Arkana College’s Annual General Meeting will be held on the school premises on Friday 4th May 2012 at 6:30pm. Parents, staff and friends of Arkana are all welcome to attend.

NAPLAN is fast approaching. The children on Years 3 and 5 will sit for the NAPLAN tests on the following dates:

• Tuesday 15^th May: Language Conventions and Writing (40 minutes each)
• Wednesday 16^th May: Reading Comprehension (Year 3 – 45 mins and Year 5 – 50 minutes)
• Thursday 17^th May: Numeracy (Year 3 – 45 mins and Year 5 – 50 minutes)

The holidays will commence Friday 6^th April (Good Friday). The children will resume school on Monday 23^rd April 2012. We wish all students a safe and enjoyable holiday.

The Arkana College students will be participating in their first ever swimming carnival on Wednesday 4th April at Hurstville Aquatic Centre. The younger children will participate in a range of novelty races, whilst the older children (Y3-6) will swim various strokes in the 25m pool. Parents are encouraged to come along and support their children. Inshallah, we shall see you there!

Arkana College will be hosting an ANZAC Ceremony at school with members of the Kingsgrove RSL at 10am on Monday 2nd April 2012. This will be followed on by another two ceremonies that our Year 6 students will be attending on Tuesday 3rd April. Our Captains and Vice Captains will attend the 2012 RSL and Schools Remember ANZAC Commemoration Service which will be held at the ANZAC Memorial in Hyde Park Sydney. The remainder of Year 6 will attend the Commemoration Service at Kingsgrove RSL. These student-led services are an excellent opportunity for all schools and students to pay tribute to the commitment and sacrifices made by Australia’s servicemen and women in the past and present.

The children at Arkana College will be celebrating Harmony Day next Wednesday 21st March 2012. All children are to come dressed in ORANGE to school. We have also organised a sports competition early next term for our upper primary students with Mt Mary and St Mina’s Coptic Orthodox College.

This Friday, 16th March, we will be having “CRAZY HAIR DAY” to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation and their important work – providing free practical and emotional support to people with blood cancer and their families, as well as investing millions in research. Help us help such a worthy cause. We will be having “CRAZY HAIR DAY” on Friday at lunchtime. Children can get their hair coloured to support this cause. We will charge children $1 to spray their hair. They are to bring their money in on the day. Parents can also make tax deductible donations to further support the Leukaemia Foundation. All donations can go striaght to the front office.

The information session for parents was informative and all parents were given a term overview of literacy and numeracy content to be covered throughout this term. We would like to thank the parents for taking time out of their busy schedules to attend. We have decided to follow up with a series of Spalding workshops for parents starting Tuesday 6th March at 5pm and a follow up session on Tuesday 13th March also at 5pm. All parents are welcome to attend.

The entire staff of Arkana College are presently being trained in Spalding to equip them with further skills and practices most crucial to the development of reading. Our teaching programs will reflect the essential instructional components of effective reading programs.

The year has come to an end. We wish all the children and their families a safe and enjoyable holiday.

School will resume in 2012 on the following dates:

1. Monday 30th January 2012 : Staff Development Day

2. Tuesday 31st January 2012 : First Day for Children Years 1-6

3. Wednesday 1st February 2012 : First Day for Kindergarten