It's absolutely okay to deface your hat

When I do enrolment tours on a Thursday I always mention hats. Our new families are startled when I announce it's okay to deface your child's hat. Go ahead - personalise it anyway you wish. Some ideas - ribbons through the holes, big colourful cloth patches, names in fabric paint under the brim, beads and strawberries and unicorns - whatever you want! I also warn them that if they only write their child's name on the small label provided by the manufacturer, expect to never see the hat again! We seem totally unable to locate the hat eating monster in our school!

Personalised hats are great - kids can pick their own hat out of a pile really easily, the hat rarely gets lost, and when they are misplaced, they are most often returned. Our teachers and teacher aides also get to know the hats and can identify who is running around underneath them. It's a win-win all around.

As I walked in the playground this week I collected some photos of some terrific examples. These hats will remain with their owner for a really long time!

Go ahead, be bold and make this next weekend's project.

Our first Assembly of the year is always a great time to tell stories

I love numbers. They tell so many stories. And there are many stories that are important for our school - especially at the start of the year. This morning 1HJ helped me tell some stories at Assembly.
1120 - our total enrolments for 2019. We are a very big school!
1120 kids in 45 classes. When we opened in 2010 we had only 12 classes!
264 - the number of children we had on 27 January 2010
10 - we're 10 years old this year!
9 - we're not 10 yet but all nine year olds can't wait to get to double digits! We will be 10 in Term 4 and we'll be having a big party with many classes contributing something towards it
189 - our biggest year level is Year 4
143 - and our smallest is Year 3
158 - we have 158 Preps in seven classes. It's the most Preps ever!
4 - four students didn't have black shoes to complement their uniform this week. We're hoping parents will be able to sort this out this weekend! 4 is also the number of children not wearing a hat for outdoor play. A hat is a must and we encourage all children to personalise their hats so they are easy to recognise and find.
32 - the school's leaders have picked up 32 pieces of rubbish as we've walked around the school this this week. Much of this was plastic and straws. We would love all children to bring nude food lunches - and many are! I've seen some fabulous lunch boxes this week.
31 - being at school as much as possible is really important. Every day makes a difference! 31 children came to school late this week, 16 left early and 51 didn't come at all. That's too many for the first week.
25 - we are celebrating 100% attendance and 25 classes had every child at school every day.
7 - we've felt sad that 7 children have experienced mean moments. These were all swiftly dealt with by class teachers and staff on duty.
886 - in end of 2017 reports 886 children received the equivalent of an A or B for behaviour. This is amazing! When this many children are focused, polite, caring and considerate teachers can teach so much more and everyone learns better.

2019 is going to be a bright year and we've gotten off to a great start.