14 June 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principal's Message

Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition

Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking was first introduced in 1996, which means it is celebrating its 21st birthday! Congratulations to all students who represented their class in the school finals of this year's Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition. Annie, Katherine, Aden and Sean went on to represent SIPPS at Belrose Public School in the local schools' final. They all did tremendously well. Katherine and Annie were awarded the two Highly Commended awards for Stage 2 and Aden was the Stage 3 winner. This is the second year in a row he will represent SIPPS and Northern Sydney at the regional final at The Arts Unit in Lewisham.

Eco-garden harvest

It has been great to recently witness the harvesting and consumption of eco-garden produce. Please enjoy the following gallery of photos that show 2FT enjoying their Kale chips and smoothies and Kindergarten and Year 1 tucking into a San Choy Bow meal that featured their eco-garden produce; Cos lettuce and spring onions. Thank you to those class parents who have been assisting with food preparation.

Bush Classroom Working Bee – Sunday 19th June 9am – 12.30pm

Help regenerate our unique bush classroom for our children then enjoy a sausage sizzle lunch!

KU-RING-GAI COUNCIL has provided us with a bush regeneration expert who will supply all equipment and tools on the day and guide us on undergrowth removal, weed identification, bush regeneration techniques, maintenance, and repair.

Thank you to Linda Croft and members of our P&C who have organised this event. Please download the following brochure for further details.

Responsible learners at SIPPS

Stage 3 students are demonstrating that they are engaged fully in learning through their positive involvement in the Earth Parliament program. I was privileged to attend the inaugural sitting of Earth Parliament last week where members were using the parliamentary process to demonstrate learning across the curriculum including an understanding of Civics and Citizenship.

Semester 1 reports

Teachers are finalising Semester 1 student reports which will go home to parents on Monday 27 June. They contain information about what has been taught and about students' current levels of knowledge, skills and understandings, including areas for further development. Reports also provide parents with information about how students are progressing socially as well as academically.

School Swimming Scheme

Thank you to parents who expressed an interest in the school swimming scheme for 2016. Unfortunately, numbers were not sufficient to make the scheme viable for SIPPS students this year. With good numbers in our Year 2 class for 2017, we anticipate a stronger response when the scheme is offered again next year.

Best Wishes
Gillian Tegg

Inspiring & Nurturing Successful Lifelong Learners

Responsible Waste Warriors

Senior SIPPS students are thinking of strategies to solve a real-life problem currently facing our school community. They are known as our Waste Warriors. Founding members, Hisae, Tahlia and Nicola have defined the problem as:

"Kookaburras eat the rubbish left out by students which is bad for them".

They identified the reason being:

"Students leave out rubbish with food in it instead of putting it in the bin"

The Waste Warriors are currently helping classes to meet their waste reduction targets on Waste Free Wednesdays especially the number of heavy duty plastic bags.

During each K-6 assembly they will award Pluto the Platypus to the class who meets or exceeds their target. This week Pluto was awarded to K/1A.

They have also invented the character 'Angry Bag' who will help to remind students to be responsible with their waste. Angry Bag is angry when left on the playground to be pecked by Kookaburras.

At orienteering we have been learning how to navigate ourselves around specific places and areas in our school. We have also learnt how to read a map and how to navigate which way is North. On treasure hunts we have also been using alligator clips to mark down each of the controls. After each course you come back to the start to check you have finished. We have learnt to use many types of maps and have ran courses around the oval. We also have learnt the official orienteering symbols (for example we know that the triangle is where we start).We also drew objects from a birds eye view. We have seen some maps of bigger courses which look a lot harder than ours! We have also enjoyed solving word and number puzzles as part of orienteering.

Julian, Jess, Rachael and Evie

Schoolhouse Museum Excursion

Last week, children from Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 visited The Old Schoolhouse Museum at Ryde to look at continuity and change over time. Many children dressed up to visit recreated classrooms from the 1880s and 1910. They participated in drill, danced around the maypole and examined artefacts and games from bygone days. All children and parent helpers engaged enthusiastically in this opportunity. Below are some examples of the wonderful written responses class teachers considered a Personal Best.

Parent Testimonial

"I just wanted to pass on some positive feedback on the history excursion to The Old School House Museum yesterday. Apart from the obvious excitement of going on an excursion and the dress up fun, Charlotte couldn't stop talking about the entire trip last night. She described in detail the school room, the desks, the outfits, the slates, and ink wells and then gave us a blow by blow description of boys getting six cuts of the cane which lead to a very interesting family discussion on daddy receiving the cane when he was a naughty boy at school. She also has plans for us all to cook toast over an open fire on the weekend and lather it with Golden Syrup.

It's lovely to see children connecting with history and empathising with children of another era. Thanks to the infants teachers for taking the children on this special learning journey back in time."

Live Life Well @ School - Healthy Ideas

Fizzics

On Monday the 30th of May stage 3 participated in a fizzics incursion. The fizzics instructor taught us about negative and positive charge. We learnt that negative objects attract positive objects and negative and negative objects repel each other. He demonstrated static electricity using a Van de Graaff generator. It looked like two aluminium balls. When he held them close to each other it made a small lightning strike. Since it was a dry day the lightning strikes were more powerful and could travel further. He also used a mannequin head with hair to demonstrate positive and negative energy transfer. When he put the head on the static electricity ball, the hair would rise up. When he put his hand near the hair it would get attracted to his hand instead.

Our instructor talked us through the activities that we could do on the tables. On one side of the room we could learn about electromagnetic fields. On the other side there were circuit activities. One of the activities on the circuit side was where you build a circuit that can have a fan, light or a switch. On the magnet side there was a spinning top on a transparent sheet of plastic. You would spin it on the plastic and put it over the magnet and it should levitate and spin. It is extremely hard to do. The instructor said that he had only seen it work twice.

The last thing the instructor showed Stage 3 was an electromagnetic magnet. When connected to a power source, it could hold +100kg. We tried pulling it apart but it was no use. Some of the stronger people pulled the instructor over! Stage 3 enjoyed the Fizzics incursion and learnt a lot about energy. We enjoyed it so much we would even like it to be longer.

Oscar & Owen

Notes from Office

Financial & Administrative Changes - LMBR, SALM, SAP:

As outlined in the last issue of The Patter, the office is about to undertake major changes to finance and administration systems. We now have our training schedule (2 days per week) which will commence in Week 8 and continue through to our 'go live' date on 5th September. Casual relief staff have been engaged to manage the office while we are at training and in the meantime we are attending to a number of pre-deployment tasks which have to be undertaken.

The changes will impact on the way we collect and invoice money – our training will cover all these issues and we will advise families of the new procedures in due course.

To help us with this transition we would ask that all Semester 1 Invoice/Statements now be finalised. These invoices will not migrate to the new finance system. As advised earlier, if for some reason any family is having difficulties with payment of their account please contact Mrs Tegg so alternative arrangements can be made. We will not be issuing a Semester 2 Invoice/Statement - we will send out permission notes as and when they arise to students/classes involved in specific excursions or activities in Terms 3 and 4.

Current Permission Notes:

The SIPPS Recorder Ensemble will be attending a combined rehearsal in the city on Tuesday 28 June. An information sheet and permission note was handed out last week. This must be returned by Friday 17 June.

The SIPPS Athletics Carnival is scheduled for Thursday 30th June at Bannockburn Oval, Pymble, with a wet weather alternative date scheduled for Friday 22nd July. An information sheet and permission note has been sent home to all students – please return the permission note by Wednesday 22nd June. The $12.00 levy for the carnival costs was included on the Semester 1 invoice and if this has been paid then you just need to sign and return the permission note. A separate permission note will be sent to students who still need to finalise their Semester 1 invoice or pay the $12.00 levy.

SIPPS Arts Alive Senoir Choir – an information and permission note for the Preliminary rehearsal at Chatswood High School on Thursday 21st July (Week 1, Term 3) will be sent shortly. Please sign and return this permission note, plus Participation levy, by due date.

Sports in Schools PE & Health Program for Term 3: K-2 and non-PSSA students: This program will commence on Fridays in Term 3. An information and permission note will be sent home shortly. There is a $20.00 fee for this program. Please sign and return the permission note plus program fee, by due date.

Stewart House Clothing Appeal

If you have any clothes to pass on please place them in the bags sent home from school and bring them into the office before the 27th July. Thank you

Date of collection 27th July 2016

Korean News

SIPPS students enjoyed learning about one of most significant Korean dish 'Bibimbap'. From the Korean word for "mixed meal", bibimbap is a complete meal in a bowl. A combination of vegetables, rice and meat, it's topped with a soft egg and mixed together before eaten. It is very nutritious and delicious.

Canteen

We have had some changes to the canteen menu following a review of our menu by the healthy kids association, new menus will be sent home with the children so please refer to the menu.

If you'd like to volunteer in the canteen next term on a Monday or Thursday please email Sony at sony55@hotmail.com

Sony Robson 0410 465 508

FRENCH SPECIAL LUNCH

Please return your order forms for the French special Lunch by 15th June.

On the day there will be a prize for the best pronounciation (k-2 and 3-6) –please encourage your child/ren to use the following phrases when collecting their lunch on the day.

Je m'appelle-(name) –My name is
Merci – Thankyou
S'il vous plait- Please

If you would like to volunteer to help on the day contact Sony sony55@hotmail.com

Sony Robson
0410 465 508

Parents and Citizens Association

Next P&C Meeting on Wednesday 15th June
7.15pm - 8.45pm In the LIBRARY

Our next P&C meeting will focus on an exciting new event - The Ku-ring-gai Carnival of Cultures! Scheduled for Sunday 30th October, the Carnival of Cultures will be a celebration of the diversity of cultures in our local area.

Please come along if you are interested in having a role in the event. We will be unveiling the draft website and we need your ideas to make the event successful!

Canteen

Tennis Courts

Uniform Shop

The uniform shop will be open fortnightly – the next date being June 22.