Newsletter Wangaratta District Specialist School From the Principal’s Desk Cont. Date 30/05/’14 Ph. 5721 7424 [email protected]. Fax. 5721 ...

Newsletter

Wangaratta District Specialist School

From the Principal’s Desk

Cont.

Date 30/05/’14 Ph. 5721 7424

[email protected]. Fax. 5721 8601

Dates to Remember

O.T. - Emma - 2nd and 16th June Speech - Rachael - 4th, 5th, 11th & 12th June

Flag Raising - Friday 6th June Public Holiday - Queens B.D. 9th June

Cross Country - Tuesday 10th June Soccer Smack Down - Thursday 19th June

As part of National Conciliation week, and to acknowledge our indigenous heritage, WDSS is having a Koorie flag

raising ceremony, next Friday 6th June at 2.00pm . Recently we have had 2 flagpoles erected; one to fly the flag

which celebrates 100 years of Special Education in Victoria and the other to fly the Koorie flag. All families are in-

vited to attend the flag raising which will coincide with our whole school assembly.

Uniform: Thanks to those families who have sent in their preloved WDSS uniform items which are either supersed-

ed or too small. Some items have been redistributed while others are in the second hand uniform cupboard. Please

contact the school if your child is in need.

White Ribbon Campaign: This year the school will be participating in Australia, Breaking the Silence Schools Pro-

gram along with the Wangaratta Learning community of schools in the town. Staff will be introduced to the issue of

men’s violence against women and its prevalence within Australian society, as well as an overview of best practice

standards for the delivery of primary prevention of men’s violence against women, within our schools.

Soccer – Special Olympics: As many of you know, three of our current students are competing in the Special Olym-

pics later in the year. Robbie Campbell, Nathan Campbell and James Elkan are each busy raising the $2600 needed,

which goes towards accommodation, meals, ground hire, uniforms, umpire/referee costs, and travel costs to and from

venues. This is a fabulous opportunity for our students and the other 5 boys from our community who are participat-

ing.

Some background: From 20-25 October 2014, 1,000 Aussie athletes with an intellectual disability will represent

their state or territory at the Special Olympics Australia National Games in Melbourne, Victoria. With competition

across 16 Olympic-type sports, the Games will be a huge celebration of ability as well as a qualifying event for next

year’s Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles where athletes will have the opportunity to represent

Australia on the world stage.

Jack McNeilly is the head coach of the soccer team. He and his coaching team have a squad of 15 athletes who come

from all over Victoria including Ballarat, Morwell, Wangaratta, Myrtleford and metropolitan Melbourne. Keeping

the athletes focused and match fit is a huge challenge for the training team which has 8 members of the Victorian

squad from our district. Jack and the players train every Thursday night at South Wangaratta Reserve. All the players

are either present or past students of the Wangaratta District Specialist School.

You’re Invited to Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea on Tuesday 3rd June at 10.30am

Hosted by Wangaratta District Specialist School’s VCAL Students.

Place - Wangaratta District Specialist School - 139 Appin St Wangaratta

Where – Multi-purpose Room

Time -10.30am

Gold Coin Donation

From the Principal’s Desk cont...

Libby Hosking Principal

Principal’s awards:

Hop’s Sports Column

Sports Award

Jack has run a successful academy for the past 10 years called Just For Kicks Football Academy. The 8 players who

will don the navy blue shirt in October at the National games are all members of the JFK.

Wangaratta High School VCAL students are holding a fundraiser of car washes and a Barbeque to raise some

funds for James. The students have come up with the idea after hearing of James opportunity to participate.

As well Shane Crispin is organising a Soccer Smack Down where the community will play the Special Olympics

Soccer team at the Barr Reserve on June 19th from 4.30-6.30pm. Any players of businesses can pay $50.00 for the

opportunity to play the rising stars, and money raised will go towards the funds needed.

All Abilities Netball clinics commenced this Wednesday at the HP Barr reserve. 42 of our students will be taking

part in Netball clinics run by Kellie Keen and will take place each fortnight culminating in a tournament in

Wangaratta on September 11th. We have enough students to field four teams, and if last year is anything to go by, our

students will do us proud with their efforts and sportsmanship - Many thanks to Lizz who organised this for our stu-

dents.

15 Mile Creek camp will happen for Buffalo and Mt Beauty students next week, which continues to be a very excit-

ing prospect for students involved. Students who attend are able to participate in outdoor activities designed to in-

crease their self-confidence and give them a better understanding of nature and the outdoors. No doubt the next edi-

tion of our newsletter will include plenty of stories and photos from the classes involved.

Senior

Jye Lepenick – for having a very happy week at school

Ben Henwood – for displaying maturity, leadership and diligence

Junior

Millie Langfield – for active participation in the football clinic

Bailey Mackrell – for great listening during assembly

Matt Alfieri – for holding the door open for Keetah

Our Junior Students have visited the Traffic School in Ryan Avenue this week to continue to learn about being safe

on our cycle tracks and roads. It has been an extremely beneficial program and hopefully our students will have a

further session later in the year.

Cross Country. Our middle years and senior students are busily training for our school cross country which will be

held on Tuesday June 10th. This event will be held on the walking track along the One Mile Creek below our

school.

Events will start at 2.00pm. Distance will vary from 1.5km to 2 km depending on age.

Parents are most welcome to come and watch their child participate.

The Sports Awards for this fortnight go to Kayla Bourke who went to the assis-

tance of another student and Hayden Riddell for being a great helper at the swim-

ming pool.

Buffalo - Lisa, Robyn, Jill, Stella, Luke

Positive Behaviour Support

After much consultation, we are pleased to present our core values. At WDSS we are striving to achieve success

in every way and these statements clearly define how we are going to do this.

Signs will be printed and displayed in classrooms and other areas. They will become valuable teaching tools as

well as a constant reminder to staff students of schoolwide expectations.

Our Matrix of expectations is very important and specifies exactly what behaviours are expected and how they

will be taught.

Thankyou to everyone who assisted.

Dave

On behalf of the PBS Team

In the past couple of weeks:

We have been to the traffic school and we have been shopping. We have also enjoyed learning about money, ani-

mals and saying no to strangers. We have made pizza and play dough, and played with flour and shaving cream!

Well done to Noah on being nominated for the Lions Club Children of Courage award. Hope you have a great

“party” on Sunday, Noah!

Students of the Week:

Meron K- for working so hard to improve her research and writing skills

Kayla – for going to the aide of an injured student in the yard

Warby students have been busy writing creative stories for their ‘Wrtiters notebook’ topic of the ‘Animal Kingdom.

Below are some examples of the great writing our class has completed.

Sea Friend

In the ocean there is a group of friends that help each other. There is a sting ray, a turtle, a clown fish, a saw fish and a

sea horse. They all help if there are any sharks around like hammer head sharks and tiger sharks. If any sharks come

the sting ray makes a big dust cloud and the animals get under the sand but the saw fish stays out and if any of the

friends get seen he will fight the sharks. The five animal friends were swimming together in the ocean then they saw

two sharks attacking a dolphin. The dolphin was trying to fight the shark off. The sting ray used his camouflage to

hide the sea horse, turtle and clown fish. The saw fish decided to help the dolphin out and the sharks swam off very

fast and the dolphin became friends with the group.

By Nathan Campbell

Lantern fish

I am a lantern fish and I camouflage in the coral. I am 9 foot tall. I am red with yellow fins. I have a light bulb coming

from the front of my head. The light bulb helps me see people’s teeth when I work as a dentist.

By Jacob Salafia

Together we will make good choices. Together we will make good choices.

Feathertop - Rosie, Jodie, and Ashley

All the students in Feathertop have been working hard planning and preparing for Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea.

This is a great event for a worthy cause, and we hope to raise much needed funds for cancer research. Some students

have also been researching accommodation options for the VCAL Camp which will be held in Geelong this year.

They have found this a challenging process gathering and comparing prices, and have had to use their numeracy and

oracy skills to engage in meaningful phone conversations with people in the wider community.

You’re Invited to Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea on Tuesday 3rd June at 10.30am

Hosted by Wangaratta District Specialist School’s VCAL Students.

Place - Wangaratta District Specialist School - 139 Appin St Wangaratta

Where – Multi-purpose Room

Time -10.30am

Gold Coin Donation

Warby - Elise and Chris

Together we will make good choices.

WDSS Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program

GROWING, HARVESTING, PREPARING AND SHARING

The composting is going gang busters! We have 1 ½ bays full

already. A BIG THANK YOU to Mt Emu, Mt Beauty, Kosci-

usko, and Hotham for collecting barrow loads of deciduous

leaves for us to use as our brown/dry layer in our compost la-

sagne. We try to layer our compost as follows: 10 cm of

green/kitchen waste, a sprinkling of blood and bone, 10 cm of

brown/dry (leaves, shredded paper/hay), and then repeat, so

that the mix breaks down quickly and is not too wet or too

dry. Also by adding lots of different ingredients we are in-

creasing the nutrients available to the plants when we use the

composted hummus at the end of the process. The worms love

it!

We have been harvesting tomatoes, broccoli, snow peas, bok

choy, pumpkin, beetroot, silverbeet, and rocket. We are sow-

ing purple sprouting broccoli, spring onions, coriander and

Chinese cabbage.

RECIPE FROM THE KITCHEN:

MOAN & GROAN GOOD HAMBURG-

ERS!

Warby made these in class today and you

should have heard all the satisfied noises.

These burgers are GOOD!

Ingredients: 500g mincemeat, 1 brown

onion chopped, ¼ cup BBQ sauce and ¼

tomato sauce, 2 eggs, ¾ cup breadcrumbs,

1 cup of mixed herbs (we used parsley and

oregano) and rocket, 1 tsp of veggie stock

powder.

Method: Mix up all the ingredients togeth-

er in a bowl making sure that they are well

combined. Form into patties and cook ei-

ther on the BBQ or in a pan with a spray of

oil.

Serving suggestions: cook up an egg, mix

up a green salad and pop them together on

a couple of pieces of bread.

Apart from the SAKGP we have also had Buffalo and Stanley

classes over in the horticulture area. These two groups have

been learning about the animal kingdom, mainly the chickens

and caterpillars in the garden. Students have got to know the

chickens and what they need, and had a competition to see who

could find the most caterpillars. Students have also learnt about

autumn colour and weeds, and seed saving.

DONATIONS PLEASE:

White plastic – to make decoy cabbage

moths. White cabbage moths are territorial

and will not lay eggs on the brassicas if

there are other moths in the area, we have a

few of these in the garden and need to

make some more. Ice-cream and margarine

containers, would be perfect.

Kosciusko - Kate and Sheydin

Together we will make good choices.

Stirling - Alysha and Sharon

It’s been a busy few weeks in the Kosciusko room. Last Thursday the Kosciusko and Mt Emu Rooms went to

Park Lane Nursery for Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea. We also watched the Hawthorn footballers train in

Wangaratta. We did some writing about it.

We cooked Honeyed Garlic stir-fry in cooking.

“This is me with a Hawthorn player. He went to play athletics

at Wangaratta Showgrounds.

I have a pink jumper on with my hair plaited. “ (Sarah)

“This is me. I was smiling. We went

to Park Lane Nursery.” (Thomas)

“This is me at Australia’s Big-

gest Morning Tea. I’m eating a

lamington and cheese. “(Brodie)

For cooking this fortnight we have been busy making Gnocchi with pumpkin

sauce (from our garden) and scrambled eggs on multigrain toast with apple crum-

ble. The students enjoyed both meals, some going back for seconds! While one

group is busy cooking in the kitchen the other group are busy helping Jo in our

school garden. They especially love to look for caterpillars – some of which we

have kept in our caterpillar viewing container. We weren’t allowed to feed these

caterpillars to the chickens!

Our Student of the Week for this fortnight includes just one student – Hayden

Riddell. His improvement at school has been exceptional and he deserved Student

of the Week two weeks running! Hayden has been reading each night at home,

sometimes taking two books home to read. I think Hayden is trying really hard to

win the Collins Bookshop $25 voucher – for the student who reads the most

books at home for the term. Keep it up Hayden.

Together we will make good choices.

Mt. Beauty - Lee and Lizz

Mount Pilot - Sarah and Fiona

Over the last two weeks the students in Mt Beauty have been learning to work with different types of students to

help them achieve their learning goals for the semester. As some parents may know, Jasmine and Claire WHS

have been working with the students in creating a PBS video for the school. We are hoping to see the video at the

end of the term at the final assembly. All students that have been working with Claire and Jasmine have been pos-

itive and setting a great example for the school. On Thursdays we host Natalie and Lilia from Cathedral College

who have been working with the students on improving their literacy skills. Natalie has been using the M100W to

help improve students spelling and Lilia has been reading parts from “Fantastic Mr Fox” to help with comprehen-

sion. Students have really enjoyed their time working the girls, they have been very helpful.

Last week Hop took us to a Hawthorn football clinic down at the Maggies ground. We worked on our football

skills, played some games, and got some photos with the players! It was heaps of fun!

This week we decided to make Frog Jelly from the Grandma Poss’ Cookbook. First we took out our recipes to

make our shopping list and then went to IGA to do our shopping. Then we washed all our equipment and started

to make it. We then waited for our Frog Jelly to set. We ate our Frog Jelly for morning tea on Friday morning and

it was delicious!

Congratulations to our Student of the Week– Chloe.

Chloe demonstrated that she had excellent life skills, washing dishes all by herself without having to be prompt-

ed. Well done Chloe.

Hotham - Shardae and John

Together we will make good choices.

Buller—Allan, Suzanne, Mab and Peter

Well, there was Kara Lea sitting quietly minding

her own business, enjoying the soothing effects

of a bubbling foot bath on her hands and feet

when who should drop in wanting to have a chat

and a bit of a sticky-nose but Kristen and Emma.

Well, Kara was feeling pretty relaxed at that

stage, always enjoys a visitor and in no time at

all was having a great old joke with the girls-

lovely way to spend a bit of an Autumn after-

noon as far as she was concerned.

Claire and Jasmine, our visitors this week from Wangaratta High’s Community Learning program and proud “A”

grade students of their Advanced Bubble Blowing course convinced us to let them run a class for our students.

We were all absolutely impressed with some of the monster bubbles they produced and thank them for their ef-

forts. A Bubble Honours grading is a certainty for them this year.

Our students are working very well every session and have really adjusted

well to the new routines which are now in place. Change of any sort always

takes a bit of time to get used to and it is great to see how well the group has

settled in with a new teacher. Well done to everyone in the Hotham class.

Kourtney does a great job with the roll at the start of each day and enjoys the

interaction with every other student as she goes through the class list to see

who may be away. Sadly, due to the recent spate of colder weather and a few

wet days, we have had a few students come down with colds and sniffles -

hopefully this will not be widespread. Summer has certainly left us so all our

students need to dress suitably for the cooler weather.

Our weekly shopping trip to IGA is going very well where students learn to

shop independently to source the ingredients for our cooking on Wednesdays.

The food we cook and share is being well received and the skills of the group

continue to improve.

Well done to all the students and particular mention goes to our students of

the week for the past two weeks – Ashleigh for her enthusiasm and great fash-

ion sense and Simone for her willingness to help her classmates at all times.

Mt. Emu - Leanne and Jack

Together we will make good choices.

Last Thursday Mt. Emu and Mt. Kosciusko students were invited to Park Lane Nursery for ‘The Australian Big-

gest Morning Tea’. Students helped raise money for Cancer research by giving a gold donation. In addition, both

classes provide two large plates of cakes, slices and Jack’s special sausages rolls which were made by Mt. Emu

students.

Students achieved beyond their personal goals as they demonstrated the following abilities. Learning Intention

was that all students;

Before leaving Park Lane Nursery,

James Paull and Josh Tull who

both represent WDSS Student

School Council, publicly thanked

the manager of Park Land Nursery

for the invitation. It was a very

proud moment for all WDSS staff

who witnessed their speeches.

Behave appropriately according to the setting;

Cope with a group or crowd situation; and

Contribute cooperatively to group activities.

From The Chaplain’s Desk

Parent/Carer Club: Thanks to those who attended our meeting on May 6. It was great to be part of such won-

derful networking and sharing of information. Our next meeting will be held in the Meeting Room at the school

on Tuesday, June 3 at 2pm. We would love to have your company at this meeting. Please fill in the slip in your

child’s planner if you will be attending.

Junior School Council Meeting: Another great meeting was held this week and topics discussed included slo-

gans to be included on our School Wide Positive Behaviours Board, balls going over the fences of properties

adjoining the school, purchase of additional equipment, a ‘Lunch Bus’, good choices in and beyond the school

and furnishing the “Quiet Room”.

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support: Since my last newsletter article we have had:

90 students trading a total of 2,250 Goldies at the Goldies Trading Centre

100 students reaching the “100 Goldies Milestone” and 1 student reaching the “250 Goldies Milestone”

14 parents receiving a Postcard to share especially good choices made by their children

donations were received from Edgar’s Newsagency, Sarah Lord (student), Sarah (teacher) and Greg McMo-

nigle (friend of staff member, Ash). We really appreciate this generosity.

Chaplaincy Funding: It was announced in the recent budget that funding would continue for the School Chap-

laincy Program and this was heartening news to learn that I could continue in a role that I love.

Chaplaincy Conference: Last Monday and Tuesday I attended the Annual Access Ministries Conference (an

expectation of my role) where the theme for Guest Speakers and Workshops was Building Capacity in families,

schools and the wider communities. This Annual Conference is always provides very worthwhile Professional

Development.

Lion’s Children Of Courage Awards: It is an absolute thrill that 8 of our students will be travelling with their

families and some staff members to receive one of these wonderful awards thanks to the kind and generous spon-

sorship of our local Lion’s Club.

Thought For The Fortnight: More suggestions from ‘101 Ways To Praise A Child’: That’s Incredible, Hot

Dog, Remarkable job, You’re beautiful, You’re a winner, You make me happy, Hip, hip hooray, You’re im-

portant, Magnificent and Beautiful.

Have a great fortnight.

Rose

Stanley - Donna, Jacqui and Simon

Together we will make good choices.

Taminick—Phillipa, Marley, Keetah and Chloe

Last week we celebrated Chloe’s 17th. birthday. We sang happy birthday, Chloe

blew out the candles and then we all ate some delicious birthday cake. Birthdays

are always very exciting and it is nice to celebrate it with friends. Happy birthday

Chloe.

We have been working away on our Writer’s Notebooks. We are all writers in

Stanley and we take pride in the stories we write. This week Kenny wrote a story

about our visit to the Town Library. Kenny spent a lot of time sequencing his story

and working out how to spell some tricky words.

Our sport sessions with Hop

and Simon are one of the

highlights of the week. We

all enjoy using the new

sports equipment and play-

ing some new games. We

love to keep fit and active.

The students in Taminick have all become great friends this

year and we have all been learning how to play nicely with

each other, how to share and how to make new friends.

Bogong - David and Kat

Together we will make good choices.

This fortnight has presented us with a few challenges, not the

least being clobbered by the dreaded lurgy. To students’

credit they struggled bravely on and it seems to be behind us

now.

We welcomed Ewan Parker to our school and room. He has

a bright, cheery outlook on life and loves colouring in. He

comes to us from Harrietville and has settled beautifully into

his travel routine.

On Monday we visited the

Traffic School. It was

terrific fun as well as re-

minding us of our road

safety rules. Thanks to

Ron and his team for

looking after us.

Many thanks to all those who con-

tributed to the 2013 Woolworths

Earn & Learn program by collecting

stickers last year. Our tally allowed

us to purchase goods to the value of

$1641. We placed our order in Sep-

tember, 2013 and the goods were

delivered at the end of Term 1, 2014.

Items purchased are assisting stu-

dents in numeracy programs across

the school. The equipment has been

eagerly awaited and is already prov-

ing to be of great benefit to all age

groups. We thank the whole school

community for becoming involved

and look forward to your continued

diligent collecting when the program

next runs again.

Together we will make good choices.

May 16th May 23rd

Taminick Milly for always trying her hardest at

school.

Jean-Luc for saying “more please”

very clearly.

Buffalo Kyle Margat – for helping Edwina

with her reading and being a responsi-

ble leader in the Buffalo classroom.

Well done Kyle!

Edwina Roper – For having such a

great attitude and always wanting to

be involved in everything in the

classroom. We love Edwina’s enthu-

siasm and lovely smile!

Stirling Hayden Riddell – for excelling at

helping staff.

Hayden Riddell – for reading at

home each night.

Mt Pilot Holly for working hard on her initial

‘th’ sounds.

Chloe Smith— for excellently

demonstrating the life skill of wash-

ing dishes.

Mt Beauty Kostya- for improvements in his at-

tendance.

Jordan Furlong for persisting with

his school work and never giving up

& Jamie Bolger for asking to do

work in class and learning new

things.

Hotham Ashleigh for her enthusiasm and great

fashion sense.

Simone for her willingness to help

her classmates at all times.

Mt Emu Vincent for behaving in a mature way

during SoSafe activities. This behav-

iour shows that Vincent is respecting

his teachers and his peers. In addition,

Vincent is becoming aware of the

schools expectations. To together we

will: be Respectful, be Safe and be a

Learner.

Well done Vincent, you are an

‘Excellent Emu’!

During community access Brandon

always acts and behaves in the cor-

rect way. He is responsible, respect-

ful, and acts in a safe way. Well

done An Excellent Emu!

Kosciusko Thomas for putting his head below

water during swimming sessions.

Josh for great math’s work.

Stanley Keenan Darcy for doing an amazing

job at Park Lane nursery.

Ryan O’Connor for being kind to all

his friends at school.

Bogong Bridget for persevering on our class

walks.

Ewan Parker has made a terrific start

in our class.

Buller Kara for enjoying the experience of

having her school photo taken.

Vanessa for bouncing back from

illness.

Warby Meron for working so hard to im-

prove her research and writing skills

Kayla for going to the aide of an

injured student in the yard.

Feathertop Kristen, Josh and Drew for a great job

planning and organising Friday Can-

teen.

Ben, Josh and Robbie for a fantas-

tic job cooking Friday Canteen.

Sport Hayden Riddell for being a great help-

er at swimming.

Kayla Bourke for going to the assis-

tance of another student.

Students of the Week

SUPPORT OPTIONS – CAN WE ASSIST YOU?

Upper Murray Family Care, Support Options program is about supporting carers and people who are frail aged, have dementia or memory loss or have a disability. Support Options can assist in the fol-

lowing ways: By providing you with information about services, support groups and activities that may assist

you

Planning and arranging respite directly, or by linking you with other appropriate services. Assisting you with planning for the future. Helping with the “where to from here”. Supporting individuals with a disability, with the aim of providing them with the tools needed to

live as independently as possible.

For free and confidential service phone Support Options-Upper Murray Family Care on:

(02) 6055 8000 or (03) 5720 0000.