Gloucester Public School Newsletter Opportunity - Innovation - Excellence

Find us at: 45 Hume Street, Gloucester 2422 Tel: 65581303 Fax: 65581655 www.gloucester-p.schools.nsw.edu.au

Term 1 Week 2 Tuesday 4th February 2020

Dates to Remember 07/02 Primary Swimming Carnival

14/02 Investiture Assembly &

Presentation of Swimming

Carnival Awards

20/02 Zone Swimming Carnival

Term 1 Assemblies

Week 2 07/02 No assembly

Week 3 14/02 House Cpts

Week 5 28/2 K-2

3-6

Week 11 09/04 Awards

P&C Meeting: 24th February

School Photos: 28/7/2020

Swimming Carnival for Years 3 to 6

Our annual 3-6 swimming carnival will be held this Friday 7th February 2020. Please ensure the permission note and the swimming ability note have been returned to your child’s classroom teacher by Wednesday. On Friday, your child should have a packed recess and lunch, hat, swimming costumes, towel, sunscreen and water bottles. The pool canteen will be open but not for hot food and students are encouraged to only bring a small of money ($2.00) to spend as they will only have limited opportunity to purchase. The cost of entry to the pool is $4.00 (to be paid upon entry on the carnival day). Students with a pool/season pass will need to present their pass on the day. Students who catch a bus to school will be delivered directly to and collected from the pool. All students who do not catch a bus will need to be at the pool by 8.45am for a 9.00am start. If your child is walking home or leaving the carnival with another parent/carer, he/she must present a note to the classroom teacher on the day before leaving the carnival. Students who wish to nominate to participate in the medley and 100m events, will receive a note tomorrow. In case of inclement weather, a back-up date has been set for Thursday 13th February. The primary assembly on Friday 14th February will be the investiture (providing badges for leadership roles and Year 6 responsibilities) and swimming carnival presentation assembly. Students are encouraged to wear house colours on the day: Bradman – Green; Dobell – Red; Flynn – Blue; Parkes – Yellow. No paper streamers please! Emily Bosworth and Eve Green Swimming Carnival Coordinators

Message from Mrs Wakefield – Welcome back! A very warm welcome to all our new students and their families, especially our Kindy students. Welcome back to all our existing families, it is lovely to see so many smiling faces. I hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday. I look forward to working with you in 2020. Please feel free to come in and talk to me at any time, my door is always open. A special welcome to Mr Scott Warner who has joined our teaching staff this year. 2020 Staff KB Kindergarten Loryn Bratfield KM Kindergarten Susie McLeod 1/2B Year 1/Year 2 Keira Bell 1/2C Year 1/Year 2 Paul Carpenter 1/2S Year 1/Year 2 Amy Schafer (AP) 3/4K Year 3/Year 4 David Kemp 3/4L Year 3/Year 4 Berrill Ley (AP) 3/4S Year 3/Year 4 Melissa Seale 3/4W Year 3/Year 4 Scott Warner (Welcome Mr Warner!) 5/6B Year 5/Year 6 Emily Bosworth 5/6E Year 5/Year 6 Eve Green 5/6G Year 5/Year 6 Monique Goodwin 5/6M Year 5/Year 6 Rod Maggs (AP) Library/RFF Kim Macdonald Learning & Support Felicity Willis Music/RFF Annette Burrows Reading Support Caroline Moore PD/Health Sarah Soupidis School Counsellor Roziye Delaney School Admin Manager Jill Griffin School Admin Officers Beth Gosden, Bev Murray (Jodie Waddell relieving) Quicksmart & IT Support Janet Garner SLSOs (Learning Support) Kristy Allardice, Von Logan, Tracy Gosson, Jane Richardson, Ruth Edwards, Julie Clarke, Sally Maslen, Lyndall Want. General Assistants Steven Davis (relieving Brian McInnes) and Trevor Bolton. Assemblies in 2020 Staff have been discussing fortnightly assemblies for 2020. Today staff spoke to the students about what they liked and disliked about assemblies to gain information on what assemblies might look like and what changes could be made. Some of the main points were

1. There are too many awards and the assembly goes for too long

2. Special assemblies are nice

3. Assemblies are just a way to get out of class

4. Assemblies are boring

5. Not a lot of parents/carers come along

6. Assemblies on the whole are not really liked

7. The floor is hard and it is squishy

8. Students overwhelmingly didn’t like singing the song

9. People talk too much

10. 1-2 assemblies would be enough each term and should included a performance, work and possibly a digital

presentation

I would really appreciate ideas from parents/carers and am more than happy to take the time to listen.

As we gain further information, we have decided that apart from the special sport/badging assembly, we will have an assembly in Week 5 this term and then another in Week 11. Students will still receive awards, however on a weekly basis at K-2 and 3-6 lining up assemblies on a Thursday afternoon straight after lunch. Photos of these students will be placed in the newsletter for parents/carers. At the Week 5 assembly on Friday 28th February, each class will share something from their learning, with each class presenting for 3-5 minutes. The same format will be followed at the Week 11 Term 1 expectation assembly, with students sharing their work and hopefully gaining their expectation certificate. My door is always open for discussion and I look forward to discussing this further at the P&C meeting, to gain more ideas. Leanne Wakefield, Principal

SMART PACKS & VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS 2020 Smart Packs are available for purchase. The costs are as follows:

Kindergarten - $45.00 Years 1-6 - $40.00

These packs contain everything your child will require for the year; e.g., pens, pencils, glue sticks, exercise books, textbooks etc. Please pay for the pack as soon as possible at the office. We would appreciate it if you would make this a priority.

Voluntary school contributions will remain at $30.00 per child per year. These funds are used to assist the school to purchase items used in teaching and student welfare. Such items include expenses relating to each of the learning areas such as art supplies, equipment, sports gear, library books, take-home readers, paper, cost of photocopying and texts etc. Payment of these fees would be very much appreciated.

Please note that payment is by cash, cheque or online (Skoolbag). If you wish to make an online payment, the reference numbers are as follows: Smart Packs : 51624 Voluntary Contribution : 46001

Stage 3 Excursion – Save the Date

This year’s excursion for Stage 3 is to Canberra. This is certainly one of the highlights of your child’s time in primary school and an amazing opportunity to visit a number of important national monuments and buildings. It will directly link to our learning program on government and democracy and also provide an experience to develop independence and social skills. Dates for the excursion are from Monday 24th to Thursday 27th August 2020. Please put these dates on your calendar. An initial note will be sent home in the coming weeks. Mr Rod Maggs Assistant Principal – Stage 3

2020 House Captains announced

Congratulations to the following students who were elected as house captains and vice captains last Friday. They will receive their badges at the first assembly following the swimming carnival.

Bradman

Captains: Andrew Fraser, Matilda Dillon

Vice Captains: Wyatt Griffin, Mia Morgan

Dobell

Captains: William Wooster, Jessica Higgins

Vice-Captains: Brodie Parish, Lilly-Anne Dangerfield

Flynn

Captains: Brody Taylor, Nikita Hobbins

Vice-Captains: Aiden Glew, Cheyla Selby

Parkes

Captains: Lachlan Sansom, Alicia Martin

Vice-Captains: Jonas De Angelis, Stacee Henderson

Now for their first challenge of leading their respective sporting houses at the swimming carnival. Congratulations and good luck!

Kindergarten Updates What a wonderful first day all our Kindergarten students had. They all did such a fantastic job!! Thank you so much to all our parents and carers for their support of us and all the students on the day. Communication/notes Folder: All our students took their Communication Folder home Friday afternoon. We will use this folder daily as one of our means of communication. Please ensure relevant notes are filled in and returned to school in the folder ASAP. Additionally, parents and carers are able to send in questions etc to us in the folder. Students are expected to bring their folder to school every day and as Kindergarten progresses the folder will also be used for home reading activities. Library: Kindergarten students will need their library bags for Wednesday as they will be attending their first library session with Mrs Mac, which will include the borrowing of a book. Paint Shirts: We will begin some painting activities throughout the week so if you could send in a painting smock or old oversized T-shirt that would be great! Lunchboxes: Please don’t be worried if your child is bringing home left over food for the first couple of weeks of school. We do sit down for eating time until the play bell goes but they are very excited about school and want to play. If this does persist and you are worried please don’t hesitate to let us know. School drop off and pick up: For this week and next week (weeks 2 and 3) Kindergarten students will continue to be dropped off at their Kindergarten classrooms (unless other arrangements have been made with their classroom teacher) at 8:45. So we can begin to teach the students about our going home routines we need to ask all parents and carers to remain outside the gate at pickup time. With the weather being so hot an umbrella may be handy. We will bring the students out, assist them with their bags, line them up and walk them to the gate where we can dismiss them one at a time, ensuring all students are safely met by their parent or carer. Thank you for your understanding in this matter. Susie McLeod and Loryn Bratfield Kindergarten Teachers

Bus Passes Don’t forget if your child has gone from Year 2 to Year 3 this year, he/she will need a new bus pass. Apply on line at https://ssts-apply.transport.nsw.gov.au/ApplySSTA.SSTS.html This will take you straight to the form. Windstars Rehearsals will begin in Week 3, Wednesday morning before school at 8.00am. We will be rehearsing in the hall this term as the ‘purple room’ is being used as a classroom. I am looking forward to meeting all our new members and beginning to work on some fun music again this year. Sarah Soupidis School Banking Welcome back to school banking for 2020. Please check out next week’s newsletter for details regarding our exciting new theme. School banking is on this week in the library on Thursday at 8.30am. New students are welcome to visit for information. Jane Richardson School Banking Coordinator Welcome back! I hope you all had a safe and enjoyable holiday. We have a new and exciting menu for 2020. There have been changes on the menu with different foods and a pricing increase to start the new year. At times with recess foods, there will be changes to give the students a variety of different yummy foods under the Healthy Schools Canteen Policy. Also this year we have lost some great volunteers due to their children moving on to high school, so we are looking out for some new canteen helpers. If you can spare one or two days a term to come along and help out that would be great. The kids would love to see you at the canteen so please give me a call on 0411593899. Suzie Dark Canteen Manager

Canteen News