Dear Parents

I have now received information from the majority of the teachers about their interviews with you and I am heartened by the number of positive responses that I received. There are but a few interviews to be conducted and then all of you would have had the opportunity to talk to the teachers who spend a considerable amount of their time with your children and who know them well. Thank you so much for contributing to this part of our reporting to you. At PLC we continue to emphasise that our reporting to parents is a package of which their are a number of components.

This year you have received samples of your children's work as that work is completed rather than everything in a portfolio at the end of a term. I hope that you have enjoyed this and that it has been meaningful feedback. I would love to hear your feedback if this is not the case as communication with parents is high on our list of priorities.

On Monday 13 August, Alison Viney is the guest speaker at the PLC Auxiliary meeting which is to be held in the Boarders' Sitting Room. She will talk about the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate, going through the programme's structure and explain how this determines our Units of Inquiry. Alison is the PYP Co-ordinator in the Junior School. If you do not know the PYP, I would encourage you to attend. She will speak for about ten minutes during the meeting. The Auxiliary plays such an important role in the life of our School and we are extremely grateful for the work that they do. If you are interested in becoming more involved in the School or would like to get to know other parents a bit more, I would suggest that you consider joining this group. They help with catering at School functions, welcome new families to the School and are very popular with the children as they organise the Junior School Disco which is one of the highlights of the year.

Whilst I am writing about parents, I want to mention the Junior School Parents' Association which is a Sub-Committee of the PLC Parents' Committee. This small group of dedicated parents would love a few others to join them. The majority of the members have girls in the upper grades and will soon become Middle School parents. Meetings are held at 7.00 pm in the Junior School staffroom and are relaxed and relatively informal. The next meeting of this group will take the form of a parent forum where the discussion topic will be, How Safe is the Internet. This will give parents and teachers the opportunity to express their opinions, to learn from the experience of others and to hear from experts. The meeting is to be held on Tuesday 4 September so put the date in your diary if this topic is of interest.

On Wednesday 29 August we are holding an evening for children in Years 3 - 6 and their parents. The focus will be Mathematics and I encourage you to attend with your daughter(s) to explore the wonderful world of Mathematics with her. The teaching of Maths these days is a far cry from just learning how to do algorithms and I hope that you will find yourself challenged too! I will leave you an interesting concluding thought from our professional sharing session this morning.

"The learner should never be told directly how to perform an operation in arithmetic. Nothing gives scholars so much confidence in their own powers and stimulates them so much to use their own efforts as to allow them to pursue their own methods and to encourage them in their own." (Colburn, 1912 p 463)

With warm regards
Janet Wilmot
Head of Junior School

Kindergarten
This term Kindergarten children have been discovering and discussing materials which assist artists with their creations.

Transdisciplinary Theme: How we express ourselves

An inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic.

Central Idea: People use different materials and resources to express their feelings and ideas.

An inquiry into:
            -the properties and uses of  different materials
            -the imaginative use of different materials
            -the use of materials and objects for drama

Athena Centre
Book Week 2007
18 – 24 August
Book Week is an exciting time in the Athena Centre calendar. Planning, reading, listening and sharing of Book Week literature began last week. During class time in the Athena Centre children are being introduced to some of the books which have been short-listed for this year’s Book Awards. There is a display of the books in the Centre which may be viewed but will not be available for borrowing until Book Week has concluded.

An information sheet about the activities for Book Week has been distributed and many parents will have noticed a slight change in the format.

Years 1 - 6
Friday 17 August will be Book Week Sharing for the girls from Year 1 - 6. This will take place in the Hazel Day Drama Centre and begin at 8.40 am. The children may dress up as their favourite book character or bring an artifact which typifies their book character. All children will be expected to share the name of their character, the title of the book and name one IB Learner Profile which is displayed by their character.

Pre-Kindergarten - Pre-Primary
Tuesday 21 August will be a Celebration of Literature for the children in Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten and Pre-Primary. The children are encouraged to dress as their favourite book character but this year there will not be a parade. The focus will be to encourage a love of stories and literature with some discussion of IB Learner Profiles. This will occur during their morning class sessions which have been specifically designed to celebrate literature and Book Week.

If you have any questions or queries please contact Alison Viney in the Athena Centre on 9424 6462 or aviney@plc.wa.edu.au

PLC In Concert
On Saturday 1 September, all PLC Junior School music ensembles will be participating in one of the biggest music events of the year. PLC In Concert, to be held at Winthrop Hall, UWA starting at 6.00 pm. Tickets have gone on sale and are selling quickly so please don't miss out on booking your tickets. Tickets can be purchased by completing one of the PLC Ticket Booking Forms and returning to Junior School Reception. If you do not yet have a booking form, please see Mr Robbie in the music room.

PLC Community Broadband - Learnlink Trial
Earlier this year, PLC's Director of Information Services, Brett Clarke, wrote in LINKS that the Technology Centre was designing an upgrade to the original Amnet StudyLink Service. This new service, PLC LearnerLink, is designed to offer the same transparency of technology as StudyLink did, but accessible via any broadband ISP, anywhere in the world, not just from an Amnet ADSL Link. This should raise the accessibility of PLC's internal digital resources to over 95% of the PLC community. Finally, this will mean that resources such as our ClickView Digital Video Library will be made available to students in the comfort of their homes and staff will be able to include these rich audio-visual resources in learning programmes accessible to students out of hours.

We are in our final phase of testing before the release of this service to the PLC community and we need the help of up to a dozen PLC families to conduct 'real world' user testing. To assist us, you will need to already have a broadband internet connection into your home that your daughter currently uses with her PLC laptop to access the internet. We are looking for users connected to a wide range of local and/or national ISPs whether via ADSL/cable or even if you have your home connection provided via a corporate VPN.

The technology underpinning PLC LearnerLink is a highly secure Enterprise VPN system from Juniper Networks, a respected name in Enterprise and Carrier grade communications equipment.

If you are interested in assisting with our trial please contact our helpdesk via email only: helpdesk@plc.wa.edu.au. There are no costs additional to those you already pay your ISP.
Please include the following information:
Your contact name:
Contact email address:
Daughter's name and year:
ISP name:
Broadband type (eg ADSL or Cable) and speed:
Broadband plan/download cap etc:
Personal home and business phone contacts:

You and your daughter will be provided with documentation as to how to connect via PLC LearnerLink, a schedule of tests to carry out over a period of approximately one week and a feedback questionnaire related to the experience. We expect this testing to take place close to Mid-Term Break this term, so please indicate your interest as soon as possible.

Parents' Committee School Fees Draw
Congratulations to Geoff and Linda Bilney from Kojonup who are the lucky winners of the Term 3 School Fees Draw. The Bilneys have Kirsty (Year 11) and Megan (Year 8) boarding at PLC. A credit of $3,720 will be applied to their account for school fees.
Thank you to everyone who has supported this Parents' Committee initiative.

PLC Auxiliary
The next meeting will be held on Monday 13 August at 9.00 am in the Boarders’ Sitting Room. Guest speaker will be PLC’s IB Primary Years Programme Co-ordinator, Alison Viney. All welcome.

Following this meeting there will be an Open Garden Day meeting. If you are involved, or wish to be involved, we welcome your attendance.

Ballet
There are a few places left in some classes. Please see Katherine for more information.