Dear Parents and Caregivers

How different the start of Term 2 2021 has been to the start of Term 2 2020! The content of my newsletter article last year at this time was very much focused on Online Teaching and Learning for students in Kindergarten to Year 10 and encouraging our Years 11 and 12 students to return to school for face-to-face classes. This reminded me of how all of us, students, parents and staff, were learning to cope with an unfamiliar world and wondering when things might return to ‘normal’.

Well, we’ve adapted, done what was asked of us to keep our State safe ... and here we are, at the start of Term 2 in 2021, looking at welcoming more parents back to school activities and more resilient from the lessons of the past year.

As you know, there is still no place for complacency! We continue to encourage our students to wash their hands regularly, provide hand-sanitiser, require adult visitors to our campuses (including parents) to practise physical distancing and ask that they scan our QR Code on arrival. Please help us by observing these important safety measures.

Welcome
We welcome new students and their families this term and hope that your experience at our school will be a special one for each of you.

Staff
Similarly, we welcome new staff:
Mrs Alicia Tearle (Learning Enrichment – Halls Head)

We welcome back from Leave:
Mr Israel Carmody (English and Assistant Head of Arnold House)
Mr Daniel Harrop (Health and Physical Education and Head of Ellis House)
Mrs Sue Kirke (Deputy Head of Primary – Halls Head)
Mr Stephen Preston (Science)

Thank you to the teachers who filled these positions last term:
Mr Jayden Geerlings (Health and Physical Education)
Dr Graham McMahon (Science) who stays with us in a part-time capacity
Mrs Donna Stark-Senteneller (English)

Thank you to members of our permanent staff who took on positions of extra responsibility in Term 1:
Mrs Bianca Baker (Acting Deputy Head of Primary – Halls Head)
Mr Ashley Blake (Acting Assistant Head of Arnold House)
Mrs Natalie Burbage (Acting Deputy Head of Primary – Halls Head)
Mrs Claire Booker (Acting Assistant Head of Ellis House)
Mrs Denise Logue (Acting Head of Ellis House)

We also said goodbye to:
Mrs Natasha Hantler – we thank her for her work in all three sub-schools over her seven years at Frederick Irwin (Year 7, Year 6 at Meadow Springs, Learning Enrichment at Halls Head)
Taryn Bassett (Primary Education Assistant – Meadow Springs)
Casey Slaughter (Pre-Primary – Halls Head)
Daniel Sargent (Grounds)

We thank these staff members for their work at our school and wish them well for the future.

Strategic Plan
We have come to the end of the period specified for our present Strategic Plan (2017 – 2020) with audits of all five Core Activities (Teaching and Learning, Wellbeing and Pastoral Care, Faith and Spirituality, Community Relationships and Engagement, Leadership and Governance) signed off by School Council over the course of 2020.

This represents a significant amount of work and I thank our staff for the energy and innovation that went into its completion.

Planning for the new Strategic Plan was to have begun in 2020 but we were very much restricted from bringing key stakeholder groups together. At the start of this year, in light of further uncertainty when we found ourselves in lockdown for the very first week of the new school year, the decision was made to put an interim, mini Strategic Plan together for 2021 with the help of our facilitator, Chris Green from StategyEdu.

This was achieved during the past holidays and we are now developing a document to present to School Council and then our wider school community. It is very much hoped that planning for a full four-or five-year Strategic Plan will be accomplished during 2022.

I wish you all a successful and satisfying Term 2.

Best wishes

Kerry Robertson
Principal

Dear Parents and Caregivers

Term 2! An exciting and busy time for our whole school community. As always, our students will meet every activity and event with a display of our Core Values and a healthy dose of commitment.

We will begin the term with a focus on respect. This thread will run through several important activities and events in the first few weeks. During our ANZAC services, the students will pay their respects to the men and women in the armed forces who have, and continue to, serve our country. Representatives from the Student Leaders along with Mr Teape and I will attend the RAAFA Meadow Springs Estate service on Sunday morning. The leaders will lay a wreath to show our communities respect and gratitude.

Respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History and Culture is a focus of the King’s Park excursion and the Yirra Yakkin incursion. This week our Years 3 and 4 students embark on an excursion to King’s Park to learn more about Indigenous History and environmental science. In the coming weeks, our students will participate in an incursion performed by Yirra Yakkin Theatre Company. This incursion provides students with opportunities designed to make them think, question their preconceptions, expand their knowledge of theatre and contemporary and traditional Aboriginal culture. These events are planned to support our students' understanding of the histories and cultures of indigenous peoples.

Personal respect is also an important focus for our students this term. Respect is more than just being polite to adults. We ask our students to think about respect in many ways, including respecting themselves, others, and property. Respect is also the ability to recognise and appreciate the rights, beliefs, practices, and differences of other people, including how we speak and behave to others and respecting other people's boundaries. It is also how we think, and speak, about ourselves, the effort we put into our work and the way we treat our own and other's property.

I look forward to sharing many stories of our respectful students throughout the year.

Story Dogs
This term, we are also very excited to have our regular visitors from last year revisit our school in 2021 to help our students with their reading. Maki and Pola visit every Wednesday morning to help our Year 2 classes with their reading.

The Story Dogs program partners with the classroom teachers to help students with their reading. Maki and Pola will support the same four students each week. The students will come out of their classroom and sit one-on-one with Maki and read to Pola. Pola loves to listen and will not mind if the student makes a few mistakes; she just wants to have a fun time so that books and reading become a joyful experience.

Pola loves to run on the beach, sleep with her cuddly toys and shares 'pecking' scrap food with chooks in her garden!

If you are interested in volunteering in this rewarding program, please see www.storydogs.org.au or contact Amanda Milroy on 0417993497.

Kind regards
Sue Youens
Head of Primary – Meadow Springs

Dear Parents and Caregivers

I would like to welcome everyone back to Term 2. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with family and hope that everyone had a similar opportunity.

On Monday the whole staff travelled to Perth to be involved in the Anglican School’s Commission Christian Purposes Day. It was a wonderful day and one of the speakers spoke about values and the importance of living our values. On Tuesday, Sue Kirke and I took the opportunity to reaffirm this message with our students. The idea that we certainly need to know what our Core Values mean, but more importantly we need to live them. I enjoy having these conversations with students and their excitement and positivity are always contagious.

I’d like to formally welcome back Mrs Sue Kirke from Long Service Leave and welcome Mrs Alicia Tearle to our strong staff as the new Learning Enrichment teacher. I thank Mrs Natalie Burbage and Mrs Bianca Baker for their work as Acting Deputy last term. Their efforts, passion and hard work allowed us to have a smooth and productive term. I also thank Mrs Casey Slaughter for her teaching in Pre-Primary and Mrs Toni Jacobs for taking a lead in Pre-Primary. We are very excited about Term 2 and the rich learning opportunities we will be able to provide our students.

Community Morning Tea
Last term Amy O’Brien, our School Psychologist, gave a presentation to parents on the topic of Resilience. We endeavour to offer one of these sessions each term, and they are wonderful opportunities to come together as a community. Often a cup of tea is shared while listening to a very informative speaker. I encourage all of our parents to attend our next Community Morning Tea if they are able to do so.

Student Leaders
Zoe Thompson and Luke Willman have been appointed as our Junior Councillors and have already been working with the City of Mandurah to develop their leadership skills. Both of these students have a real passion for improving our community and we are very proud of the way in which they represent our School. Zoe has had an added achievement, by being elected the Deputy Junior Mayor of Mandurah. This is very significant as she was voted in by students across many schools in Mandurah. We congratulate Zoe and know that both Zoe and Luke will do a wonderful job.

Inter-School Swimming Carnival
A selection of Years 4, 5 and 6 students represented the School at the Inter-School Swimming Carnival last term. I thank Mrs Shepherd for her organisation and understand that the camaraderie and School spirit was immense. I congratulate Michael Boonzaaier for winning Runner-Up Champion Year 4 Boy and Shelby McAuliffe for winning Runner-Up Champion Year 4 Girl. I also congratulate Isabel Boonzaaier for winning Runner-Up Champion Year 6 Girl. Isabel Boonzaaier, Sophie Harford, Sofia Novoselskaia and Zoe Thompson were also a highly successful relay team on the day. We are incredibly proud of all our students who contributed to winning the Peel School Sport Association’s Handicap Shield. This is the first shield we have achieved and stands as a wonderful accomplishment for our student-athletes and school.

Have Sum Fun
At the end of last term, both Zoe Thompson and Dion Williams represented the Halls Head Campus at the ‘Have Sum Fun’ competition, run by the Mathematical Association of Western Australian. Their teams finished First and Second respectively and we congratulate Zoe and Dion for their achievements and passion for Mathematics. I would also like to recognise both Mrs Cheryle Rudland and Mrs Bianca Baker, for their organisation and effort in the lead-up and during the event.

Parent Help
I wanted to reiterate to our community that we really do want our parents involved in the School. If you would like to assist in the classroom, regardless of what year level your child is in, please make contact with your teacher to learn about opportunities to be involved.

Noah Clark
Head of Primary – Halls Head Campus

Year 6 2022 Special Top

Our current Year 5s will be completing their Primary schooling next year. With this in mind, we would like to inform you that Frederick Irwin Anglican School recognises this and has decided to offer a ‘special top’ to all Year 5 students (2021) for Year 6 (2022).

As all students require a gold polo shirt as part of their sports uniform, we have decided to have this polo top made with the class-lists printed on the back. The cost to parents will be the cost of the polo top plus the printing.

Please either place your order online via Quickcliq or call into the uniform shop by 23 September 2021 at the latest (no orders will be taken after this date), to order and pay for the correct size ready for delivery in February 2022.

Dry Cleaning your Blazer
The purpose of this article is to provide some guidance and advice relating to the safe laundering and dry cleaning of your Frederick Irwin Anglican School Blazer.

The first rule is that blazers should never be home-laundered. Treat your blazer like any suiting jacket – which is dry clean only. Just like a suit, blazers have high quality fabric (containing wool) together with fusing and lining which must be professionally cleaned. A quality dry cleaner should be used where possible.

The above said, there are some dry cleaners that do not always dry clean in accordance with garment specifications. The primary complaint about dry cleaning is over-heating. When a blazer is over-heated, the fusing (used to make collars and the lapel maintain shape) will come away from the fabric and result in bubbles, a wave pattern or bulging. An experienced dry cleaner will know this and can prevent this from happening.

Frederick Irwin Anglican School's blazer manufacturer recommends using a larger-scale dry cleaner rather than small shopping centre-based dry cleaners. Larger volume dry cleaners tend to be more professional and have experience with special garments. If you are in any doubt, do not be afraid to ask questions about the dry cleaner’s practices and knowledge.

Sound dry cleaning practices will ensure your blazer will last longer.

Lost Uniforms
Can you all please check your children's uniforms for names. If the item is not yours, please return it to the school office as soon as possible, where we are able to give the item to the correct child; if you know the child please pass it on to the owner.

Recently, I have had several parents into the uniform shop, concerned about lost/taken uniform items.

Please be mindful that all items of clothing MUST have your child’s name on it, this will not only reduce the risk of lost items, which result in additional costs for families, but items can easily be returned.

Second Hand Uniforms
Have you any uniforms that no longer fit? Re-sell them through the Uniform Shop. Items must be laundered and in good condition.

Forms are available from either the Uniform Shop, Reception or online – details needed:
Name and address – so payment can be deducted from your school fees – once items are sold
Date purchased – this will help set the selling price

The selling price is set at 60% of the original price, and then you receive 75% of this selling price.

A new system has been developed to help process the secondhand uniforms into the shop and sell on for you. Unfortunately, any item that has been taken in cannot be returned if either unsuitable or unsold.

Please see below the Uniform Shop Hours for Term 3.

Please be aware that when ordering online, you will receive an email to confirm your order, and that collection is to be from Primary Reception or Secondary Reception.

MEADOW SPRINGS CAMPUS