Welcome to term 4 everyone. Is it possible that the students actually grew over the 2 weeks? Perhaps it is that they are returning in their summer uniform and it is an illusion, but it was lovely to see them all so keen to get back to school.

Thank you to 21 families who completed the ‘Google form’ recently – without your input to this survey we cannot improve or enhance our school nor deliver the provision that active parents want to see happening.

We have listened to what you want, and in 2021 going forward, we will make members of our staff available on a regular basis to

• Learn about Technology through 1 hour sessions on a termly basis so that parents can learn: how to lock an iPad to a specific app; the top 10 most popular apps at Karonga; personalising photos so that your young person can make a photo album of their favourite things/ favourite people etc.
  
  
• Share an understanding of ‘Positive Behaviour for Learning’
  
  
• Share an understanding of ‘Managing Actual and Potential Aggression'
  
  
• Share an understanding of what a Personalised Learning Program is.
  
  
• Share an understanding of the curriculum that is delivered at Karonga.

We also see that families would like more photographs of their young person- digitally and/or hard copies.

We are still unpacking some of the ‘short answer’ responses but they too will be reflected in what we do at Karonga School through the revised plan.

The new plan, called the Strategic Improvement Plan, will be uploaded onto our website as soon as it is approved by the Director and will be a 4-year plan of promoting quality teaching and learning programs promoting independence and in partnership with the community. We are very excited by the prospect of this forward planning and look to go from strength to strength with our very special school.

Public schools have been given permission to run orientation sessions for new 2021 school starters this term. The youngsters themselves will be visiting for around an hour on two occasions so that we can gauge the most appropriate class for them in the new year, and they can orientate to our school and have the best possible start to their school journey. The parents, unfortunately cannot have the usual tour of the school- so thank goodness we established the virtual tour on our website when it was Education Week – it has become a valuable source of information and a friendly way to check out our facilities without having a lot of people on site. If you still have not seen it, check it out on our website (google ‘Karonga School website’, click on ‘About us’ along the top blue bar, then on the right-hand side of the page you can gain access to our Virtual School Tour).

Warm Regards, Ruth Rogers

Room 7 students have settled back into the school routine and are focusing on the “LEARN” domain of PBL. They are continuing to learn to follow an individual visual work system to complete a variety of learning tasks that relate to our “Under the Sea” unit.

Check out how busy we have been. ​Om constructs sentences about what sea creatures he can see in the book: Oras selects and matches the correct picture to the illustrations in the book: Sunday sorts animals into the categories of sea and land animals, and Raj participates in creating a soundscape to a variety of books about under the sea.

Kelly Lorusso, Instructional Leader/Assistant Principal (R), Special Education & Banu Rajendran SLSO

We cannot believe it’s Term 4 already and we are on our way to finishing off the year! All room 12 students have been busy practising their Positive Behaviour for Learning by being kind and safe and focusing on their learning.

We have been reading lots of books, but a favourite book is “Pete the Cat: I Love my White Shoes”. We read along and sing the song. Oscar enjoys singing the song “I Love my White Shoes”. We then made our own Pete the Cat art, by painting a sheet of paper blue, and cutting out our cats. Yeting and Ruby really enjoyed the painting. We think our “Petes” look fantastic!!

Our morning circle continues to be a great start to our learning day and it is fantastic to see Mustafa and Sophia joining in with the hand actions to some of their favourite songs. Sylvia always shows she is ready to learn, by being in the right place and focused on her lessons.

It has been great to see Rogue back at school and she is practising being a safe student, by listening to the teachers and following the school rules.

We are looking forward to an exciting final term for 2020!

Hi. My name is Alanna and I am very excited to be joining the staff and community at Karonga School. I am lucky enough to be teaching the wonderful children in Room 3 for the rest of the year and we have already had such a positive start to the term. I’m looking forward to meeting all of the students in the school and getting to know each of them.