We are grateful for your attendance throughout this busy week as we work to build community connections for the year ahead. It was wonderful to see so many faces at our Parent Information, Expo and P&C Welcome BBQ yesterday, as well as during the Parent Partnership meetings throughout the week. Our teachers really enjoyed the opportunity to share key information about each grade level for 2025. Thank you also for attending the Parent Partnership meetings—it's been fantastic putting faces to the names of family members that our teachers will come to know well throughout the year. We truly appreciate your engagement with our staff as we set the stage for the year ahead.

Thank you to everyone who entered our ‘ticket’ draw during the Expo.
Congratulations to our lucky winners

Hunter K
Henry P
Hamza
Charlie F
Jude F

A big thank you to our fabulous P&C for hosting the welcome BBQ! Getting involved in the P&C is a fantastic way to support school initiatives, organise events, and help create a strong community, all while gaining a deeper connection to your child’s school experience. It’s a great way to make a positive impact and build lasting relationships. Please see more information below from our P&C and AGM.

Click here if you would like to provide any feedback on our BUILDING CONNECTION EVENTS.

Duffy Primary School will continue throughout 2025 to ensure our students are given every opportunity in our nurturing community to be the best they can be, while providing learning experiences that enhance progress and strive for excellence. Duffy’s strategic goals for 2025 remain the same:
• Improve student performance in writing across all year levels.
• Improve the percentage of students making expected growth in number.

In January, our staff gathered for several Professional Learning days. These included the ACT Education Directorate's Strong Foundation workshop, as well as a day facilitated by Dr. Paul Swan, focusing on 'Vocabulary Instruction' and 'Polya’s Problem Solving with Addition and Subtraction Instruction.' We look forward to sharing more about our improvement agenda throughout the year.

During the holiday break, we also continued to enhance our building and outdoor learning environments with the following projects:
• Updated bathrooms in the Junior school, including an accessible bathroom.
• New accessible ramp in the Junior Playground.

• update LED lights in number of classrooms.
• An upgrade to the junior sandpit with drainage and lining.
• Painting of the front exterior walls of the school.

We still have a number of projects to complete in order to action our ‘master plan’ for the junior playground and are hopeful this work can be completed during the first half of this year.

Communication Between Home and School

Our work of educating the students we serve would not be possible without parents, carers, and families. A vital part of this partnership is clear, timely, and transparent communication. We aim to keep you informed through a variety of channels, recognising the diverse needs of our community. From our website and Seesaw, to our numerous social media channels, and the messages shared directly with families— we strive to ensure everyone is informed about their child’s educational journey.

Remember to download Seesaw and sign up to Parent Portal here. Also follow us on Facebook Duffy Primary School and Duffy Primary Parents and Citizens Association

Please feel free to contact the school via phone 6214 2510 or email duffyps@ed.act.edu.au to speak to any of our staff. The first point of call regarding administration is Lucy and or Ella at the Front Office and for learning is your child’s classroom teacher.

Staff welcome the opportunity to meet with parents/carers. This occurs both formally (parent/teacher interviews) and informally (by social, after school, sporting and cultural activities). As a parent/carer if you have an issue or concern it is always best to raise this as soon as possible with your child’s classroom teacher. Following on from that, you are always welcome to speak with school executive.

With every best wish for a wonderful week ahead with your beautiful families.

Thank you again for a great start to the year at Duffy Primary School for 2025.

Katie, Arilia, Sarah, Fiona and Julian

A MESSAGE FROM THE BUSINESS MANAGER

From Tuesday 25th February, Alice will be on leave as she has some major surgery. We wish Alice a speedy recovery.

Linda Economopoulos who will be our acting Business Manager during Alice's absence.

Alice Lollback – Business Manager Linda Economopoulos - Acting BM

E: alice.lollback@ed.act.edu.au E: linda.economopoulos@ed.act.edu.au

Phone: 6142 2513 Phone: 61 422 528

Parent Portal is now available as a mobile app!

You can now access Parent Portal with the Sentral for Parents app. Download Sentral for Parents for free through the App Store or Google Play Store

Parent Portal is a secure online platform used to share student information between you and your child’s teachers.

If you’ve already registered, you can download the Sentral for Parents app to receive notifications when new information is available.

If you haven’t registered for Parent Portal yet, use this Parent Portal access link to log into or create your ACT Digital Account. To access Parent Portal, you will need your access key, you should have received this by email when we launched

If you can’t find the email with the access key, please contact the front office team for help.

Some reminders about what you can do with Parent Portal:

notify us if your child is sick or explain an absence
book parent-teacher interviews
receive academic reports
receive our school newsletter
receive messages from your child’s teachers
make payments
access the school calendar and your child’s student timetable.

Head to our website for all the details: Parent Portal - Duffy Primary School (duffyps.act.edu.au)

FRONT OFFICE REQUIREMENTS

Emergency Contact Details

Please let the Front Office know, as soon as possible, if your contact details change

(home address, email and/or telephone numbers).

Picking up Students During the Day

Parents collecting children for appointments or dropping children into school later than 9:00am are required to inform the Front Office. This Directorate requirement is a safety procedure in the school. Students who are late need to obtain a late slip from the Front Office

Student Mobile Phones

All student mobile phones are to be handed in at the front office as they arrive to school. Phones can be collected at 3pm once school has ended.

Medications

In the interests of keeping all students safe, medication that your child requires

during the school day must be stored in the office. Duffy's School office team

manages first aid, emergency medical plans and medications for students. Please

contact the Front Office team if you have any changes to your child’s medical treatment plan or if you would like further information about our practices.

Absences

If your child is sick or absent, you are required to notify the school as soon as possible on the day of absence using one of the following methods:

a written explanation via a note, email or text message containing the student’s name, date of absence(s) and reasons for absence(s)
a verbal explanation through either a phone call or visit to the school
any other form of communication agreed by the principal.
a medical certificate - principals may request medical certificates or other documentation when absences explained as being due to sickness indicate a pattern of non-attendance or are greater than 10 consecutive school days in duration.

School Uniform

The School Board endorses the wearing of uniform as it is part of the school ethos of helping to create a sense of belonging and pride in the school and so engender a positive school spirit. Students at Duffy Primary School are encouraged to wear their school uniform or school colours each day.

Students must be in uniform when attending excursions or outside events; this is to ensure their safety. When parents complete permission notes for excursions or school events, they are acknowledging this requirement.

NEW STAFF

SCHOOL PYSCOLOGIST – ALICE MCQUEEN

I hail from the Blue Mountains but spent many years of my life living, studying, and working in Sydney and abroad, across Europe and South and North America, before settling in the ACT. My work experience spans the hospitality, tourism, science, education, health, and social services sectors, my latest endeavour having been to embark on a career as a School Psychologist. I have worked across both the NSW and ACT public education systems, supporting families through various assessment processes, providing therapeutic interventions to students, and participating in information sessions at schools and the broader community to promote wellbeing. It has been particularly rewarding to see students develop their public speaking skills and attend their first school camp away from home. As well as having a keen interest in mental health, I am a strong advocate of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, given how much each influences the other. I particularly enjoy getting from A to B on my bicycle, so keep an eye out for me on the road!

LIBRARY

Did you know that our school now has a teacher-librarian? Mrs. Nash (who you may already know as a literacy coach) is our new librarian and would love some help from parents who are willing and able. Our library is getting a lot of love, but there is still much to do to get things in order and get our NEW books on the shelves. If you can help to:

Shelve and organise our books on shelves
Wrap new books to add to our collection

If you can offer some time, please email catherine.nash@ed.act.edu.au.

We want to promote a reading culture at our school and a love of books. We have gone through our collection and removed many old and damaged books, and we are adding new books to our collection. Taking care of our books is a part of this. Our library will be open at lunchtime for reading and writing from Mondays to Thursdays, and students are able to borrow then as well as when their class comes to the library every week. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to use our library and borrow books.

Please be aware of the following conditions for using our library:

Students can borrow 2 books at a time
You MUST have a library bag to borrow. Any bag will do!
We have many outstanding loans from last year, so please check at home in case you have any.
Lost or damaged books now incur a $10 replacement fee (or you can send in a new copy of the book).

A MESSAGE FROM DUFFY P&C

Welcome to 2025 from the P&C

The P&C are a group of parents, teachers and community members who support the school through fundraising, events and providing input into decisions which create a better learning environment for our kids

We are also holding our AGM on Thurs 27 Feb at the school from 7pm where we will be electing this year’s committee. We would love to see some new faces join us to make this year another great year. Feel free to nominate yourself for a position below by emailing duffypandc@gmail.com or just come along to meet us and see what we are about.

Positions available are:

President – Spokesperson and chair for the P&C providing a line of communication between the school and parents

Vice President – Provide support to the president and chair meetings in the presidents’ absence

Secretary - carrying out the administrative tasks including meeting agendas, minutes and document filing

Treasurer – receiving and paying out money and keeping financial records.

Communications Officer - Manage the P&C social media and liaise with the school for Seesaw and newsletter notices

Uniform Shop assistant – work with the Uniform Shop coordinator to pack online orders and serve parents

Grants officer – stay abreast of and apply for grants for additional funding

Fundraising Officer – oversee fundraising activities and liaise with the school for logistics

We are looking forward to another year for the P&C to donate time and money to the school. What will we do?

Welcome BBQ in February
Year 6 Leadership shirts
Katrina Nannestad visit
Cup-a-yum
Cuppa and Yarn
School Disco
Election Day BBQ
Colour Run
Year 6 Grad Dinner
Preschool End of Year celebrations
Teachers Breakfast
Uniform Shop
Market Day donations
Teatowels

Uniform Shop

If you would like to purchase items from the uniform shop you can place your online order through Flexischools anytime or come into the shop. The uniform shop is open each Friday morning from 830-9am - opposite the Kindy class.

We also have some second-hand items in the shop that are available for free. If you have second hand items in good condition that you no longer need, please feel free to donate them to the shop. Donations can be left at the school reception during office hours.

Find the Duffy Primary Parents and Citizens Association on

Facebook!

@duffypandc

Don’t forget to connect with your Year level parent community on Facebook – this is a great way to stay connected, get year/school specific information and even organise gatherings.

Just search “DPS Year” on google and the groups will pop up, or head to the Duffy Primary Parents and Citizens Facebook page for more info.

NAPLAN

NAPLAN testing will occur in our school between 12 and 24 March 2025 for students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

Online NAPLAN tests provide more precise results and are engaging for students. The tests are tailored (or adaptive), which means that each test presents questions that may be more or less difficult depending on a student’s responses. This helps students remain engaged with the assessment.

Tailored testing allows a wider range of student abilities to be assessed and measures student achievement more precisely. A student’s overall NAPLAN result is based on both the number and complexity of questions they answer correctly. Your child should not be concerned if they find questions challenging; they may be taking a more complex test pathway.

All Year 3 students will complete the writing assessment on paper.

NAPLAN provides valuable information to schools and parents about literacy and numeracy achievement. It supports school improvement processes by enabling teachers to monitor student progress over time and to identify areas of strength and development.

All eligible students are encouraged and supported to participate in NAPLAN testing. Visit www.nap.edu.au to see interactive versions of the test and for more information.

CHIEF MINISTERS READING CHALLENGE

You may have noticed an Individual Student Reading Record coming home this week.

That’s because the Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge began on Monday 10th February.

The challenge is for students to read 30 books between the 10th February and the 12th September 2025.

Books recorded as read can include:

-Novels and Novellas

-Non-Fiction Texts

-Graphic Novels

-Books of Poetry

-Audiobooks

-Picture Books

-Books read to students by someone else

-Books read aloud to a younger sibling/cousin

The Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge is turning 21 in 2025! For 21 years, the challenge has been encouraging students all over the ACT to spend more time reading.

Last year, Duffy Primary School Students read over 11,000 Books, beating our 2023 total by over 1000 books! At Duffy Primary, teachers will be recording all books read to students in class, and students are encouraged to record their reading at home on the Individual Student Reading Record, to be returned to school by the 12th September.

SCHOOL LEADERS

Prime Minister

Reed C

Deputy Prime Minister

Jessie T

Opposition Leader

Olivia M

Deputy Opposition Leader

Matthias C

Speaker

Faith B

MESSAGE FROM ACT DIRECTORATE

Supporting Student Safety

As school re-commences for term 1, we are reminding parents and carers to please drive and park safely and legally, at and around school grounds.

We all have an important role to play in supporting road safety. Access Canberra has notified us that mobile speed and parking vans will be in operation to support our students’ safety.

These enforcement teams play a critical role in supporting our students get to and from school safely and we thank them for their ongoing support.

In addition to sticking to the speed limit, please remember to park safely – including not parking across pedestrian crossings, in no stopping zones, on corners, verges and double parking.

Unsafe and illegal parking can reduce visibility of our students and motorists to see each other, creating a significant hazard when students cross the road. Let’s work together to keep our kids safe.

Unfortunately, we continue to see incidents of occupational violence toward our mobile speed van and parking operations teams by members of school communities when undertaking this important work. Such incidents are not acceptable and won’t be tolerated.

Back to School with Transport Canberra

Routes and timetables School bus services return Monday 3 February 2025.

Please check your school pack and timetable so you are prepared and ready. Light rail continues to run to Its usual frequency.

MyWay+ and fares

Make sure your student MyWay+ travel card or account is set up and ready to go.

Travel is free every Friday. Simply tap on and off – no fares will be charged.

Secondary school students are required to carry their student ID when travelling.

Fares have seen a slight increase.

Financial assistance If you are experiencing a situation that affects your ability to meet the costs of schooling or everyday essentials for your child, we encourage you to talk with your school.

Walking or riding to school

Walking or riding to school is a great way to work some exercise into your day. If your school is a little too far away, you could try using a part way point. These are designated drop off areas within a short walking distance from schools where students can walk from if walking from home is not practical.

For all your school travel needs visit the Transport Canberra website transport.act.gov.au

Need more information or help go to Travel options or call 13 17 10.

COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS

Perks

FREE Parent workshops term 1 and 2: Southside Initiative is partnering again with local schools and community services to offer Parent workshops in 2025. Term 1 and 2 workshops include: Early Childhood Development, Adolescents, Anxiety and School, Managing Conflict in the Home and much more. For more information and to register, visit PERKS Parent Workshops - Healthy Schools Network ACT.

2025 School Year Equity Fund Now Open

To ease the pressure of back-to-school costs, eligible Canberra families can apply now for 2025 Future of Education Equity Fund payments.

The Equity Fund supports eligible low-income families and independent students from preschool through year 12 with a one-off, annual payment to help cover the costs associated with schooling such as uniforms, sport equipment and activities, tuition and music lessons.

The 2025 school year payments for eligible families are $400 (preschool), $500 (primary school), and $750 (high school and college).

Payments of completed applications will begin earlier than previous years, with the first payments to families expected from 6 January 2025.

Families will have until the end of November 2025 to apply for the Fund. Check your eligibility and find more information about supporting documents on the Equity Fund webpage.

Parentline ACT

Parentline ACT offers free and confidential telephone counselling for parents and carers in the Australian Capital Territory. This service provides guidance and assistance on various parenting issues, ensuring you have the support you need with no appointment necessary. Parentline ACT is open on Monday to Friday from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. For support, call (02) 6287 3833.

Learning For Life

The flyer below shares information about an opportunity that has been made available to families at our school called the Learning for Life Scholarship Program. It’s run by the Smith Family organisation. They provide financial support to families who are eligible to help with costs related to education, such as book packs, uniforms and excursions. They also provide access to education programs that can further support your child.

To be eligible, you must;