Hello everyone,

Whilst it was disappointing that the Meet-the-teacher event could not be ‘live’ or ‘in person’ we had a significant number of families join us via Zoom, and looking on the positive side, perhaps virtual attendance is easier for some families. Class teachers reported that there were some great discussion points and they were still able to share Morning Circle images through the use of their classrooms as a base.

School is commissioning some ‘Communication Boards’ to be made so that we can communicate more readily at breaktimes around student request or commenting. Please look out for them in Education Week (here is hoping that we are able to have families on-site).

Our Immersive Classroom is finally up and running- offering a world of opportunities to Karonga students right on our school grounds. We hope to have an ‘opening ceremony’ on March 4th, with select delegates from the Epping Club, who helped fund the project, but we will have it open for you all to enjoy in Education Week in August.

Clubs are all active and getting into their stride. We have a wide selection of activities, and Term 1 is looking busy:

Monday: The Rolling Stones; Little Explorers

Tuesday: Lucky Strikers; Book Worms

Wednesday: Band; Art Attack

Thursday: Drumming; Dance Group

Friday: Improvisation; Signing Choir

Each term the themes are refreshed and we try to engage all students at some point in the school year.

On Friday we had the Secretary for Education visit our school. This is a huge honour and recognition of our profile as a great special school. Georgina Harrison spent just under 2 hours talking with staff and visiting students. She was very impressed with our Immersive Classroom, and enjoyed time with Amy from Room 4 accessing the London Underground, bursting bubbles and being immersed in an underwater theme.

Welcome back to all our lovely students in Room 7. During the first couple of weeks we have been getting to know each other and the class routines. We have started our new literacy program and Paige enjoys the morning routine of reading a book as the students arrived at school.

We have completed some excellent craft work for Australia Day and Chinese New Year which Ruby enjoyed very much.

This term we are lucky enough to have Art Therapy with Lizzette and everyone especially Mustafa had a great time rolling the clay for our mobiles.

As we finish eating our lunch Steven, Genesis and Adam enjoy sitting together and completing puzzles.

We have Music Therapy every Thursday and the class have been excited to see Jack return again this year.  Harry enjoys jamming with Jack each week.

We look forward to a fun filled Term One in 2022 in Room 7.

Room 14 welcomed three additional students to our classroom cohort from last year. We have begun 2022 getting re-acquainted with our ongoing jobs around the school and also learning new skills. Putting the flags up and down is a lot trickier than it looks! Also, who knew chickens liked gentle cuddles?

The Four Blocks experts at Karonga, Karen and Kelly have prepared some exciting resources for the students which Pete our terrific SLSO has been working hard to get ready for Room 14. Karen recently visited our classroom to give a lesson on the Four Blocks program and you can see from the photo how engaged the students were. The lesson was about choosing their “Favourite Food”.

Aiden has been practising making bed in Room 14. Geonwoo, Massa and Om were great helpers in setting up the chairs in the hall for the whole school assembly last week. James and Louisa have been vacuuming the classroom after our lunch and Felicia has been assisting with shredding.

We look forward to making new friends and happy memories in 2022.

My greetings to all!! I am Ciji Antony. I am the class teacher of Room 1 students. I am looking forward to working with the lovely children in my class to enable them to engage in their work to the best of their abilities and stay safe and happy.

On Mondays, Gordon, William L, Aiden, Massa, James and Heba have been participating in the “Rolling Stones” club. All students have been enjoying playing Boccia and have been demonstrating waiting their turn and developing their rolling and accuracy skills to see who can roll their ball closest to the white ball.

From Deb W and Andrea