderate Risk

Severe Risk

Term 4 - Attendance

Regular

At Risk

Moderate Risk

Severe Risk

Remembrance Day A big thank you to Miss Halford and our Student Councillors for organising an c o n d u c t i n g o u r s p e c i a l Remembrance Day Assembly a t s c h o o l o n t h e 11 t h November 2013. Due to s w i m m i n g l e s s o n s , t h e Assembly was run at the earlier time of 9am. It was great to see the whole school coming together and taking a moment to stop and reflect on some of the sacrifices that our troops have made in the many conflicts over the years. As the years pass by, it great to see that the efforts and contributions of all the men and women who have fought for us are not lost on our younger generations.

Captain Cleanup Visit On Monday 11th November 2013, we had a visit to the school by Captain Cleanup as part of our 10 year anniversary celebrations of being a Waterwise School. His show was aimed at educating our students on ways they can save water around the school and at home. The students really enjoyed the show and from all reports Captain Cleanup was extremely entertaining and very informative. The costs involved with the show were covered by the Water Corporation as part of their ongoing support for schools and the Waterwise Schools Program. On behalf of the staff and students we would like to thank the Water Corporation and Captain Cleanup for providing our students with this opportunity at school.

This week's award winners...

Jaden Eiffler for the fantastic story he has been writing and the effort he puts in to all that he does. Clair Harvey for the fantastic effort she has been putting in to her homework this term. Hamish Irving for his fantastic recall of nouns. Jodi Wille for receiving 100% in all her spelling tests this term. Cassidy Della Bosca for learning all her lines for the concert and really getting into character with actions and expression. Emily Gethin for the effort that she has put into designing and painting her cartouche. Lauren Steel for the excellent understanding she has demonstrated when working with fractions in Maths. Angus Irving showing improved focus and attitude toward learning so far this term. Great to see! Harrison Shaw for his impressive attitude and aim during our archery sessions. Keep it up! Birthdays... Kiana Brown - 28th November Kathleen Harvey - 30th November

Orientation Day We have scheduled our whole school orientation day for Monday 2nd December 2013. We invite our new 2014 Kindy students to come in and join us and the classrooms will be set up and run as we plan to have them in 2014. We will run the classes set-up this way until recess time on the Monday. Students will be required to move around to different classrooms for the morning session so they will have the opportunity to experience the new look class structures during the first session of the day. The aim is to not only reassure students for next year but allow staff to gauge what the look and feel of the class groups will be like prior to the new school year. Our students will be split into two class groups. The first will be the K-3 students who will be with Miss Hobbs and the second group will be the Year 4-7 students who will be joined by Mr Pettit and Miss Halford for the morning. Following the normal recess break classrooms will return to normal for the day and our 2014 Kindy students will leave. A reminder will go out to parents prior to the day but if anyone would like any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact the school. Regards, Ryan PettitPrincipal

Moorine Rock PS Thank you to everyone who has supported the school in the collection of household items for our science kits. We have had a great response and we only need a few more things to complete our kits. What We Still Need For Science...

• backpack • blanket, opaque • Bottle, all sizes with lids • cans (soft drink) — empty • cardboard box (eg, shoe,

cereal box) • cloth, coloured, large,

dark

• containers, transparent with lids

• cooler bag (optional) • Jars with lids • plastic bags • towel • Wool

Moorine Rock Junior Tennis Coaching On Saturday 16th November the Moorine Rock Tennis Club concluded another successful season of junior tennis coaching. Thank you to all the parents who brought their children along each Saturday morning to join us in five fun weeks of coaching. The coach’s awards for this year are Lelia Beaton, Joel Nicholson and Naimh MacBeth The Sportsmanship awards were Clair Harvey, Zoe Pedrin and Patrick Rose A special Thank you to all of our volunteer coaches, Melissa Zweck, Amanda Eiffler, Helen Granich, Lara Kent, Nikki Wille, Jess Della Bosca, Lib Irving and special guest coach Sam Goodhill. Hope to see you all again next season. Sherree Nicholson.

SX Junior Tennis Southern Cross Tennis Club will be again conducting Junior Tennis in February/March 2014 for 6 weeks. Dates to be confirmed. • $20 per Child • $50 for 3 Children • $60 for 4 plus Children Expressions of Interest should be directed to: Pauline Eiffler-President Ph: 90491 461 (a/h) Sonya Dunbar-Secretary/Treasurer Ph: 9040 1024 (a/h) Thank you! Sonya

CHANGE

OF

DATE!

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO RESUSCITATE YOUR CHILD? Heartbeat Workshop St Joseph's P & F in conjunction with Sandra Ciabarri who is a qualified Heartbeat instructor, will be hosting a Heartbeat Workshop. All parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and carers are urged to attend. Adult & child resuscitation along with some basic first aid will be demonstrated first by Sandra and then each participate will be assessed and a certificate of competency will be issued upon assessment. When: Saturday 23rd November @ 7pm Where: St Joseph's Library Cost: $10- Supper provided This is a fantastic opportunity for the Southern Cross community to learn how to resuscitate children. Please RSVP to the following. St Joseph's- 90491046 Michelle Pedrin- 0417968593