We will be going to King’s Park on the last day of term, Friday 28 September. To mark the culmination of Mary Crogan’s project there will be a half hour display by Aboriginal dancers. Children under school age are welcome to come but school aged children should be at school. See flyer for all other details.

Please make sure you put in your PD program by Friday, either to the office or electronically.

AMES has awarded three 12 month contracts in the pool process- congratulations to Janice and Veronica for being among them.

Samantha will be back next week, having completed her three week teaching prac (in a Year 1 class- bit of a contrast to Balga!). The office staff will certainly welcome her return.

Two new readers compiled by Sonia and Mary- “Cars” and “Computer Talk”.

All class photos will be on the student blog by the end of the week. Thanks to Mary A for doing all the legwork and Alison for posting them on the blog.

"The Australian Citizenship Amendment (CitizenshipTesting) Act 2007 was passed by Parliament on 12 September with Citizenship testing to commence on 1 October 2007. The Prime Minister has agreed to series of initiatives (totalling $16.9 million over four years) to support the implementation of the citizenship test. The following initiatives will provide assistance to citizenship applicants with low English proficiency and little experience with computers to prepare to sit the Citizenship Test: 1. The Let's Participate course will be updated (within the next 12 months) to reflect the new material in the citizenship test resource book Becoming an Australian Citizen and will be available on-line. A range of learningactivities and teaching resources will also be developed as part of the initiative.2. Additional citizenship test preparation assistance will be provided to citizenship applicants, particularly those with little or no formal education and limited experience with computers. The test preparation will include computer assistance / familiarisation training, presentation of the citizenship test tutorial and practice test and discussion sessions based on the resource book. A citizenship test preparation web page will be developed to help applicants understand the full range of advice available, including information on the Let's Participate course, a practice citizenship test and test tutorial..Below is the link to the resource book available on the minister's website: http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/resource-book/index.htm "

We obtained some clarification from DIAC about the future status of the certificates awarded in the citizenship courses. In brief it seems that they will no longer have any validity – all applicants will have to sit the computer test.

Branka leaves tomorrow for a European trip and Carmen will be away for the last few days of term on a holiday to New Zealand. Bon voyage!

An interesting web site from Mary C: http://www.gurtong.org/people.asp Gives very detailed information about the many ethnic groups in Sudan.