Hello families,

The Founder’s Day packages which were posted out last week should have arrived by now, or are imminently being delivered. Please save them for Tuesday and enjoy them with the family. This seems a great time to celebrate something positive, and the first parents who established our school are certainly something to shout out about.

Alkira, from Room 4, who passed away earlier this year would have turned 14 this weekend. On Monday we will celebrate her time here at Karonga, by saying a few words and sharing some memories before adding a leaf in her memory to the Tree of Life.

This would have been the conclusion of the school term under normal circumstances, and we would still like to join together as a community on Wednesday when we would have had our End of Term assembly. A zoom invitation was sent out last weekend for a zoom at 11am and we hope many of our families can join us. Staff have put together videos and photo powerpoints to reflect this past term, and would love the opportunity to share them with you. Please join us on Wednesday at 11- and encourage your children to wear colourful clothing or sporting jerseys, as we are combining it with ‘Show us your colours’ for a bit of fun.

We had SASS recognition week this week, where we offered jade plants to SLSO’s and office staff to take them home and enjoy. They had been propagated here at Karonga by staff and students, and were a nice gesture of gratitude to the support staff at our school.

The Department of Education is following Public Health Orders around return dates of students to the school site. These are currently mandated as

Unlike mainstream schools, where Year 12 students stop attending at the end of Term 3, at Karonga they have continued to attend until the end of the school year, and they will be offered that same opportunity this year irrespective of (not) sitting exams.

Please check emails closer to these dates as advice concerning Public Health Orders may change and we need to communicate the latest advice. Currently, as I send out the emails, I am asking Murray to text families to check emails, so please ensure that the school has both the preferred email address (as an app on your phone?) and preferred/ current mobile phone number.

Thank you all so much for being part of our school community, and we are all looking forward to a return to some form of ‘normality’ in Term 4. What is a school without students?

Warm regards

Ruth Rogers
Principal

Our Karonga students have been working hard to complete various learning tasks and activities from home. We love seeing and celebrating all of the wonderful work that our students are doing during remote learning. 

Heba practised her fine motor and writing skills 

Zena enjoyed some time exercising outside at the park

  

   

James created a creative pizza-themed Father's Day card using different coloured materials

  

   

Jessica practised her fine motor skills by cutting and matching pictures

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. Although this survey asks questions that aren’t entirely relevant to our school setting, your responses will provide valuable feedback to help our school make practical improvements. An SSP survey is being developed and we hope this will be available next year.

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.

Information about the survey is available at: education.nsw.gov.au/ttfm.

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

The survey is available in 23 languages.

KellyMariee Lorusso
Instructional Leader
PEX HUB Coordinator