Welcome back to Term 3. I hope that all families had a relaxing break. The children have settled into their learning and to their playground activities automatically. It is always amazing how some children just do not feel the cold and are impervious to the weather. They arrive with light clothes and I know that parents just have to go with their preferences. We have had some wet weather days already and these are the most challenging for staff as the children would much prefer to be outside running around, regardless. We have established some interesting lunchtime activities though and now that chess is underway, more and more children are keen to have a taster of this. As a reminder of the activities program, we have published a schedule for your interest.

• Monday: Chess
• Tuesday: Catch-up Art
• Wednesday: Gardening
• Thursday: Catch-up Art, Library
• Friday: Games and Activities, Orchestra

New Staff Members

We have welcomed some new staff to the school and are pleased to introduce to you:

Elise Winterflood 3 – 6 Performing Arts	Clare Hopper Years 1 /2 A–F Performing Arts	Phoebe Rose Year 5 French	Teagan Nugent Year 1/2C Friday teacher	Ginger Moyle Year 3/4 F Class teacher

Landscaping

Parents may have noticed that we have commenced some landscaping works around the new classrooms. The Department of Education and Training (DET), is providing this for the school and we are very pleased with this opportunity. It will provide the students with a safe and dry area underfoot and some seating. We can use this as a platform for our continued work with our ongoing playground development.

Our School Community

I would like to thank all of the parents who assisted with the Election Day Sausage Sizzle. Once again, it was another successful occasion for the school. Added to this, we have had one Farmers Market with another one next week. The school is certainly very central to the broader community and is quite a landmark standing for Fairfield.

Finances

Thank you to all families who have reconciled their financial accounts. Also thank you to the families who have contributed to our new Library Resource Fund and Building Fund. We hope to build these resources to enable the further improvements in our internal buildings and to extend our library and learning resources for the students. This year, we have been able to provide improved furniture and heating and cooling into the classrooms and we would like to develop our  non-fiction library collection and science and technologies resources. Your contributions are very helpful for this. The many improvements that we are working on are a result of our DET and community collectively.

Playground Safety

We wish to remind parents that children are not to be in the playground before 8.45am when teacher supervision is in place. Parents are able to supervise their own children prior to that time, but in the interests of safety, we are encouraging parents to be mindful of this. We are not allowing children on to the oval before 8.45am as there have been some unsupervised rough play that has led to some physical incidents amongst some of the children.

Helmets and Scooters

We are also clarifying that children on scooters are required to wear helmets by law. We have had a number of complaints from members of the public about this issue and we would like to ask for parents to support this legal ruling. Here are the details as outlined by Vic Roads.

Authorised Version No. 012—Road Safety Road Rules 2009 S.R. No. 94/2009 (Authorised Version incorporating amendments as at 10 February 2014)

• 244B Wearing of helmets and other requirements for users of scooters: A person who is travelling on a scooter on a road or road related area must wear an approved bicycle helmet securely fitted and fastened on the rider’s head

Illness Alert

In coming back from the holidays, we have been made aware of a large number of children suffering with many viral conditions and illnesses. As a result, many children have had to be collected to go home, rest and/or seek medical attention. Please be aware of this as we cannot accommodate sick children. Amy, Kaye and Kate (our lunchtime nurses) have had queues of children and the same symptoms are present:  severe coughs, nausea and temperatures.