Rathdowney State School

Principal's Welcome to 2009 School Year

It was great to welcome the students back to school this week. Everyone was full of curiousity and excitement, (and a little nervousness), about the new year, or perhaps a new teacher, or a new classroom, when they arrived at school on Tuesday. But as we approach the end of the first week, everyone is settling into their routines, ready for another productive year of learning!! We welcome some new families to the school, too and we hope that the settling in period goes smoothly for you all. The new Preps were very excited, and are feeling very “grown up” now that they have started at the ‘big’ school.

There are some changes to our staffing this year. Mrs Jackson will be teaching Prep – Year 3 for 3 days each week, Monday through to Wednesday, and Mrs. Karin Perkins will teach the class on Thursdays and Fridays. Mrs Watterson will return from maternity leave on 23 March. She will then share the task of teaching Year 6/7 with Mrs Benstead. Mrs. Benstead is taking leave for 2^nd term. Mrs. Jerome, Mrs Easton, Mrs Orevich, Mrs Myall and Ms Bauer are still our specialist teachers. Our Chaplain, Mr Johnstone will be working in our school on Fridays as he was last year. Our Guidance Officer is still Mrs Karen Dixon who will visit the school on Fridays. Our new Behaviour Advisory Teacher this year is Mrs Marie Brown, who will work in our school every Friday morning. Mrs O, our Learning Support Teacher, will be working at our school for an extra day each week. This is a real bonus for us!! Mrs. O will be here on Wednesdays and Fridays and every second Monday.

Ms Bradbury, our long-time and excellent library teacher, has retired during the holidays. Ms Bradbury has worked at this school for well over 20 years and students throughout her time at Rathdowney State School have gained great benefit from her teaching!! The teachers and teacher aides, too, have learned a lot from Sue, especially in the area of ICT’s. We will all miss her!! Her latest legacy to us was a beautifully refurbished and resourced library, a project which Sue oversaw. She was personally involved with the work on the library project, and lent her considerable artistic talents to the end result. The newly refurbished library was officially opened by our local federal member, Mr Brett Raguse in May last year.

Mrs Maryann Goggins, a former school principal from NSW, has kindly agreed to take on the role of our teacher-librarian this year. She will be working at the school on Tuesdays. Mrs Goggins will also continue to tutor the students on the “An Even Start” program which began last year. Mrs Jenny Baker will take on the job of library aide, as well as continuing with her other teacher aide duties. Our other teacher aides are, Mrs Sandra Brett who will work mostly with the Year 6/7 class and spend some time with the Year 4/5’s and Mrs Cathy Wieland who works full-time with the Prep – Year 3’s in the Early Learning Centre.

Keeping our school, pool and grounds in tip-top shape are our wonderful cleaner and janitors, Mrs. Bev Wilkinson, Mrs Masen and Mr Rob Wright.

Newsletter

Last newsletter for 2007

Rathdowney State Primary School
Mt. Lindesay Highway Rathdowney 4287

Phone 07-5540 4333 Fax 07-5540 4300 Principal: Tina van Bennekom
SCHOOL NEWS 13th December 2007
A Letter to the Community

Thanks
On behalf of all of us here at the school we would like to thank everyone who has helped our school throughout this year in whatever ca-pacity for all your work. We all sincerely ap-preciate everything you do to support the school and the children’s learning and we couldn’t do what we do without your help. Thanks heaps!! (and please help us again – next year?!?)
A special thank-you to Vi Bell, our kind and tolerant neighbour, who retired this year after many years as a Support –A-Reader tutor.

“The staff and students of Rathdowney State School thank-you sincerely for being one of the school’s volunteer helpers in 2007.
Your help and support means so much to us.
You are invited to come along to our special volunteers’ morning tea on Friday,
14th December at 10.30am in the school staff room”.
A Very Merry Christmas to all and best wishes for the New Year.
May you all have a safe and awesome holiday break.

P & C News
A Big, Big Thank-you to all the helpers in the P & C this year, well done it has been a huge year. Thanks also to the community members for their support throughout the year, without you the P & C would not be able support the students with their activities throughout the year.

Date Claimer for Sunday 27th January 2008.
The P & C has been asked to do the cleanup after the Rodeo at the Memorial Grounds, the starting time is 6.30am to beat the heat. Contact Sandra Brett on
5544 1385 for more information or to let know it you can help out.

P &C End of Year Raffle
The Christmas Raffle will be drawn on the 20th December anyone who still needs to hand in their tickets and money after tomorrow, please take them either to the Hotel or the Post Office.

Sandra Brett

FAREWELL, MRS HOUSTON

The school wishes to sincerely thank Mrs. Marlene Houston for all her hard work managing our school office with Mrs Kay Todd for the past 2 years. We are very grateful that Marlene was avail-able to help us with our office work. We will miss her efficient manner and her friendly helpfulness in our office next year.

WELCOME, MRS CULLEN

There will be some changes in our office next year as we welcome Mrs Rosemary Cullen to our school for 3 days per week. Presently Rosemary works 2 days per week at Hillview State School. She was also working at Laravale State School until it closed this week. Rose-mary has managed school finances for Hillview and Laravale for many years and is very experienced and highly re-garded by the department. As she is a permanent employee of the department, it was decided to place her at Rath-downey from next year onwards. Rose-mary will handle all the school’s finances on the days when she works here and Kayleen Todd will work here on the other 2 days per week. Rosemary has historic ties to this school as her adult children were all taught at Rathdowney State School, and Rosemary herself was an active member of the school’s P&C.

FAREWELL, YEAR 7

We’ve come to the end of another busy year at the school. Today is our official “Break-up Day”. The staff and students of Rathdowney State School would like to thank our departing Year 7 students for the terrific job they have done as our school leaders this year. You’ve done our school proud!! You’ve left big shoes for our Year 6’s to fill next year. We wish you all the best and every success as you enter the next new and exciting stage of your lives – high school!! We’ll all be watching with great interest what direction your lives will take in the fu-ture!! (And remember to say “hello” when you see us in town.)

THANK YOU and FAREWELL

On behalf of the staff, students and the P&C, we are saying ‘Farewell and Thank You’ to the parents of Year 7 stu-dents who are now also leaving the school after many years of being in-volved with the school and lending us their support. Mrs Jo Rees and Mr and Mrs Richter thank you so much for the work you have done for our school over the years. (Kayleen was P&C treasurer for many years and Terry built for the security gates that we have leading into our old Preschool area.)

Bus Times
On Friday this week the Palen Creek, Town bus & Barney View & Innis-Plains buses will pick children up at 2pm in the afternoon.

School will re-commence on Tuesday 29th January 2008 for the new year.

Term 1 ECC

How exciting to be starting term 1 2008 !

This term our class will be learning lots of things about water. The best thing about water at our school is that we get to swim often in our great pool. Just before Easter we will have our school swimming carnival.

Rathdowney State School

We strive to improve