30 Stuart Road, Prospect, SA 5082 ph: 08 8344 4604 fax: 08 8344 3697 email: dl.0570_info@schools.sa.edu.au www.prospectnorth.sa.edu.au

Newsletter No 8 May 17th, 2019

From the Principal’s Desk

This week has been very busy with NAPLAN being the focus for our year 3/5/7’s. Our school did the tests by hand so we have not experienced the online issues you may have heard about in the media. Overall we had a smooth run through all the testing. Today we had an emergency lockdown procedure due to a strong smell of natural gas outside and in the admin building area. The fire brigade attended, checked for gas levels, did a perimeter check, gas line check and gave us the all clear. There was no fault at the school and the gas must have drifted to us from another location. Building Communities Group We are still looking for someone keen to coordinate the group, help welcome new families to our school and help build community connection especially with non-English speaking families. Any parent who is interested in volunteering for the school (and has their police check and RAN training completed) can join the email list so you can be notified of volunteering opportunities. That way if you can’t be a regular member to meet with the group, you will still get notifications of upcoming events. Everyone is welcome to be part of the group.

Please email dl.0570.info@schools.sa.edu.au with subject heading “Building Communities” if you would like to be on the email list or help us to organize a meeting to get started. Grievance Procedure We recognise that sometimes things go wrong and you may feel that your expectations are not being met. If you have an unresolved issue or a complaint, please raise it. It is important to work together, talk, listen and find solutions so we can improve our services to the community. The following information will walk you through the steps you can take when you have a complaint or concern. The process is to firstly talk to the person who is involved. This may be your classroom teacher or OSHC director etc. Make a meeting time to discuss the issue and try to resolve it with the parties directly involved. If you would like leadership assistance we will help in the process after the initial meeting. If you are still not happy with the outcome after talking to leadership you can take your grievance to the Education Complaint line. That service will again seek a local resolution and work with parents and leaders to solve the issue together. Marg Clark

Term 2, 2019 29th April – 5 July

May 22nd Governing Council Meeting

22nd Rooms 0, 1 & 2 excursion to Monarto Zoo 23rd Rooms 3, 4 & 4a Word Hunting Workshop 31st PUPIL FREE DAY

June 10th Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday

SAPSASA District Athletics Day Prospect North Primary School recently sent 23 students from our school to the SAPSASA District Athletics Day at the Athletics SA Stadium. The rain took a break from falling and it was a beautiful day to compete. Everyone performed well and a few students from our school placed in the top 4. A special congratulations goes out to Trinity D, who will be representing North Adelaide SAPSASA Athletics Team at the Metropolitan Athletics Championship in the 4 x 100m Relay. Well done Trinity and well done Prospect North Primary! Student athletes who proudly represented our school were: Jones T, Sophia P, Georgia D, Angel M, Josephine C, Trinity D, Mohadisa A Q, Hashir S, Jenna S, Zac K, Amy G, Mafata F, Layla A, Oskar K, James T, Mihir T, Harsha T, Abbie H, Daisy D, Tyler M, Dineth R, Bhavya P, and Karn S.

Check out our Lab Art!

Labs ‘n Life

Every Thursday, a small group of students have been participating in the ‘Labs ‘n Life’

program to learn about Labradors, pet care and dog training. Caring for pets is a big

responsibility! We have been grooming, feeding, training and cleaning up after our

Labradors. So far, we’ve helped our dogs learn how to sit, come when called, walk by our

side, play hide and seek and we’ve even taught them how to turn on a light switch!

More Fun Writing Tips for Parents Here’s a couple of great writing Apps that children enjoy

Book Creator One is ideal for making all kinds of books, including picture books, photo books, comics, journals, textbooks and more. When finished, you can share your book with ease.

iWriteWords This App helps to teach children how to write the letters of the alphabet, numbers up to 20 and simple words using a dot-to-dot approach. It helps if children already know how to count and read numbers up to 10 in order to play this game.

Learning in Rooms 9, 10 & 13 We are at the synthesis phase of our Design Thinking topic of Healthy Living. From graphing our raw data from our Empathy Map investigations we have discovered our healthy lifestyle strengths and in which areas our health needs to improve. Hexagonal Thinking helped us organize our thoughts and we discovered our linchpins for healthy living. We have completed our Swimming Centre prototypes and are about to embark on writing a description text about how to use our water parks safely and for maximum health benefits.

Most of us have completed our Personal Inquiry plans and leading questions, and have begun our research with a view that it will be teacher/peer/self-assessed against a rubric before embarking on our action. Room 9, 10 and 13 students have been using a checklist to improve their persuasive argument writing. We have seen an improvement in the use of technical and high interest words, rhetorical questions and high modality words.

In room 9, students demonstrate their maths learning through designing and presenting visual maths questions on Power Point for the class. Eleven students have presented so far with very tricky questions.

In HASS Room 9 are learning about the importance of country and place to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We have been looking at the messages through Aboriginal Art and symbols and have tried to create our own.

In literacy, Room 13 have been exploring different ways to capture the attention of readers. We have enjoyed sharing our writing with one another, and look forward to publishing some of our own stories as part of Writer’s Workshop for our classroom library. We have also created some wonderful Egyptian artworks with Vicki!

In Science, Room 10 will be learning about adaptations this term. On Tuesday, Week 3, students immersed themselves in the topic by visiting the Nurture Room and learnt about Trevor, the bearded dragon. They also had the rare opportunity of observing the chicks hatch and hold the chicks. Students were so thrilled. Special thanks to Jasmine from the Nurture Room for this great opportunity!

In 1943, the members of the school committee planned a working bee. They made a gate for the adjoining property, which had been recently purchased. The same year, the school received permission to build a new toilet block for the infants. The material arrived for the new portable classroom in 1944. This was completed by September, and permission to use the room and the new toilets was given in October of that year.

A new water trough and taps were installed in the infant shed. This helped relieve the usual congestion at the other taps. Safety trenches were filled in at the end of the war with the area once again becoming playing ground for the infants.

During the Christmas vacation of 1945 the iron fence on the south side of the school was removed, adding the new space to the yard. The space became playing area for the infant children. Playground equipment arrived early in 1946, together with material for another portable room.

Fathers built bike racks, capable of holding 50 bikes– giving the yard a more orderly appearance.

At the end of the war years, families moved into Trust houses, or began building houses north of the school. As Gepps Cross and Enfield Primary schools had not yet opened, children from those areas walked through the paddocks to Blair Athol Primary.

At this time there was a shortage of everything, including teachers. Many married women, after a brief training period, were employed as teachers. Some of the youngest children had chairs to sit on but no table. If they had to write, they knelt on the floor and used the chair as a table. The infant mistress used a small passage, leading to the ladies toilets, as her office. Everyone accepted the situation cheerfully and no one complained.

Children had a limited amount of playing space. There were many portable buildings in the yard, and footy practice had to take place on Prospect Oval. The younger children played on the south side of the school, under constant supervision. Large classes were becoming a rule rather than an exception and at the beginning of the 1949 school year, a grade 3 class had 69 children!

In 1944 Blair Athol became the first school in the state to publish its own School magazine. The year 3 girls moved to class at the top of the stairs in 1946, with their teacher reporting the following in the School Magazine. “Coming from the Infant School into the big school was in many ways a thrilling experience for these little girls. The stairs, generally an attraction, were a little frightening at first to some of the more nervous. The new room with the generally unfamiliar dual desks, and a man as a teacher, were to most, a new experience. However the girls take a pride in their room and keep it bright with flowers”

Excursions Children from Blair Athol took part in many excursions. These included visits to the Golden Crust Bakery, the Shell Company’s Theatrette, the Ozone theatre and Parliament House. Visits by members of the Royal Family were major events, and in May 1945, Grade 3-7 children went to the city in connection with the visit of the Duke of Gloucester.

In October 1946, a group of 22 boys and 10 girls, accompanied by the head teacher, went of a tour of the Northern Peninsula towns. They visited the Grain Distillery at Wallaroo, the Mines at Kadina. On the Saturday, they played cricket against Kadina, and on Sunday went to Moonta Bay, returning to Adelaide in the evening.

In December 1946, 32 Kadina children visited Blair Athol, The boys played a cricket match at Walkerville Oval, and the girls a basketball game in the school grounds. Blair Athol and Kadina children also toured the Amscol and Alaska Ice Cream factories, which was a treat for all the students.

On 20 February 1963, Queen Elizabeth visited South Australia, and all the children in years 4 & 5 went to the Victoria Park Racecourse to see her. The children in years 3, 6 & 7 walked to Regency road to watch her pass by.

Prospect North Primary School History

1949 Upper Primary Students

The 1950’s When school commenced in 1950, 2 classes had over 70 students. In September the school was raised to a Class 1 status with over 900 children enrolled (and growing!) 145 new receptions began school on the same day in February 1951.

Children sat on wooden dual desks in rows – not groups as today. Ink wells were placed in the desks and filled by a monitor each morning, and washed out each Friday afternoon. The pens the children used were messy and their books often had big blots of ink on them, which often meant rewriting work. The nibs of the pens were used by the boys as darts – which got them into trouble! The floors were bare boards – there was no library, no art room and very little play equipment.

In September 1951 the first delivery of free milk was delivered. Over 900 bottles were distributed every day.

With the addition of more classrooms, there were now 21 classes, and 1160 children were expected to be enrolled for the 1952 school year. – meaning each class still had an average of 58 students.

Plans were made to open an Infant School in nearby Angwin Avenue. This would help reduce the class sizes and the number of children in the school. Foundations for the new Blair Athol Infant School with 10 classrooms, were laid in July 1951

On 22nd September 1952, children and teachers picked up their belongings and walked to the new school in Angwin Ave. Miss Naughton, the head mistress, welcomed them at the gate. There was a large playground, and a comfortable staff room for the teachers – including a suitable office for the infant mistress. The school was occupied for a year before the official opening in September 1953. Mr Maddigan, who had been the school principal for nearly 21 years, retired in December 1956. The next

headmaster, Mr Habich stayed only 2 years, and in February 1959, Mr McGowan became the new headmaster.

The 1960’s In August 1960, the first school library was officially opened by the Minister of Education, Mr Baden Pattison. Prior to this, classes had bought their own books, which had been kept in classrooms.

In 1962, milk was supplied to the school in cartons for the first time.

Mr Tucker became the new headmaster in 1966, and considered the school to be very run down. He

became the driving force behind the ‘build a swimming pool’ campaign, and in June 1967, tenders were called and plans submitted to the Education Department for approval. Construction on the pool began on 12 August 1968 and the pool was officially opened on 30th November 1968.

At the end of 1968, the Blair Athol Infant School in Angwin Avenue started taking students in years R-4. The Stuart Road School had students in years 3-7, and when Mr Verrall took over as headmaster in 1969, he was in charge of both schools.

He introduced ‘father & son’ and ‘mother & daughter’ evenings, which encouraged children to bring their parents along to school. This became a great way for teachers and parents to meet informally, and parents to become more involved in their children’s school and education.

The first ‘Father & Son’ Evening was held on 24 June, in the Assembly room for boys in years 6 & 7 and their fathers. They listened to talks, and watched documentary films such as ‘RAF Police Dogs”, looked at slides and had supper. The attendance was over 150. Over 200 people crowded the Assembly room for the first ‘Mother & Daughter’ evening on 1st July. The program included a talk on Reading Laboratories, a documentary film “Sea Sanctuary”, slides by the girls and supper.

Even in 1969, training for school crossing monitors took place. Children were trained by an officer from the Police Advanced driving wing to be monitors in the following year.

1954 Year 2 Class at the Infant School