Julianna Term 4 Week 10

Posted on December 10, 2021 by juliannam

Hi Everyone,

Another year has passed and another fabulous concert! I hope you have all been able to see it.

Being our last 2021 newsletter I would like to send out a heap of thank-yous:

  • To our kids who have survived and thrived in a very tumultuous year
  • To our social team that started the year with so many ideas and managed to get our afternoon teas and knitting circle all started before we shutdown
  • To our maintenance organizer Chris and all those parents that contributed to the care of Currambena even during COVID with the gardens and work in the weekends
  • To all our parents for their patience and support for the school especially with the streamlining of the morning drop offs and afternoon pickups
  • To all our staff who constantly worked at making the education arena work for our kids as well as all the other things that keep the school functioning. Like attending council meetings, selection committees for new staff, managing the office when I suddenly needed to take stress leave, doggedly chasing all avenues in order to have the  Jervis Bay school camp, just to name a few.
  • To our very dedicated school Council and the many, many council meetings they attended to keep on top of the constantly changing  demands

It was a huge year and Currambena made it!

Farewells

Sarah Doret and Rowena Cunningham are leaving us to embark on new adventures. Thank-you so much for all your care and support this year, you are both very much appreciated members of our staff. We will miss you!

To the families that are leaving us at the end of this year – you also will be missed!

Have a wonderful summer break and we look forward to seeing you in 2022

Cheers Julianna

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Preschool News Week 10 Term 4

Posted on December 10, 2021 by katrinaa

Hello everyone,

Well, what a year we’ve all had! We weren’t expecting a repeat of 2020, but we got it and then some. The uncertainty of the pandemic isn’t something that did any of us any favours though we’ve all managed to survive it and here we are at the end of 2021.

It’s always such a bittersweet time for preschool as we say goodbye to many gorgeous children and their families as they spread their wings and depart preschool, as they either glide down the hill to Emma and Vinnie’s class or soar off to the wider community, to attend one of our local primary schools.

Despite everything the amazing preschool children have shown how resilient, caring and astute they are. We continue to be amazed and profoundly moved by how inclusive and caring the youngest people of our school community are. Our hearts are filled with joy and pride each time a little person raises their hand in morning meeting and announces that they have brought in a special treasure from home and are happy to let everyone share it if they wish, or that they are planning to play a certain game and anyone that wants to join in can, which is almost every morning!

A huge thank you to everyone that has contributed to preschool this year. To Oscar’s family for all their amazing work in gardening around preschool. To School Council for all their support and assistance in helping the preschool get through lockdown safely.

To all the families in preschool, thank you for entrusting your most loved and treasured children to us throughout their preschool days. For those families ending their journey at Currambena with preschool, we wish you all the best and know you’ll always carry a piece of Currambena in your heart. For those families with children making their transition into primary at Currambena, we are thrilled to be able to continue to be part of your child’s journey in education. It has been our absolute joy and privilege to be part of your lives this year. Your children are amazing! Wishing everyone a restful and relaxing Christmas break.

Love,

Lisa, Michael, and Katrina

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From Jess Term 4 Week 10

Posted on December 10, 2021 by jessk

Dear Parents,
Here we are at the final newsletter of a very strange but also wonderful year. Thank you for trusting me with your beautiful children and for supporting them at home in their learning and social development. Despite the difficulties, I feel very privileged have worked through the lockdown and the broader pandemic with your young people as I think they have modelled to us all how to be resilient and to embrace change. I also feel very lucky to have a particularly wonderful class of children and parents, and I am very excited to be continuing our journey together next year in the classroom just next door.

On Monday, the children and I will be moving some of our favourite things from our current classroom into our future classroom and deciding on ways we want to set up our space. I hope that this process will support the children to begin their mental journey of becoming older Currambena children. On Tuesday, we will go swimming for the last time and maybe even stop at Pottery Green for an icy pole on the way home. If you are coming to help with supervision on this day, please come by 1pm so we have enough time.

We will also have some Christmas craft fun and games as we spend the last few days of the school year enjoying each other’s company. On Wednesday, which is the last day of the year, I plan to take the children up to the plaza for an end of the year gelato treat. If it’s raining, we might have to settle for ice-cream cones at school and a movie day.

I want to send my appreciation to all the parents (and grandparents) who volunteered their time to support our class and the Currambena community this year. In the classroom, on excursions, through maintenance, music lessons, tech help, gardening, organising social events and even with just a friendly smile at drop off…I couldn’t have done it without you!

I also wanted to send a special thank you and farewell to Sarah Doret for all of her wonderful support over the last few years. Sarah, your calm and organised approach has been a lifesaver to me personally and I am going to miss your always friendly presence. Wishing you all the best for your future studies and artistic endeavours and I hope you will come and visit regularly.

And I’d like to send Rowena many thanks and warm and special wishes for next year for her growing family. Rowena, it has been an absolute pleasure to work with you.

Finally, special goodbye and good luck to Hugo and his family who we will miss but whom we wish all the best in Adelaide.

See you at the Diddy!
Jess xxx

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Sarah’s Class Week 10 Term 4

Posted on December 10, 2021 by sarahm

Here we are everybody, we’ve finally made it!

So the children and I are slowly starting to ‘pack-up and wrap up’ for the year. This week we have been focused on writing poetry (Acrostic) for our end of year class book and will be voting for 1 of the children’s designs to adorn the front cover. Unfortunately, it won’t be printed and bound before we break but it will be in the classroom when school resumes in 2022 for a look see. Also this week, we wrapped up our unit on fractions with an assessment task. We farewelled Carolina in our final Spanish lesson and did the last of our Maths Mentals text book… yipeeee!! We continued with a bit of time telling and after a dictation compared our writing ability and how much this has changed since Term 1. There were some gorgeous giggles and laughter when they all looked at how they used to write and could see how much they have developed & grown.

There have been a few niggling issues with some friendship groups – which is expected at this time of year when everyone is so tired. So we had a whole class discussion (and reminder) on what makes a good friend and the children shared what type of people they would want around them. Some of the traits shared were someone who is: passionate, encouraging, trusting, honest, playful, inclusive, flexible, open, easy going, kind and respectful. We talked about being that person to have that person and reminded ourselves on the importance of open communication, expressing our feelings and talking about the problems we have, so we don’t bottle them up and let them build over time. Obviously, this is never one discussion we have with children and it was good for it to come to the surface before we end our time together.

We are all looking forward to our Kris Kringle giving on the last day and have allocated a box for presents to be placed into.

Also next week, the children have voted to buy an ice cream after swimming on Tuesday and they can bring up to $5. There was another vote to go up to Lane Cove shops on Wednesday and buy lunch. Please have a chat to your child about this as they can bring whatever monetary amount needed dependent on what they want to eat. We agreed they can go to Charcoal Charlies, Guzman, Bakers Delight and the Sushi shop. If they are not buying their lunch they can either stay back at school or come for the walk.

A very sad farewell to Henry and his family: Hugo, Brad and Elissa. We wish you all the very best on your next adventure. I have loved getting to know you all albeit briefly this year. You will be missed!

Lastly, this being the final post for our year, a massive thankyou to my fellow teachers. It has been a challenging year for everyone and I continue to feel blessed to be working with such an amazing group of people who bring so much passion to their role. A goodbye to Sarah D and Rowena who have been our incredibly supportive assistants. Sarah leaves us to further her studies in the Arts and Rowena is expecting her baby in March. Thankyou also to school council for navigating us through another year in this pandemic and to all of you for the support you have shown me and our community.

I wish you a very happy Christmas and safe holiday.

Love, Sarah

 

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Leesa’s Class Term 4 Week 10

Posted on December 10, 2021 by leesaj

The final newsletter of 2021. What a year it has been! The children have shown amazing resilience and understanding throughout our journey this year. How fantastic were the plays last week! Everyone did a terrific job and thank you to Cooper who stepped in to Sarah’s class play to fill a role.

This week we have been finishing off textbooks, writing, reading, cleaning and listening to book number two in The Land of Stories series. Final Personal Interest Project presentations were completed and the topics included: Candy, Animals you may not know about, Earth and Witches and Wizards. We have also revised support networks and discussed warning signs in our bodies. Books and creations will begin to come home as we finish our topics over the next few days.

Last nights movie night was a big success. The children enjoyed eating a range of foods and watching their chosen film.

Tuesday next week is our last swimming session for the year and the children would like to buy an ice-cream from the canteen, up to $5 for this.

Could Kris Kringle gifts come to school at the latest on Monday 13th December please, ready to hand out on our final day of the year which is Wednesday 15th December.

Thank you to Margaret and Vidya for sharing the role of parent rep for our class this year. Also, thank you to everyone who has volunteered their time or donated items to our classroom, completed maintenance around the school and supported the community through a very tough year.

Thank you to the staff for their support throughout the year, as we navigated online learning and different procedures due to COVID. We say goodbye to Sarah and Rowena our teacher assistants as they leave us to fulfil other roles. Thank you for supporting our class this year.

Lastly, we bid farewell to Zariah, Ruth and Hugo as they embark on new learning journeys next year. We wish you all the best for 2022 and beyond.

Have a great weekend and holiday everyone!

Leesa x

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My Time at Currambena by Harper.

Posted on December 10, 2021 by wendyp

When I first came to Currambena as a trial day – I knew it was for me when I saw this Cinderella dress and they let me borrow it. I was three when I started preschool and LOVED it. I made new friends like Alex and Sophie – who are still some of my best friends today. Although Currambena 8 years ago was almost a completely different place. I had preschool in what is now Jess’s class and there was no new classroom for Wendy’s. But, there was the wavy green slide and the long metal one. The green slide was PERFECT for playing ‘Crocodile’ on with my friends and the long metal slide was just a good slide. I want to give credit to my preschool teachers – Michael, Chris, Sue and Katrina. Chris – you were an awesome preschool teacher, Michael – I credit you for my nickname ‘Harpdizzle’ (as well as the song), Sue – you were awesome and Katrina – you were SO nice.
Sue’s class – kindy – was a great year. Sue was one of the nicest teachers and always gave us really fun things to do. She always made me feel welcome and part of the class – even when I felt like I had no friends in the class. I don’t remember much about that year – but it was great.
The next year was Marius’s class. He was one of the best teachers I ever had at Currambena. He always taught us different songs and gave us REALLY fun term themes. He even taught us a song to remember our six-times-tables and I still use it. My second year in Marius’s class I was with Sophie and Zali again – which was great. Marius gave us the theme Mythology for term 4 and EVERYTHING was to do with that. Maths, English, Literacy, even the play, was all around that theme. (I want us to remember my trademark line from that year’s play : “That’s no way to speak to a lady!”).
My next year was Sarah’s. A lot of people say she was a little scary – but not really to me. She gave us harder work and played lots of fun games – including “Dodge the Hoop” one of the best games where Sarah rolled the hoola hoops at us and we had to dodge them – if you got hit you had to join her. That was also my first year of doing PIPs. I did my first PIP on Gemstones and my second was on Prezi – about Misty Copeland.
Leesa’s class was a tough year for me (personal reasons) and Leesa was a new teacher, but she was lovely. She was so nice when we did work and gave us lots of fun things to do. The school helped me through the hard time my family had that year and we felt so supported. Rafters and the rats were very fun – even though it was the year they died. I don’t really remember much about that year – even though it wasn’t that long ago.
And now… (drum roll please)….

WENDY’S CLASS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Year 5 was one of the best years. In the beginning I shared a desk with the other year 5 girls and enjoyed it exceptionally. The lockdown was the most difficult and I felt so lonely. It was hard but I got through it and came out sane. It was such a relief to get back to school. Camp that year was especially fun. We went to Bendalong Point – a little further South than Jervis Bay. There were SO many cicadas and Leila was terrified of them. Gwen and I threw one at her and she screamed like crazy. I shared a tent with those two and had so much fun at the campsite. There was a jumping pillow where we played a game called, like, the crawlers or something and we played that every day. There was a water park that was too cold the one time we went in and an AWESOME beach. There was beautiful sand and lovely blue water. On the far side of the beach there were stingrays around the rock pools. YOU COULD PAT THEM!!!!! They were actually quite friendly. Wendy had to keep reminding us that we needed to stay away from the stingers. There was one boy who heard that and said “No, they won’t sting you, they’re manta rays.” and we were like “Uhhh, no, TRUST me, they’re stingrays.” It was pretty funny. The year six ceremony was sad and in a beautiful spot with fairy lights all over a dead tree that had fallen around the spot. On the last day there was Kris Kringle and mine was Elke. I got her a watercolour pad and some brushes along with some chocolate. Laurence was Kris Kringling me and he got me a drawing pad, a pack of oil pastels and a little Santa pencil holder.
Year 6 has been one of my best years. I had a fair few friend problems though, but Wendy helped me sort them out. I sit on a huge three desk desk with my best friends Alex, Sophie, Zali and Immie. The lockdown was a hard aspect of the year and I had trouble staying sane. I went on walks with Alex almost every day and I got to do my work early, so that was good – I guess. The online dancing gave me the chance to NOT do PE – a VERY good aspect. Once we got out of lockdown I was thrilled. I got ready for Halloween and went trick or treating with Alex, Sophie and Claudia. I worked with the year sixes on our year six project, and finished it in two weeks. I think it’s one of the coolest year six projects. Writing the play was fun, especially making Claudia obsessed with skittles! I was very happy with my role and I thought the play was very quirky and funny. Doing Kris Kringle this year was fun, I am pretty happy with mine. I have some main suspects but have only ruled out a few people. I’m really excited about camp and the year six ceremony. I saw a picture of where it’s going to be, IT’S BEAUTIFUL!!!!! I think year six has been one of the best years at Currambena.

Next year I will be attending Riverside Girls High School. I have my uniform already and have done an online orientation. I have a younger sister, Mabel so I won’t be leaving the Currambena community just yet. I just want to thank Currambena for the wonderful time they gave me and the amazing community they let me into.
From,

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Photo of the Week

Posted on December 2, 2021 by Newsletter Editor

IMG_3101

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Julianna Term 4 Week 9

Posted on December 2, 2021 by juliannam

Hi Everyone,

Currambena concert today! It always seems so long leading up to the concert and then suddenly the day is here!

Please refer to the emailed that was sent for the link.

We had an excellent Council meeting on Monday. Jason presented the 2022 budget with great clarity consequently Council was able to sign off and so we are good to go for next year!  It is great to have this box ticked off before we sail into the new school year.

This is Emma’s last week and we farewell her on Friday.

We are sending Emma off with a huge thank you from us all for all the effort and energy she has given the school this year especially as it was so full of uncertainty and changes with COVID.

 

Cheers Julianna

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Preschool News Term 4 Week 9

Posted on December 2, 2021 by katrinaa

Hello everyone,

Today is the school concert! Such an exciting event for us all to be involved in. The buzz in the playground is so lovely, with the anticipation not going unnoticed in preschool. Even though we aren’t all performing live at the concert, the children have come up with some great performances that although prerecorded, will be streamed live to preschool children at home today and everyone’s families off-site. We’re so grateful that despite all the restrictions, it’s able to go ahead and that the preschool children here today are able to be in the audience!

On Monday many of our preschool children had their orientation visit in Vinnie and Emma’s class. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend some time with the children during their visit. It was lovely to see how happy and comfortable they all were, a definite indicator that they’re ready to fly the preschool nest to their next adventure in primary at Currambena.

We’ve all been learning about Hanukkah this week, an important celebration in some of our preschool people’s lives. Like Diwali, the celebration is symbolised by lights. Thank you to Tui for sharing a story about Hanukkah with preschool and thank you to Olive’s family for the fantastic resources and the donuts that the children eagerly devoured on Tuesday.

The Pokémon craze has well and truly hit preschool! We’ve channelled this interest by making our own Pokémon cards. We think the children’s handmade versions are more unique and definitely more valuable to us than the commercially made ones. We’ve loved the creativity the children have shown in designing and coming up with very unique names for their characters.

With the easing of restrictions, we’ve learned that singing is now finally back on the table in preschool!  We do however need to sing outdoors, though we can now sing nevertheless! We’ve really missed it, with the children quickly remembering songs we haven’t sung for 6 months or more! Music is such a big part of our day. Holding the speaker and the phone as you march around preschool with the song you’ve requested blaring out from the UE boom is a regular occurrence and has quickly become a tradition in preschool.

That’s it for this week, everyone. As the end of the year is quickly approaching we’re noticing how tired many of the children are becoming, hopefully, children have the opportunity to have some downtime over the weekend. We know this can prove tricky as the festive season is well and truly upon us!

Happy Hanukkah everyone!

Love

Lisa, Michael, & Katrina

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From Jess 2/12/21

Posted on December 2, 2021 by jessk

Dear Parents,
Wow – what a big week!

On Monday, our orientation day was very exciting and the children demonstrated a serious approach as they moved into the neighbouring classroom for the morning. We spoke about what it means to be an older child in the school and there were some very mature thoughts from some of the children who spoke about being brave, responsible and kind and about the importance of being a role model for the children in the younger classes. Together we decorated some bunting with some of these values and I will hang this up in the new classroom ready for the start of 2022. We also played a quick game of ’Space Jump” and read a book about learning new things called “Little Penguin”.

On Tuesday, Emma and I were determined to go swimming despite the light rain so we headed out on our first swimming adventure post lockdown. Much fun was had all around and the time in the water seemed to flash by before it was time to get out again. Some very tired little people were delivered back to school for pick-up time that afternoon! Thank you to Celine, Elissa and Abi for your help with supervision.

There has been lots of concert practice and costume making in preparation for our show today and this year we will certainly be working right down to the wire. The children have done a really wonderful job of memorising their lines, finding their positions on the stage, making their costumes and learning how to tell a story with their bodies and faces, and this year they have done all this in half the usual time. I hope you will keep this in mind as you watch our show and forgive the need for whispered prompts and extra safety pins. I’m very proud of every single one of the children and I am so pleased that we could finish our year building this play together.

In other class news, the children have been learning about the two sounds that the digraph oo make (as in ‘boo’ and ‘Book”) and they’ve been making and finding groups of objects in the classroom to help develop their concrete multiplicative thinking.

Next week I will be away on Thursday and Friday as I am going to a family wedding in Bega that has been postponed twice due the COVID lockdowns. Sarah D will be covering the class. Thank you Sarah.

Lastly, I would like to say a very warm farewell to my friend and colleague Emma whom I have deeply enjoyed working with this year. It has been a very strange and difficult year to be a teacher and I feel lucky to have faced these challenges along side such a dedicated and creative person. Best of luck for your next chapter Emma…

Jess x

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