Dear Friends, Family and Community Members,

The last month has just flown by! So many things have been happening and we find ourselves just a few weeks away from the school holidays already.

Let's list some of the things that we have been involved with since our last newsletter.

1. Teachers and Educational Assistants have all been away on professional learning to make sure we are up to date with best practice and kids here at Pia get the best education!
2. We started thinking about a school vision board and what sorts of things we want to achieve in our school
3. The office got a new photocopier.
4. We went to the Murchison Settlement to have tennis lessons again
5. We had a fire drill
6. Food Sensations came out and made us some yummy food
7. The Speech therapist came out
8. We had the Trachoma clinic come and visit
9. Mr Brad and Mrs Fiona both qualified as (LR) bus drivers when the licensing centre came out
10. We celebrated Science week with the theme 'Deep Blue' and learnt about sea animals and the way pollution affects sea life
11. The School Psychologist, Miss Alana, came to visit us and so did Ms Sonia
12. We went on an excursion to The Morawa Agricultural College which was absolutely fabulous. There we picked up our new sheep and pigs and stayed over at the Residential college accomodation which was really good
13. Disco Night at Yalgoo. We slept over at Yalgoo Railway station and joined in activities with the Yalgoo PS which was really fun!
14. Our Picasso Cow arrived and we are in the midst of designing and painting it for the Picasso Cow competition
15. We had 3 competitions to name things

• Our Picasso Cow - Milky Way, (A Dairy Industry initiative)
• Our two sheep
• Our two pigs

On top of all this, we also had assembly and worked so hard!!!

Who says living out in the middle of the bush is boring? Not true!!!! 

I just want to remind everyone that we celebrate attendance at Pia with a present!!! If you attend more than 80% of the time, you get a present to say thankyou for coming to school!

I really want to give away more presents, so make sure you come to school every day because I can't wait to see your face when your name is called out and I give you a present!

Don't forget, If your cool, you'll be at School!

Dates coming up to remember:

Wednesday 16 September: we are going to have a Parents night and sausage sizzle 

Thursday 17 September: we will have a Tidy Towns visit, so remember to "Keep our school and community clean, and keep all the rubbish off the scene!!"

​Thursday 24 September: Assemby 

Friday 25 September: last day of term and we will do some fun things on that day to celebrate.

Mr Ted Cousens is currently on sick leave until the end of term. We hope that he feels better soon and has a good recovery. His contract finishes at the end of term so we will be restructuring the classrooms next term. We would like to thank Mr Ted for his efforts in the senior class and in the school as classroom teacher and as previous principal. We wish him all the very best for the future.

We would like to welcome Mr Bernie Simpson to the senior class, and thank him for coming up at short notice to relieve Mr Ted over the next 2 weeks (until the school holidays).

Next term we will see a reshuffle of the school with Mr Sean moving up into the senior room and a new junior classroom teacher coming in to the K-3 classroom position. I will announce who this is in our next newsletter. So watch this space.

Meanwhile have fun, be good and keep safe!

Kind regards

Fiona Tamminga

Principal

The Senior Room has started its Picasso Cows Project.  The Theme for this work is Health and Nutrition.  The large cow on the school verandah will be illustrated with the two classes providing art work.  The senior room will have one side of the cow and the junior room will have the other side to illustrate.  Currently the senior room is studying how milk is processed, and what types of food can be made from cows - for example butter, flavoured milk, cheese and yogurt.

After watching videos of the dairy industry the main points have been discussed and illustrated on our (draft) cow.  For example, 80% of Australians have some kind of dairy product each day.  How milk is pasteurised and homogenised and the different products that are produced that we all enjoy, like yogurt and chocolate milk has been studied.

This is a wonderful project and everyone in the senior room is enthusiastic to complete this work.

The senior room has adopted the Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI) model.  This model is fast paced where students are required to recite, recall and apply their learning.  The most important stage is telling the students what they going to be taught using WALT and WILF followed by criteria that they choose to perform at.  The second stage is showing them the task and how they can learn a particular concept.  Checking for understanding using mini whiteboards show the teacher how students are progressing;  feedback is given in real time.

We have used EDI with spelling , comprehension, and  for  oral language.  Grammar which is difficult for EAL/D students to grasp is taught repetitively to consolidate learning.  Maths, particularly times table and finding area and the perimeter of objects have been studied using EDI.

Each Week we head off to the Home Ec Room for extended math activities.  Students work in groups, and there is a strong competitive edge to these activities.  The main theme for this work is addition, multiplication and subtraction. Dice activities are popular for teaching mathematics mastery and developmental progression.  As a treat and incentive to do your best, everyone can enjoy a slice of pizza after working so hard- well Done everyone.

Mr. Ted

Senior Class

The nine designs chosen for printing for the community rubbish bins are:

Name the Animals Competition

Everyone's choices of names were placed in a hat and two names were drawn out. The sheep and pigs now have their collars on and names written on them.

The winning names of our pigs are........

Pig 1: Polly named by Eliza

Pig 2: Piggy named by Jahlile

The winning names of our sheep are........

Sheep 1: Sam the Lamb by Brendan

Sheep 2: Big Boy named by Jahlile

Naming our Picasso Cow Competition

This was won by voting and the winner was Florrenza Merry with the name 'Milky Way'. Students are now designing the cow so that it can be painted soon.

I would like to thank the WA College of Agriculture Morawa, for putting on an exceptional open day on Friday the 4 September. Our whole school attended the day and really enjoyed the experience. It was wonderful to see the dedication of staff and all the mammoth organizational effort that is put into not only the open day but everyday school life at WACAM. It was a fabulous display of your school and the amazing experiences that it is creating for students. 

One particular student standout was Bryce, from the automotive section, unfortunately I can't remember his last name. Bryce shared his absolute passion for the school and the opportunities he has received since going to WACAM. As an educator, above all the other brilliant aspects to the day, Bryce's appreciation for the opportunities he has received was the highlight of my day. 

In Week 2 we had a visit to the school from a rugby clinic. The guy from Rugby WA could not believe that we out here in a remote Aboriginal community had actual Rugby Posts up on our field.

The kids had a blast and took to the game and drills with enthusiasm. We learnt passing and tackling and how to run forwards whilst passing backwards. It took us a while to stay behind our friends so that they could pass the ball backwards to us unlike AFL where we can get the ball from any direction.

We had a lot of fun playing many games and at the end of the day some of the kids were awarded prizes for their effort. The whole idea of the clinic was to help us learn the rules of rugby so that we could attend and play in a small carnival “The deadly 7’s” at Mullewa the following week.

On Tuesday the 4^th of August we attended Mullewa for the carnival.

What a great day with our kids backing up to play many games. We went through the tournament undefeated across all grades. With a small school and numbers, we couldn’t fill a whole team in any age group so we had some younger kids playing against the 5 and 6’s from other schools. A great day was had by all and we especially liked the sausage sizzle that the local police and Rugby WA people helped cook.

Below are some actions shots of the kids as they both learnt how to play and also played in Mullewa.

Students and staff are very appreciative of the kind donation of $50 from Mr Jonas Kirk. He sent a note and a photo of himself and his wife - they have been married for 62 years!

The students had a wonderful time with the Yalgoo PS students last Thursday and Friday. We had a competitive game of football and cricket and later joined in at the Yalgoo Police disco night.

Brendan and Leyton were the stars of the night for the boys and the girls danced their hearts out. We definitely stole the show! 

One of the highlights we had was that as we played in the playground, a local goat came to join us. He obviously is very tame letting the students pat him and climbed onto the play equipment with them.

While the senior students played a competitive game of cricket....... 

.......the junior students enjoyed watching a relaxing movie

Thank you so much to the Yalgoo Police Station for putting on a fabulous Disco Night for our students. They danced hard and got on so well! The kids had such a ball!

The students were fascinated to learn about forensic science and how to do finger printing! They even got stuck in the lock up!

Students were privileged to see how fabric can be dyed using different natural leaves. They also had a good look around at the local artwork.

We managed to sneak in a little play time in at the Yalgoo Park. Pity it was too cold for the water playground.

We didn't really want to leave Yalgoo. We had so much fun and everyone got on so well. 

Thank you, Principal Geoffrey Blyth for your wonderful hospitality and for all the staff and students for making us feel so welcome.

Pia Wadjarri RCS paid homage to past and present students [as at 2018] and their Elders by capturing what it is like to live on country and learn language, and recording this via an augmented reality book.

What does augmented reality mean? It is a process of videos that are paired to images that, by scanning with the Academy Live app, will come alive.

Interviews were recorded with Elder Lenny Merry along with Lawrence Merry and family.

There were limited editions printed however there are a few books still available for sale at $40.00 per book.

For further information please contact the Manager Corporate Services, Sonia Nelson, on 9923 5204 or by email sonia.nelson@education.wa.edu.au