It has been wonderful to see everyone back at school today and to welcome our new families and teachers into our community.
Everyone seems to be settling in well, and the children appear to be very happy and making new friends. It has been great, as always, to see the children who were at Provo Primary last year helping new children to feel welcome in their new class and school.
We would like to welcome our new teachers, Mr. George, who is our Year 4 teacher, and Mrs. Yorka, who has joined our Spanish teaching team, working mainly in Early Years to Year 1. We are sure you will enjoy getting to know both of these teachers more over the year.
What else is new at Provo Primary this year?
3 Specialist Foreign Language Teachers – With 3 language specialists in the school (Miss Cara, Mrs. Helen and Mrs. Yorka) we will be offering increased foreign language teaching, including 20 hours of Spanish Immersion a week throughout our Early Years programme.
Enhanced Classroom areas and resources – Larger Soft Play and Toddler/Pre-school areas, new furniture, a new stage surface mat and increased learning resources across the school.
Continued School Development Plans – We will continue to build on the success of last year’s school focus to develop our Calculation Policy. This year, we will also be further developing the teaching and learning of Literacy and Computing and their integration throughout our creative topic-based curriculum. You will see that some of our new resources below have been purchased to support these chosen areas of school development.
New Laptops – making our computer lab portable and more versatile, updating classroom teaching technology and increasing the number of computers in Early Years classes.
Additional Computing Resources – which include a handheld digital microscope, metal detectors, a variety of recordable devices, a data logger and a programmable Lego kit. We also have 2 new IWB projectors.
New Home Reading Books – We have invested over $3,000 in new books for our home reading library.
Interactive Literacy Topic Pack Resources – with a wide variety of additional research books, artefacts and resources, these packs will help to enhance learning in topics on weather and forces of nature, world faiths and celebrations and ancient world history (including the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas and Mayans).
Our New Garden/Outdoor Classroom, Farm and Aquaponics areas – where classes can explore our natural habitat through hands-on investigations and gather together for class activities under the shaded gazebo. It will also be an area for us to grow our own fruits and vegetables and learn the business side of farming, potentially selling our produce on Provo Primary market day – Look out for more information as the year goes on.
Shading for our Soccer Pitch – Our long awaited shading is underway and will soon be protecting our children from the sun throughout the day.
It has been a busy and exciting summer, ordering our new resources and witnessing these new playground projects develop, all purchased and paid for with funds from the School budget, our School Fundraiser and PTA. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Engineering Design Services Ltd., Environmental Arts, Olympic Construction, and Projetech, TCI Agri Systems and Tibor’s Machine Shop, who have been a part of designing and building our garden areas, and soccer pitch shade. These things have taken a lot of time and effort from our PTA fundraising committee and we are extremely grateful for their efforts and hard work. These areas will greatly enhance our learning environment and we look forward to them being fully utilized throughout the year ahead.
We would especially like to thank Environmental Arts, for their generous donations and the key role they have played.
Looking back over last year and seeing all the new things in place for this year, it is wonderful to see how well our Provo Primary School community works together to accomplish so much for our children.
The teachers are excited to start the new school year and are looking forward to getting to know their new classes and sharing their learning journey together. Early Years newsletters and Kindergarten to Year 6 class information booklets will be sent home over the next couple of days. Teachers will pass on further information on their classroom noticeboard and will be sending out topic maps over the next couple of weeks. Please let your child’s teacher know if you have any questions, concerns or information to relay as they continue to assess the children’s individual strengths and needs.
Finally, please watch out for regular blog posts at provolearning.com, and don’t forget to “like” our Facebook page
Thank you for continued support and all the very best for this upcoming new school year.
Ms. Alison and Miss Sian