3 April 2017

Newsletter Articles

PBL Focus for April

Principal’s Message

Star Target Achieved

Over 200 starts already! Thank you to students, Virginia Ringrose, OOSH staff and parents who have assisted in this activity which is part of the 1 Million Stars to end Violence Project. Our stars will be part of the 1 million stars from all around Australia included in the installation at next year’s Commonwealth Games. This is again a great example of what our effective school community partnerships can achieve at SIPPS. Congratulations to those involved.

Teacher Professional Learning

This year SIPPS teaching staff will once again undertake professional learning opportunities to build their capacity to deliver quality teaching and learning that is relevant to students’ needs. SIPPS teachers are electing to swap 19 December, the final pupil free day of 2017, for two three hour after school professional learning sessions. Teachers feel that utilising their personal time after school hours earlier in the year will be more productive and beneficial to students and their learning outcomes than the final day of the year. Staff will complete the following program:

• Evening Presentation on ‘Preparing students 4 the 2nd Machine Age’ Speakers:
  Alan November – Author ‘Who Owns the Learning?’ – Boston, USA
  Dom Price – Head of Research and Development – Atlassian, Aust
• Evening workshop on Writing and Goal Setting.

This variation ensures there is no disruption to SIPPS students or their families as it does not alter the number of days that students will attend school this year. We thank the school community for their ongoing support of our teachers’ professional learning and performance development plans.

Parent Teacher interviews

We had an excellent response to our new online booking platform for scheduling the 2017 Parent Teacher interviews. Thank you to parents and staff for this successful transition. Interviews continue this week. If you haven’t yet booked a session with your child’s class teacher, please see the following information.

LEST WE FORGET

This Thursday April 6, we will hold a special commemoration assembly at 9:30am in the hall. This will be run by our student leaders. Student representatives from each class will be laying a posy of flowers at the base of the flag pole as a floral tribute. Parents and carers are most welcome to attend our special ANZAC assembly.

This Wednesday, our school prefects will be the school’s representatives at the RSL and Schools Remember ANZAC Commemoration Service in Hyde Park Sydney where they will lay a wreath on behalf of our school community.

Book Fair and Easter Hat Parade

The SIPPS annual Easter Hat Parade and Scholastic Book Fair is scheduled for Friday 7th April.

Please see Library news below for details about this annual fundraiser that helps the library built its resources so that SIPPS students continue to enjoy the best quality literature.

Some buddy classes have already begun making their Easter hats. Thank you to parents for providing the decorations for this activity. Please see the link below for more information about the Easter raffle that teachers are running this year.

Thank you to our P&C who will be selling morning tea, hot cross buns and a barbecue lunch.

NAPLAN

NAPLAN tests are held in May each year for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Parents or carers of students who sit for the NAPLAN tests will receive a written report of their child's achievement later in the year. The dates are:

• Tuesday 9 May – Language Conventions & Writing
• Wednesday 10 May - Reading
• Thursday 11 May – Numeracy

Please see the following document for more information about 2017 NAPLAN testing.

Alternatively parents and carers can access further information on the following link:

Environmental Mascot

Thank you to those who voted in our recent poll to name the new environmental mascot. Sandy was the choice of 33% of participants. Sandy will be presented to a class at this week’s K-6 assembly.

Kindergarten 2018

The Kindergarten 2018 orientation and transition program has been scheduled. Please see the following link for key dates. Thank you to members of our P&C who will begin the process of distributing flyers and posters to local pre-schools and long day care facilities.

Winter School Uniform

Term 2 sees the official return of our school Winter Uniform. However, while we are transitioning into the cooler months (Weeks 1 & 2 only); students will be permitted to wear either their full summer or winter uniform to school. Parents are kindly asked to use their judgement and ensure that all students are in a correct school uniform which is either the full summer or winter uniform. Thank you to our P&C Uniform Shop Coordinator Matt Churchouse and parent volunteers for the great job they do running our uniform shop and supporting SIPPS families.

Happy Holiday

This is our last newsletter before the autumn school vacation and I would like to wish all SIPPS families happy and relaxing holiday. Thank you to SIPPS staff, parents and community members who have actively assisted the school in the delivery of Term 1 programs and events. We look forward to strengthening those Effective Partnerships that improve learning outcomes for SIPPS students in Term 2.

Vacation Care is now being provided by Helping Hands OOSH. This will also include a program of the pupil free staff development day on Monday 24 April. Please see the flyer below for more information. The official Term 2 start date for students is Wednesday 26 April 2017.

Best wishes
Gillian Tegg

Inspiring & Nurturing Successful Lifelong

Harmony Day 1 / 2 E

Yesterday is was Harmony Day. Harmony day is special to us. People are different on the outside but people are the same on the inside.

We got ice cream at lunch time. Some people were wearing traditional clothes and orange.

Harmony day means we are remembering and sharing with each other

By Jiyu

The 21st of March was Harmony Day. It means peace and happiness for all people. At the canteen they were selling ice cream and everybody had one! The SRC made a lot of money. People wore orange and traditional clothing for the whole day.

By Charlie

Yesterday was Harmony Day. We wore orange or our tradition costume. We went to gymnastics. We got smooze ice blocks. Before we went to gymnastics we went to music. We had to bring $1 to donate.

By Eloise

Did you know indigenous people owned Australia first? Harmony Day teaches us people can come from different countries.

By Eliza

More work From 1 / 2 E

HARMONY DAY POEMS BY 2FT

Happy and friendly
Are sometimes dressing up so adorably
Roar so loud because they are excited
Many people being kind to each other
Only you can decide to have fun.
You can make friends
Different people come with different clothes.
And friends help each other when they’re sad.
You can help other kids do their work.
Pol

Happy Harmony day!
All are welcome.
Really different people come here.
Many different foods.
One place for everyone.
New people are welcome
You can learn new things
Different cultures dress
Always changing
You can be friends with different people.
Max R

Happy day for people
Aboriginal people used to live here.
Respect our country
Many people wear orange
Orange represents harmony day.
New people welcome to Australia.
You can dress in orange or your traditional dress at school.
Do not bully.
All people dress up on harmony day.
You must be a good friend.
Reuben

Happy Harmony Day!
Australia is a good country
Really respectful.
My friends come from different countries.
One place for everyone.
New people can come to this country.
You can see different things.
Different cultures.
A beautiful sun shines here.
You will love it.
By Isabella

ROAD SAFETY

Have You Noticed the New Road Safety Signs?

New road safety signs have been placed around the front entrance of our school. Please take the time to read them and familiarize yourself with the road rules that apply in this area. Remember that drivers must remain with their vehicles and only stop for 2 minutes in the school drop-off and pick-up zone. Please do not use this area to cross the road as vehicles are pulling in and out, posing a danger to pedestrians. Students have been learning the importance of road safety this term and understand that the safest place to cross the road outside their school is at the pedestrian crossing.

Creative Arts News

Visual Arts

The year 5/6S artists responsible for these amazing observation drawings are:

Michael, Will, Declan, Tatijana, Isobel G. and Katherine.

Library

Scholastic Book Fair

When: Friday 7th April (last day of Term 1)
Time: 8.30am - 3.30pm
Location: Library

To coincide with our SIPPS Grandfriends’ day and Easter Hat Parade, a Scholastic Book Fair will be held in the Library.

The Book Fair is an opportunity for students and their families to visit the Library, view the resources that are available for purchase and buy books and other items from the display for themselves.

Students will be given the opportunity to view the Book Fair before the selling day (7/4/17). If we run out of particular book titles on the day, the book can be ordered in for you.

Payment on the day is with cash, card or cheque made out to Ashton Scholastic Book Fairs.

The Library benefits from all purchases made on the day as we are given a percentage (in cash/books) of the total sales. Such fundraisers are vital for providing much needed resources for the students to read and borrow.

We really appreciate your support with our Book Fair and look forward to seeing you on the day.

Premier’s Reading Challenge

The NSW Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC) is an initiative of the NSW State government. It aims to encourage in students a love of reading for leisure and pleasure and to enable them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge to each student - to read, to read more and to read more widely.

The 2017 PRC officially commences on 6/3/17 and concludes on 25/8/17 for students.

As part of our SIPPS literacy program, all students in K-2 complete the PRC at school. The required 30 books from the extensive K-2 official reading list are read and discussed by the class teacher and Teacher-Librarian with the students. Students have their reading records entered and validated online at school. Parent involvement is therefore not required.

Students in Years 3-6 complete the PRC independently. They must complete their own online Student Reading Record by 25/08/17 to successfully complete the Challenge of reading 20 books from an extensive reading list. Books can be sourced from anywhere, not just our school library.

Students will need to logon to the PRC website with their school username and school password to be able to enter the books they have read.

I am more than happy to assist students and answer their questions about the PRC on the days I am at SIPPS which are: Thursday and Friday.

Virginia Allman
Teacher Librarian and PRC Coordinator

Notes From the office

Term 1 Invoices

A reminder please that all Term 1 invoices are due now.

Stewart House Clothing appeal 2017

The next date for collection of clothing from our school is Monday 24 July 2017.

Bags will be sent home closer to this date or if required earlier please feel free to ask at the office.

Thank you

Parents and Citizens Association

Uniform Shop

The uniform shop will be open fortnightly – the next date being 26 April 2017. Please note that the school will switch to winter uniform from the beginning of Term 2, although summer uniform is still permitted if the weather remains warm.

Helping Hands OOSH & Vacation Care

We are very excited about the great first term we’ve had at Helping Hands St Ives Park in 2017!! We have enjoyed meeting new families, helping them and our returning families to settle into the new school year.

This term the children have really enjoyed making their own movies using our camera and Windows Movie Maker. It’s been great to see children taking part in such creative activities which have involved a large number of children. For the educators, one of the highlights has been seeing the children sitting down to watch the movies, seeing the children’s huge grins and hearing the laughter.

Cooking has been another big focus for us this term, we have finally hit on a great banana bread recipe. One week we made it with gluten free ingredients and discovered there’s no difference in the end result!! Banana bread has been part of our breakfast menu once a week, for the past few weeks and it looks like it will be a regular part of our winter breakfast menu next term!

We are operating our first vacation care program from the OOSH room during the April holidays, which includes the pupil free day on Monday 24th April 2017. Some of the great things we have planned are: a teddy bear’s picnic, a trip to the movies to see Lego Batman, wheels day, Easter craft including an Easter hunt and a trip to Sydney Aquarium. If you’re interested in our program for the holidays the flyer is attached to the newsletter or you can collect one from the school office or the OOSH room.

Virginia and the Helping Hands Team