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Welcome back to Adamstown Public School for another

exciting year! We hope that you and your family had a safe

and restful break and that everyone is looking forward to what

this year may bring. We would like to welcome Year 6 back to

Stage 3, and extend a warm welcome to our Year 5 students

who are beginning their Stage 3 journey. This year there are

three classes running Stage 3 programs. All Stage 3 teachers

program collaboratively and work closely together across

these three classes. The classes are as follows:

5N Mrs Megan Neilands (Stage 2 Assistant Principal)

5/6A Miss Tyler Anderson

5/6N Mr Adam Davidson (Stage 3 Assistant Principal)

We are very excited for a wonderful year

and look forward to working with you and

your children. This newsletter will give you

an overview of what is happening in Stage

3 throughout Term One. If you have any

questions or queries, please do not hesitate

to contact your child’s teacher.

Welcome Back

Stage 3 Newsletter

A D A M S T O W N P U B L I C S C H O O L T E R M O N E

TERM 1 IMPORTANT DATES

29 Jan Staff Development Day

30 Jan Yrs 1-6 Start

1 Feb Kindergarten Starts

4 Feb P & C meeting

12 Feb School Photos

15 Feb Swimming Carnival

19 Feb Zone Swimming Carnival

20 Feb Parent Information Session

1 Mar Clean up Oz Day and Wrapper Free Day

8 Mar International Women’s Day

11 Mar Young Leaders’ Day

14 Mar Selective High School Test and School Disco

21 Mar Harmony Day

29 Mar Earth Hour

8-11 Apr

Parent Teacher discussions

9 Apr Year 6 ANZAC Excursion

12 Apr Last day of Term 1 and Easter Hat

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Homework

Home

Daily PE

Library

Visual Arts

Daily PE

Daily PE

Scripture

/Ethics

Daily PE

Parliament

(Weeks 3, 6

and 9)

Homework

Due

Assembly

Sport

Weekly Schedule

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Appointments Parent information evening is coming up on Wednesday 20th February. You will have the opportunity to come in and have a meeting with your teacher at your parent teacher interviews to be held in week 11. Information on how to book a time to see your teacher will be sent home in a few weeks’ time. If you require any information or have any questions, please do not hesitate to leave a message with the school office. Your teacher will return your call as soon as possible and we can organise a mutually convenient time to meet. If there is an urgent matter that will affect your child’s ability to participate in classroom or playground activities, please write a note and give it to your son or daughter to pass on to their teacher. Skoolbag We strongly encourage you to download the ‘Skoolbag’ app for iPhone or Android. This will ensure that you are receiving critical information from the school, including newsletters, reminders about calendar events and school based events. ‘Skoolbag’ also allows parents and carers to submit online absence notes for their children.

Absence from School If your child is absent from school, parents and caregivers must provide an explanation. This can be done by phoning the school office or completing a ‘Skoolbag’ absence form on the morning of your child’s absence. Unexplained absences are closely monitored and legally need to be followed up by your class teacher. Regular attendance at school is important, as it may assist in maximising learning potential. School Leadership

All students in Stage 3 are involved in school leadership responsibilities. We are off to a busy start in Stage 3, supporting all of the new Kindergarten students as they start school. Our role as school leaders to ensure that we are good role models and we show others, by example, what is expected of students at Adamstown Public School. We also have our Year 6 student executive, house captains and School Parliament Ministers working in their roles. There are many jobs that are associated with each portfolio and students are eager to fulfil their responsibilities and help our school to be the greatest school around. School Parliament will be held in the school hall on Thursday 7th March and Thursday 28th March from 2:15pm, where our Ministers address questions or concerns other students have. All parents and carers are welcome to attend. We also have excellent sound technicians already doing a fantastic job at weekly assemblies. Scripture / Ethics Scripture and Ethics will be held on Wednesday afternoon and will commence later this term. Your child will continue in the instructional class that they were in last year. Any changes must be made in writing and will be actioned as soon as possible.

Bathurst Excursion Students in Stage 3 will be invited to attend our trip to Bathurst to explore the historical gold rush region in Term Four. Information will be sent home later in the year and plenty of time allowed for the trip to be paid off in instalments. Students will depart school on Wednesday 27th November and will arrive home on Friday 29th November. It is always a wonderful few days with so many amazing things to see. This excursion reinforces the learning that happens in our History unit around the Gold Rush. It will be here before we know it!

Fruit Break We have fruit break daily at 10:00am. Students are encouraged to bring a piece of fruit or vegetable each day. Homework Homework will be sent home on Monday of each week and is to be returned on Friday, even if it has not been finished. If your child is away on a Monday, spare sheets will be kept in a file in the classroom or it can be viewed on Google Classroom. Students have the option of either completing these weekly tasks in their homework books or by submitting a Microsoft Word Document on Google Classroom. Homework will aim to consolidate the concepts and content being covered in class as well as developing student’s organisational and time management skills that are crucial in high school. Students will be asked to read daily in order to complete the ‘Premier’s Reading Challenge’, spelling activities and a variety of mathematical problems. Parents and carers can choose for their child not to participate in weekly homework. If they select this option, they need to inform their classroom teacher.

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Premier’s Reading Challenge Adamstown Public School is celebrating another year of 100% completion of the Premier’s Reading Challenge. This is a massive achievement and while we cannot technically ‘improve’ on it, we certainly are aiming for 100% again. A recording sheet will be attached to homework and students are encouraged to read every night for at least 20 minutes. Sun Safety

With the warm temperatures continuing in what has been a sweltering Summer, please ensure that your child is adequately protected from the sun. This includes coming to school wearing sunscreen and a hat, which needs to be marked clearly with your child’s first and last name. Please also send your child to school with a water bottle so they can drink plenty of water during the day.

BYOD Stage 3

Our BYOD program continues to gain momentum in Stage 3. Thank you to all parents who have supported this initiative as we continue to embed 21st century learning and build IT skills to support students into their future. This term we will be focusing on touch typing, research skills (determining valid and invalid sources of information) and file management skills. More information about our program is on the last page of this newsletter. Please take a moment to read the FAQ below; Where do devices go in the morning? Students are to leave their devices neatly on the green seats outside the office. This area will be closely monitored by office staff and teachers on playground duty. What will my child use a device for? Devices will be used to support the development of 21st century learning skills as well as to undertake research in various areas of study. We will be using them to teach critical touch typing skills, coding, programming and web development.

Will my child still use books and write? Of course your child will still develop necessary writing and bookwork skills. Most subjects will have a written component as well as a digital component. Will my child need their device every day? Yes absolutely, exempting days like swimming and athletics carnivals, devices will be frequently used in the classroom.

Bringing their device to school every day is also great readiness for high school. All students have been issued with a BYOD Student Agreement note. Please take the time to read and sign this docu-ment with your child and return it if you have not already. Students who do not submit this paperwork will not be permitted to use their own device at school. What if I cannot afford a device? Students who do not have their own device will be supported and will have access to an increasing number of classroom laptops. Is the device I have purchased safe during the day? Yes, our classrooms will be locked when we are not in them and students will not be taking their own devices outside for any reason. Use of devices is monitored very closely. How is online access monitored? Whilst at school students are using their Department of Education portal to log in. This means that site restrictions are in place based on the grade of students. Sites such as Youtube are not accessible at school. Will my child need to bring a charger to school? No, laptops will need to go home each day to be charged and then come to school the following day charged and ready for the day.

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Below is the proposed outline of our teaching and learning programs for the term. These units embed NSW syllabus outcomes and are designed to cater for all learning needs. English Reading and Viewing Students will be taking part in Literature Circles or Reciprocal Reading groups. These groups are designed to meet the needs of individual students within a guided reading group using comprehension strategies; accessing prior knowledge, monitoring, questioning, predicting, visualizing, connecting, summarizing, inferring. Students will be encouraged to respond to a range of fiction and non-fiction texts. Students in Year 5 and 6 are encour-aged to continue to borrow from the library for home reading. Writing and Representing This term, students will take part in daily guided writing sessions focusing on unpacking and creating persuasive and imaginative texts. This will allow students to develop a wide range of skills, knowledge, understanding and devices to assist them in planning and writing a range of texts for various audiences. With reference to the Seven Steps to Writing Success program, students will learn to ‘hook’ their readers by banning the boring, building up momentum and using exciting endings. Students will evaluate their writing based on features such as, structure, ideas, vocabulary, paragraphing, spelling and punctuation. To support our BYOD program, students will continue using a variety of digital applications and apply their skills in weaving together elements of print, image and sound to create effective multimodal texts. This will also support students in preparation for NAPLAN next term. Whilst spelling assessments have been conducted to assist in tracking students’ spelling, students will not be placed into groups with pre-determined spelling lists designed to challenge different abilities. Instead, students will be presented with a different spelling rule each fortnight and need to research and select their own spelling words which follow these rules. It is vital that these spelling words are not too easy or challenging for your child. Speaking and Listening The development of speaking and listening skills is important as it encourages students to be confi-dent and respectful communicators. The provision of opportunities to develop speaking and listening will be integrated into all subject areas. However, students will have opportunities to speak in formal and informal situations as both make up part of the curriculum. We will be completing explicit speak-ing lessons and learning skills in listening for detail and reciprocal listening this term. We will be reinforcing reading skills when viewing visual text by watching ‘Behind The News’. We will also be working collaboratively in teams developing critical communication skills. Mathematics The Stage 3 Mathematics program has a strong focus on the Number strand of the syllabus and this term our focus will be mastering a wide range of number facts. Students will be working within their own class groups to improve their knowledge and recall of number facts. The ‘Quicksmart’ program will also be starting this term, to assist students in developing this mathematical fluency. Students will then apply these mathematical skills to fractions, decimals and calculating measurements such as, length, distance, area, volume and capacity. We will use a range of teaching strategies utilizing practical, hands on, and Smartboard resources to target our teaching practice to the needs of the students. We will be focusing on open-ended problem solving skills and developing working mathematically skills.

Science and Technology

This semester we will be exploring the fantastic Science unit, ‘Marvellous Micro-Organisms”. This unit focuses on the role of micro-organisms in food and medicine. In particular, students will investigate the conditions micro-organisms need to grow, learn about yeast and the bread-making process, and research the development of penicillin. Students will have opportunities to design their own experiments and learn about fair testing to conduct their own research. There will be a project component next term which we are really looking forward to.

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Geography

This Semester we will be kicking off Geography with ‘A Diverse and Con-nected World’. This unit investigates a range of geographical location and considers the questions:

How do places, people and cultures differ across the world?

What are Australia’s global connections?

How do people’s connections to places affect their perception of them?

This unit will also require students to use their research skills and encour-ages students to think critically about the similarities, differences and the importance of intercultural understanding. As well as developing word processing and information research skills, students will have the opportunity to explore India in depth during library with Mr How-ell.

Creative and Practical Arts (CAPA)

CAPA encompasses four elements of the creative arts; Music, Dance, Drama and Visual Arts. We will provide students with a range of experiences in Music, Dance and Drama. In addition, Ms Gibson is very excited about teaching Visual Arts to all students over the course of the year. We can’t wait to see their fantastic artworks in the Art Show in Term Three. Students will also be given the opportunity to participate in choir, dance and Aboriginal Dance groups in Star Struck 2019. Thank you to those students who have returned their expression of interest note to the school office. After our groups have submitted audition tapes, information about a Star Struck Parent Information Session will be sent home. If you have any queries in the meantime, please do not hesitate to ask Miss Anderson.

PDHPE

We will be focusing on Healthy, Safe and Active Lifestyles. By exploring a range of health issues, stu-dents will develop their knowledge, understanding and skills to empower them to make healthy and safe choices. In addition, students will learn the role of protective strategies in promoting and main-taining their own and others’ wellbeing. By participating in 150 minutes of Daily PE a week, students will be able to examine the role of physical activity in promoting health and wellbeing. Sport will take place on Friday’s, where students will complete various trials for our Athletics Carnival and PSSA sport, which both take place next term.

You Can Do It!

You Can Do It! Is a social and emotional wellbeing program that has been developed to teach children the importance of organi-zation, getting along, confidence, resilience and persistence. In particular, the program embeds the ’habits of the mind’ positive thinking style to develop self-worth, confidence and resilience. This term we will be specifically focusing on getting along with others by making friends easily, working cooperatively, resolving conflicts, managing anger and showing tolerance. In addition, students will develop their organizational skills by keeping track of learning tasks, scheduling their time effectively, setting goals and being equipped for schoolwork.

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter. We look forward to working with you throughout 2019. Sincerely, Mrs Megan Neilands, Miss Tyler Anderson and Mr Adam Davidson