Dear parents,

As everyone who picks their children up from school knows, after school is a very busy time with children going in all directions.  When the bell rings, students either head to the exits and walk or ride home, or they meet their parents in one of four pick up points. The first pick up point is the kindergarten courtyard while the second is near the hall as students exit the building.  Students being picked up from the back of the school need to be collected from the shade structure, which is our third pick up point.  Because of the heavy traffic on the courts, children are not permitted to walk across the courts to their parent's cars. Parents are asked to leave their car and collect their children. The fourth pick up point is for those using the drive through pick up zone where children wait outside next to the hall.

There are teachers on duty in the courtyard and near the shade structure as well as out the front of the school. If parents are late picking their children up from either the courtyard or from the shade structure, the teachers on duty will walk the students to the front of the school to be supervised until the parents arrive, noting that duty ceases at 3.30pm.  If you expect to be later than 3.30pm please book your child into after school care.

Student safety is our prime concern. That is why we ask all students and younger brothers and sisters to stay off the playground equipment until the rush of students has passed and the teacher on duty gives their approval.  Children that wish to play after school must have a parent supervising them and the student must let the teacher know where their parents are.  All girls waiting for netball training will be asked to wait under the shade structure until their coach arrives.  If the coach arrives late they will be asked to move to the front of the school to be supervised there.

I will go over these expectations with all students on Monday and I will be supervising pick up at the back of the school until the end of the term. I ask all families to please adhere to these guidelines.

At our Community Council meeting on Tuesday a member of the Council said that a few parents had expressed to her that they felt we were only highlighting the positive responses from the School Satisfaction Survey and not addressing any issues that were raised, or come up with a plan to address those issues.  The survey responses run to 47 pages and it will take some time to work through them. I will look at these over the holidays and see if any themes are consistent and report on these themes.  From previous surveys the three main themes have centred on parking and traffic flow, communication between the school and home and the cleanliness of the toilets.  It will be interesting to see if these have changed.

Many parents have issues that are of a concern to them and make suggestions on what they would like to see improved.  Unfortunately, as it is an anonymous survey some comments are offensive and obviously used as an avenue to vent.

Again this week, we have included the next three pages of this year’s results. As you can see it is positive, but the data reflects the thoughts of those that responded to the survey and is what it is.

Maths Problem

Congratulations to Selina Li who was again the lucky winner of this week’s problem. I have made this week’s Dr Seuss problem an easy one so more children can enter.

The cat in the yellow-green hat is incredibly lucky. He has eleven fingers altogether instead of ten. He has seven fingers on his right hand and four on his left hand. The cat in the yellow-green hat has eleven brothers, all of whom have eleven fingers altogether.

Although all the brothers have the same total number of fingers, they each have different numbers of fingers on their left and right hands.

Draw some of his brothers with their hands and fingers. One of his brothers, the cat in the purple-orange hat, has eight fingers on his left hand. How many fingers must he have on his right hand if he has eleven fingers altogether? Make a table to show how many fingers are on each brother’s left and right hands.

God Bless

Peter Hughes