4 February 2019

Newsletter Articles

February PBL Focus

Thank you to all those students doing their personal best to wear full school uniform including school hats. Please remember that it is even more important to wear a hat during this hot and sunny weather. School hats are part of our school uniform and therefore must be worn every day.

Principal’s Message

It was wonderful to see all the smiling faces returning to SIPPS for the 2019 school year, which will be full of wonderful learning opportunities for students. I’m still working out whether the students or the parents were most pleased at our return to school.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to new students and their families. Thanks to the hardworking efforts of our P&C Uniform Shop Coordinator and parent volunteers, all students looked very smart in their school uniforms.

This year we also welcome back Mrs Hayllar (3 days a week) as assistant principal, and Mrs Cipolloni (2 days a week on 3/4 Blue job share with Mrs Taylor). We are also lucky to have Mr Matthew Wells with us at SIPPS for part of Term 1.

Welcome Kindergarten 2018

A big SIPPS welcome to our Kindergarten students starting school this week and their families! It's going to be an exciting first week as students make new friends and begin to learn what big school is all about. Students will be involved in many activities inside and outside the classroom, including getting their first taste of Art with Mrs Stone, Music with Mrs Cronin and gymnastics with Rachel. Also, just a reminder that Kindergarten students will be finishing at 2:30pm for this week only (Week 2). From Week 3 they will be finishing school at the usual time of 3:10pm.

OUR PLAYGROUND IS OPEN!

Just in case you hadn’t noticed… Our new playground is finally open. The students have been spending time with their class groups exploring the equipment and participating in some amazing discussions about how they can use the new equipment safely and fairly.

A reminder to parents – You are most welcome to use the playground equipment after school until the 3:30 bell, but please understand that YOU are responsible for supervising your children whilst they are on it. This means that you MUST be in the immediate vicinity. This is a safety issue. It is important to us that all members of our community are safe. Our students have also requested that younger siblings do not play on the equipment during school time. They have told me that it is too hard for them to concentrate when there is noise from the playground.

Thank you to the P&C, in particular the Playground Committee, and Mrs Tegg for all your hard work pushing this complicated project through. Thank you also to Jonathan O’Dea, the member for Davidson who contributed $30 000 to the project though a Community Building Partnership 2018 grant. Thanks must also go to Sarah Weller for her hard work with the application process.

We will be holding an official opening of the playground on Friday the 8th of February at 10:30. Mr O’Dea, Mr Stevenson – our Director of Educational Leadership, Mrs Tegg and representatives of the P&C will be in attendance at the ribbon cutting event, and our senior SRC members will express their appreciation. The school community is invited along to join in the celebration.

Student Leadership Team 2019:

I would like to again extend my congratulations to the 2019 student leadership team. I look forward to working with these talented students this year as they represent all students at SIPPS.

They are:

Partnerships in Learning

We value and appreciate the essential role that parents/carers take in being partners in their child/ren’s education. Please don’t miss the opportunity to meet your child/ren’s new class teacher and learn about important school/class routines, opportunities and expectations.

• Meet the Teacher Evening – Tuesday Week 4 – 19th February
  5:00 – 6:00pm K-2 classrooms
  6:00 – 6:30pm Whole school information in hall
  6:30 – 7:30pm 3- 6 classrooms

Young Engineers

After the success of the program last year, this semester students in Years 1 to 6 will again take part in the Young Engineers program. The program cost of will be invoiced to parents across two terms.

The Bricks Challenge program offers a foundational STEM program for year 1-2 students. During each lesson a STEM principle will be introduced through experiments and stories. Students will implement the principle by building and playing with original and motorised LEGO® models. Each lesson also includes an Agile Coding level 1 component, and students will develop a Storyboard based on the model and learning by going through an iterative process of defining a story, building the story, and reviewing the story through Show and Tell. The program is based on real-world products, encourages collaboration, enhances confidence in completing projects, develops problem solving skills, and stimulates the articulation of STEM and Robotics principles and their application.

The Robo Bricks program for years 3-6 offers Agile Coding level 2 and much more, as it offers an introduction to software engineering through the teaching of a repeatable 7-step software engineering framework. According to this framework students become familiar with STEM principles applied to real-world products, develop algorithms, write pseudo-code, learn programming commands with coding which is tested against a specific programming objective for each lesson. At the end of each term students are encouraged to work independently on a chosen model and software solution, as they articulate their learnings in a presentation in front of a peer group and teaching staff.

Parents and Citizens

Being an active member of the SIPPS Parents and Citizens Association (P&C) is also a great way to contribute to our school in a positive way. I am looking forward to the P&C’s first meeting on Wednesday evening 20th of February from 7:15pm in the school staffroom.

Swimming Carnival

Our school swimming carnival is scheduled for Monday 18 February at Kuring-gai Aquatic Centre, West Pymble. The swimming carnival note will be sent out to parents/carers of grades 3-6 and eligible students in grade 2 this week. It is also available via the following link.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Following is a lot of important information about school for 2019. Please take the time to read through it so that you are aware of how you can help make 2019 an amazing year at SIPPS!

Communication

The school’s newsletter (The Patter) is the main form of communication to parents. Please read it regularly. It will be emailed to each family every alternate Monday. You will also be able to access it on the school website below.

Please also download the schoolzine mobile app. Click the link for instructions:

Social Media:

SIPPS have a Facebook page (St Ives Park Public School), a Twitter account (St Ives Park Public School @StIvesParkPS) and an Instagram account (@stivesparkps).

Please join us on these pages to keep informed about all the wonderful things happening at SIPPS.

School Calendar

The school calendar is available via the Schoolzine SZapp.

School Times

8:40am – Students may arrive at school
9:10am – Lessons begin
11:10am - recess
1:00pm – Lunch break
3:10pm – School concludes

For safety reasons, students are not permitted to be on the premises prior to 8:40am unless they are booked into OOSH or have sports, music or dance training/practice. Supervision of students commences at 8:40am. Parents are asked to ensure that their children arrive at school between 8:40 and 9:05am. School commences at 9:10am. School concludes at 3:10pm for all students. All children must be collected by 3.10pm as staff supervision ceases at this time. Our ‘Helping Hands’ OOSH facility can take students on a casual basis who are not collected after 3:10pm if they have been registered. Registration is free and we encourage all parents to register their child.

Playground Equipment

The playground equipment cannot be used by students before school or after the 3:30 bell on school days, or on weekends or during school vacation periods. This is a Department of Education safety regulation.

Update to Parent Contact Information

The office needs to be notified of any changes to your personal details records immediately so that prompt contact can be made in emergencies. Please let the office know if you have changed any contact details. Parents are kindly requested to send all correspondence for students through the school office during school hours. Students are not permitted to use mobile phones during school hours.

New School Crossing and Road Safety

The council installed a new children’s crossing and footpaths on Acron Road during the holidays. This has been an ongoing project that we have been working on to make the school more accessible and safer for our families. Due to the relocation of the crossing, the parking rules around the area have changed. This is to help keep our students safe! Please familiarise yourself with the new rules to help avoid terrible accidents and to prevent parking infringement notices.

If your child needs to cross Acron road they must go via the school pedestrian crossing. Children have been hit by cars when responding to parents who have called them across the road. Please park your car, come to school and walk with your child across the road via the school pedestrian crossing rather than taking the risk.

Please remember that our main priority is to ensure our students are safe coming to and leaving school. Taking an extra couple of minutes to wait, to slow down, or to drive around the block instead of performing dangerous manoeuvers is much better than the potential disaster that could occur to one of our precious students.

Staff Car Park

This is strictly a no parking area. Please park outside the school grounds where there is plenty of street parking. Please observe ‘no stopping’ and bus zones to ensure that you are not fined when the police or rangers make their patrols. There is no pedestrian access to the school via the staff car park. We have two school gates on Acron road that provide safe access for students and parents.

Medical Plans and Conditions

If your child is on a medical plan these need to be updated annually and signed by your doctor.

The Department of Education requires all students diagnosed with asthma to have a current Asthma Management Plan lodged with the school on an annual basis. Students with asthma should always carry or have available at Sick Bay appropriate medication, for example, reliever puffers. The same applies for Anaphylaxis and other Medical Conditions.

Anaphylaxis

This is a severe and sudden allergic reaction to foods, insect bites, medications and or latex products, which is life threatening. We have students at SIPPS who are allergic to peanuts and / or nuts. To assist us to manage their environment as safely as possible, we ask that you do not send your child to school with Peanut butter or Nutella and refrain from supplying snack bars or foods with nuts. Please reinforce our school policy about not sharing food with friends at school.

At SIPPs, we have some students who have allergies which are severe enough to warrant the use of an EpiPen (the emergency response) if they come into contact with the wrong foods. The safety of all St Ives Park Public School students is paramount and we ask that you please follow our request for a “nut free” school for these children.

Sun smart

I have been very impressed to see 100% of students wearing their hat so far this year. I would love to see this trend continue. All school students are required to bring and wear a school hat during outdoor activities including sport and playtime. No hat, play in the shade! All students need to protect themselves from UV radiation. Until around May UV levels in NSW are high. Protecting skin and eyes from UV in the first 15 years of life significantly reduces skin cancer risk later on. For more info about UV and protecting your skin, visit the link below.

Uniforms

SIPPS students proudly wear the red and green. Our Uniform Shop is run by parent volunteers and is located in the School Hall. Opening times are every second Wednesday in odd numbered weeks (i.e. 1, 3, 5 etc.) from 8.30am-9.30am. Further details about the school uniform are available from the school’s website. Students are requested to wear full school uniform at all times which includes black leather school shoes and school hat. Sport uniforms are worn on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Out Of School Hours (OOSH) Care

St Ives Park Public School is fortunate to have ‘Helping Hands’ providing a before and after school service. This important service is offered to you. If you or anyone you know requires this service please contact them on: Phone: 0475 838 226 or Email: stivespark@helpinghandsnetwork.com.au

Community Code of Conduct

It is important that we are all proactive in ensuring that our students enjoy a safe and harmonious school environment. It is up to all of us to model behaviour that is consistent with the school’s expectations of Respect, Responsibility and Personal Best. Please click here to see the SIPPS Community Code of Conduct.

Parent Volunteers

We welcome assistance from parent volunteers for various activities and events during the year. If you wish to be involved in this way you must ensure that you have lodged a completed Declaration for Volunteers form with the school office. Please contact the office if you need assistance with this.

Attendance Requirements

Education for your child is important and regular attendance at school is essential for your child to achieve their educational potential and increase their career and life options. NSW public schools work in partnership with parents to encourage and support regular attendance of children and young people. When your child attends school every day, learning becomes easier and your child will build and maintain friendships with other children.

What if my child has to be away from school?

On occasion, your child may need to be absent from school. Justified reasons for student absences may include:

• being sick, or having an infectious disease
• having an unavoidable medical appointment
• being required to attend a recognised religious holiday
• exceptional or urgent family circumstance (e.g. attending a funeral)

Following an absence from school you must ensure that within 7 days you provide your child’s school with a written explanation for the absence. However, if the school has not received an explanation from you within 2 days, the school may contact you to discuss the absence.

If your child is late arriving at school or you need to take your child out of school before 3:10 please proceed to the office before going to the classroom. You will need to obtain a slip to give to the class teacher. This is to ensure that we are always aware of where our students are in case of emergency.

2019 Staff and Classes

Students are now in their 2019 classes. After our school chat, I was very impressed to see that all students were positive about the classes they have been placed in. I would appreciate your assistance in this matter. Be positive and excited about your child’s new teacher and class. Help them to understand the importance of positivity and resilience. With our help, the children settle very quickly in to new routines and very quickly understand that friendships can continue with students who are in a different class. We are very lucky at SIPPS to have a wonderful teaching staff who all have the best interests of the students at heart.

Executive Team:

We have in place an executive staff structure that allows for the leadership and co-ordination of the K-2 and 3-6 teams. If you have any issues, questions, concerns or support you should first contact your child’s class teacher, if you wish to pursue the matter further the Assistant Principal is your next point of contact and beyond this you may wish to make an appointment to see me.

CONGRATULATIONS:

Congratulations to Mrs Shanahan, Mr Shanahan and Billie on the arrival of their beautiful son and little brother. He is absolutely adorable!

Ted Nicholas Shanahan
Born on the 28th of December 2018 weighing 2.6kg.

Celebrating Student Success

Recognising Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)

Watch this space for our weekly SIPPS STARS and winners of wristbands to celebrate student achievement of School Expectations – Respect, Responsibility and Personal Best.

Inspiring & Nurturing
Successful Lifelong Learners

This year St Ives Park PS are looking forward to participating in Safer Internet Day 2019. As technology continues to become an everyday part of our lives, it is vital that students understand how to be safe, respectful and responsible cyber citizens. On Tuesday 5th February, students will participate in lessons that help to develop their understanding of the 4R's Respect, Responsibility, Reasoning and Resilience when online. We would encourage parents to use this opportunity to talk to their child about safe usage of the internet, particularly when using mobile devices at home.

For more information on safe internet use:

Band

Band is starting soon for 2019

There are still places available in the Training Band for 2019 on most instruments. If you need to return your enrolment forms, please do so as soon as possible. If you’re interested in joining the band, please contact Bandemonium. Creative Kids Vouchers can be used with the program.

Band will be commencing soon so don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity!

Email: band@bandemonium.com.au Phone: 0490 338 860

Notes from the Office

Please make sure all school uniforms, lunch boxes – lids and containers, bags, drink bottles are labelled with your child/children’s name.

Stewart House School Clothing Appeal 2019

If you have any children’s clothing to donate please place them in the plastic bags handed out this week. If you could bring the bags into the school office they will be stored until March 5th when Stewart House will collect them.

Parents and Citizens Association

Helping Hands OOSH & Vacation Care

Helping Hands Network are the company who provide before and after school care at St Ives Park Public School.

All information about Before and After school care can be located on their website. Please click on the link below.