19 September 2016

Newsletter Articles

Principal's Message

Well done SIPPS!

This is our final newsletter for Term 3. Students have enjoyed success in academic, social and personal learning this term. Student achievement has been enhanced through the school-wide promotion and practice of positive growth mindset and determination of students to do their personal best with learning and behaviour. Teachers at SIPPS have provided quality learning environments and future-focused teaching methods to engage students more successfully. The positive support and assistance of SIPPS parent and carers this term has been greatly appreciated. This productive and effective partnership has contributed positively to student achievement and is the hallmark of a successful school.

We have moved our recess and lunchtime play to the area outside the canteen and hall. This gives students access to the new seating area and an opportunity to use the tennis courts. Teacher supervision of the toilets is also improved.

Congratulations

Well done to Zoe who represented Kuring-Gai Zone in last week's Area Athletics Carnival at Homebush. She showed excellent stamina to confidently finish the 800 metre junior final. Our spelling bee finalists Maximus, Amy, Jay and Sean also made it through several rounds of the local finals at Lindfield East Public School.

ICAS ENGLISH RESULTS

Distinction awarded to Jamie and Annie
Credit awarded to Evie, Katherine, Sarah, Darcy and Aden
Merit awarded to Zoe, Jay and Julian B

Big Colour In

Visitors to the Carnival of Cultures this year will have the opportunity to participate in The Big Colour In initiative. There is a competition that all SIPPS students can enter to design the mural. Artist and teacher Mrs Biv spoke to the students last week about the design brief and theme which will be painted on Sunday 30th October 2016. Please see links for more information and entry form. Closing date for entries is this Friday 23rd September.

SIPPS Spectacular

Tomorrow night we will celebrate our cultural diversity and showcase the talents of all our students at the SIPPS Spectacular. This years' theme is 'Around the World in 80 minutes'. The program starts at 6:30pm. The items are:

1. School Bands
2. 1E – Under the Southern Skies – Miss Emerson
3. Year 5 – Kids in America – Mrs Hayllar and Mr Guzman
4. Junior Dance – Play that Sax – Mrs Shanahan
5. Year 6 – Copa De La Vida – Mrs Hayller and Mr Guzman
6. KM – That's Amore – Miss Moule
7. 2FT – The Lion Sleeps Tonight – Mrs Field and Mrs Took
8. Senior Choir – Naughty & Blackbird – Mrs Buckle
9. 3/4F – Modern and Traditional South Korea – Miss Forsyth
10. 1/KA – Zorba – Mrs Anderson
11. Junior Choir – A Whole New World – Miss Emerson
12. Senior Dance – Hip Hop'n America – Miss Forsyth
13. 3S – Jai Ho – Mrs Shanahan
14. Recorder Group – Heavenly Pagoda – Mrs Buckle
15. Whole School Finale

Please note that for this and other school performances parents/carers are permitted to take photos/videos of their own child's performance for personal use only. Please do not share images of any students via class contact email or social media.

Please see the following note with further details about tomorrow evening's concert.

New Flag

Thank you to the Druce family for their donation of a new Australian national flag. The following Year 4 students will be responsible for the daily duties of raising and lowering the flag. I would like to thank Matilda, Phoebe, Sebastian and Declan for undertaking this additional responsibility in service to our school.

Seed, Harvest, Spoon

Classes continue to work in the eco-garden and benefit from the Seed, Harvest, Spoon program. Next term thanks to the support of our P&C, students will engage in the following program.

Partners in Learning Parent Feedback Survey (TTFM)

A reminder to SIPPS parents and carers that they are invited to participate in the Partners in Learning parent survey, another part of the Tell Them From Me (TTFM) suite of surveys, (student, teacher and parent surveys), on student engagement. The survey asks parents and carers questions about different factors that are known to impact on student wellbeing and engagement.

Running this survey will help our school understand parents' and carers' perspectives on their child's experience at school. These include: communication between parents/carers and staff, activities and practices at home and parent/carer views on the school's support of learning and behaviour. This valuable feedback will help our school make practical improvements.

The survey is conducted entirely online at home or on public computers. The survey will typically take 15 minutes or less to complete and is completely confidential. The parent survey will be conducted between 22 August and 21 October. Participating in the survey is entirely voluntary however; your responses are very much appreciated. To log into the survey, go to

Best Wishes for a safe and relaxing spring holiday. School resumes for students and staff on Monday 10th October 2016. I will be taking extended long service leave until Monday 17th October and Mrs Hayllar will be Relieving Principal in my absence.

Gillian Tegg

Inspiring & Nurturing Successful Lifelong Learners

Language, Learning and Literacy (L3)

This year the Kindergarten and Stage 1 teachers have been involved in L3 - Language, Learning and Literacy, which is a Department of Education quality teaching initiative. The teachers have engaged in professional learning, mentoring and classroom visits, which promote a systematic, explicit and balanced teaching program. The teachers have monitored student achievement, reflected and differentiated learning experiences to meet the individual needs of their students. The Literacy sessions have included modelled and independent writing, guided reading and participation in a variety of quality literacy activities.

It has been a pleasure working with the teachers and students at St Ives Park this year. While I have been visiting, I have enjoyed the discussions that have taken place about quality literature. Last week, the discussion and writing that came from The Pocket Dogs and the Lost Kitten in the Kindergarten classroom was very interesting. It was lovely to see the depth of conversation and links to personal experiences.

Kind Regards,
Kylie Bull
ES1 and Stage 1 L3 Lead Trainer- Macquarie Park Implementation Group

Teddy Bears' Picnic

Last Thursday Kindergarten held our annual Teddy Bears' Picnic. We welcomed pre-schoolers and their parents as part of our transition program for Kindergarten 2017. Mrs Anderson, Miss Moule, parents and students welcomed new families for a morning of fun and discovery. The teddy bears had a good time too!

STEM IN 1E

We pretended to be the wind and wrote about all the things we would do if we were!!

Canberra Excursion

Parliament and Civics Education Rebate (PACER)

Students from our school have recently undertaken an education tour of the national capital, Canberra. Students were given the opportunity to participate in a variety of educational programs with a focus on Australia's history, culture, heritage and democracy.

The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit the national capital as part of their Civics and Citizenship education. To assist families in meeting the cost of the excursion the Australian Government is contributing funding of $20.00 per student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program towards those costs. The rebate is paid directly to the school upon completion of the excursion.

Canberra Trip Stage 3

It was an early Monday morning start for Stage 3 student's in week 7, as our Canberra adventure was about to begin. We were very excited but nervous because it's a long ride to Canberra. We left at 7am and arrived at 11am.

We went straight to the Australian Mint. It was a very exciting to see where all of our pocket money comes from and to know all of the history about our coins and notes. Some people were lucky enough to make their own coins from a machine.

After this we went to the War Memorial to learn about World War one and two. We saw lots of Military and Navy personnel waiting for the Closing Ceremony and we were lucky enough to leave our mark on this event by laying a wreath on behalf of NSW schools. We were also lucky enough to be able to attend the ceremony with our Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, also Bill Shorten and Julie Bishop.

On Tuesday, we had an early start at 6am; we ate breakfast and got on the coach to explore Canberra. At 1pm we went to the Australian Parliament House and got to see The Senate and The House of Representatives chambers. We had a very kind and knowledgeable tour guide called Maree to show us around the whole Parliament House.

We went to the National Museum and saw lots of interesting old Aboriginal artefacts and saw lots of examples of the Stone Age and Bronze Age period. It was a big building so lots to see.

We finished the day with a visit to the Australian Institute of Sport and we got to see lots of Australian athletes that went to the Rio Olympic Games. We went pass lots of training centres and saw lots of interesting techniques to train their skills.

On the last day, we were very excited to visit Questacon. The first thing we decided to do was ride the 8m vertical slide that was very scary. We saw lots of complicated experiments that were cool to touch and observe.

We FINISHED our trip to Canberra with a visit to the National Art Gallery with lots of paintings and statues that were very creative and interesting. We learnt about the history and stories behind these paintings.

We were all very tired so we were delighted to get on the coach and go back to school and return home.

Will and Alex

Stage coach year 6

This term year 6 have been attending the Stage Coach program at St Ives High School. We get to experience some of the subjects that we will be doing in year 7 and meet some of our future teachers. One of those subjects was hospitality. When cooking, we learnt about different arrays of colours and mixing colours with icing. We also made pizza wheels. We also attended HSIE lessons about sustainability and how humans use a lot of the Earth's resources. It was fun to see some of the year 7 students who went to St Ives Park last year. Another subject we've enjoyed is art. We are designing tiles that we will make out of clay. Our designs are based on sustainability. We have really enjoyed our high school visits and look forward to finishing our projects in our final visit in week 10.

PSSA

PSSA Soccer 2016

Our winter PSSA soccer season went well. The Junior A team came 4th and the Junior B team came 10th out of 11 teams. In the A team we won most of our games and tied 2 games. We didn't get to play the semi-finals because of bad weather. The senior team came 3rd. We were happy with our results and so were Miss Emerson and Mr Guzman.

Andrew P & Seb B (Junior A)

PSSA Netball 2016

Senior Netball

This year the seniors had two netball teams. These teams had a wonderful season. The Senior 2 Team successfully made it into the semi-finals but unfortunately lost. The Senior 1 Team had some great wins in and showed excellent sportsmanship. Throughout the season both teams had their ups and downs but managed to always play their best. We've improved by far this year and owe a big thank you to Miss Forsyth for giving up her Monday mornings to train us.

Nicci and Pria.

Junior Netball

This year our school's junior netball teams have been quite successful. It has been so much fun being a part of the junior one team, we even got into the semi-finals! The whole team experience has been really great.

Annie Zhang.

Notes from Office

LMBR

LMBR has arrived and we are slowly working our way through all tasks and becoming familiar with the various elements of the new financial, student welfare and administration procedures. We continue to ask for your patience and understanding – this is a very big change and it will take time to adjust.

There will be two final training days on the last week of term and we thank Katrina Humphreys and Diane Merryful for assisting in the office in our absence.

One of the major impacts of these changes will be the process and planning for incursions, excursions and performances. Gone are the days when a permission note could be handed in the day before or on the day of an excursion! Planning, collection of permission notes and payments will be required well in advance, and we are setting up processes so that this will occur smoothly and parents will have sufficient notice.

The following is helpful:

• All permission notes/payments should be sent to the school (to the class teacher in the first instance) in a sealed envelope with full details written on the outside eg name, class, purpose and amount of $.
• The preferred payment method is EFT (if the minimum payment requirement is met -$20)
• Parent Portal online payments – this button has been re-established on the school's webpage. Please note – late payments can affect cut off dates for events eg payment made at 7pm on a Friday evening will not be reported to the school until the following Tuesday morning. Please do not make POP payments during school holidays – there may be difficulties with reconciliation.

Stage 2 (Grades 3 & 4) Excursion: Sydney Colonial Walking Tour: - Tuesday 25th October.

The permission note was sent home today, Monday 19th September and is due back by Friday 14th October (Week 1, Term 4).

Term 4 Dates

All students return for Term 4 on Monday 10th October – and the last day of term for students is Friday 16th December.

FREE to a good home – Glass fish tank Width 90 cm, Height 39cm and depth 36 cm. Please contact the school office if you are interested.

Parents and Citizens Association

Tennis Courts

Uniform Shop

The uniform shop will be open fortnightly – the next date being October 12 Term 4.

Community Notices

FRENCH & MANDARIN CLASSES

BOOKINGS OPEN FOR TERM 4
Enrol now for your free trial class!

Bonjour! Ni Hao!

Bookings are now open for our French Class and Mandarin Class at St Ives Park Public School in Term 4. A free trial class is offered to all new students as this is a great way for your child to give the classes a try before deciding to enrol for the term.

French K to Y6 Mondays 3.15 – 4.15pm
Mandarin K to Y6 Tuesdays 3.15 – 4.15pm

The lessons are held at the school each week and are taught by experienced teachers and native speakers of the language.

Activities in our classes are fun! A new theme is followed each term and your child learns through role play, presentations and lively games and songs. Our expert teachers provide the best environment for children to develop their self-confidence and enjoyment in their chosen language.

It's quick and easy to reserve a FREE trial class. Simply contact us on (02) 8005 1237 or email enquiries@thelanguagecompany.com.au. Alternatively, visit us at the link below to book your spot online.

Merci! Xie xie!

BUSH SCHOOL LEARN TO SWIM

Swimming lessons for children

4 years to 12 years (Year 6, 2016) taught by our qualified and experienced instructors at the Bush School pools on Saturdays, November – March

Season Cost: 30 min lesson

$105 for 1 child,
$170 for 2 children,
$220 for 3 or more children (plus $20.00 insurance per child 8 yrs and over)

Enrolments: Online at our website

Grading: Saturday 29th October 2016 at 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm (or on later Saturdays from November) at the Bush School pools.

Enquiries:

Frances Simpson-Lee - 9489 1579
Carolyn Cross - 9489 2415
Liz Wright - bushschoollts@gmail.com