Principals Message

While this newsletter goes to print I am away with a very enthusiastic and wonderful group of Year 5 and 6 students. Though it is unfortunately a smaller group this year we will still have a lot of fun and hopefully learn a few things along the way. The Year 3 and 4 students will be heading away on their camp in a few weeks and they will have equally as much fun and excitement.

School excursions are a very important part of your child’s education as they contribute, not just, to academic performance but in building confidence, self-reliance and perseverance plus overall wellbeing. We encourage them to start to take those independent steps required to continue to mature and take responsibility for their own life and learning. Many parents get concerned about home-sickness, readiness and relevance of excursions but with our expert team of teachers and the camps we attend fully appreciate and understand these things, and have a lot of experience in managing all issues while away. If your student isn’t attending this year, please think about including them in camps next year as it is incredibly important for them to go. Costs will be roughly the same with Year 3 and 4 going to Adventure land and Mud World and Year 5 and 6 traveling to the snow and Canberra.

We try to give parents enough time to make regular small payments so that is not too much of a burden in one hit; I encourage all parents to make use of this especially as we now have EFTPOS facilities. The organisation of these excursions takes a lot of time and our commitment to the bookings and the numbers we state we are taking is important. This year the school has had to cover some cancellation and readjustment fees as we had to change our numbers significantly. At the end of Term 4 you will receive next year’s calendar and outline of events so you can put money away and see when things are coming up for your child/children to be included in. We really appreciate the support our awesome families give to the school and your child’s education and we are working to do everything we can to make it easier and more streamlined.

Thought for the Week

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” - St. Augustine

Education Week

Education Week is officially being celebrated across the state this week (Week 3) Monday 1 to Friday 5 August. As we have our Year 5-6 students away on camp and have the Zone Athletics Carnival on the Friday we felt it better to hold our celebrations during Week 4 with the culmination of activities at our Science Fair on Tuesday 9 August.

We are posting an ad in the Manning Valley Times for Education Week and I have invited them to our Science Fair the following week. As you are aware I am a very proud Public School Principal and I believe our local school comes second to none. Feel free to join in spreading the word, especially through Education Week, about how great your local school is and the best place for our local kids! Happy Education Week and I look forward to seeing you all at the Science Fair. Throughout the day you will not only get to see the great Science Experiments the children have produced but have a look in your child’s classroom and look at the high quality of work they are producing.

Science Fair - Education Week

As a celebration for Education week we will be holding our 2nd Annual Science Fair on Tuesday 9 August. Last year was very successful so we are looking forward to what our Little Scientists are going to come up with this year. An information Booklet went home last term with dates, times and general suggestions for K-6 Science so that students had time to get stuck into their Science Fair projects.

In addition to the Science Fair our Year 5 and 6 students are invited to attend a Science Day at Chatham High School on Wednesday 17 August. A note will be going home in regards to this soon. It will only include a $6.00 bus cost to get the students to and from the event.

Online Newsletters

We have had a number of parents request to go paperless with their newsletter. We are working through a way to do this without increasing the workload for office staff. Please return the slip at the end of this newsletter if you would prefer to go paperless and read your newsletter from the website or Skoolbag and we will endeavour to support your wish as soon as possible.

School Uniforms

Just a reminder that it is a requirement of our school as well as our school policy endorsed by the P & C that our students wear their uniform to school each day. They have a weekday and a sports day/representative uniform. It is expected that students will wear school jumpers or red jumpers if purchased somewhere else and a school hat. Lately different jumpers and hats have been sneaking in, particularly with some of our senior students which isn’t setting a good example for younger students. Please discuss this with your child/children as we will be coming down a lot harder on the uniform in the coming weeks.

Parent/Teacher Interviews

Thank you to our committed and hardworking staff for staying back last week to meet with parents and carers. It was a successful evening for those parents that wanted a little bit of extra information and feedback on their children after the reports went home. Please remember that our staff are ALWAYS willing to give you time to talk about your child if you need it. Please send a note with your child or phone the front office to organise a time to meet or chat over the phone.

Science ICAS results

Congratulations to our students that participated in the Science ICAS assessment last term. Megan, Chelsea, Darcy, Bradley, Matthew and Ella achieved Participation Awards for their effort. Gemma, Indiana and Makayla received Credits. The science test was very tricky and involved problem solving on a lot of concepts that were new to our students, great effort everyone.

English ICAS and Maths ICAS are coming up in the next few weeks. English on Monday 8 August and Maths on Tuesday 16 August. Good luck to everyone having a go.

Calendar -

Term 3, Coming Events

Week 3

Sunday, July 31 - Thursday, August 4 Year 5-6 Excursion

Friday, August 5 Zone Athletic Carnival Kinder 2017 Peer Club

Week 4

Monday, August 8 English ICAS

Tuesday, August 9 Science Fair

Thursday, August 11 Moorland Soccer

Friday, August 12 Jeans For Genes Day School Assembly

Week 5

Monday, August 15 P&C Meeting

Tuesday, August 16 Maths ICAS

Wednesday, August 17 - Friday, August 19

Years 3-4 Excursion

Friday, August 19 Kinder 2017 Peer Club

Week 6

Friday, August 26 School Assembly

SRC - Jeans for Genes Day

Congratulations to our new SRC for Semester Two, they received their badges at last week’s assembly. Our Semester Two SRC Representatives are

Kindergarten: Tahli & Michael

Year 1-2: Cali & Jake

Year 2-3: Paris & Connor

Year 4-5: Sabella & Hayden

Year 5-6: Indiana & Kai

The SRC are organising an out of uniform day to support the Jeans for Genes Day fundraising initiative. We won’t be holding it on the actual event day of Friday 5 August as there are a number of things on that day and it wouldn’t really have the impact we would like. We will be holding our Jeans for Genes Day on Friday 12 August. This is the SRC’s second major fundraising event for a charity and we ask students to donate a gold coin or other donation to support genetic research into a number of diseases. On the day we will be viewing some materials that are appropriate and relevant for children to broaden the students understanding of how serious illnesses affect so many people. This is their chance to make a difference. Students will be invited to wear as much denim as they can on the day! Denim on denim is back!

Kindergarten 2017- First Transition EVENT

Last Friday, we held our first Kindergarten 2017 Transition event with a Teddy Bears Picnic. It was really exciting to see all of our new little enrolments for 2017, especially in their “I’m getting ready for Big School” shirts. They all mixed really well at the lunch break and we look forward to them attending the Peer Club afternoons for the rest of the term. These Kinder Play afternoons will take place in the Kindergarten room with the Peer Groups that are there that day. The dates are:

Friday 5 August, 2-3pm

Friday 19 August, 2-3pm

Friday 2 September, 2-3pm

Gymnastics

Gymnastics has started for our K-6 students and they are having a ball. Gymnastics is an important part of our Physical Education (PE) curriculum because it works on key gross motor skills of balance, co-ordination and core strength. The children get to participate in a lot of fun activities to nurture the development of skills in these areas while having a lot of fun in the process.

Thank you to the support of all the families that have paid and encouraged your children to participate.

Book character Parade

We are holding our Book Character Parade this term during Book Week. Book Week runs from Monday 29 August until Friday 2 September. We will be holding our Book Character Parade on Wednesday 31 August from 10.30am. Prior to this parade we will be having open classrooms so families can pop in and see the amazing work your children have done.

So get your thinking hats on and creative hands working to come up with some fun costumes for the parade. I know I am! We are also hosting a Scholastic Book Fair that week. We invite all our little siblings and Kindergarten transition children to attend in book character also. Staff will be dressing up and if we have any game parents!

Book Fair

We will be holding a Scholastic Book Fair in the library during Book Week. There will a large selection of books for sale. We also put aside an assortment of books that you may like to purchase and donate to the school library. All donations have a book plate placed on the inside cover with the name of the student and family who donated it.

YEAR 3-4 COFFS BEACH CAMP COMING UP VERY SOON

The major excursion for Years 3-4 is coming up quickly. Please do not forget to make regular payments so that your schedule is easier and you are not left with a large amount at the end.

Year 3-4 Excursion: Coffs Beach School Wednesday 17th August – Friday 19 August, 2016.

Year K-2 Excursion: Port Macquarie Sea Acres Rainforest and Koala Hospital Thursday 22 September, 2016.

Assembly

At our assemblies this term we are having a theme or subject focus rather than class performances. This is so that we can showcase some of the specialist skills our students have across the whole school. At last week’s assembly we were shown the artwork and materials created at the schools NAIDOC Day. It was wonderful to see the students so enthusiastic and skilled in what they presented and produced. Well done. Congratulations to all of our award winners also and the Gold Award students. We are now developing a class pool of Honour Students as well. SO much so we are in discussions about adding a tier of achievement above this for our honour students to strive for. We’ll keep you posted!

K / Principal Awards
Paige / Tahli
Ebony / Jake S
Luke / Jake M
Michael / Summer
Blake - PBL / Ella R
1/2 / Gold Awards
Stephanie
Kendall
Chevy
James
Mira-Lee - PBL
2/3/4 / Music Awards
Jasmine / Chelsea
Kale / Luke s
Paris / Bailey H
Trinesha
Tia - PBL
4/5 / Super Star Of The Week
Tasha / Rosa
Lilly
Khalon
Mitch
Cooper
Iris - PBL
5/6 / Honour Students
Kai
Max
Bridie / Darcy
Chelsea
Adam
Brayden - PBL

Don’t forget if you have tallied 10 awards please bring them in so we can organise your Gold Awards. Every 10 awards your child is eligible for they receive a Gold Award, once they have received 50 Awards (5 Gold) they will become an Honour Student.

School Banking - Tuesdays

Our School Banking Day is Tuesday. We would like to remind all our families that parents need to fill in the tab in their child’s bank book with the details of their deposit so it can be stamped each week.

We now have Banking Bags for each class where students can put their bank books in on Tuesdays. We would like to encourage as many of our students as possible to bank as saving is a great skill to learn.

PBL: Focus for this two week period:

School Values & Expectations

Focus for this two week period: Each week classes explore what these look like and what behaviour is expected of them to meet these goals.

Week 3 - Responsibility - All teaching & learning areas: Looking after Property (mine and others).

Week 4 – Responsibility - Playground: Follow playground and equipment expectations.

KidsMatter Term 3 Focus

This term we will be continuing to include social and emotional learning as part of our positive behaviour for learning focus at Harrington Public School. As part of our KidsMatter endeavours we will be working on social and emotional competencies with students.

Each class has circle and sharing time where each child gets the opportunity to debrief worries and concerns, whilst also encourage and support their peers. It is a great chance to build empathy, care and understanding and help each student to better problem solve in their relationships.