Presentation Day

To fulfil COVID guidelines, we have had to make a number of changes to our annual Presentation Day assembly for this year.

Presentation Day will be held from 10:00 am on Friday, 10 December 2021 under the school COLA.

By holding Presentation Day at school, we are able to present students with their awards in front of their friends from across the school. Unfortunately, we are again unable to have families and special guests with us.

Our students have been busy working on their items – which we are pre-recording. We will also be recording the awards ceremony. Mr Munday will then put all the recorded pieces together and provide you with a link so we can share the final presentation with everyone.

It might not be as good as being at Presentation Day in person, but we are doing our best to make sure that you don’t miss out on anything.

Year 6 Celebrations

We are forging ahead with our end of Year 6 celebrations, albeit with a number of COVID related changes as well. Our Year 6 students will be bringing home an information package to cover their end of year activities.

Graduation Assembly

Our Year 6 graduation assembly is being held from 12:30 – 1:30 pm on Monday, 13 December 2021.

Students are able to have two guests in attendance, with all guests having to be double vaccinated and willing to show proof of vaccination before entering the school grounds.

Further information is included in the package.

Year 6 Formal

Our Year 6 formal will be held in the school hall between 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm on Monday, 13 December 2021.

The move from the Tamworth Jockey Club to the school hall has come about as a result of updated DoE COVID guidelines. These guidelines require schools to comply with current Public Health Orders. This would mean that all students attending the Year 6 formal offsite would have to be accompanied by a double-vaccinated parent. We were not able to cater for the number of adults who would need to be in attendance in the space that was available at the Tamworth Jockey Club.

In addition, we do not want to put students in a position of not being able to attend because of vaccination requirements.

Students are to enter the school grounds through the gates at the front of the school off Bridge Street. With some restrictions, families will then be able to take photos in the front gardens before staff will accompany students to the hall for dinner and celebrations.

Parents and families are asked to collect students from the Church Street gates at 9:00 pm.

Again, please refer to the package for more specific information.

Class Party Information

Stages will be sending information home regarding class party activities.

Students will not be leaving the school this year but instead, will be engaging in fun and frivolity onsite.

Semester 2 Reports

Our semester two reports will be sent home on Friday, 10 December 2021.

Parents and carers are reminded to contact the school if you wish to discuss this report and your child’s progress with your teacher.

Our New School Hat

The P&C are in the process of ordering new school hats. They look amazing! We are moving to a reversible blue and red bucket hat. The new hat will transition in throughout 2022. Please refer to the P&C report within this newsletter for more information.

P&C Meeting

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful P&C members for their ongoing support of our school. You are an amazing group of people and our school is better off for having you.

The final P&C meeting for 2021 will be held from 6:00 pm on Monday, 6 December 2021 at the Calala Tavern. As we need to confirm numbers, please ensure that the P&C executive know if you will be attending.

COVID-19 Update

In order to minimise disruptions caused to schools by COVID-19 cases, and to maximise the time our students have learning in the classrooms, a number of changes to operations for schools have been introduced from Monday 29 November for the remainder of Term 4.

Rapid Antigen 'Test-to-Stay' Program

A rapid antigen home testing (RAHT) ‘test-to-stay’ program will be available to any student who is a close contact of a COVID-19 case in a school setting. This will enable students to get back to school immediately following a negative PCR test and, on the basis, they do daily RAHTs before attending school across 7 consecutive days. This will mean that our students' learning will be able to continue with minimal interruptions following a positive COVID-19 case. Full support will be available to help you implement this should it be required.

Singing, chanting and instruments that rely on breath allowed outdoors

In line with community settings, instruments that rely on breath and singing and chanting will now be permitted if held outdoors, within cohorts, with distancing in place and where there is no sharing of instruments. Under these same conditions, music classes, bands, ensembles, group repetition and choirs within cohorts can also resume.

An update to our cleaning protocols

NSW public schools are cleaned by professional cleaners each day, guided by expert advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), the National Health and Medical Research Council and NSW Health. As we have already seen in many schools, cohorting and our other COVID-safe layers of protection have been effective at minimising disruption. NSW Heath has provided clear advice, based on evidence that the department's regular clean, day clean and enhanced clean provides a more than sufficient layer of protection in schools for students and staff. NSW Health have advised there is no health and safety benefit to undertaking an environmental clean which is highly disruptive to a school’s ongoing operations and can close a school for up to 2 days. This is another important change that will get students back into classrooms faster in parallel with the ‘test-to-stay’ program. You can read more on the department's website about the different levels of cleaning in place in our schools.

Please continue to refer to the department's Advice for families page for the latest information on settings in our schools.

End of Year Planning

Thank you so much to those who have contacted the school in relation to end of year planning. We appreciate your assistance with this.

Kindergarten

If you have not enrolled a younger sibling for kindergarten 2022, please do so as soon as possible.

Students Not Returning in 2022

If you are planning a move for your child/ren to another school in 2022, could you please let us know soon of your plans?

Students Returning Late in 2022

If your child/ren are expected to be delayed in their return to school in 2022 (any date after 1 February 2022), please contact the office to let us know their anticipated date of return.

Update Your Details

Please remember to provide your up-to-date address, email and phone contact information whenever it changes. Please inform the office of your changes, ensuring you include the names of each child and their class.

End of Year Newsletter

Technically, this is our final monthly newsletter for 2021. It would, however, be remiss of us not to publish the results of our Presentation Day and some of our end-of-year photos. So, we will be sure to upload a mini-newsletter prior to the end of the school year.

This term Kindergarten have enjoyed completing lessons from the Resilience Project. Kinder have been learning how to show gratitude and empathy as well as developing skills in being mindful. The last few weeks have focused on kindness towards others and being a good friend. We read the book the ‘Rainbow Fish’ by Marcus Pfister and talked about how sharing can make others happy. We discussed how they were each unique and special. Kindergarten students then completed a craft activity making their own rainbow fish.

Kindergarten has been very flexible this term with the building happening all around us. It has been an adventure and we are extremely proud of how the students’ have coped with the daily changes.

In Week 7 our wonderful Wellbeing team yet again organised an amazing Rainbow Day celebration for all students. Kindergarten thoroughly enjoyed the different activities and independently moved from one activity to the next. One activity asked the students to guess how many lollies were in the container. There were 68 lollies and Phoenix Staines from KW guessed 66 lollies. Well done, Phoenix! A huge thank you to Miss May and Miss Bagshaw for organising this event and making it one of the highlights of term four.

These wonderful watercolours are from Miss Massey’s art lesson last Thursday. The Gruffalo is one of Kindergarten’s favourite characters from the famous author Julia Donaldson and the illustrator Axle Scheffler.

As this is our last newsletter, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our Kindergarten parents for their ongoing support throughout the year. On behalf of Miss Massey and Miss Cross, I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe and relaxing New Year.

Mrs Wilson

Rainbow Rock Stars

An amazing FUNTASTIC time was had for all stage 1 students at our Rainbow Day last week! Students had a ball trying:

Giant Jenga, the Ring Toss, the Frisbee Throw, the Chocolate Throw and the Sponge Throw.

As part of Science STEM program, Year 2 had the challenge of making towers. Students competed against other groups to design and construct their towers using balloons and masking tape. The goal was to build the tallest tower! It was a noisy, yet exciting, activity that went out with a BANG!

Students in Year 1 have been learning about technology from the past. We had a super fun time guessing what different artifacts from the past did, such as rotary phones, walkmans and the record and cassette players.

We have also been busy rehearsing our presentation day items. We worked very hard to learn our performances. We can’t wait for you to see them!

Stage 1 Teachers

POETRY

The past 4 weeks, Stage 2 has been focusing on different forms of poetry. Some examples included Acrostic, Haiku, Diamante, Limericks and Cinquain. The students have done an AMAZING job of recognising and writing the different types of poetry.

What is your child’s favourite type of poetry???

MATH GROUPS

Math groups have concluded for the year. The feedback we received was very positive and we look forward to continuing them next year.

We are also hoping to trial some different groups for reading, writing and spelling. Watch this space Stage 2 2022……

ATTENDANCE REWARDS

Stage 2 students have been enjoying the new Attendance Rewards organised for last term. Each day of the week that a student is at school by 9.25 am and remains at school the entire day, they receive a paddle pop stick with their name on it in to put into the attendance jar in their classroom. Each Monday, teachers draw out a name from the previous week. That student receives a prize of a canteen goodie bag as a reward. Students have been eagerly looking forward to the draw each Monday and these will continue through to the end of the year and into 2022. We love seeing our students every day.

DID YOU KNOW that if your child misses one day a fortnight, it equals 4 weeks a year and 1 whole year over their school life!

CALENDAR ART

Calendar art notes and money have closed. All the artworks are with Miss Welsh and will be handed out as soon as we can! Thank you to everyone who supported the fundraiser for the school.

RAINBOW DAY

To celebrate our behaviour successes our school holds a Rainbow Day each year. In past years it has been a whole school event, however, due to COVID, each stage had their own day. Students wore rainbow colours and participated in a number of activities including marble roll, drink toss, ping pong bounce, sponge throwing, guess the number of lollies in the jar, target throwing, balloon hit and chocolate toss. What an amazing day our students had! Thank you to our fabulous Wellbeing team for the incredible amount of work that was put into the day. Special thanks to Miss May as the Wellbeing Coordinator for her efforts. Without her leadership the day would not have been the success it was!

REMINDER ABOUT HATS AND WATER BOTTLES

As we move into the summer months at the end of the year, we would like to remind families and students that a hat and a water are essential at school every day. To meet the COVID-19 restriction guidelines, students are currently not allowed access to the water bubblers on site, and this means that students having access to a water bottle is even more crucial. Please check with your child that they have a water bottle and hat packed each day. Thank you for your support with this.

As many would know, at the end of the year we celebrate with a class party. This year the class parties with be happening at school on Tuesday, 14 December 2021 (Week 11-Tuesday). A note will be sent home soon with more information about this event.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to Mr Wood and his wife who welcomed a beautiful baby girl to their family. Little Poppy Ava Wood arrived safely on 4 November 2021. She looks beautiful and we bet she will be spoilt for her first Christmas!

We will (hopefully) welcome Mrs Lyon back in week 11 after four weeks of being on leave. Nice to have you back Mrs Lyon. We hope you are on the mend.

Thank you to Miss Pollock and Mr Padmos who took over in Mr Wood’s and Mrs Lyon’s absences. We appreciate their hard efforts.

As always, thanks to our families for the fabulous support they have given our staff this year. Mrs Lyon, Miss May, Mr Wood and I are so proud to have taught such a great group of students and we wish our students the best next year!

Thank you also to our amazing staff for the work they have done this year. You have been fantastic to work with and I appreciate all the effort that goes into planning, teaching and supporting our students.

Felicity Bagshaw

Stage 2 Assistant Principal (Relieving)

This term we have been doing different STEM activities. We have made some great rafts that we floated in trays of water and used a fan to help them sail. Our favourite was the balloon rockets races and the children had fun racing each other’s balloon along two strings. The students created their own cardboard rockets and launched them outside and created a snowstorm in a jar!

Now as we are move closer to Christmas, I know we will be having fun with creating Christmas artworks, reading and listening to Santa stories and making and writing cards. It’s been a fantastic year and the next few weeks will be a fun learning experience.

So, from K3M have a happy and safe Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

Pip Diss

Assistant Principal (Special Ed)

We have a new roof!

Welcome to the final classroom edition of our newsletter for 2021. Let me start this edition by saying that we have survived the new roof and are settled back into daily routines and we are very grateful that all went well! Thank you to Mr Lyon for the use of his learning space which allowed 3-6S and 3-6D to come together as a ‘family’ in the one classroom during the re-roofing process. Thank you to Mrs Kay for her unflappable organisation and to the roofing guys for their speedy work to get us back into our building on time. Heartfelt thanks! An enormous thank you to the students and staff of the classes for their patience, care and understanding. We did it!!

Congratulations Miss Ash!

More good news… Congratulations to Miss Ash and her partner Ben on the safe arrival of their beautiful baby girl, Frankie Jude. We are beyond excited for you all!

Rainbow Day

Rainbow Day was a definite highlight for all students this term. All classes enjoyed themselves are could not stop talking and writing about the exciting things they did, saw and ate. Thank you to the Wellbeing Team and especially Miss Bagshaw and Miss May for the fantastic organisation of this celebration.

English

Students in 3-6D have completed their work on a narrative writing unit which incorporated the use of visual literacy skills. The students have now been busily creating some interesting poems using a range of techniques and poetry styles to support their learning.

Students in 3-6S are continuing their work on recounts. Students are developing their use of past and present tense verbs to improve their writing. Editing skills and the use of correct grammar have also been areas of focus during the past few weeks.

Mathematics

Chance, Number Patterns, solving word problems , addition, subtraction, multiplication and division have been the areas of maths focus during the last few weeks for students in 3-6D. All students activities which has supported consistent improvement through the development of skills in this area of mathematics. 3-6D have also completed a number of STEM challenges during maths activities.

Number patterns, skip counting and solving word problems have been areas of focus for 3-6S students. Each student is demonstrating improved resilience when working on new concepts and are developing positive skills when work co-operatively and collaboratively during maths activities.

Visual Arts

Visual Arts is about to explode with the commencement of the festive season. The current themes are coming to an end and the glorious opportunities provided by Christmas will give students the chance to prepare themselves and their classrooms for the end of the year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

As the we come to the end of the school year I would like to wish everyone a safe and restful break. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Pip Diss

Assistant Principal (Special Ed)