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Celebrating Learning Aussie of the Month

Aussie of the Month for February 2016 was awarded to Caitlin for being an excellent buddy and a great role model for other students. She takes pride in completing quality work. Caitlin is caring, patient and kind to her Kindergarten buddy. She is

thoughtful and considerate in all she does. Caitlin has great organisational skills and shows persistence in getting things done. Caitlin is an admirable school citizen.

Principal’s Awards Congratulations to Bonnie and Myles who were presented with a

Principal’s awards this week.

Gold Shields Congratulations to Annabel who was our Gold Shield recipient for Week 3.

Merit Awards Congratulations to our Merit

Award recipients from Week 3. Please see the back of the newsletter for more details.

Congratulations to Lars who received a Gold award for the 2015 Premier’s

Reading Challenge.

Library Monitors for 2016 Congratulations to our Library Monitors for 2016.

Representing Our School Debating Workshop

On Tuesday Max, Amelia,

Jess, Cooper,

Lucy, Henry and Nikolas went to

Adamstown Public School to learn about debating. We learnt a lot of new things about debating that we didn’t know. It was fun and we had a great time. We

Newsletter

Redhead Public School

Hutchinson Street Redhead NSW 2290

P 4944 7215 F 4942 6098 E redhead-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Week 4 Term 1 Thursday 18 February, 2016

had a practice debate ‘That school hours should change to 9-5’. It was really run. The teacher said that Redhead Public School students were awesome and solid listeners.

Zone Tennis Trials This week Sophie and Tilly trialled for the East

Lake Macquarie

Zone Tennis Team. Both

girls performed to an exceptional standard with the girls playing against each other in the last game.

At the end of the exhaustive trial Tilly finished 4th and Sophie finished 3rd, narrowly missing out on the next stage by one point. Congratulations to both girls for an outstanding effort.

Zone Cricket Trials Tomorrow, Cameron will be representing our school at the Eastlakes Zone Boys Cricket Trials. Good luck Cameron!

Zone Swimming Carnival Next Monday and Wednesday a total of 36 Redhead students will travel to Swansea pool for the annual East Lake Macquarie Zone Swimming Carnival.

This year our students have qualified for 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, individual medley and the relay team, with some students qualifying for more than one event. If successful at zone, students may qualify for the Hunter PSSA Swimming Carnival to be held at Maitland on Thursday 3 March. Congratulations to everyone who made it into the zone team and we wish you all the best of luck.

To enable time for a risk assessment to be completed permission notes need to be returned by tomorrow. Please note any student who does not return their note will not be permitted to go.

Sing Out Loud Program Today Year 6 went to the

Whiddon Aged Care Facility. It fills me with

immense pride each time we go to

see how compassionately and sensitively Year 6 interact with their elders. We are learning old time songs such as ‘Show Me The Way To Go Home’ and ‘It’s A Long Way To Tipperary’. The ‘Sing Out Loud’ program will culminate in a concert later in the term and I urge you to attend so you can also witness the kind-heartedness of our senior students. Well done Year 6. Thank you to Takara’s Mum Jo who volunteered to help today.

Assembly Last week’s

assembly item was

presented by Theta.

They shared a video that

had snippets of interviews they had recorded using a webcam. Each class member answered questions like “What job interests you when you grow up?” and “What is your favourite school subject?” Students enjoyed sharing information about themselves and found out a lot of new information about their classmates.

At our assembly tomorrow K-2 singers will perform. Next week Kindergarten will share their item.

Assembly commences at 2.10pm in our school hall.

School Calendar on our School Website Our school website contains our school calendar. As events are scheduled they are placed on the calendar. This may be of assistance to parents and carers.

Sigma’s Kites On Tuesday,

Kindergarten’s sounds were ‘c’ and ‘k’. Sigma K made kites to help remember the sound. The

students folded, halved and decorated their kites. All of the kites flew and the students enjoyed this experience.

Kidsmatter – Every Face Has a Place

Kindergarten/Year 6 Buddies Kindergarten are becoming more independent therefore Year 6 buddies will no longer come to the classrooms to pick up kindergarten students at recess and lunchtime.

Year 6 will run games for Kindergarten at second lunch. Cross age tutoring will take place this term on Fridays.

Peaceful Playgrounds Project Our playground is large and leafy. We have room to play a variety of games, climbing equipment, a sandpit and the library for a range of indoor activities. A survey in 2015 of the K-5 students was conducted to further improve our playground.

A chill out zone

complete with beautiful pillows made by Harper

Collins-Fry

and his mum, Tracey, has been created. The children can hang out under the trees to read or chat.

The outdoor chess set has returned to the COLA area. A dress up box is also being collated. A giant Jenga game has been purchased.

Starting at lunchtime today, Year 6 students are introducing a range of games to the playground for Kindergarten and Year 1. Today’s game is playing with the parachute.

There have been a few concerns raised in relation to the soccer games that are being played at lunchtime. Lunchtime soccer should be a friendly and enjoyable game for all students who wish to play regardless of their soccer skills.

This will be a focus for the first meeting of our Student Representative Council.

Student Safety When students are out on the playground they need to be in the sight of the teacher on duty.

For this reason, we need to have areas that are “out of bounds” These areas include behind buildings, in classrooms without a teacher, and any area that may be temporarily unsafe (awaiting repair).

To minimise the risk of students being out of bounds, most classrooms will be locked when teachers are not present.

At our school we have junior and senior toilets. The junior toilets are for students in Years K-2 and the senior toilets are for students in Years 3-6. It is important that students use the correct toilets.

As well, any adults on site are to use other toilets e.g. hall toilet or disabled toilet. This is a child protection matter.

Off Site Evacuation On Tuesday 23 February, after lunch and if the weather permits, we will be trialling our off-site evacuation plan.

Our off site location is Redhead Bowling Club.

Please don’t be concerned if you phone during this time and don’t get a response.

School Photos Our School photo day is Tuesday 8 March. Photo envelopes will be sent home with your child shortly. Please note all money for the school photos is paid directly to MSP Photography either on the day in the envelope provided or online via the MSP website mentioned below. Please do not pay online through the Redhead Public School website.

All students have their photo taken. These photos are used for student reports. Photo packages that will be available to purchase are:

Premium Pack - $44 Classic Pack - $41 Value Pack - $39 Essential Pack - $37 Basic Pack - $34 Group Only - $23

Family photo envelopes will be available from the school office.

Details of these packages can be viewed online at www.mspphotography.com.au

Enrichment Program Each week Mrs Langholz will be running a writing enrichment program. Students will get together to storyboard their writing and to learn skills to build upon their abilities to construct interesting well written texts. The group have been working on developing characterisation. This has led to the creation of some very interesting characters, including marshmallow unicorns and crazed astronauts. I hope to be able to share some examples of their work on the school website in the future.

Text Books Book packs have been ordered for all learning groups. Thank you to those who have paid for their packs. Once books have been paid for in the office, your child can start using them in class.

Costs are: $30 each student (Years 1 – 6) $50 each student (Kindergarten)

If you need assistance paying for your book pack, please contact the school office.

Teasing or Bullying At our first assembly for 2016 students shared our pledge to stop bullying.

The pledge is:-

Sometimes there is confusion about what is teasing and what is bullying.

Michael Grose is a child psychologist. On the back page of our newsletter is information about what the difference is.

Voluntary Contributions Thank you to those families who have already paid their voluntary contributions for 2016. Our voluntary contribution ($40) is an important contribution which is used to provide additional resources for our students and is revised yearly. A family discount rate applies for families of three (3) children or more currently attending the school. The maximum fee payable is $80.

If your child’s voluntary contributions are paid by 7 April your family name will go into the draw to win one of three $50 vouchers for Charlestown Square kindly donated by the P &C. This draw will be done on Friday 8 April.

‘Valuing Partnerships with parents and our wider community’

I am aware that bullying is a hurtful act and I intend to undertake a positive role in my school to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

One of the best ways I can do this is by being a good friend to other people I will:

Tell people I see bullying others to stop.

Where they won’t stop, I will let a staff member know

Encourage people to be friends.

Be a role model for respectful and friendly behaviour.

I won’t:

Spread rumours

Act in discourteous ways.

Put people down.

Exclude people on any basis.

This is a statement of my firm intention.

Back to School Picnic Thank you to the families who were able to attend this fun and social event yesterday.

Library News This week our library hosted 30 librarians for

the Newcastle

Area Teacher Librarian

Network. Dr Kylie Shaw spoke to us about collaborative learning and future learning practices. We have also worked as a group to create a library learning pathway which will be utilised across schools to ensure best practice

when teaching guided inquiry and research based learning. Our library was bustling with learning but this time from adults instead of kids.

Stage 1 parents and caregivers have been given homework this week. They need to tell us what their favourite toy was when they were 6 or 7. We will be comparing how toys have changed over time and learning to play some older style games such as Jacks. If you have any old games or toys that you could share with us that would be great.

Grandfriend’s Day Thursday 24 March – 10.00 am Planning is underway for this fun biannual event. It is the Thursday before our short Easter break. More details will follow as the committee complete planning.

At 10.00am we will present an assembly especially for our grandfriends.

The canteen will be organising a special hot cross bun and drink order for recess. An order form will be sent home in next week’s newsletter.

After recess K-2 will participate in their Easter Hat Parade.

Professional Learning Our staff are dedicated professionals who are continually engaging in professional learning based upon identified areas from our extensive school evaluation and planning process.

Tomorrow, 19 February, Mr James McGill, Mrs Salena Langholz and Ms Jo Clews will be attending component 2 of our Kidsmatter training in Gosford. The focus for component 2 is social and emotional learning. We are looking forward to the next part of our journey.

Each Wednesday afternoon, commencing at 3.15pm we have either a staff meeting or stage meeting. Each Thursday morning we have a management meeting. All staff are involved in these meetings. It is appreciated if parents and carers approach teachers at other times for discussions.

On Tuesday 1 March all teachers and administration staff will attend a Whitebridge Community of School’s staff meeting. This is where everyone from the Whitebridge High

School feeder schools get together to focus on professional development.

This year the Department of Education is rolling out a new finance and administration system to be used by Principals and school office staff. The new system will be very different from the previous system and as such, Mrs Dear and I will require a number of days out of the school to attend training.

The training is quite extensive and there are a number of tasks that need to be completed in school before the system goes ‘live’. Whilst it will be a good thing to have this new system up and running, the training will have an impact on how quickly our office staff is able to respond to requests from both staff and parents.

You may also see a little more of Mrs D’Agostino who will help out when Mrs Dear is at training, particularly at the end of Term 1 and throughout Term 2. I mention this for two reasons: firstly to keep you informed and secondly to ask that you consider checking the newsletter or the website before ringing the office with an inquiry. We have fantastic office staff who are friendly and who love to assist parents wherever they can, but both they and I will appreciate those times when you are able to find the answer to a question yourself. Our office opening hours are 8.40am – 3.15pm. Custody Orders and AVOs If your child is subject to custody orders, could you please ensure a copy of these orders are lodged with the office staff. Custordy orders and the like can often impact on school life in some form or another, so having them on site gives us the best opportunity to support your family. This needs to be done annually to ensure the best care for your child.

Personal Details If you have changed personal details e.g. address, phone numbers including work or mobile please contact the front office as soon as possible so that we can update our records. Also, if there has been a change in emergency contact details please speak to one of the ladies in the front office, or email changes to the school. This will

ensure that we contact the most appropriate people in the event of an emergency.

Volunteering at School Volunteers and parent helpers play a vital role in our school and the education of our children. Volunteers help in classrooms, in the canteen or uniform shop and sometimes at specific events. If you visit our school as a volunteer, please remember that in order to do so, consistent with DoE policy, you must first have completed a working with children declaration at the office.

When you complete a declaration you also need to provide proof of identification up to 100 points (just like when you renew your driver’s licence). Once this is finalised, please ensure that each time you visit our school you sign-in at the office, collect and wear a visitor’s lanyard and also sign out and return the lanyard when you leave. Our helpful office staff will talk you through it if you are coming in for the first time. Your assistance in our school is such a big help and we appreciate all our volunteers.

P & C News Uniform Shop News The uniform shop is open each Wednesday morning 8.45am – 9.15am. For access outside of this time contact Tracey 0408 460 737 or Jan 0438 448 703.

Canteen Roster Term 1 Friday 19 Feb Tracey Fuss

Jan Coulton Wednesday 24 Feb Yvette Kerr

Tracey Hadden Thursday 25 Feb Lara Adlington

Jo Penman Friday 26 Feb Mel Lambert

Janie McLachlan Wednesday 2 March Dayle Cummings

Brooke Gillett Thursday 3 March Kylie Amos and mum Friday 4 March Jodie Hadden

Lara Ledbury Wednesday 9 March Amanda Illingworth Thursday 10 March Sandra Hatcher Friday 11 March Cheryl Davico

Kylie Tayler Wednesday 16 March Sandra Piggott Thursday 17 March HELP NEEDED

Friday 18 March Rechelle Redman and mum

Wednesday 23 March HELP NEEDED Thursday 24 March Hot Cross Bun Day

Kylie Tayler Friday 25 March Closed – Good Friday Wednesday 30 March Yvette Kerr

Tracy Hadden Thursday 31 March HELP NEEDED Friday 1 April Jodie Hadden

Karlee Davidson Wednesday 6 April Sara Howlett Thursday 7 April HELP NEEDED Friday 8 April Kylie Tayler

Cheryl Davico Gold Shields Olivia-Belle Smith Molly Holmes Jack Ledbury

Important Dates and Reminders DATE WHO WHAT NOTE NOTE/MONEY DUE 22 and 24 Feb Zone Swimming Carnival Days 19 Feb

8 March All School School Photos 10 March Selective High School Test Year 7, 2017 24 March Easter Hat Parade, Grandfriend’s Day 25 March Good Friday 28 March Easter Monday 8 April All School Last Day for Term 1 27 April All School First Day for Term 2 29 April School Cross Country 6 May School Cross Country back up day 10, 11, 12 May

Years 3 and 5 NAPLAN

19 May Zone Cross Country 1 July Athletics Carnvial and last day for Term 2 29 July Athletics Carnival back up day

Please Note: No payment will be accepted after the due date unless prior arrangements are made with the office. If you have not received a note

for any activity these are available from the office or the school website. All notes and money must be returned to the office box in an envelope with your child’s name, class and activity

Class Merit Awards Sigma Samuel Wylie Fabulous work in Jolly

Phonics Maddison Box Being an excellent listener Amelia Bowron Great work in sounding

words

Omega Taj Buttigieg Showing enthusiasm for

learning Macy Unwin Being super organised and

on task Lyla Willingham Excellent stencil work

Chi Skyla Poole Excellent effort in

handwriting Eva Potts Using full sentences to

answer comprehension questions

Phoenix Visscher Being a wonderful star of the week

Phi Amelia Linnert Fantastic effort in all her

work Myles Foord Terrific effort in all his work Kobi Daly Fabulous work in numbers

to 50

Kappa Charlie King Beautifully presented work Stella Piggott Active participation in

reading groups Mia Buttigieg Excellent listening during

news

Epsilon Sam Griffiths Terrific measuring of length Iluka Connors Fantastic rhyming work Ruby Johnson Outstanding presentation of

news

Alpha Matilda Woolnough Beautiful bookwork Lars Bergmann Very good reasoning in

maths Fletcher Hardy Being a supportive buddy

to peers

Delta Josef Cresnar Excellent attitude to his

learning Josh Doggett Great measuring skills Charli Smith Writing interesting facts

about fairytales

Gamma Neve Elliott Her sweet and respectful

ways Tully Elliott Her excellent attitude

towards learning and a beautiful smile

Max Linnert Active participation in class activities

Theta Oshah Connors Being a confident learner Jade Daniels Working well in English

lessons Matthew O’Brien For his enthusiasm to our

assembly item

Lambda James Elliott Great expression used

when reading Takara Thompson Displaying enthusiasm in all

learning tasks Jasmyn Disney Always being organised

and ready to learn

Iota Jacob Conrick Great patience and

enthusiasm with the Whiddon Group

Hayley Carey Excellent creative writing work

Baxter Ashbourne Fantastic contibutions to class discussions

Library Max Barrett Compassion and

understanding at ‘Sing Out Loud’

Cooper Illingworth Compassion and understanding at ‘Sing Out Loud’

Jasmyn Disney Compassion and understanding at ‘Sing Out Loud’

COMPETITIONS & ASSESSMENTS FOR SCHOOLS The University of New South Wales Educational Testing Centre conducts competitions for students in Years 3 – 6 in which our school participates. Individual students need to enter the competitions. Students who participate will receive a certificate and detailed results letter. This letter indicates how a student’s overall performance compares with other students in their state.

Students Name ………………………………….……Class …………………Grade………

ICAS Subject Test Date Entry Fee I would like to enter my Child in

Digital Technologies 17 May 055-006 $9.00

Science 31 May 055-003 $9.00

Spelling 15 June 055-004 $12.50

Writing 13-17 June 055-005 $19.00

English 2 August 055-001 $9.00

Mathematics 16 August 055-002 $9.00

If we receive fewer than three entries per subject we will not be able to complete that assessment and your payment will be refunded. I enclose payment of ……………………. for the entries. Signed: ………………………..……

Parent/Guardian

Please return with payment in an envelope to the school office before Friday 25 March

Michael Grose Director Parentingideas 2016

Teasing Versus Bullying By Michael Grose When speaking with parents when I present at schools, or engaging with them via our social media, bullying is always a hot topic. A recent Facebook post had one of our biggest engagement rates ever. It begged the question- “What is bullying? Do we mix it up with teasing and other forms of mean behaviour?” It’s an important topic that needs clarification. Bullying is a term that’s wrapped in emotion. For many people it’s associated with bad childhood memories. It’s been estimated that around 40 per cent of people have experienced bullying in the past. It’s something that we don’t want to happen to our kids. But I fear it’s being overused at the moment and confused with teasing and rudeness. Rudeness refers to thoughtless behaviours and thoughtless words. Kids often do rude things to each other without thinking their actions through. Examples include breaking wind in a child’s direction; joking about the colour of a child’s hair in front of others; failing to share possessions and neglecting to acknowledge someone. Rudeness is usually about selfishness and thoughtlessness. Taken on their own many rude behaviours can be seen as an element of bullying but when looked at in context they are more about thoughtlessness, lack of consideration and poor manners rather than a deliberate attempt to hurt someone. Teasing refers to annoying, hurtful behaviour that is used to get a reaction from someone else. Teasing can be persistent in nature, but not always. It’s generally an attempt to get under a person’s skin. It can involve name-calling; it can be personal and hurtful in nature. It can also infringe on another person’s rights. But generally teasing doesn’t have the key ingredients that make up bullying. Bullying is the selective, uninvited, repetitive oppression of one person or group by another. It involves three elements – intent to hurt or harm; power imbalance; and repetition over time. It takes many forms and guises including physical aggression; verbal abuse; emotional aggression (or blackmail); intimidation; harassment and exclusion. The new cyber-dimension to bullying has moved the goalpost for many kids. In the past children and young people could escape bullying behaviours by being at home. Cyber-bullying means that children can’t escape bullies like they once could. Why the distinction? I hear the term bullying misused a great deal in the media and when talking with parents. We run the risk of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” Syndrome where we become so desensitised to the term that we (or teachers) ignore it when children really are the victims of bullying. We also run the risk of failing to skill our kids up to manage rudeness and teasing if we categorise every awful behaviour that kids experience as bullying. Our ability to be discerning about bullying is as important as the action we take when we are sure that our child is on the receiving end of bullying behaviour. These actions include: dealing with feelings; providing emotional coping skills, getting others involved; building up a child’s support networks; and building self-confidence that can take a battering. Bullying needs to be taken seriously. But we also need to be discerning about bullying behaviours.