Receptions Road Safety Day

From the Principal

Welcome to our first newsletter for Term 4. I hope that you enjoyed some time with your children over the school break. I was able to enjoy a holiday and a big birthday during the term break. It was wonderful to spend time with family and enjoy getting out into the sunshine. This term will be a term of learning and celebration of the year with a focus on gratefulness. There are so many things that we can be thankful for in our lives and acknowledging these is very good for our mental wellbeing. I would encourage you to talk with your children about the things you are grateful for and to give them opportunities to share with you the things that they are grateful for too.

Next week, we celebrate Book Week with a dress up day. It is a nation-wide event promoting the importance of literature. The celebration was moved due to COVID-19 restrictions earlier in the year and so we have found it at a similar time to Halloween. We know that the shops are promoting this through making costumes available but we ask that you do not bring these into our celebrations. We want to celebrate book characters that show our ethos of bringing light and life to the world. We also want all ages of children to feel safe and not to be confronted with frightening, violent or dark characters. Please consider how you can redirect your children towards characters that bring fun, light and life. If you are unsure, please speak to your child’s teacher via usual communication methods to discuss this further.

Our Mini Olympics for our Reception and Year 1 students will be held in Week 4 and will be held at school for our children. The ELC students usually participate for a short time and enjoy the bouncy castle and some of the fun activities that are set up. As parents are not able to attend this year, we will manage the afternoon for students to remain at school and to enjoy some quieter activities. Students wear their PE unform and can choose to wear a plain coloured t-shirt to show which team they belong to either Shadrach, Meshach or Abednego. More information will be sent home outlining the details you need to know.

Our parent website is beginning to take shape and your children, along with their teachers, are planning how they can share with you the things they see as important to celebrate for 2020. We plan to open this website in Week 9 after we have enjoyed our “at school” student celebrations in Week 8 so that we can share many of these with you too. Each year level is planning an experience for the rest of the school to occur throughout week 8. It has been wonderful to hear the beginnings of these ideas as they begin to take shape. The parent website will be open for just over a week to give families time to look through it together. It will then be removed to ensure safety and privacy of students. You will receive an email with a link to access this website later this term.

Our Year 6 Graduation ceremony is also taking shape and we have been able to manage this single year level of parents on site. This celebration will be held on Tuesday 8^th December and all Year 6 families should have already received information about prebooking 1 or 2 seats.

We have included a timetable of events for Term 4 for your information. Our last day of Term is Wednesday 9^th December and we finish at 3:10pm. School reports will be sent home via email on this day and will include teacher comments. It has certainly been an interesting year with many unexpected challenges and benefits and we look forward to enjoying each day of learning with your child during this final term.

Wendy Matear
Principal

Memory Verse

My sheep recognise my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

John 10: 27

Deputy's Corner

Welcome back for Term 4! I trust you all had a restful school break and are ready and raring to go for the final term of the year.

The pandemic has certainly created some challenges this year. Some of the challenges have encouraged great skills, such as independence in students to walk into the school without a parent helping them. We have all been so proud of how our students have been able to adjust to the new normal and how happy each student is to come into school independently.

It has also presented some very real challenges of having the public on site. This has meant school events have had to be student and staff only events. The upcoming Mini-Olympics for our Reception and Year One students this year will look very different, as parents will not be able to come on site this year. This is very disappointing, however we will endeavor to take photos of the event so that parents do not miss out on keeping treasured memories. This year, instead of the students being dismissed directly after the Mini-Olympics conclusion, students will go back to their classrooms and finish the day and be dismissed as usual.

While this is disappointing for our parents and caregivers, we need to keep in mind that we are allowed to go ahead and hold our Mini-Olympics, which if it was held in Term 1 it would not have been allowed to be held. The students will all have an amazing experience during Mini-Olympics, and it will be a golden opportunity for them to tell you all about their adventures when they get home. Being able to recall, discuss and explain their feelings about an event are such valuable language skills. By not having a visitor attend the event provides a golden opportunity to your child to talk about the event to someone who did not experience it. The questions that are asked then are genuine and authentic and will illicit even more explanation which will build their language even further. Here is another example of a silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud.

Book Week Dress up …. Not Halloween

This year, COVID19 has disrupted our ‘normal’ Book Week celebrations. To avoid missing out on celebrating reading and books, we are having a dress up day on Friday 23^rd of October (Week 2). We kindly ask that as you prepare for the dress up day that you consider the school’s biblical values when selecting the character to dress up as.

Philippians 4:8 says, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Our library stocks books that we believe are in line with the school’s biblical values and principles. We are also careful when using book clubs, and will offer products that are also in line with the school’s biblical values and principles. Please keep in mind that it is not a Halloween celebration, and we need to also remember that not all of our school families and young people are okay with themes normally associated with Halloween. The library holds many thousands of acceptable characters in books for your child to choose from. Book week should emphasize what is light in the world, what is innocent, fun and enjoyable, not dark, sinister or scary.

I look forward to seeing the amazing array of characters that come to school on Friday of Week 2!

God bless you this term,

Deb Clifford

Highlights

Second Hand Uniforms

As previously stated we are unable to maintain the second hand uniform sales any more. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to buy and sell second hand uniforms; families hand down clothing to each other, friends swap and sell with each other and there are numerous websites that can help facilitate second hand uniform trading.

We would encourage families to continue to find ways to help each other out with second hand uniforms. We have reviewed a number of school uniform trading websites and found that the Uniform Exchange was easy to use and doesn’t incur any fees to the buyer or seller.

If you would like to buy or sell second hand uniforms using the Uniform Exchange, feel free to post or browse the page via this Bethany Christian School link: The Uniform Exchange

(Please be aware that it may take time for items to become available as it only works if people start posting items for sale).

Things we liked about the Uniform Exchange:

All posts are free and there are no costs associated with the Uniform Exchange second hand online store.
All transactions are organised between the buyer and seller and money does not go through the website.
All Items that are put up for sale are approved by a moderator to make sure that the site is used appropriately. (Approval is done on weekdays pending moderator availability)
It is a safe and creditable site that does not contain offensive content, unhelpful comments and targeted advertising.

Feel free to sign up and start posting items you would like to sell at The Uniform Exchange

We hope the Uniform Exchange can help you move on your old uniforms to a new home and save families some money and get a good deal.

Book Week 2020

Book Week is in Week 2 of Term 4. It is a week where we celebrate books! Children can dress up as a book character on Friday 23^rd October. You may already have a costume at home to wear. Please note, hair should be tied up as per uniform policy and appropriate shoes should be worn (no thongs). Remember to bring along the book that shows your character. We are looking forward to meeting many book characters next Friday!

Scholastic Book Fair

Open scholastic book fair flyer.pdf (642.18 KB)

Circle of Security

The Ned Show

At the end of last term our students were treated to a special performance of The NED Show via Zoom. It was thoroughly enjoyable and the students learnt some value lessons such as Never Up, Encourage Others and Do your Best. They also witnessed some amazing yo-yo tricks and demonstrations.

Entertainment Books

Open Entertainment Book 2020.pdf (238.14 KB)

Premier's Be Active Challenge

1C	1D	1P	2Z	3K
Liam A	Jasmine B	Ethan L	Aleesha B	Stella R
Isabella B	Lucas C	Emma R	Chelsea B
Jensen B	Samantha C	Eli C	Khonreich C
Alma B	Neveah C	Madelyn N	Mia C
Lochlan C	Adam F	Noah W	Madison D
Beau D	Scarlett G	Harley M	Arizona G
Isabella D	Leticia G		Isaiah H
Amelia F	Alexander H		Charley H
Rory H	Thian H		Emmanuel K
Chloe H	Henley H		James L
Noah J	Abigale I		Kelly L
Christina J	Adam J		Samuel M
Daniel K	Annabel J		Jemima M
Claire K	Grace M		Noah M
Lexi K	Lilah M		Nate N
Charlee M	Kayla M		Elias N
Jacob M	Charlie M		Micah P
Rush M	Kade M		Millie R
Sofie-Lee N	Jon N		Rhythm S
David O	Callum O		Sophie S
Noah P	Chelsea O		Chelinda S
Aaliyah P	Emily P		Elijah W
Tinotenda S	Dionysius S
Leslie S	Zafia T
Nhu T	Theodore T
Amali T	Lazar T

3L	4G	4P	4W	4W Continued
Rasmey M	Elijah R	Ann-Lena B	Charlie W	Maddison B
Mohitha S			Annalise N	Aiden B
Orlando H			Arthur C	Lauren C
Sophia L			Jeremy S	Jane J
Soriya H			Magot M	Judah M
			Makenzie M	Levi M
			Lucas H	Vivia P
			Imogen L	Harry N
			Jennifer H	Rhian M
			Alessia R	Olivia A
			Gadin N	Tylah-Shae S
				JC L

Surprise Visitor

As a class the students of 4W were asked to write a letter to someone that they thought would write back to them. Some students chose to write to family members, others to Queen Elizabeth II, one wrote to Scott Morrison our Prime Minister, some to other schools in Australia, some wrote to our hospitals and others wrote to celebrities and sports stars.

At this stage we have received a reply from the Prime Minister and a family member.

However we did have a surprise visitor who came to talk to us instead of replying with a written letter.

Tanya Leonard from the Salisbury Police Station popped in to have a talk to the students and to thank Jennifer for thinking of them at the station, when writing her letter. Tanya took the time to answer all of the student’s questions (and there were so many) and showed us her equipment.

Thank you Tanya for the gifts and taking the time to visit us, it was a good surprise and very much appreciated.

Community News

Sports News

Weekly Information

Important Dates

Date	Event
Friday 16th October	SACSA Yr 3,4, 5, 6 Netball
Monday 19th October to Friday 6th November	ELC Inductions
Friday 23rd October	Book Week Dress Up Day
Friday 6th November	Mini Olympics
Monday 9th November	Online Tour
Wednesday 9th December	Last day of school (normal dismissal time)

2020 Term Dates
Term 4
Monday 12th October to Wednesday 9th December

Bethany Christian School

PO Box 2125
Salisbury Downs SA 5108
37 Countess St
Paralowie, SA, 5108

P. 08 8283 0000
F. 08 8283 0101
E. office@bethany.sa.edu.au

Weekly PE Lessons

Class	Days
ELC	Monday to Friday
RD	Tuesday and Thursday
RH	Monday and Wednesday
RHW	Monday and Thursday
1C	Monday and Wednesday
1D	Monday and Thursday
1P	Monday and Thursday
2HS	Wednesday and Friday
2R	Tuesday and Friday
2Z	Tuesday and Friday
3L	Tuesday and Friday
3K	Wednesday and Friday
3T	Tuesday and Friday
4G	Tuesday and Friday
4P	Monday and Friday
4W	Monday and Wednesday
5R	Tuesday and Friday
5S	Tuesday and Friday
5T	Monday and Wednesday
6S	Wednesday and Friday
6T	Tuesday and Friday
6W	Monday and Wednesday