WE’RE NEARLY THERE!  


It’s been wonderful welcoming back our students through our staged return to school.
Each day we have been greeted by enthusiastic faces ready to reconnect with their friends and teachers!
We continue to be in awe of the resilience that our children show, their positive dispositions, their natural curiosities and we fully appreciate the learning and growth that has taken place while learning from home. 

Next Monday 1^st November we will all be back together! How exciting. The teachers have planned some fantastic activities to help settle in and ‘regroup’. 
 
HAPPY WORLD TEACHERS DAY


Friday 29 October is World Teachers’ Day where we recognise the amazing contributions our teachers make to our school. We are privileged to be leading such an amazing team of caring, kind, thoughtful and dedicated teachers who use their wonderful knowledge, skills and on-going learning to deliver their programs.

World Teachers' Day is anopportunity for our community to say 'thank you'. On this day, we will recognise the passion our teachers have, and how teaching has extended beyond the classroom to maintain connections through remote learning. 

Feel free to let our teachers know you appreciate their fantastic work.
Our teachers will celebrate when we all will be back on site on Monday 1^st November. Cannot wait!
 
STUDENT PLACEMENT 2022
The creation of 2022 classes and the placement of our students is a complex process requiring many factors to be taken into consideration. Parent information is one part of the process, along with the carefully considered information that teachers gather through their daily work with their students, including their detailed knowledge of their students as learners as well as the way they work and interact with others.

Parents wishing to provide confidential information to assist us in the process of student placement should download a ‘Class Placement Request’ form from COMPASS.

Parents are requested to only provide information that may assist their child’s learning and educational needs. Requests for an individual teacher will not be considered.  If you have any educational requests related to your child’s class placement in 2022, please complete the form and email to us chelsea.ps@education.vic.gov.au by Monday 15 November, 2021.

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COVID SAFE PRACTICES AT SCHOOL

We wish to reassure our families we are continually reviewing, revising and updating our procedures in line with the COVID safe requirements in schools provided by the Chief Medical Officer and DET guidelines.

As authorised workers, school staff follow guidelines regarding state-wide vaccination requirements.

From Monday 18 October 2021 to work in a school, all staff must have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

School staff are required to have two doses of COVID-19 vaccination by 29 November 2021.

Our staff are the DET Infection Prevention and Control Training.

We have a COVID Safe Plan which is updated regularly to align with the changes to the advice set out in the DET School Operations Guide, based on health advice.

All classrooms have hand sanitiser available for use and additional supplies are readily available.

Ventilation:

Schools are required to increase fresh air flow into indoor spaces (including shared spaces, staff areas and thoroughfares) whenever possible. Staff and students will maximise the use of outdoor learning areas or environments wherever possible, including as an alternative to staff areas.

Windows, doors and vents will be open as much as possible and clear of any obstruction to air flow.

COVID cleaning by our cleaning contractor will continue as determined by DET.

Any students who present unwell throughout the day will need to be collected by a parent or nominated contact. We ask that families ensure their contact details are current. If parents do not respond to our phone call, we will phone emergency contacts for student collection as we want our students to go home as soon as possible.

Masks are required to be worn by students in Years 3 to 6. Please ensure your child's mask is clearly named. If there is a medical or wellbeing reason your child should not wear a mask please email the school.

If you have any queries or clarifications please do not hesitate to contact us.

We are all here to support our community safety.

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November
1st
All students return to school
2nd
Melbourne Cup public holiday - no school
17th
Step into Prep session 1
25th
Year 2 Camp Preparation Night
26th
Step into Prep session 2

December
3rd
Step into Prep session 3
7th
Statewide transition
15th
Year 6 Graduation
17th
End of year - Early dismissal 1.30pm

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Dear parents/guardians and carers,

As part of the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out, all Victorian school students aged 16 years and above are now eligible to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

The Victorian Government aims to vaccinate all final year students by the time they sit their end-of-year exams. Final year students are therefore urged to immediately make an appointment to receive a vaccine by following the instructions under the heading ‘How to book an appointment’ below.
The state vaccination centres have recently had their capacity increased to support Victoria’s drive to administer 1 million doses of the vaccine by 19 September.

We have written to your child to provide them with information about their eligibility for getting a vaccination. Students will be supported in every way possible to be vaccinated before the examinations begin.

Students completing their final year are particularly asked to book an appointment as soon as possible to support the safe conduct of examinations. As their parent/guardian, I encourage you to help them to book and if needed, support them to attend their appointment.

Final year students are asked to consider getting their first vaccine before the GAT on 5 October. In addition, it’s recommended not to get the vaccine on the day of an exam, or the day before an exam - to avoid feeling common but mild side effects such as tiredness, headache, muscle pain, fever and chills and/or joint pain during your exam.

Consent

Students can book their own appointment and consent to vaccination themselves if the health professional assesses them to be a mature minor.

How to book an appointment

To book an appointment, visit coronavirus.vic.gov.au  or contact the Coronavirus hotline by phoning 1800 675 398.
To find a vaccination centre and opening times, visit  coronavirus.vic.gov.au.
From 30 August, people aged 16-39 can get their COVID-19 vaccine at a doctor’s clinic, pharmacy or community health service through the Australian Government Eligibility Checker. You can book your appointment online or by calling the vaccine provider nearest to you.

More information

Translated advice about the vaccines is available on the coronavirus.vic.gov.au.
For more information about eligibility, visit coronavirus.vic.gov.au or use the Australian Government’s COVID-19 vaccine eligibility checker.
For further assistance, contact:

• the Department of Health Coronavirus hotline: 1800 675 398
• the National coronavirus and COVID-19 vaccine helpline: 1800 020 080

Please get in touch with me if you wish to discuss this.

Taylor Irish
Chelsea Primary School

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The Preps are back in town! Week 4 has zipped past at the speed of light and nobody is looking back. Routine and structure is taking shape, assessments have begun and socialising is at an all-time high. The Preps are beyond elated and are giggling, sharing stories and loving developmental play in the afternoons. Thank you for continuing to participate remotely on Thursday and Friday. We know how exhausting it is and how you would rather be back in the classroom learning. However, we move onwards and upwards – always.

     

Moving Forward:

The Prep Team is excited to announce that the Big Goose excursion is going ahead! Stay tuned for dates and new permission slips. We also welcome to our Prep cohort, Ethan Watkins in Mr Pepi’s class and Daniel Milazzo in Miss Gallo’s class.

Be yourselves and stay strong,

Matthew, Justine and Bianca.

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What a fantastic return to school we have had! All junior classes should be congratulated on their return to school- everyone has done a great job during remote learning and we are extremely happy to be back. Last Thursday was our first day back in the classroom and it was wonderful to see everyone’s happy and smiling faces in person. We were all super excited to be back together and we look forward to full-time onsite school learning commencing next week. Our first few days back at school were busy and fun- getting back into the routine of the classroom. We did our lessons, played games and socialised with our peers and friends. We have recently been eating outside as well which we have been enjoying.

     

This term for inquiry we have been looking at Geography. Many of the shared texts for literacy this term have connections with our inquiry unit and we have been enjoying learning more about Australia as well as other countries in the world. We have been focusing on our sentence structure, learning about the many different types of sentences that we can write.

For numeracy in Year 1 we have been looking recently at place value and understanding how our knowledge of place value can help us add two-digit numbers. We have also explored volume and capacity with help from our MAB blocks. In Year 2 we have been looking at column subtraction to subtract two-digit numbers. We have also been focusing on using the addition strategy of regrouping when adding two-digit numbers together.

We are really looking forward to being back onsite full time starting next week. Well done to all junior classes for the efforts you’ve been putting in during remote- you are amazing!

From the junior team,

Maddie, Chris and Wendy 😊

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It seemed as though the day would never arrive, but finally we got to welcome back our Middle Years students on Tuesday.  Teachers, and students alike, were so excited to be back onsite.  The growth spurts that have occurred during their absence was the biggest indicator of just how long it’s been since we’ve seen our students.  Incredible!  With only two more days of remote learning to go, we can all look forward to Monday and the rest of a ‘back to normal’ Term 4.

In Literacy, we are well into our novel, ‘Somewhere around the Corner’ and the students are learning a lot about Australia in the 1930’s and the harsh impact of the Great Depression.  During the last couple of weeks, students have been doing character analyses, newspaper reports and illustrations to demonstrate their understanding of the story. These are just two of the brilliant illustration done this week.  

Our Writing, Grammar and Punctuation focus remains revision and so far this term, we’ve revisited Nouns, Verbs, Subject & Predicate, Complex sentences, end of sentence punctuation and commas. 

With only a few Spelling Mastery lessons remaining, we are also using our time to revise many of our Root Words, Prefixes and Suffixes.  Our future spelling lessons will involve more word puzzles and crosswords that will reinforce their morphology and etymology understandings.

In Maths, we have only a couple more weeks of Patterns and Algebra to complete before we turn our attention to some rigorous revision and of course, assessment.  Our concept lessons are all very well supported on a daily basis through the New Waves Mental Maths and we find with the constant review, students are really cementing their skills. 

We’re all hoping the interruptions are behind us now and we’ve got lots to look forward to for the remainder of the year.  The most exciting will be our Circus Skills incursion.  It will be on Thursday 9^th. December; a whole day of learning new skills, of having fun and being entertained.  Can’t wait.

   

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It has been a very exciting time for the senior students as they have had two placements teachers with them over the last few weeks and have begun to transition back to school. Last Friday students had a warm welcome back onsite with some fun bonding activities to help reconnect to each other. We as teachers were delighted to see our wonderful students back and celebrated with some potato cakes and chips, yum!

In literacy students have been working through a novel called ‘New Kid’ by Jerry Craft. It’s about boy called Jordan who is sent to a prestigious school known for academics instead of an art school were his gifts would have flourish. It has been fantastic to see students engage with the novel and give some valuable responses to the novels issues. They have also been doing grammar tasks which have been carefully aligned with the novels story.

Students have been looking at a number of different mathematical concepts over the past few weeks via our live 11:30 meetings. They have continued to strengthen their understanding surrounding place value. They have practiced rounding numbers to the nearest 10’s, 100’s, 1000’s, 10 000’s and 100 000’s. As well has learning about money and finance by looking at how to round cents and dollars as well as finding out the cost of items if they were on sale, something we can all relate to. It has been an amazing effort by our senior students to continue to engage in these live math sessions and we are grateful for their willingness to learn.

In inquiry we have studied two different topics, one being about Pangea when all the continents were connected and their how biomes have changed the landscape in each continent. The other topic has been an introduction to natural disasters. Students have shown a thorough understanding of what a biome is and the different characteristics that can help us define different biomes. They have compared biomes in different continents as well as shown how they could manage a biome themselves. Students have started to look at natural disasters and what types of natural disasters occur.

Our well-being activities have given students the opportunity to reflect on inspirational people and who inspires them. We have also made some truly wonderful videos via Flip Grid expressing the things we are thankful for.

Senior students at CPS have shown resiliency throughout remote learning and have consistently engaged with learning material. It has been wonderful to see these efforts and we know they will be incredibly excited to finish the year together at school again.

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On Friday 15 October our prompt from Miss Adam’s was to choose out of two picture prompts and to use a list of adjectives in our writing. The first prompt included a whale and the adjectives to use were: clever, speedy, wonderful, wild and surprised. The second prompt was of a crocodile and the adjectives to use were: clumsy, clever, huge, challenging, friendly.

Well done to these winners:

The louds were soft and cuddly
And as light as the sun
I was surprised the wild whale wasn’t having fun
I wished I could stay in this plane for eternity
The surprisingly big whale was actually very speedy
But exceptionally greedy
I wondered if she liked doing this sport
But I thought she needed my support
I told her she was wonderful
And of course, very colourful
But she wouldn't listen
So, I told her flying was a tradition
I finally told her she was clever
But she started pouting forever
Liam G – 5W

“NOW ARRIVING AT RICHMOND CHANGE HERE FOR SANDRINGHAM LINE.” Oh no this is my station. This is going to be challenging. There’s a huge green crocodile blocking the door whilst reading his paper. As I edge closer to the door, I trip over an open suitcase on the floor. Oh no I’m so clumsy. Is he looking? No. Thank goodness he’s still reading his paper. With seconds before the door closes, I’ll have to be clever to get through this. On the count of 3, I’m going to make a run for it. 3…2…1. …. I hope he is friendly!
Will – 6E

“WOW MATE, LOOK AT THIS WONDERFUL ACCOMPLISHMENT!” exclaimed Bart. Bart and Bob had caught the biggest whale ever recorded in history, using nothing more than their trusty hooks. After a lot of creative and clever ideas, they had managed to get it onto their rusty little plane. “Our plane might not be speedy Bart but, my gosh, how surprised will people be when they look up?” Bob asked Bart. Next thing they knew, the whale started to flap around like a fish on a deck. “Ahhhh… Bob… are you seeing this?” In an instant, the whale had catapulted off the string and dived back into the wild.
Milla – 6L

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