Dear families,

The weather has been very changeable over the second half of the term, and the students have been very confused between wearing additional layers and hot/ cool classrooms. This is always a tricky part of the year, so layers work best. Term 4 generally heralds a more consistent warmth/ heat so don’t forget to check all labels on school clothing so we can return items to families if we find them abandoned on playgrounds.

A reminder that we have an upcoming Graduation for our three Year 12 students. This is an opportunity for senior school (Years 10, 11 and 12) to join us at the Epping Club to celebrate the conclusion of the school years for the Y12 students. This is also great ‘practice’ for senior students – as it will be their turn, over the next 2 years. This great event includes a 3-course meal, music, speeches, slideshows, photo sessions etc and is put on ‘at cost’ on an annual basis. It is an opportunity to dress up and join other families and carers at a special event that is just about Karonga School leavers. Whilst some family events can prove stressful for carers, this one, we hope ‘goes with the flow’ and is all about the students. I encourage you to buy tickets through School Bytes and join us for a great event: Thursday October 24^th 6-9pm.

We are going to arrange to have an NDIS co-ordinator attend Karonga on an annual basis in order to support families who have youngsters leaving school. This event will generally be in Term 3, coinciding with ITP meetings, but next term we have the first of these events planned and we are sending out invitations to current Y9, 10 and Y11 students’ families. We strongly encourage BOTH/ ALL carers to attend this event. We additionally have a parent talk about her lived experience navigating this difficult area, and how she went about shaping her son’s ‘package’ over a period of time to meet his changing needs.

Todays End of Term Assembly was well attended by carers of students receiving their awards. While parents appreciate the award, some time ago we introduced the idea of students receiving a tangible reward for their hard work and we have a range of edible and sensory products that can be exchanged for the token attached to the award. Popular choices continue to be Pringles, Maltesers and bubbles/ hand cream. What a great way for our students to feel recognized and feel special.

School finishes today September 27th, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone back at school on Monday 14^th October.

Warm regards,
Ruth Rogers, Principal

For the End of Term 3 Assembly, Rooms 3 & 4 worked on a special project.  Tasked with bringing a performance of fun & teamwork to music for an end of term celebration, we picked an upbeat song, rehearsed our choreography and had so much fun performing wheelchair dancing.  Check out our performance on the video link below and some pictures of our performance journey.

https://karongas.schoolzineplus.com/_file/media/5381/wheelchair_dancing.mp4

This term a Karonga junior and senior team participated in the Inter-School Tenpin Bowling tournament which was held at Macquarie Strike in Ryde. It was fabulous to see how well our students played and what great sportsmanship they demonstrated at the event. They really did themselves and Karonga proud.

We all enjoyed going on a bus ride and competing against other schools in the two different divisions. Although we didn’t make it through to the next round, every student had fun and enjoyed taking part.

William and Mike especially enjoyed bowling without the assistance of the ramp.

Congratulations need to go to Ishan who was the best junior scorer for Karonga with 207 after two games, and to William who was the best senior scorer for Karonga with 203.

Warm regards,

Deb W, Montana, Suzanne and Sujung

Proloquo2Go Club is held during Wednesday break time. This club offers small group play-based activities to facilitate communication opportunities targeting students who use the app ‘Proloquo2Go.’ The club is facilitated with the assistance of our School Speech Pathologist, Analise.

Students have shown great engagement in our play activities and, in turn, taken the smaller group opportunities to follow modelled communication by the staff. Geonwoo, Louisa and Anita showed good progress during our building activities, using descriptive vocabulary such as ‘turn’, ‘up’, ‘on’ and ‘top.’

For our younger students, we worked on communicating core vocabulary such as ‘more’, ‘help’ and ‘on.’ Farjaad, Nakissa and Daniel have engaged well with staff as they model these pathways on Proloquo2Go. They are working well towards watching and allowing staff to assist them to tap different phrases.

Harvey loves to use his device to communicate a range of animal sounds by typing them out as different animals when they are spoken to him or shown to him.

We look forward to making more progress next term and expanding our communication!

Javier & Sujung

2024 Karonga School Term 3 Principal Awards

Wishing all the staff and students a safe and enjoyable school holiday.  I look forward to seeing the students back at school from Monday 14th October.

Love from Tess

The next P&C meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 16th October at 6.45pm in the Karonga Meeting Room.

SUNNYDAY CARERS NDIS Disco Party 

Thursday 26 September

SHREK THE MUSICAL (RELAXED PERFORMANCE)

https://boxoffice.riversideparramatta.com.au/WEBPAGES/EntaWebShow/ShowCalendar.aspx

Disclaimer:

Articles published in the Community Noticeboard section of the Karonga Newsletter are provided for information for our school community only and their inclusion no way constitutes an endorsement of the product or service by Karonga School.