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Dear Parent/Guardians

Teachers and students are busy with exciting class programs this term and I have taken the opportunity to expand on some of the great things happening in this newsletter under the Assistant Principal message column.

One highlight this week was when the Transition students travelled to the Darwin Entertainment Centre on Monday for the annual Eisteddfod. A big thank you to our regular volunteer, Mrs Lila Wills for helping our students prepare and to Mrs Jenny Ashton for her ongoing commitment to music in our school.

Our school has been selected as a sample school in the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy Trail Test. Students in Year 3, 5 and 7 will participate in the Writing and Language Conventions components of the assessment during the week beginning 18^th June (Week 10) The objective of the trials is to assist with the preparation of the 2008 National Literacy and Numeracy Tests.

The NT Government and the Department of Employment Education and Training will be launching the Safe Schools NT Project on Tuesday 29^th May. This territory wide initiative is targeting anti-bullying programs and policies and will provide information to parents on a Code of Behaviour for students expected in all schools. Keep a look out for more information in the coming weeks.

Our students and teachers are very excited about camp for Years 5, 6 and 7 and have been working hard to raise extra funds so that total costs will be reduced for families. Friday Disco, Sausage Sizzles, Icecream Spiders and Lunchtime Water slides are just a few of their fundraising endeavours. We would like to express our gratitude to MLA Matthew Bonson, for meeting the costs of our recent Blue Light Disco which helped further our fundraising for camp.

Jenny Sherrington

Acting Principal

Awards

Class

Name

Reason

Kayla Timber

Derrick Collard

Welcome to Ludmilla School

T/1

Jessica Schupelius

Jenny Luck

Fantastic reading in class and helping others

Having fantastic listening skills in class

Toyah Evans

Jessica Simpson

Working and trying hard in Maths

For thinking imaginatively in AL

Dylan Hundley

Luke D’Anrnay

Striving for ‘personal best’

Taking responsibility to complete work

5/6

Blake Wilson

Emma Tatnell

Enthusiastic student

Showing good leadership

6/7

Zara Stone

Georgina Nefiodovas

Georgia Colbourne

Maths

Art

Attitude

Dates to Remember

Date	Event
May 31^st	Assembly by T/1
June 7^th	Touch Footy Gala Day, Fannie Bay
June 12-15^th	Year 5,6,7 Camp, Lake Bennett
June 20^th	Sports Day

DCO are running ‘Challenge Facing Deployment’ workshop, Wednesday evenings for 5 weeks beginning 23^rd May. If you are interested contact DCO on 89357900. Places are limited so be quick.

There is a lot of lost property to be collected. If you are missing something be quick as lost property will be cleared out next Friday 25^th May. Lost Property is located in the front office. There are many lunch boxes, Hats, and clothes. Anything that has been marked will be returned to students.

Transition, this term, are exploring information about farms, learning to recognise letters and beginning to read the class story “Rosie Walk” by Pat Hutchins. Ask your child about that sneaky fox in the story and what happens to him.

Our new T/1 teacher Miss Tina Corcoran has settled in nicely with her class and they are learning all about mice and water this term. A special thank you to Sonya Joyce for providing two special visitors for the term, Soffi Mouse and Anna Mouse. T/1 students will be performing at assembly next week also, so if you are available, please come and join us.

Mrs Woods class are busy studying plants this term and have started a new AL story, “Master Money the Millionaire” by Allan Ahlberg. Miss Raye’s class are learning lots of interesting facts about space and the universe and are also reading a very funny story titled “The Finger Eater” by Dick King-Smith.

Miss Cassie’s class are learning about life cycles and on assembly last week, we saw two PowerPoint presentations, one by Meg Rich and another by Makayler Middleton and Caterina Ansell. Meg’s slideshow was on grasshoppers and included voice narration and music. The other presentation was on frogs and toads and the girls narrated it on the microphone themselves. We look forward to seeing what other students from Miss Cassie’s class can share with us about lifecycles.

Yr 4/5 also have two live exhibits at the moment; several tree-frog tadpoles/froglets and a cane toad nicknamed PENO (Public Enemy Number One) which will be handed into a designated collection area at the end of term. In the meantime, students are also reading “Toad Rage” by Morris Glietzman and learning to write expositions.

Ms Piening’s Yr 4 class are busy learning about magnetism and are conducting many experiments with their teacher and with the practicum teacher, Miss Peta Costello. Ms Piening’s AL group are reading short stories by Paul Jennings and learning to use many writing techniques used by the author in their own writing.

Mr Isis’s AL class are reading the wonderful adventure fantasy “Rowan of Rin” by Emily Rodda. The students are journeying with Rowan up a mountain through many challenges to confront a dragon and solve a water crisis. Ms Barlow’s AL class are reading another great adventure story set in the Amazon in 1910 titled “Journey to the River Sea” by Eva Ibbotson. Both classes are working together on an interesting unit of work titled Environmental Chaos.

Mrs Flack, our PE teacher, has been very busy preparing Camp for Years 5.6 and 7 at Lake Bennet. Camp will be in Week 9, Tuesday 12^th June through to Friday 15^th June, so keep saving for this great outdoor educational experience for your children. Mrs Flack has also been providing a great orienteering program in the school in recent weeks.

Our teachers and support staff are busy learning, too, with 10 staff (including three new teachers) completing Accelerated Literacy Professional Development One last week. This introduction to AL was presented internally over two days and will equip teachers with the necessary skills and understandings to explicitly teach literacy concepts to our students using our whole school literacy approach.

Mr Isis, Miss Corcoran and Mrs Boath are attending TRIBES training this week. This is a four day PD starting on Wednesday with teachers giving up their own time to complete the course on Saturday. Our school is a TRIBES school and this program assists students in pro-social behaviours and supports students to build positive relationships with others.

On Tuesday, Ms Lisa Chappell, our well-being officer, and myself attended a half day Train the trainer course on Behavioural De-escalation presented by Michael Tunnecliffe. This informative professional learning session provided multiple strategies for dealing with challenging and aggressive behaviour. We look forward to training our staff one afternoon after school very soon.

Also on Tuesday, after school this week, teachers attended an Asthma Professional Development so that everyone has the most comprehensive understanding of how this affects our students, what we can do to minimise problems and how to handle an emergency.

On Wednesday afternoon, at our Literacy Lounge, teachers learnt more about our Interactive Whiteboards. We shared tips on using this technology and also example lessons in AL and Maths.

Ludmilla School believes strongly in ‘Learning for Life’ for students and staff. We promote the continued professional learning of our staff. Teachers contribute many hours of their own time to extra study and training, but sometimes it is necessary to attend full-day courses and provide a program for relief teachers. We believe the benefits of additional training will ultimately make us better teachers for your children, our students.

Students are attending three Rugby Development Clinic during PE lessons run by ARL development officers, Tony and Graeme. A big thank you for their efforts.

Congratulations to the lucky Rich family for winning first and second prize in our Mother’s Day Raffle. I’m guessing that Tammy had a wonderful Mother’s Day this year!

Next week, Ms Niki and the senior students will be running a waterslide at lunchtime to help raise funds for camp. If you would like your child to participate, simply send 50 cents, bathers or a change of clothes and a towel. Please note, that children without a change of clothes will not be permitted to take part.

Transition wrote a story based on the AL text “Rosie’s Walk” by Pat Hutchins. We hope you enjoy it.