Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

Email : Denmark.ps@education.wa.edu.au

Telephone : 9848 4700

Website: www.dps.wa.edu.au www.facebook.com/denmarkps

Principal : Damian Luscombe

Deputy Principals : Peter Campbell

Helen Spencer

● Be your best Be resilient ●

● Be safe and caring Be respectful ●

2 8 Feb 9

10

11

12

3 15 Feb

16

School Photo

P&C Meeting 3.15pm

Staff Room

17

School Photo

18 19 Assembly

Yr 6 Rm 22

Mr Fawell

NEWSLETTER

Dear Families, With COVID lockdown, bushfires and floods affecting schools across our state, we feel very fortunate that we have been able to enjoy an excellent first week back with our students. I would encourage everyone to take a moment to reflect on how grateful we are that we live in the Great Southern Region. It has been a great pleas-ure to go around our school this week and see contented students happily engaged in learning. We extend a warm welcome to the new families who have joined our school community this year. Our thoughts are with family and friends who are facing challenging times. We have had a smooth start with students settling into their classrooms with their new teacher and a mix of old and new classmates. We acknowledge that this can occasionally be a testing time for some students and their parents/carers. We are working with students to try to focus on the opportunities and positives their new classes bring and we are very proud of the way they have responded to the challenge. “Resilience” is one of our “4 School Expectations” that drive our Positive Behaviour Support Program and a key competency required to en-joy what is an ever changing world. It is wonderful to see many students striking up friendships with new class-mates whilst maintaining existing friendships. This ties in nicely with our Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) Fo-cus for the first 2 weeks of school being - “Be Resilient by Actively Engaging in Opportunities and Experiences”. Our goal is to build a strong partnership with you so that we can work together to enable your child to thrive. Please do feel free to make an appointment with the classroom teacher if you wish to discuss any aspect of your child’s education. All classrooms will be holding a Parent Information Session before the end of Week 4.

Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

Using Connect to communicate

The Department of Education has introduced new regulations designed to protect your children’s privacy online. As a result, at the present time we are unable to use ClassDojo. We seek your patience and understanding as we transition to using Connect as our main platform for communication.

Connect is totally free and, because it is provided by the Department of Education, very safe. As well as being able to log into Connect on any internet-connected device, you may also receive notices from Connect that will be sent to you as either an email or a notification on your phone. A free app called Connect Now can be download-ed from Google Play or the Apple App Store and will let you receive Connect notices as push notifications.

When you log in you will see:

School Parent Space – This is where we will post whole school information. Your child’s class or a shared class for their year group.

Each parent contact is allocated a P number and you set your own password the first time you login. If you still have your Connect login from last year, it will still work. If you have forgotten your login please contact the front office. They will send you an email from idmadmin@education.wa.edu.au which you may need to check your junk folder for it. The email gives your P number and allows you set up a password. We want to communicate with you effectively. So let’s all get on board with Connect.

Seeking your permission

Another part of the Department’s enhanced approach to keeping students safe online is seeking your permission for your child to use online (Third Party) services in a more specific way. Today we will be sending you an email with a link to complete the Students Online Policy Permission Forms for your child or you can access the form here: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=-RaA4P3Ru0yDsLdutDYWJ0o_thag8xpHoNMl7yn6lKVUQ0IyOVhJN0RSODQ2VFhJQjY2MFNNQ0NMQi4u

It is essential that you complete the form for every child in your family as soon as possible. The school photographer, Kapture is governed by these new Department regulations which means that we need your con-sent to share your child’s information i.e. name, class etc with photographer as part of the ‘bundled consent’ for low risk services. The process for the photographer is the same as previous years but we now need your con-sent so that we can follow the Department’s new policy. As our school photo day is 16 and 17 February (Week 3) we need parents and carers to complete the Students Online Policy Permission Forms promptly. The form takes approximately 1-5 minutes to complete. You can also access the forms via a QR Code in this newsletter.

2021 School Development Days The remaining school development days approved by the Board for this year are:

Term 1 – Tuesday 2 March

Term 2 – Monday 19 April

Term 3 – Monday 19 July

Term 4 – Friday 18 December

The School Development Day on Tuesday 2 March allows the staff to access high quality professional learning. These days provide us with an opportunity to access the best possible Professional Learning to support contin-ued improvement by our teaching and non-teaching staff. For this reason, our School Development Days may not always match Denmark Senior High School.

Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

Bushfire Preparedness

You can rest assured that we are well prepared in the event of a bushfire. This morning it took 5:56 minutes to

evacuate Y1-6 students and staff.

We would like to inform parents of your role in the event that the school needs to evacuate to a safe location.

Evacuation procedure:

* If directed by DFES the school will evacuate to the Pam Wells Assembly Hall.

* students stay with staff

* parents are advised not to pick students up and monitor official communication channels for spe-

cific access information

* DFES and Police may be assisting with the evacuation so emergency services vehicles may be on site

and roads may be closed

* access information will be provided by DFES, local radio and the South West Education Office.

School Board Update I would like to thank our retiring School Board Chair Simon Shepherd for his leadership of our Board. We are grateful for all Simon’s hard work as Chair and will miss his enthusiasm for continual school improvement. This means we have one parent member vacancy to begin 2021.

What does the School Board do? The Board is formed with the fundamental purpose of enabling parents and members of the community to en-gage in activities that are in the best interests of students and will enhance the education provided by the school. This year some of the things the Board was involved in were: Promoting the school in the community Developing a parent friendly version of business plan Monitoring and evaluating the school’s progress towards Business Plan Targets relating to Academic Perfor-

mance, Attendance Rates and Community, Staff and Student Satisfaction Assisting monitoring the schools financial position throughout the year

A full induction and ongoing training and support will be offered to elected parents. If you are interested, please don’t hesitate to me for more details and a chat. The official nomination forms are attached to this Newsletter. 2021 Staffing and Class Structure This year we have three kindergarten classes, three pre-primary classes and thirteen Year 1 to 6 classes. We have had some staffing changes over the summer break. Welcome to: Jenny Patterson - Class teacher Kindy Unit 1 Carmen Ballantyne - Class teacher PP Unit 3 Nevanne Castellaro - Wednesdays in PP Unit 4 Robyn McMeikan - Wednesdays in PP Unit 3 and Art Tuesdays and Thursdays Annika Engstrom – Wednesdays in Unit 5/Room 12 Toby Le Fort - PE Dani Woods – Music Sam Stadon - PP Education Assistant Jess Holmes – Education Assistant

Our Front Office Team is Sonia Edwards, Maz Hearn, Melissa Williams and Katherine Williams. Heading up this

team is Rosalie Plozza, our Manager Corporate Services. In case you missed my letter on Sunday evening, Mr

Luscombe is currently on leave and it is my great pleasure to act as principal.

Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

Phase 4 COVID Restrictions

We need to continue to work together to keep everyone safe. So when you come to our school we ask that you:

Join your child washing their hands before you come to the classroom or use sanitiser Keep a 1.5m distance from other adults Wait outside if the one per 2 metre square rule is likely to be exceeded

Don’t come on site if you are unwell or if you have visited know COVID ‘hotspots’ https://www.wa.gov.au/

I look forward to seeing you at our school.

Kind regards

Helen Spencer

2021 Denmark Primary School Students'

Online Policy Permission Forms

Department of Education Policy

Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

These vital payments enable the school to fund additional items for the learning program for students for example; sports equipment, maths games and brain break materials.

INTERESTING FACT

The voluntary contribution the school seeks of $60 for the year for one child is equal to

$1.50/week or

0.30c/day if attending every day for the year – an extremely small price for such an exciting array of learning and having fun with friends!

We are happy to take part payments of these contributions during the year so they are not a big impact to your family budget – just come and see one of our val-ued Front Office Staff.

This year we are aiming for 100% of contributions paid.

Look out for updates in the newsletters this year to see how quickly we can meet our goal!

Happy 2021!

BSB 086595 Acct # 47 805 5238

Reference - (Surname) (Initial) Vols or by

EFTPOS at the Front Office.

Sending a HUGE thank you to all of our wonderful families who help your children by paying their child/children’s volun-tary contributions each year – both students and staff are very thankful and appreciative of your support!

All this for $1.50 a week!

Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

6th Feb Henry Ballantyne

7th Kaiden Ritchie

8th Tristan Kirkwood

Shane Woods

9th Michael Bird

Oscar Sims

10th Airlie Jenkin

Isaac Dellar

11th Braidy Bourbon

Neve Foley

12th Floyd Neale

14th Lucia Neale

16th Lainey Anderson

Holly Redman

17th Donald Reynolds

18th April Tonkin

Hope Martin

to Pia Gamblin

2020 Bob Mills Art Award

Term 1 Sporting Events

With Mr Le Fort

WHAT WHEN WHERE WHO

Swimming Trials Monday, WK 5

22/02/21

ALAC Year 4 - 6

Faction Swimming

Carnival

Tuesday, WK 6

9/3/21

ALAC Year 4 - 6

Interschool Swimming

Carnival

Tuesday, WK 8

23/3/21

ALAC Year 4 - 6

Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

Swimming Trials Monday, 22nd of February (Week 4)

IMPORTANT INFORMATION Yr 4-6

What are swimming trials and why are they run? On Tuesday of Week 6 (9th March), the DPS Faction Swimming Carnival will be held in Albany. Only students who HAVE NOT participated in this event before and would like to compete, must attend the Swimming Trials in Week 4.

This allows students to choose the events they would like to participate in, and ensures they have completed the event before the carnival. We heavily encourage participation in all events but understand that some events may be beyond the physical capability of some students. It also provides staff with individual times to put students into appropriate divi-sions on carnival day. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, it provides the oppor-tunity for staff to assess the students’ capabilities to prevent any inju-ries on carnival day.

Swimming carnivals are not compulsory but we encourage students to

attend and have a go! However please note if students have not reached Stage 4 swimming

they will not be able to attend. The cost of trials may vary from last year depending on the number of

participants that attend and buses required. This will be finalised on permission notes once students have decided to attend.

Who needs to trial? If a student wants to compete and is:

Year 5-6 and HAS NOT participated in a swim trial/carnival before Year 4 student

Eligible students will be asked to nominate themselves at the Yr4-6 block meeting on Monday the 8th Feb.

PLEASE REMEMBER

NO TRIAL = NO CARNIVAL

Questions? Contact Toby Le Fort, PE teacher toby.kruger-lefort@education.wa.edu.au

Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

For ALL your Denmark Primary School official uniforms.

Contact your locally owned

Denmark Co-Op

Cnr Strictland St and South Coast Hwy

NEWSLETTERS

Term 1

Newsletters will be published fortnightly.

Newsletter items are to be emailed to

Marilyn.Hearn@education.wa.edu.au

or

dropped off to the front office by 12 noon Thursday of newsletter week.

Newsletters this term will be sent or emailed home on Friday of week 1,3,5,7,9

Newsletters will be emailed to the address you have provided to the front office.

PLEASE KEEP YOUR EMAIL UP TO DATE

Proudly an Independent Public School 2021

DENMARK PRIMARY SCHOOL

Proudly an Independent Public School

Mitchell Street, Denmark, Western Australia 6333

Telephone: (08) 9848 4700

I wish to nominate myself as a candidate for election to the School Board.

Declaration of candidate I nominate myself as a candidate and if elected will accept the responsibility of being a parent representative.

Please return to the front office school in person or email to

Helen.Spencer@education.wa.edu.au

No later than 22th February 2021.

Full name:

Candidate Profile

NB:The information entered here will be posted in the newsletter in the event of an election

Signature of Date: / /

Nomination of a candidate for Parent Representative on the School Board 2020 to 2022