20 June 2019

Newsletter Articles

Dates to Remember

Principal’s Messages

ATTENDANCE

Being at school is a very important thing for children. So much so, that the NSW Government has legislated that coming to school is compulsory. The “vibe” legislation discourages non-attendance due to holidays, birthday celebrations and any other non-critical situations. With this in mind it is essential that parents notify the school of the reasons children are absent or late.

It is the parents’ responsibility to:

• ensure that their children attend school regularly;
• explain to the school the absences of their children promptly and within seven days
• take measures to resolve attendance issues involving their children.

There are a number of other important procedures that parents have to abide by within this “vibe” which include:

• More than 10 absences due to illness require a doctor’s certificate (ie not necessarily concurrent);
• Notification to the school must be within 7 days of absence – after that absence becomes “unexplained”;
• Application for an Exemption should be made if children will be absent for more than 10 days due to a family holiday – this application needs to be made PRIOR to taking the leave;

As our rolls are now electronic, we strongly encourage parents to use the COMPASS APP to inform the school of any absence or partial attendance. Whilst email is acceptable, sometimes they are not accessed till after the roll is taken in the morning, which could then trigger an “unexplained absence” SMS alert.

MORNING DUTY

Please be aware that the school is unattended and no teachers are on duty until 8.30am each morning. No children should arrive at school until 8.30am. If you require morning care please contact our OOSH St Nicholas service on 0432 162 470.

DANCE CONCERT

As a culmination of our PE Program this term the children and instructor have been developing a “recital” of the works they have been working on. All the classes will meld their item into one performance to highlight their development rhythm, coordination, fitness and musical appreciation which were the objectives of the program.

The performance will be at 9.30am on Wednesday 3 July in the Hall. Please come along if you can and invite all your friends and relatives as well.

REPORTS and INTERVIEWS

Your children’s reports will be available through the Compass App on Friday afternoon (28 June).The reports and Interview Booking Timetable will be released on Friday afternoon after 4pm. Please take a moment to check your hardware (phones, computers tablets) to see if you can access previous reports, to ensure you will be able to access this semester’s reports, when they are released.

WOOLWORTHS EARN & LEARN

Only a week to go – So, get all your friends to drop off those stickers you have been collecting and send them into school. These stickers can then be given to your children to collect on a special sticker sheet. Just bring them into school or pop them into the OLV School Box at Jesmond Woolworths. Don’t forget to collect

The more points we earn, the more we can redeem from a choice of over 10,000 educational resources including Mathematics and English resources, art & crafts materials and much, much more! We are grateful for your support and look forward to a successful program. If you have any questions, please ask at School.

ICAS ASSESSMENT

In the past the school has coordinated the registration and payment for parents wishing their children to participate in the ICAS Assessments for English, Maths, Digital Technologies, Science, Spelling Bee and Writing. Global UNSW, who provide the Assessments, now have a new format which allows parents to have direct access to order and conduct the tests online or in paper mode.

The school will no longer be handling registration or payments for these tests.

Parent who wish to have their children participate need to REGISTER online at the link below. You can then purchase any assessments that you wish from the UNSW Global Shop. All assessments are at a cost of $14.50 each. This process needs to be completed by the 31 July. The school will be notified of your child’s participation. The children will then be given time at school to complete the Assessment. All tests are completed within a 3 week period in September. UNSW Global have lots of resources which parents can access to prepare their children for the Assessments – the school will not be doing this.

These assessments are purely on a voluntary basis and do not guide teachers in the assessment of outcomes of the NSW syllabus.

RE News

FAMILY MASS

Kinder will be leading us at Mass tomorrow from 9.15am We encourage a member of every family to attend as we celebrate the gift of families.

VINNIES SLEEPOUT

We had a wonderful night experiencing (to a degree) the discomfort faced by a growing number of homeless people in our community. Thanks to all that have sent their sponsorship donations in to school already. We ask that parents finalise these so we can take a tally and make a presentation to the St Vincent de Paul. So far $1,287.55 has been raised – THANK YOU EVERYONE.

The children were wonderful and very mindful that some very tired teachers needed their beauty sleep – and I am sure that it wasn’t me doing the snoring.

Office

Office Hours

The NEW office hours are

The office is unattended between the hours of 11.30am to 12.00pm.

School Fees

Our Term 2 school fees for 2019 have been sent home. All school fees are now overdue. It would be appreciated if all accounts are paid promptly.

If you would like to manage your account with regular payments, please contact Leanne in the office, who can help you with a payment plan. Those who are experiencing legitimate financial hardships, can make application for consideration by making an appointment to see the Principal.

P & F News

NEXT MEETING

Our Associations next meeting will be on Monday 24 June at 7pm. Please come along and participate in the discussions around your child’s education. Some time, in the Principal’s Report, will be available to answer any queries about accessing reports and COMPASS.

Term 2

UNIFORM POOL

Our Uniform Pool is located in the Bell Room next to the Year 1 classroom. We are open every Thursday 8:40-9:10 am.

• Back in stock are our new school bags ($60) and our library bags ($15).
• Also available for purchase are Art Smocks ($10) and with winter coming our School Jackets in selected sizes only (size 4,6,8,14) for $45 each.
• Variety of used uniforms starting from $2 an item
• Cash only purchases as EFTPOS is not available

Please note our uniform pool runs on the generosity of those who donate their used uniforms. If you have any used uniforms you no longer require, please feel free to drop them at the school office for recycling through the uniform pool. We would really appreciate any winter uniforms and sports uniforms that no longer fit your child.

New school bags ($60) and our library bags ($15) are back in stock.

OLV Hair Scrunchie Packs are now available to purchase for $5 each at our School Uniform Shop. If you can’t make it to the shop on a Thursday Morning, then send your $5 in a labelled envelope via your child’s class note bag.

Pastoral Care News

The Worm Cafe is completed and we are almost ready to start construction on our Prayer Garden.

Keep watching for changes.

Thank you to all our wonderful students for building the cafe and to the fabulous volunteers preparing the Prayer Garden area.

Today is a new day. Make the most of it. Have a great week.

Take Care and God Bless

LEMON TREE

Our lemons have been very popular with families and the wildlife – better get in quick before the Cockatoos get them all.

Class News

Kinder

Our first Kinder Mass is on Friday 21st June at 9.15am. We are looking forward to participating in this celebration with our families. Due to the extra time needed to practice for our Mass we are not having News this week. We will go back to normal next week and the children are free to bring their own choice. Kinder have started a new unit in Religion: The Creation Story. We viewed a You Tube clip ‘BBC: Planet Earth’ and wondered about all the beautiful things in our world and how they came to be. In English we have finished reading “Going on a Bear Hunt” and are looking at information texts about brown bears. We viewed videos on brown bears catching salmon and are learning some ‘Bear Facts’ eg baby bears are called cubs. In Maths we had lots of practice sharing objects into equal groups to make a fair share and recorded our answer eg. 4 groups of 3. We are now learning about gathering Data (information) and recording it to make picture graphs. We have been very busy completing assessments in English and Maths in time for reporting. Kinder are progressing nicely, they are an amazing bunch and it is great to be their teacher.

Year 1

We wish Mrs Hingston, all the very best for her recovery and hope to see her back at school next week.

Year 2

In history, students have been looking at the change in family entertainment from past to present. We have looked at the evolution of the television in relation to it's use, appearance and features. We have also compared past and present news programs and highlighted the similarities and differences between these.

Year 3/4

In Religion we have continued learning about the Trinity and comparing Christian beliefs about God with the beliefs of other religions. We talked about the different things that come in threes and the various objects that could be used to symbolise the Trinity. We also compared some artwork portraying the Trinity. In English we have continued to read the book “Letty and the Stranger’s Lace” by Alison Lloyd. The story follows the journey of a young English girl who arrives in the new colony of Sydney in 1841. Although the story is fictional, the setting and the places are factual, which give the reader an idea of what life was like in Australia in the early days of settlement. In Maths, we looked at various types of graphs and used column and picture graphs to display data. This week we have looked closely at 2D shapes, both regular and irregular. In PDH we have discussed the idea of being Sun Smart and the ways we can protect ourselves from the harsh rays of the sun. We also discussed the ways diseases enter the body and ways that we can stay healthy. We had a great day at the Athletics Carnival on Friday and we are excitedly awaiting the ribbon and trophy ceremony. Our dance lessons, with Miss Jess, are going awesomely! We love the music we are dancing to and the steps and moves are coming together nicely.

Year 5

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been learning to use the Spheros. We have had so much fun learning to program them to roll a certain distance, change direction, colours, add sounds etc. Sometimes connectivity is an issue, but it has taught us patience!

In Religion we have started looking at the three Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Islam and Christianity - their origins, their differences and their similarities. It has been very interesting!

In Maths we have been looking at the finer details in presenting graphs, looking at the various ways information can be displayed and which graphs are best for which data.

In English we continue to read about Rosa and her adventures, which links nicely with our history unit as we delve deeper into the Eureka Stockade.

In PE, we have started a new rotation and are now improving our soccer skills with Mrs Johnson each morning for PE. Our Dance in Sport is coming along very well indeed and everyone will be amazed at what we have been able to learn…and REMEMBER! We can’t wait to show you at our special performance in Week 10.

Year 6

This week in Religion, we are working through our unit, Beliefs. We studied our School Mission Statement, for the beliefs it stated, and we identified examples of Catholic beliefs that are apparent in our school. We each used concentric circles, with a photo of ourselves in the centre, and wrote about our beliefs in the second circle and where these beliefs came from in the third circle. It was a fun activity to learn a little more about ourselves.

In English we divided the class into two groups and, after time for discussion and gathering of arguments, debated on the theme of refugees/boat people coming to our country. We are learning about the struggles faced by refugees as we work on the story Soraya the Storyteller by Roseanne Hawke.

During our Library time this week, we each took part in a simulation of being an asylum seeker in an online activity. It has really shown us some of the difficulties and hard decisions faced by asylum seekers!

In English, we also shared our picture books on the SMARTBoard. In our groups, we completed a Peer Assessment sheet for each book. We worked together to decide on aspects of the books to assess and ticked the levels on the sheet we felt they achieved. All the stories were well presented and great to read!

In Maths, we looked at data and ways we can record it, including two-way tables and side-by-side column graphs. We worked with each type and compared them for effectiveness.

In History, we have been listening to our classmates’ research about Aboriginal actions taken to improve the rights of our Indigenous population. The presentations have been interesting and informative and are helping us learn so much about our nation’s past.

In Science, we carried out investigations into the insulation properties of the materials we will use to make a shelter. Our tests included measuring the temperature of hot water in containers when insulated by a variety of materials. We measured the temperature of each of the containers of water every five minutes over the period of an hour. The results will help us to determine which materials we will use in our shelters.

We are all having fun in Dance and look forward to performing it for everyone in Week 10. Many of us are participating in the Soccer Gala next week and are very excited to be in it!

Sport News

SOCCER GALA

The North Region will be conducting a SOCCER GALA on Friday 28 June. We have 36 children signed up to make up our four teams participating. We will be travelling up to Raymond Terrace to enjoy some friendly rivalry from the other schools in our region. We will be having some training sessions at lunch time with Mrs Johnson. If your child expressed an interest, the full details of the day should have come home yesterday. Our junior teams will be decked out in the new “strips” provided by the P&F and the seniors will also be given uniforms to wear.

ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

What a great day we had last week. Everyone must have petitioned the rain gods as the weather was perfect. The children showed lots of great spirit and tried their best to achieve. Thanks to all the helpers as officials and in the canteen. A special thanks to the children from San Clemente who helped out as well.

Presentations of Trophies and Ribbons will be made after Monday assembly on 1 July.

REGIONAL ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

After a successful school carnival last week, we have selected a team to represent OLV at the Regional Athletics Carnival on Thursday 3 July. Congratulations to the following children:

Isla W, Annalise F, Freya B, Suma M, Elsie O, Summer F, Lily W, Elsie O, El W, Emily A, Olivia K, Maree H, Jocelyn B, Abbie B, Jodie W, Maria K, Jessie F

Harrison S, Lochlain h, Max G, Harry F, Caleb J, Levi P, Julian A, Thomas E, Logan E, Xavier N, Bailey W, Sam T, Ari B, Nicholas C, Spencer N, Oscar H, Declan G, Peace H, Noah P

Permission forms and information will be sent home tomorrow.

Class Awards

OOSH is HERE

One issue that may arise is the need for Casual Care on occasions. If you think that you might need this, it will be necessary to be enrolled in the service prior to making a booking. Remember that you need to contact St Nicholas OOSH to book your child in, as we can’t do it through the school.

Their contact details are, Christine 0432 162 470 or tracey.sweetman@stnicholasoosh.org.au

If you intend to use the OOSH either before or after school, you might like to download the application forms, fill them out and send them into school to pass on for processing.

Check out this link for more information on St Nicholas OOSH.

Vacation Care

Please find attached St Nicholas OOSH Vacation Care Program. Don’t forget to book your children in for the upcoming July School Holidays. Please see program attached.