Spring is beginning to emerge at Karonga, with students enjoying the oval and multi-sport court during these sunny days. We are still limited from enjoying access to the community, but that does not stop us making the most of the 9 acres on which we sit.

It was a joy this week to celebrate Science Week, with a science incursion. The hall was set up with a variety of opportunities to engage with science in a fun and engaging way, and it was great to see so many students so interested. Ruby (Room 12) enjoyed the scientists glasses the most- and viewing herself wearing them in distorting mirrors; while Paige (Room 8) was keen to collect the marbles from the marble run and share them with her teacher. Thank-you to Kamal from Room 5 for organizing this experience for Karonga students, and I hear Kamal is very motivated to make resource kits for use throughout the school as a consequence.

SASS Recognition Week changed its delivery this year. It has been a long-held tradition at Karonga School for non-SASS staff (teachers/ Executive/ counsellors) to host a breakfast for the SLSO’s and admin staff to recognize the great work they do throughout the year. With COVID-19 restrictions we catered a lunch for the SASS staff which was appreciated and gave us an opportunity to share time together. I am sure you join me in thanking our SASS staff for often going above and beyond their role in order to support students.

Playground Activity Boards have been installed this week to add to the breaktime environments in 2 spaces. They are already proving to be a big hit with the students. We are hoping that approval to re-vamp the entire main playground will be through soon, and we can offer some more engaging opportunities during break times.

Students at Karonga School had an exciting day with a two-hour school science incursion run by the Young Scientists Education on Wednesday 26^th August 2020 in the school hall. The incursion was based and aligned with the Australian Curriculum standards and Science Syllabus. It was our first whole school learning event this year. All classes decorated the hall with their great artwork and pictures from their in-class science experiments.

Darren from the Young Scientists Education did a wonderful job keeping the students engaged, in exploring physical changes. The students learnt about different aspects of light, sound and many different forces, including gravity, balance, spinning forces, magnetism and more. The students enjoyed participating in a hands-on incursion. What a busy day for Karonga students!

Until Next time,

Kamaldeep Lamba
(Organising Teacher)

Term 3 has been a more settled term. We are missing some of our room 4 friends however we have welcomed visits from our friends in room 3.

Technology has played a big part of our learning this term. We have had the opportunity to use eye gaze in the classroom. The students have communicated, made choices and read books using their eyes. Leila is reading a story and Zena is playing a game. Jayden is using the touch screen to read a book.

Room 4 enjoy having a hands-on experience during mathematics. Jayden is looking at the different weights of objects with the balance beam while Dakotah and Zena are looking at 3D shapes.

During science we have been looking at living and non-living things. Leila is looking after the plant by watering it.  We really enjoyed looking at and playing with the equipment during the science incursion.

We are looking forward to learning more as the term continues.

Lowenna, Foozieh and Room 4.

Term 3 seems like term 1 in Room 8, as we have 3 new students.

We welcome Viki, Thomas, Agam and their families to the Karonga School Community. We also welcome SLSO Leisa to the Room 8 team, she works in the class on Wednesdays and Fridays.

The new staff and students join Ma’afu, Steven and Paige. SLSO Jennifer continues to work with the students on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

During second semester our theme is farmyard animals. The students have started working on creating a visual arts wall display, reading books and making sentences linked to farmyard animals. Thomas and Steven particularly enjoy painting the sky and grass. Viki is making progress with his speech as he reads sentences, he especially enjoys the pictures of chickens and had learnt the KWS sign for chickens.

 Ma’afu and Thomas look forward to swimming each week, and eagerly wait by the door when dressed in their swimmers.

Paige particularly enjoys completing file folder activities and desk work in general. She is very focused and able to stay focused for increasing periods of time.

Agam has settled into the school routine and enjoys being with her classmates. Agam especially enjoys accessing the play equipment in Maxi’s playground.

Pleasingly, Ma’afu and Paige are using KWS in context. All students are engaged in their Geography learning. They explore the school environment matching photographs to the 3D setting.

We look forward to more exciting learning during terms 3 and 4.

Room 13 students have returned to school after the holidays raring to go! We have been working very well as a group, with students willingly helping each other, which is lovely to see.

All the boys are working towards their Sporting Challenge Awards. Timothy has been our star in yoga, accurately following all the moves. Aria has persevered with physical challenges with equipment, skipping with a rope and his dance moves. 

Genesis has been the star in the pool and is making great progress as he engages with the activities while keeping up with his peers.

This term we have been trying many new activities with great success.  Jordan has been the star in the kitchen as he shows great focus when measuring, cracking eggs and mixing the muffins.

A favourite activity in our last half hour of the day is playing board games with great concentration, co-operating , taking turns and counting out their moves. We like ‘snakes and Ladders”, dominoes and lotto games that develop our social and communication skills.

Geonwoo has tried many new activities with great confidence and persistence. He likes to complete his work and gives everything a go.

We have worked hard on our Positive Behaviour Learning (PBL) . We are noticing some very positive changes as the students work at being kind, safe and good learners.

The boys have been interested and engaged in all their activities. Chris particularly loves all our hands- on science activities and experiments. We are learning how to work scientifically, to experiment, make predictions and test them and draw conclusions. We also love sensory materials. Messy but fun!!

As you can imagine our school science incursion for Science Week was a big hit for Room 13. They were all highly engaged as they aimed at trying everything in the room! As we left Jordan had two big items tucked under his arms to use later, I guess!!

The boys have made particularly good progress in mathematics and English. We all love interactive maths programs, books, stories and reading activities.

This week we are celebrating the wonderful work that our SAS staff do. Thank you so much Sujung in our room and all the other SLSO’s who work with our students, in the mornings, bringing them to our room and in the playground during breaks. Thank you for all your hard work.

Room 14 students have been learning about space and oceans in Science in Term 3.  This week, we had an opportunity to experience a Science Incursion in the hall. Everyone had an enjoyable time trying different tools, such as the spinning magnets, expandable spheres, and viewing periscopes. Science can be such fun!

This Term, our school will be participating in the Partners in Learning parent survey, another part of the Tell Them From Me suite of surveys (student, teacher and parent surveys) on student engagement. The survey asks parents and carers questions about different factors that are known to impact on student wellbeing and engagement.

Running this survey will help our school understand parents’ and carers’ perspectives on their child’s experience at school. These include: communication between parents/carers and staff, activities and practices at home and parent/carer views on the school's support of learning and behaviour. This valuable feedback will help our school make practical improvements. 

The survey is conducted entirely online on smartphones, iPads, tablets, laptops or computers. The survey will typically take 15 minutes or less to complete and is completely confidential. The parent survey will be conducted over Term 3 and early Term 4. Although participating in the survey is entirely voluntary, your responses are very much appreciated.

More information about the survey is available at: http://surveys.cese.nsw.gov.au.

To access the survey for our school go to: http://nsw.tellthemfromme.com/5670karonga​

The survey is available in 23 languages.