The Rosewood Report - Issue 8

May

Monday 30th - Reconciliation Week

June

Wednesday 1st June - Subway Orders Due (9:30am)

Wednesday 1st June - Volunteer gardeners (1pm-3.30pm)
Thursday 2nd - Subway Lunch
Thursday 2nd - Lunchiez Orders Due (9:00pm)

Friday 3rd - Lunchiez

Friday 3rd - Division Cross Country

Monday 6th - Student-free day

Thursday 9th - World Ocean Day

Thursday 9th - Book Club due

Friday 10th - Student-free day

Welcome back to assemblies

After a long hiatus due to COVID, we are finally going to see a return to school assemblies. Initially, we will hold assemblies on a Monday and Wednesday morning and they will start at 8.55am. Students are asked to head directly to assembly with their bags when the music starts playing and line up with their grade. Assemblies generally run for about 10 minutes and parents are welcome to attend. Assemblies will take place on either the basketball court or in the hall, depending on the weather. We look forward to returning to these school-wide gatherings where we get to showcase student achievement, hold musical performances and pass on important messages to our students.

COVID and flu update

Although we're seeing fewer COVID cases in the community, we are unfortunately experiencing a surge in flu cases and viral infections in students and staff recently. It's really important that students are not sent to school when they are unwell and displaying symptoms of illness.

We will send home boxes of rapid antigen tests every fortnight until the end of term for household use. The new advice for schools is that students only need to test whenever they are displaying any symptoms of illness, so your child no longer needs to test twice a week.

Thanks for your ongoing support in helping us all to stay safe and healthy at school.

Term 2 curriculum days

Term 2 is a shorter than usual term which is only nine weeks long. We also have a couple of short weeks coming up later this term that families need to be aware of.

On Monday 6th June we have staff professional practice day and no students will be required at school as staff undertake professional learning activities. On the Friday of the same week, the 10th of June, we have a curriculum day when once again, no students will be required at school while staff have another professional learning day. This means that students only attend school for three days from Tuesday to Thursday during Week 7 of term. The following Monday the 13th of June is the Queen's Birthday public holiday and school will be closed for the day. Please mark these student-free days in your calendar.

Our before- and after-school care team, CommunityOSH, will be offering full-day holiday care on both of these curriculum days for any families that require it. Please see the flier below for information and to make a booking.

Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony

We had a great finish to Week 5 by hosting a Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony. This was a real highlight of our week. Today, Friday 27th May marks the beginning of Reconciliation Week for 2022. To recognise this important week, the school hosted local Bunurong leaders to conduct a Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony. Lakeisha and Daniel were our special guests who led this ceremony for us.

As part of the morning's events, we proudly unveiled our exceptional 'sketchnote' print from our recent Campfire Conversation. This drawing was completed during our Campfire Conversation in Term 1 and captured the ideas and discussions that were held during the event. It now hangs proudly in the front office foyer and we invite families to come and view this beautiful work of art.

Today marked the beginning of National Reconciliation Week, held annually between May 27th and June 3rd. This week is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and explore how everyone can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.

To begin this week of events and activities this graphic illustration was unveiled during our whole school special assembly this morning to the delight of the students, staff and families. The illustration was created during our Campfire Conversation in the last week of Term One. The graphic beautifully captures the ideas and thoughts about self-determination in education that our Koorie students, families and community members expressed during the Conversation.

This illustration now takes pride of position in the office. We would like to welcome and encourage all our families to have a closer look when they have the opportunity.

Be You Action Team.

After two years of repeated lockdowns, Rosewood Downs looks forward to welcoming our school community back on-site.

Reconnect with our Rosewood Downs community

by volunteering a few hours of your time.

Join us on Thursday 23rd May, 1.00 – 3.30

or any Thursdays, 1.00 – 3.30 during school terms.

Through our Be You commitment to build family partnerships, we are excited to be involved in a gardening initiative with the Dandenong Learning and Community Centre. DLCC are going to be supporting our school to help to establish and maintain our outdoor spaces.

We are looking for enthusiastic community members to join Tim from DLLC, Julian and Lindsay to create and maintain engaging outdoor play and learning spaces for our students. We would like to expand some of our current garden areas, plant more trees and shrubs and maintain our current gardens.

No experience necessary! We welcome parents, carers, grandparents, friends, pre-schoolers, toddlers and even babies!

Please contact the school if you would like to volunteer your time and help keep our school looking beautiful. Alternatively, come along and join us any Thursday between 1.00 pm and 3.30 pm. Regular or non-regular attendance is welcomed.

We wish the following students a very happy birthday;

Prep: Leila (absent), Oliver, George and Peter

Grade 1: Saravana (absent)

Grade 2: Vukasin (absent), Sama

Grade 3: Mikaila, Angelina, Themelina (absent)

Grade 4: Amar, Daina

Grade 5: Danyal

Grade 6: Oliver

Issue 4 of Book Club is being given out to all students over the coming days. The catalogue is also available to view online. To view the catalogue and for more information about Book Club please visit https://www.scholastic.com.au/book-club/book-club-parents/

Orders can be made online at https://www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP or using the LOOP app, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.

If you would like to place an order using the online LOOP website, please do so by 5pm on Thursday the 9th of June. Cash orders can also be made, and these must also be handed in by the 9th of June.

The last two weeks have been very busy as the children in Unit A have been working through benchmarking tests. At this stage of the year it is important to have an accurate picture of where each student is at with their learning, so we can meet their educational needs during the following semester.

The Grade 1 students are learning about light and dark and are in the process of doing some interesting investigations.

Reconciliation week has provided a focus on Aboriginal culture and during our literacy sessions the students have enjoyed learning about some of the dreamtime stories. This has been a great stimulus for some fabulous discussions and art work depicting the significant relationship of the traditional owners to their land. We have been exploring indigenous customs and traditions, and the children were very excited about the Smoking ceremony on Friday.

The Grade Two students have enjoyed investigating pushing and pulling as part of their topic focus this term about forces. Students made toy car launchers and found that the stronger the pull, the further the car went!

The Grade One students have enjoyed learning about light and sound. This week we had a closer look at the sun and learned fun facts about the sun that we didn’t know. Our daily Show and Tell lessons are a fun way for students to improve their speaking and listening skills, please remember to send something special along with your child on their specified day to share with their classmates.

As it is reconciliation week this week, the Unit D students have enjoyed engaging in various activities to understand and celebrate the significance of this week. We are looking forward to the smoking ceremony!

Stay warm,

The Unit D Team

Mrs. Smith, Miss Semercioglu, and Miss Carothers

It’s hard to believe we are already halfway through Term Two but despite this, the children show no signs of slowing down. Some of the ‘hands-on’ learning highlights over the last two weeks have been making cookies as part of the Unit C Environmental Studies. The Grade Four students thoroughly enjoyed experimenting with different forms of formal units to explore their accuracy when measuring. Also the Grade Three students showed great care, time and effort in creating a desk display of how they can show kindness to others.

Friday the 20th of May was National Walk to Safety School Day. Congratulations and well done to those who participated in the walk to school with their awesome temporary tattoo!!

To celebrate this day the Green Team ran some fun lunch time activities/workshops for the students of RDPS. The students were invited to colour and decorate a shoe to celebrate and raise awareness for the importance of walking to school, not only for our physical health but for the environment. All the students who took part in this activity did a fantastic job. Another very successful event run by the Green Team, well done!

Hello everyone! It’s been a busy few weeks in the Art room. The students have been learning about many new artists and completing some fantastic, expressive pieces of work. It has been a heap of fun! We have displayed much of the work in the hallway so that students can view each other’s pieces.

Just a reminder that painting and clay work will begin soon. Please make sure to supply your child with an art smock or apron. Thank you!

-Mrs. Saleh

Wonder Recycling Returns for 2022

Wonder Recycling Rewards is a fun and easy program created to collect and recycle bread bags and bread tags at school. Once collected, Wonder is going to turn the plastic into wonderful things like school play equipment! As a registered school, our recycling efforts will earn us rewards points to redeem new sports equipment from our supplier RHSports.

We have collection bins at school to deposit any soft plastic bread bags or wrap packs and plastic bread tags. Please bring these items in over the next two months to help us recycle.

It’s important that items being recycled are not contaminated with other products and are as clean as possible. Here’s a quick checklist for you:

What is a bread bag? Any bread bag or wraps pack (not limited to the Wonder brand)

What is a bread tag? The plastic clip that seals the bread bag. Only plastic tags can be recycled.

How clean do the bags have to be? Bread bags should be free from crumbs to ensure no contamination during the recycling process but they do not need to be washed.

For more information please see the attached poster.

District Cross Country – Friday 20th May

Well done to all of the students who competed at District Cross Country last Friday. Everyone supported each other well and did their best effort. We had a very successful event and as a team we finished 2nd overall! We have 12 students going onto the Division Cross Country event after they finished in the top 10 of their race.

Top 10 results

12/13 year old Girls – Isabella 4th and Emonefe 5th

12/13 year old Boys – Arif 4th and Todor 9th

11 year old Girls – Yune 10th

11 year old Boys – Mingqi 3rd, Tyson 10th and Luke 11th

9/10 year old Girls – Sarah 5th and Themelina 6th

9/10 year old Boys – Noah 4th and Ethan 8th

They will race at the Division competition on Friday 3rd June at Tatterson Park.

Thank you to the teachers and parents who came along to look after and support our students. Have a good weekend.

Report from Fraser and Harry - Grade 6

Last weekend, the walk for Monash Children's Hospital was held. The walk for Monash Children's Hospital is an annual event held at Jells Park and this year was an extra special year because it marks the 10th anniversary! There was music and dancing and all sorts of fun activities with all proceeds going to a good cause. It's going to music and art therapy at the hospital for kids to relax and take a break from their treatment. There were other lengths of walking but we chose the 5km walk and we managed to raise over $2000! You can donate to the hospital with this link. https://monash.grassrootz.com/walk-for-monash-children-s-hospital-2022/team-boyle

Now we'll talk about Fraser’s story…

I was in the hospital for about a half of a year because of Cancer. I like to call it rhabdo, but the doctors call it rhabdomyosarcoma. It was in my bladder, and after one long surgery, I now have half of a bladder. When I had to have chemo to get rid of all the bad cells I wasn't allowed out of my bedroom. After a while I couldn’t walk and I had to go around in a wheelchair. I then had to get physio on my legs. I was only four when I was diagnosed with cancer. Dr. Peter and his team were the ones that saved my life that year. Thanks to them I’m still here enjoying my life as an average 11 year old.

If you donate to our page, then you will be saving countless families from what Fraser had and everything that comes with it. Donate to our team page so you can help us help Monash Children's Hospital save kids like Fraser. Donations end 31/5/22

Thank you

The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is now open and Rosewood Downs Primary School is excited to be participating. The PRC application offers a range of exciting features including:

• access to a library catalogue (including book images and blurbs)
• a modern user-friendly interface
• rewarding students with badges as challenge milestones are achieved
• the option for students to mark books as a favourite, give them a star rating or complete a book review

The Challenge is open to all Victorian children from birth to Year 10 in recognition of the importance of reading for literacy development. It is not a competition; but a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by 2 September 2022.

Children from Prep to Year 2 are encouraged to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers. Children from Year 3 to Year 10 are challenged to read 15 books.

All children who meet the Challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers.

Each student has been given their login details to register, so please encourage your children to get involved! If you haven’t yet received the login details or have misplaced them, please ask your child’s teacher.

To read the Premier’s letter to parents, view the booklist and for more information about the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge, visit: https://www.vic.gov.au/premiers-reading-challenge

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thank you and happy reading!

Miss Semercioglu

Please take care, you may have Monkey Pox and not even realise it.

You may be a-chimptomatic

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Email: rosewood.downs.ps@education.vic.gov.au
Website: https://rosewooddownsps.vic.edu.au/
Location: 25 Murray Road, Dandenong North VIC, Australia
Phone: 03 9795 3744
Facebook: facebook.com/rosewooddownsps