9 September 2019

Newsletter Articles

Term 3 PBL Focus

Positive Behaviour for Learning Focus: Learning

Responsibility in all school settings and ready for learning.
*Be responsible at all times at SIPPS*

Students are responsible when they-

Engage in all learning opportunities at school.
Have a positive attitude towards learning and a growth mindset.
Responsibly have their equipment, take care of belongings and are ready to learn.
Prepare for presentations, assignments and practice their learning in homework opportunities.
Take care of school equipment.

Principal’s Message

Term 3

Week 8

A wonderful week of celebrations here at SIPPS for our 50th Birthday

On a glorious Spring afternoon last week our school community, past and present, enjoyed a lovely afternoon celebrating the school’s 50th birthday.

Our current students and staff joined many former teachers, students and past principals at our assembly and later in the memorabilia museum to share fond memories of their time at SIPPS. Our senior students shared their thoughts regarding being a leader at SIPPS.

Our senior students presented the re-worked version of Blur’s ‘Park Life’ as a tribute to the school and its students, staff and community. Mrs Cronin engaged with our senior students to create this musical interlude to add to the occasion.

Thank you to our wonderful P&C members who were again so kind to be at SIPPS to voluntarily support our function and lend a helping hand throughout the afternoon. Our parents Emmy D, Tracey-Lee R, Sony R, Stephanie P, Amutha R, Anna H and Melissa P worked tirelessly to ensure students received their cakes and guests received their tea and coffee, in conjunction with Mrs Fazzolari who kept our guests supplied with cake. Cori N assisted with pre-event preparation behind the scenes which was appreciated by all.

A special thank you to Fatima S for the exquisite 50th Birthday Cake and all the cup cakes for our students.

SIPPS Birthday Student Disco

Thank you to Fiona C and her disco team for all their work in organising and decorating the hall for our student disco last Friday evening. Students were having a wonderful time and demonstrating so many new moves. A great deal of preparation goes on behind the scenes and the set-up team started at 12 noon to make this a wonderful event.

My Community Project

Thank you to all our families and friends who voted for our Sun Shade project in the My Community Project vote. We received 1,388 votes which is amazing. The two winning projects received over 2000 to 3000 votes and we wish them well.

Spelling Bee Finalists – Best of Luck!

Congratulations to our Spelling Bee finalists who will be competing with students across a range of schools today. We will be thinking of you and wish you every success.

Finn K, Sabrina M, Eloise S and Charlie R. Thank you for representing our school.

Enrolments 2020 – Note to all parents

This week all parents are again asked to indicate if their child will be returning to SIPPS in 2020.

As per the previous Patter, all families are asked to return their child/ren’s enrolment 2020 slip. This is vitally important for the school to be able to identify numbers of student for 2020. We receive our teacher allocation according to the numbers of students who are enrolled in our school. Please return the notes by 20th September, 2019.

Thank you to the many parents who have already completed and returned their forms.

Tell Them From Me 2019: Students, Staff and Parents

Our school, like many other public schools in the state, will participate in a Department of Education initiative: the Tell Them From Me student feedback survey. The survey measures factors that are known to affect academic achievement and other student outcomes. The focus of the NSW-wide survey is on student wellbeing, engagement and effective teaching practices.

You may remember that our students also participated in a Tell Them From Me student survey in Term 1 this year. Asking students to complete the survey twice in one year allows us to identify trends in student responses as well as track engagement and motivation across the school year.

The survey is a great opportunity for our students to provide us with valuable and quick feedback on what they think about school life, how engaged they are with school and the different ways that teachers interact with them. More than 6,300 schools in Australia and around the world have used Tell Them From Me to survey 5.4 million students. Capturing the voices of our students will help improve how we do things at our school.

More information about the survey is available at:

The survey is confidential and conducted online. It will typically take less than 30 minutes to complete. It will be administered during school hours between 14 October and 25 October, 2019. Participating in the survey is entirely voluntary.

A consent form and FAQs for parents/carers about the survey is being sent home with students. If you do not want your child or children to participate, please return the form to school before the 14 October. Copies of the form and FAQs are available from:

Another source of information is available through the following link:

As some of our SIPPS students will be participating in the NAPLAN School Readiness Testing this term, we will complete the Tell Them From Me survey in early Term 4.

The Tell Them From Me: Parent survey (Term 3, 2019)

Early next term, our school will be participating in the Partners in Learning parent survey, another part of the Tell Them From Me 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 on smartphones, iPads, tablets, laptops or computers. The survey will typically take 15 minutes or less to complete and is completely confidential. The parent survey will be conducted between 26 August and 25 October. Although participating in the survey is entirely voluntary, your responses are very much appreciated.

Our school will provide further information about how to access the survey. In the meantime, more information about the survey is available at:

Please find FAQ fact sheet for Parents regarding the survey:

School Readiness Test for NAPLAN Online 2020

In preparation for the 2020 NAPLAN Online program, schools participating in the online process are required to complete a school readiness process for NESA. This means that students in Year 3 and 4 at SIPPS will participate in an online combined literacy and numeracy test during the week of 16th to 20th September.

This testing does not provide student results to the school or families. The purpose of the testing is to ensure the correct /appropriate systems and equipment functionality within the school to provide the online testing platform. If your child is absent during the assessment session, there is no need for them to re-sit the test as no results are collected. A separate note has been sent home to our Year 3 and Year 4 parents.

Illness and absences from school

If your child is unwell, they need to be cared for within the family environment. We have had many recent instances when students have still been unwell and sent to school. If your child appears unwell, our administration staff will call parents and carers you have listed in your contacts to collect your child from the school environment.

Dates for your diary -

Looking forward to a busy and rewarding Term 3!

Regards,
Caroline English
Principal

Principal

Celebrating Student Success

Congratulations to the following students who received wristbands for Personal Best, Respect or Responsibility

Inspiring & Nurturing Successful Lifelong Learners

Peer Support

Last week all our students across K-6 participated in the first lesson of the Peer Support program for 2019. Each of the students have been placed in a group of K- 6 students and designated a year 6 leader. This program is delivered by our Year 6 students and designed to promote positive relationships, help students to build a network of peers across grades and gain an understanding of core values in a focus area. This year's program is broken into nine sessions and focuses on 'optimism'.

At SIPPS we aim for our students to feel valued and recognise the value of their academic and social progress each day. Our Year 6 students have made a positive and productive start to the program.

Year ½ News

1-2 Blue have been working hard on their literacy. We enjoy sharing what we have written with the class. During book week we enjoyed reflecting on what we like about some of our favourite books.

In Science and Technology we have been learning how to program the dash robots with iPads. It was fun to trying to the robots to complete some challenges around the room.

ART

Art Exhibition News

This year's art exhibition will once again be on display in the gallery space at St Ives Shopping Village. The exhibition will run from Monday 16th Sept until Friday 27th Sept. Hopefully you will be able to view in to have a look at our student’s wonderful art work. All students have been very busy producing the fabulous work during their art lessons and I am very proud to be displaying such a wonderful selection of work. Well done everyone and I hope to hear your thoughts on the exhibition!

Yvonne Stone

ICAS

UNSW ICAS Competitions 2019

For those students participating in English, Maths and Writing ICAS - the dates are as follows

This year students have the opportunity to participate in the English, Maths and Writing ICAS competitions at St Ives Park. The dates of these competitions are as follows:

Learning and Support

Hi Mums, Dads and Carers

We are well underway with this term’s Learning and Support Groups.

I thought I would take the opportunity to share a few things about the Learning and Support Teacher’s role.

The school receives an allocation of 0.5 teacher resource annually (half a teaching load, or 2.5 days per week), which is supplemented by the school to provide 3 days per week.

I am fortunate to be the SIPPS Learning and Support Teacher. I support students that are identified through the Learning and Support meetings as requiring short intensive programs. For other students who are monitored by the Class Teacher, their teachers have access to the Learning and Support teacher’s expertise as required.

The school counsellor Jessica Cheok is also a part of the Learning Support team. Students can access her support through the Learning and Support team. She works 32 days of the year.

Notes from the Office

There are many items in Lost Property – held in the office foyer. Please have a look if you are missing items of clothing, lunch boxes or drinking containers.

Term 3 statement account reminders were sent out on Friday. Please could these be settled before the end of term. Please do not hesitate to contact the school office if you have any queries.

Parents and Citizens Association

50th Jubilee Events - Thank You!

We hope everyone enjoyed the Open Day and Disco. Thank you to Fatima for the wonderful cake on Open Day and volunteers who stepped up at the 11th hour to help serve afternoon tea. Thank you to the Disco committee for all their planning plus the volunteers on the night to make it such a great evening for the kids. We were very saddened to have to cancel the adults evening due to low numbers. A big thank you to Sarah and the committee for all their hard work in its planning.

Next P&C Meeting

7:15pm, Wed 18 September in the staff room

Contributions have been very low this year. This is the P&C annual voluntary contribution ask and is different to the school term fees. This is our major fundraiser each year and funds projects such as the playground last year, shade structure for the playground this year, and we have further projects on the wish list such as an outdoor sound system and a new front entrance landscaping. We have included suggested amounts in the letter below, however please contribute whatever amount you can. Thank you for those who have supported us and for those who keep meaning to, please jump on QKR today.

Keep up to date

To keep up to date with P&C social events, please make sure you have subscribed to receive P&C emails from our website at this link:

If you have any queries or would like to get involved with the P&C, you can email us at: stivesparkpc@gmail.com

Personalised Brick Paving

As many of you would have seen at the wonderful SIPPS 50th Display yesterday, as part of the 50th birthday we are offering the opportunity to have a named paver at SIPPS. There is plans to create a lovely new path /garden up the centre of the school (where the old climbing frame was) and for the flagpole to be moved. The plan is to place the named pavers either around the flagpole or along the path – depending on the number of engraved pavers we have. There are 2 options – formal or a free style style. If you look closely at the pavers on the picture you can see both. For freestyle – the children can write there names and draw a little picture – for those interested I will furnish more details of the process.

We are selling these pavers at $30 each or $50 for 2. Each paver allows for 48 characters. The display paver is at the office if you would like to have a closer look.

Typically pavers will either have the invididual childs name “Cora Lily Reaper” maybe with the year they started at school “Cora Lily Reaper 2016” or just the family name “The Reaper Family 2015 ” or “Declan, Braedon & Cora Reaper 2015” etc.

This is open to anyone that attended this school – past or present – so please feel free to forward on to any of you friends who previously attended SlPPS.

Please feel free to mail bricks4sipps@gmail.com with any questions or to further your order. We will create the facility to buy a paver via QKR or via EFT.

Renew your Entertainment Membership

Update your Entertainment Membership (Book or App) here and support SIPPS while you are at it.

Enjoy hundreds of great dining and entertainment deals until 1 June 2020.

Order HERE

Tennis Court Hire

Book here:

Contact if problems:

Stewart Duncan
e: sippstennis@gmail.com
p. 0408 649 464

Keep up to date

To keep up to date with P&C social events, please make sure you have subscribed to receive P&C emails from our website at this link:

If you have any queries or would like to get involved with the P&C, you can email us at: stivesparkpc@gmail.com

Uniform Shop

sippsuniform@gmail.com

Helping Hands OOSH & Vacation Care

Please have a look at our school website for information regarding our before and after school care.