Students pay tribute to our Anzacs

(LEFT) CONGRATULATIONS to Jett Lykke who qualified and swam at a state level on Friday; (RIGHT) THANK you and well done to our school leaders, Chloe Kurzman and Jett Lykke, who represented our school, laying a wreath at the Cenotaph on ANZAC Day.

By Admin

May 09, 2022 | 2:00 PM

CASTERTON PRIMARY SCHOOL

LAST Monday I met our school leaders, Chloe and Jett, at the Cenotaph in Henty Street for the ANZAC Day service and laying of the wreath for our school.

Thank you to Chloe and Jett for representing our school so beautifully and thank you to their families for bringing them along.

Thank you also to all the students and families who came along to watch as well.

Congratulations to Zavier Cates who was awarded first prize for the Casterton Primary School in the ANZAC Day Story Writing Competition.

Zave was presented with a commemorative statue at the service in the town hall, along with the Sacred Heart winner, Zoe Withers.

Thanks Zave for sharing your obvious passion for this topic and the pride that you have for your family.

CONGRATULATIONS to Zavier Cates who, along with Sacred Heart’s Zoe Withers, was named a winner in the Casterton RSL’s Anzac Day writing competition and presented with an award by RSL president, Barry Kent.

First day back

IT WAS lovely to see the students back at school on Wednesday.

And a bit of an exciting change for the students in Grades 1/2 and Prep/1.

We have begun our decant of the school in preparation for the capital works.

We decided to make this shift first and early so that it would create the least disruption to our youngest learners.

Mrs Richardson and Grade 1/2 have moved into the McPherson Street side of the classroom.

Some minor modifications were completed in the holidays to allow us to more effectively divide the room.

This will allow for the teachers to very easily work together, for planning and streaming.

Mrs Kelly will begin to offer Indonesian classes from the Art room also, but will continue to have music in the same block for the time.

State swimming

WE ARE very proud of Jett Lykke to make it all the way through four stages of swimming competition to qualify for the State Swimming Championships.

Jett swam in the State competition last Friday, 29 April - no result as at the time of writing this.

School mural

OUR 2001 Grade 5 and 6 mural. We are working on a plan for a new mural, after this one was painted over by the building’s current owners.

MANY of you may have been aware of some conversations around our mural on the south boundary wall belonging to the neighbours in McPherson Street.

Initially, there were political posters installed on the wall by supporters of an Independent political party.

Schools have strict limitations on political impartiality, and I was initially concerned that the community might see this as the school taking a political stance. I am certain that any risk of a perceived conflict of interest has been completely mitigated now, by the attention this behaviour has received.

The wall was painted by students in Grades 5 and 6 in 2001.

Mrs Lawrence and Mrs McLean were the teachers of those grades and their images were also on the wall.

Every student in those grades created an image of themselves, under the expert tutelage of Eva McFadden, to add to the wall.

Stewie McFadden created the background.

The mural has been enjoyed by the school and students ever since and especially enjoyed by those students themselves, now grown and many of them still living in the area.

The painting over our mural has been a great disappointment to us and to many people in our school and greater community.

We are still working on a plan to create a new mural, on a space that belongs to the school.

Watch this space. I hope you enjoy the last image of our mural in this newsletter, provided to us by Eva McFadden.