15 November 2023
Principal
Hello parents and carers,
I hope that you are all enjoying the warmer weather. The students are all enjoying being out in the playground at the moment. As the term flies by I would like to thank all our hard-working staff for the wonderful learning environments they are creating in their classes. We have had a number of assemblies this term already and the quality of the presentations has been very high. Please check the calendar as we have several important events coming up this term including Primary and Secondary Graduations and several assemblies also scheduled for the rest of the term.
Thank you to the Sat 4 staff for going above and beyond recently by taking our Year 6 students to the Embleton Camp. I hope the students thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
The secondary students had a lovely experience last week. We had a very special assembly to acknowledge that Durham Road School has become a sister school to Mihara Special Needs School in Japan. The principal, Mr Matsushima Yasuhiro and one of his teachers, Mr Hiyama Akiyoshi visited us and organised for their students to participate in the assembly remotely. Our special guests brought gifts that their students had made. They visited the classrooms and chatted with many of our students. It was a very special occasion for all of us. In the future we will collaborate with students and staff at Mihara Special Needs School, and we hope to develop friendships between the students as well as share ideas between teachers.
We will be sending information about classes for 2024 with reports in Week Nine.
Important Dates:
Friday 17th November – Room 19 Assembly
Tuesday 21st November – Room 23 Assembly
Friday 24th November – Room 16 Assembly
Friday 1st December – Room 20 Assembly
Tuesday 5th December – Secondary Graduation
Friday 8th December – Primary Graduation
Kind Regards,
Linda Lane
Principal
Early Years News
Hello Parents and Carers,
This term feels extraordinarily busy and is flying past.
Week 3 we enjoyed the Room 4 Assembly – The Ants Go Marching, a performance focussing on numbers, followed by Room 18’s Assembly in Week 5 – That’s a Boundary. This was a performance about social skills. A huge thank you to all the our parents and special visitors who came to celebrate student learning and success. It was wonderful to see our amazing students participating and managing to self-regulate for the entire duration.
This term we welcomed our 2024 kindy students who completed their Transition to School Program. We wish them all the very best as they begin their educational journey.
As we head into the second half of Term 4 teachers have commenced their assessments for reports. There are some exciting events scheduled in the next month, including an incursion from Sensorium – Rhymetime
Kind Regards,
Ellen McAllister
Associate Principal
Primary News
Dear Parents and Carers,
Term 4 has started off well in the Primary phase and is looking like it’s going to be another busy one!
Teachers are stuck in to completing student assessments and reports. The school had a Daylight Disco on Tuesday 31st October- this was well received by primary students and staff as always!
On the 27th October, it was World Teachers’ Day. On this day, we recognise all of our hard-working, dedicated teachers and thank them for all the work they put in everyday in supporting our students.
Planning is well underway for our Primary Graduation being held on Friday 8th December. Parents of our year 6 students, if you haven’t already, please fill out the RSVP form and return it, or contact the office to let us know who will be attending to support the graduating cohort.
Thank you and congratulations to Room 12 for their assembly. They were the first from the Primary phase to present theirs for this term. Room 19 are scheduled to have their assembly on Friday 17th November.
As always, thank you for your support. We look forward to a fun-filled productive final term of the year, especially now that the weather is warming up!
Kind Regards,
Simon Hume
Deputy Principal
Satellite News
Dear Parents & Carers,
Welcome back for Term 4. It has and will continue to be a busy term as we start to wrap up the year. There have been lots of fun events and activities that have taken place so far this term.
In week 2 Satellite 3 & 4 participated in the Dream Cricket Carnival. The Carnival was held at the WACA ground in East Perth. The boys and girls participated in a variety of cricket activities. The students absolutely loved the event and were all awarded a medal at the end for their amazing participation. Great work!
At the end of Week 2 the satellite classes participated in the Embleton Primary Colour Run. Students were given a headband and sunglasses, and with the help of their teachers, ran the obstacle course. During the run they were sprayed with water and non-toxic, biodegradable colour powder. It was great to see everyone getting involved and having so much fun.
All Satellite classes have also been participating in weekly cricket clinics where students are learning to bowl, bat and play cricket. Everyone is having lots of fun learning the new skills and interacting with their friends and teachers.
As the year draws to a close, here is a list of important upcoming events:
- 29th November Sat 3/4 will be going to watch the Ballet performance of “The Nutcracker”
- 6th December at 9.30am will be the end of year awards
- 13th December at 9.30am will be the graduation ceremony for Year 6 students
- Term four will end on Thursday 14th December
Kind regards,
Chris Ralph
Programme Coordinator
Secondary News
News from the Heights,
After much anticipation many of our Secondary students attended the ESSN (Education Support Schools North) Spring Ball. This ball is held once every two years at Regency Hyatt in Perth with students from six other schools.
It is a wonderful chance for students to dress up, look fabulous and spend the night with their friends, dancing, eating and dancing some more. Decorated as any other formal ball would be, the low lighting, white tablecloths and extravagant table centrepieces make the night one to remember.
Have a look at some of our photos below to see our fabulous students dressed in their finest attire!
Looking to the future, we are now planning for our Secondary Graduation Assembly to be held on Tuesday 5th December. Parents of graduates have been invited to book seats; parents of future school-councillors will also receive a formal invitation. All other parents are welcome to attend. The assembly will start at 9:30am and run for approximately one hour.
Finally, our teachers enjoyed World Teacher’s Day on October 27th with the treat of a muffin from the school and a morning tea put on by some of the generous EAs
Kind regards,
Heath Bradley
Deputy Principal
Communication Intensive Group
Welcome to the last term of 2024!
This year has certainly been a quick one. We do hope that all students had a great break, and that you got to build memories together. Our teachers have certainly enjoyed hearing about their adventures over the break.
Our musical instruments have arrived! We are almost ready for our students to investigate and explore their rhythm, pitch, movement, and vibration. Looking forward, they will provide students greater opportunity to explore the music curriculum. I have included some pictures and explanations for you. A big thank you to Nyree Clark for her musical guidance and support.
It is assembly time for Room 23, and we are expecting a great story-telling performance. Put the date in your diary: Tuesday 21/11/2023, Week 7 @ 9:15 in the undercover area.
Kind Regards,
Sharon Peach (nee Rollinson)
Communication Intensive Program Coordinator
Room 1
This term Room 1 is learning all about the weather and habitats of different animals. We have read several books exploring these topics including “Big Rain Coming” and “Little Cloud”. Everyone has been very excited to create different creatures in Art. Our favourite so far has been making scary spiders. We can’t wait to see what the rest of the term has in store for us.
Room 2
Room 2 have had lots of fun this term. With the warmer weather, we have been having so much fun with waterplay and learning all about the weather and the Western and Noongar seasons . On Thursday’s we have been learning about living things in Science with Bev and we got to plant seeds in pots. Watching them grow has been awesome! We use the spray bottle to water them each day and it has become a favourite activity, especially if you can be sneaky and spray one of your teachers! The students of Room 2 have made incredible progress in so many different areas of their schooling and it has been such a privilege to watch them grow. The team and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with each of them.
Room 3
Term 4 has been a busy time for Room 3. We have welcomed a friend to our class, Raina, we are enjoying getting to know her.
Room 3 has been learning about the ocean and enjoying reading books like “The Rainbow Fish”, and “Hooray for Fish!”. We have enjoyed finding shiny sequins like the shiny scales in the Rainbow Fish to decorate. We are making fun, tactile ocean creatures in art and exploring blue jelly with our hands. We are looking forward to finding seashells in the sand!
We are also having fun stretching and improving our physical skills in hydrotherapy and working hard on our switching skills in the Multi-Sensory Room. Our communication skills are improving with lots of practice on eye-gaze devices and we are now excelling at telling people when we have something to say. What a fun way to end the school year!
Room 4
This term, Room 4 have been learning about mini beasts. We have learnt that bees make honey and keep our planet alive. We have also learnt that ants march in a straight line. As the weather heats up, we have enjoyed experimenting with ice and ice cream. We have learnt that it is very cold when it comes out of the freezer but our warm hands can heat it up and then it melts.
Room 32
We are back for the last term of the year and, my, how our students have progressed since the beginning of the year! There have been some changes with classroom students and staff, but we are all adapting beautifully, showing such amazing resilience. We farewelled Leo (who moved to Room 1) and welcomed Tabitha and Tanisha (from Room 1). Our theme this term is minibeasts so we will be studying insects with different common features, such as minibeasts with wings and minibeasts with many legs. We have thus far thoroughly enjoyed our introductory lesson of breaking various insects out of coloured ice moulds as well as getting up and close with slimy snails and watching them eat cornflour water. We are also really enjoying our Health lessons, where we are practising turn-taking and sharing during structured play sessions with a range of different boardgames, such as Connect 4 and Hungry Hippos. We are using our numeracy skills to count game pieces to see who wins! In addition to these focus areas, we are working hard on differentiated numeracy and literacy goals and further developing our fine motor skills this term. It will be a busy term ahead!
Room 10
The start of Term 4 in Room 10 has seen us continue to delve into Medieval History. We have been making royal crowns bedecked with sequins, feathers, and anything else we could raid from the art supply room!
On Friday afternoons we have been learning about the life of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat (more crowns) and Yayoi Kusama while creating our own interpretations of their work.
Our regular Maths and English rotations are continuing apace. In addition to our Health lessons on managing and maintaining relationships, we have also been learning some practical skills on how to keep safe in the sun, remembering our hats and practicing how to apply sunscreen.
Room 11
Hello Everyone,
It's Term 4 - welcome back to school!
Room 11 is back into work mode and working extremely hard. We are looking forward to all the fun events we will participate in.
This term, the Room 11 focus is on using ICT to complete our work. We use our iPads during balanced literacy when listening to the week's book. We also enjoy our sports lessons, learning about tee-ball and how to behave and play in a team. We have fun in Science exploring different sound waves. We are also loving our gardening sessions.
We wish you all a fantastic term and hope you enjoy our photos.
Room 12
Room 12 have had an exciting start to Term 4! We have an amazing new jungle themed sensory corner, courtesy of Adriana, which the students have absolutely loved exploring. The students have continued their hard work this term and have made great progress. This term, the students have begun to learn about chemical changes during Science lessons. They have been very engaged and thoroughly enjoyed the lessons that have incorporated cooking activities.
Room 13
Hello Families,
We have had a very busy start to Term 4. This term for Move and Groove, we are exploring and identifying different types of games. In Literacy we had more emphasis on shared reading and writing our predictable chart. In Numeracy, we are learning about prepositions using objects to show ‘in’, ‘out’ ‘over’ and ‘under’. Students have been cooking up a storm and loving it.
Thank-you from all the staff in Room 13.
Room 14
This term, students in Room 14 have been exploring new art techniques and creating art works using various utensils and materials. Some of their art works include crazy spaghetti hair, spoon splatting and the handprint tree which require different techniques. It has been a pleasure to see their artwork creations displayed on our windows and around the classroom.
Room 25
We have had an extremely busy term with three of our students now at work placements in the community. Caleb has joined Kosta at e Fire and Safety and Corey continues his great work at Good Sammy’s.
We have continued our academic programs, literacy and maths assessments. On the fun side, we tried out coding robots and had a fabulous excursion to the zoo.
We have been working on independence in the kitchen and overcoming hypersensitivity to create amazing dishes like honey soy chicken.
Room 26
Welcome to Term 4. I can’t believe that we are in our final term for 2023. The school year has passed so quickly. All the students in Room 26 have worked very hard across all their learning areas and should be very proud of everything they have achieved.
Term 4 is an eventful term. The students are already busy learning all about the Australian Government in HaSS and, in Science, the students are investigating the different ways various solids and liquids can be separated. Our students enjoyed their visit to Perth Zoo, it was a great day. In Week 7, the students are going to participate in the Kalability Cricket Carnival. All the students have had an enormous amount of fun at the Kalability Carnivals this year and have demonstrated excellent teamwork skills and spirit.
A busy but exciting term in the lead up to Christmas!
Room 31
After three terms of hard work, the students of Room 31 have passed their Certificate I Leadership. To complete this, the students had to undertake a minimum of 260 hours of study and work experience, create a curriculum vitae, take part in a team project and generally learn about employment.
The students split into two groups for their team projects. Team One chose to plan a party for all the people with August birthdays. They planned the music, food, decorations and invitations.
Team Two created Australian Flora card packs to sell at the Father’s Day stall and Art Exhibition. The cards were very popular and sold well, with proceeds going to charities chosen by the students.
Everyone is thrilled that they passed the Cert and that the hard-slog is over!
Satellite 1
In HaSS lessons, students have been immersed in a fascinating exploration of history, delving into how their grandparents lived when they were children. Students were most surprised to hear there were no iPads, personal computers or mobile phones in the past, nor flat screen TVs, Nintendo Switches or Xboxes. What did their grandparents do? On this wonderful journey back in time, we have explored the changing nature of homes, schools, transport, technology, toys, games, music and cooking equipment. Students have laughed at the bulky box TVs of the 50s and 60s, been very intrigued by music playing from a tape cassette in a stereo and spinning the dial on a rotary phone to make a call. They have particularly enjoyed playing with an old Fisher Price airport set and music record player, Cabbage Patch dolls, kaleidoscopes, wooden trains and cameras.
Satellite 2
Missing File - Sat 2 folder
Art
Workplace learning
It is with great pleasure that we can celebrate with our five students who achieved full Certificate I Leadership qualifications and three students who achieved a Certificate of Attainment for successfully passing a number of units of competency in Certificate I Café Culture or a Certificate I Leadership.
Looking to the future, on Wednesday 24th April, 2024 the Abilities Expo, Pathways to the Future, organised by Cyril Jackson Senior Campus Education Support Centre will be held at Crown Perth. This event is designed for people with disability, families, friends, carers and support coordinators. As a half-day event (9am until 1:30pm) it is a great opportunity for families to speak to a wide range of providers about their services. The event generally has a large number of providers covering therapies, living arrangements, social groups, advocacy groups and carers. It gives families a chance to collect information and ask questions specific to their child.
Many of our workplace students will attend this expo. It would be fabulous to have families support this event if they are able.
First Aid Corner
Hello, with summer on the horizon, let’s keep our students safe in the sun. Please apply sunscreen prior to school and send in a hat and water bottle. If your child is prone to insect bites, please spray with an insect repellent too. We have a lot of trees and grassy areas around the school and are seeing an increase in students succumbing to itchy bites.
Your First Aid Officer
Sarah Pfaff
Family Liaison Officers
Eligible students can access transport assistance to and from school through the Public Transport.
School Bus Services are used to transport students attending education support facilities like Durham Road School to provide a door-to-door service, have a bus aide to assist students and a mobile phone for communicating with parents/carers.
To apply for 2024 please follow this link:
Carer Gateway Services
Carers WA
1800 422 737
Carergateway.gov.au
Carer Gateway provides in-person, phone and online services and support to Australia’s 2.65 million unpaid carers.
Carer Gateway has many services that can help you with any daily challenges, emotional and financial stresses that you may experience in your role as a carer.
Some of the supports are.
- Peer support Groups. In person peer support groups or Online community forum
- Counselling. In person on-on-one counselling, In-person group counselling, phone counselling.
- Online skills Courses. Dealing with stress, Effective communication skills, Recharge and reconnect, Legal issues, Social connections and Sleep.
- Tips and Information.
- Tailored support packages and planned respite. Designed to provide you with services and support specific to your needs to help you in your caring role.
- Self-guided coaching or In-person coaching.
- Emergency respite. If you become sick or injured and can’t continue to care for your loved one, Carer Gateway service providers can organise for emergency respite serv ices to take over care while you recover.
- Other Government supports. Payments for carers, NDIS, Disability Gateway.
Please check out the website.
I do hope this can be of assistance for you or someone you know.
NDIS
It has become increasingly concerning, when talking with Parents and Carers, that they are not sure of what’s happening with the execution of their child’s NDIS plan. It is crucial that you seek some assistance if you’re not sure of what’s going on with the supports engaged. AND especially if your NDIS Plan review is approaching.
Please do not hesitate to contact your Family Liaison Officers, Lisa Burgess or Kerry Potter.
We are here to assist you in any way possible.
Missing File - FLO folder