Balgowlah North Public School eNewsletter

"We acknowledge and respect the traditional custodians on whose land our school rests. Their footsteps and whispers blow in the wind, drift on the clouds, remain deep in the sandstone and float on the waterways of this place. Their memories and Dreaming stories will continue to connect us to the land and guide future generations of our school community. Country is alive if you take the time to look, listen and learn."

Parent Workshop with Dr Andrew Martin - Motivation, Engagement and Learning Potential

Principal's message

Parent Workshop
Thank you to the families that attended Dr Andrew Martin’s presentation last night. The feedback from our community has been overwhelmingly positive. If you are interested in his resources and research it is accessible at:

Lifelong Achievement Group | Achievement, Motivation, Engagement

Band Workshop
Another busy week at Balgowlah North! Thank you to our wonderful P&C for organising a band workshop for our students this weekend. This will be great preparation for our Harbourside Music Festival on Thursday the 23rd of May. It will be a fabulous night with the energy and enthusiasm of the Balgowlah Boys bands. Such a great opportunity for our students to see where music can take you in high school!

Green Grove working bee - THIS SUNDAY from 10am to 12pm
Please join us at the working bee as we prune, prepare garden beds, and do a general tidy up of this amazing school resource. We are looking for Kindergarten parents to take charge on the day, with assistance from Sadie (Green Grove Coordinator) and Dan Brabant. Please reach out to Dan (0434 004 797) directly to express your interest.
A sausage sizzle will be provided on the day.
The sign up genius link is provided below.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0A4DADA829ABF49-49523172-bnps

Mother's Day gift stall
A huge thank you to Nikki MacKenzie and Sophie Swan for running another successful gift stall. A huge amount of planning goes into making this happen, so thank you ladies. And thank you to the team of helpers who assisted on the day - Annabel, Clare, Laura, Prue, AJ, Helen, and Jane.

Visual Arts Showcase
Our school innovation term is planning a K-6 visual arts showcase which will be held during Public Education week early in Term 3. Visual Arts is an important aspect of the Creative Arts curriculum.

K-2 Visual Arts gives students opportunities to explore ideas, experiences, observations and imagination to create visual artworks and design, including considering ideas in artworks by a variety of artists. Having time to describe artworks they make and those to which they respond. They consider where and why people make artworks. Using the elements and processes of arts subjects to make and share artworks that represent ideas gives them an opportunity to express themselves.

As students move into Stage 2, they build on these skills learning to describe and discuss similarities and differences between artworks they make and those to which they respond. They discuss how they and others organise the elements and processes in artworks as well as collaborating to plan and make artworks that communicate ideas.

By the end of Stage 3, students explain how ideas are represented in artworks they make and view. They describe the influences of artworks and practices from different cultures, times and places on their art making.They express a personal view in their artworks and demonstrate different techniques and processes in planning and making artworks.

We are interested in developing community partnerships with any parents who may wish to be involved, either through supporting their child’s class, or you may have a particular expertise in an area of visual art, photography, ceramics or sculpture. Please contact Alice Pond via the school email if you would like to explore this further.

Lost Property
We currently have a large collection of items in the lost property containers outside 2A and 4M. If your child is missing anything, can you please check here as any items not claimed by Friday the 24th of May will be donated to the second-hand clothing shop. Please ensure that your child’s school property, such as hats, jumpers, lunch boxes etc, are clearly marked with their name and current class. This will make it much more likely that property will find its way back to its rightful owner.

Cross Country
It was fabulous to see the sun shine upon our athletes for our school cross country yesterday! Thank you to Kerry Kelly and Chris Mc Call for the organisation of this event. Thank you also to all the parents and relatives who were able to come, cheer on and support our runners. We are very proud of the efforts of all students who took part.

The zone cross country championships will take place on Thursday 30th May. Students who finished in the top 6 places in the 2km and 3km races will represent our school at the zone carnival. We wish them the very best of luck!

Race results:

Congratulations Wallabies!!!

Brooke Keevers
Principal

Assistant Principal's News

ICAS
ICAS is an online academic competition that gives students the opportunity to challenge their higher order thinking and problem-solving skills in English, Mathematics, Science, Writing, Spelling Bee, and Digital Technologies.

This year, Balgowlah North Public School will be offering students in years 3-6 the opportunity to participate in the English and Mathematics competitions at school. Our decision to reduce the number of competitions we will be facilitating at school reflects decreasing student participation numbers in recent years.

We will be holding ICAS competitions on the following dates:

English- Thursday the 15th of August at 7:45am
Mathematics- Tuesday the 27th of August at 7:45am

Please note that there will be no make up sessions for any competitions.

We strongly encourage students interested in participating in other ICAS competitions to consider participation via the ICAS testing centre. More information can be found here: https://shop.icasassessments.com/pages/icas-jem-testing-centre

If you wish for your child to participate in ICAS at Balgowlah North Public School this year, please do the following:

Go to the Parent Portal to sign up to chosen subject areas shop.icasassessments.com/pages/pps

Enter our school’s access code – [TIP523]

Enter your child’s details, select the subject areas your child would like to participate in, then proceed to payment. English and Mathematics competitions that are hosted at school incur a cost of $19.95 per assessment.

Orders close via the parent payment system on July 15th.

Rachel Ridley
Assistant Principal

School News

K-2 Active Start Program
This term K-2 students will be taking part in an Active Start school sport program that has been developed by the NSW School Sport Unit. Active start is a teaching and learning resource comprised of short assessment tasks and teaching and learning programs to support the development of student proficiency in Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS)

K-2 students will be focusing on the FMS of the static balance and the sprint run whilst also incorporating games that develop the skills of the side gallop, hop, skip and overarm throw.

Eliza Ross, Sascha Carroll and Steph Rooleht

Active Start co- ordinators

WriteOn Competition
The annual WriteOn competition gives students the opportunity to become published authors and develop skills in writing to express their ideas.

The competition is open to students in Years 1 to 6 across NSW. to enter the competition. Students compose an imaginative text of up to 500 words, using the image as the stimulus.

This year the competition is held in association with the Art Gallery of NSW. The new stimulus image, courtesy of the Art Gallery of NSW is ‘The railway station, Redfern’ (1893) by Arthur Streeton.

Our school can submit a maximum of 3 entries. These entries will represent the best submission from Stage One, Stage Two and Stage Three.

Entries must be submitted via the school email by Friday the 14th of Jun

Submissions will be judged by Mrs Keevers, Mrs Ridley and Mrs Gough. All submissions must be submitted electronically.

For further information please visit:

https://www.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/nesa/awards-and-events/writeon-competition

Opportunity Classes for Year 5 in 2025
Applications for Year 5 entry to opportunity classes in 2025 are open! All applications are to be submitted before Monday 20th May 2024. Apply via the Application process website.

All applicants will sit the Opportunity Class Placement Test on Thursday 1st August 2024.

We have included some information below about Opportunity Classes or visit Selective high schools and opportunity classes – information for parents and carers (nsw.gov.au)

Class Snapshots 4/3P

Sports News

Further Junior Netball trials are required this Friday due to a high level of interest and wet weather.

Tennis wil be starting this Friday. There are still spots available for tennis.

All PSSA teams excluding Junior Netball will be posted at 8.15am tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

PSSA soccer socks will be on sale for the next week outside the school office for $5 cash, or with card from the uniform shop on Wednesday at 2.45pm.

All PSSA training will commence next week, week 4.

Library News

Teacher Picks!

Mr McCall’s favourite picture book is:

‘ Jandamarra’ by Mark Greenwood and Terry Denton

He emerged from the cave of bats with the name given to him by his people. He was Jandamarra – a man of power who could appear and disappear like a ghost.

Set in the Kimberley region in north-west Australia, this is the story of a young warrior, born to lead. To the settlers he was an outlaw to be hunted. To the Bunuba people, he was a courageous defender of his country.- Mark Greenwood

“The story is part of our history, about an Aboriginal warrior and how he overcomes adversity and his amazing strength of spirit.”-Mr McCall

Scholastic Book Club Orders
All orders for Scholastic Book Club need to be submitted by Friday 17th May

Admin News

School Bytes

If your child is unwell or away from school you can submit an absence online (see below).

Go into your portal and click "Attendance"
Under Planned Absence, click "Create" and complete the details

School Oval Wet Weather Closures
Teams wishing to use the school oval during and after rain, please check the Northern Beaches Council wet weather search option - Seaforth oval. If Seaforth oval is closed, the school oval is also closed.

Many thanks
Admin Team

Positive Behaviour for Learning

The Week Ahead

Thurday 16 May Online Guardian Student Workshop for Stage 2 and 3
Sunday 19 May P & C Green Grove Working Bee
Monday 20 May K-2 Assembly 2.30pm
Thursday 23 May Debating Challenge Student Workshop
Thursday 23 May Harbourside Music Festival 6.30pm
Monday 27 May K-6 Assembly 1.45pm
Tuesday 28 May Sydney Writers Festival
Thursday 30 May Zone Cross Country
Thursday 30 May Kindergarten School Tour 9.15am-10.00am

P & C News

School Disco
We are after volunteers to assist with this important fundraiser for the band program. The money raised goes towards the operations of the band and assists with keeping your fees at a reasonable level and allows us to provide the band members with enrichment opportunities. Please get in touch with Karen Ciano and Nicole Margetts should you be willing to help out.

P & C AGM Meeting
The new date will be confirmed shortly.

Band News

Harbourside Music Festival at BNPS
Next Thursday BNPS will host the Harbourside Music Festival. All three of our bands will participate along with our friends from Balgowlah Boys High who will be bringing four bands for us to enjoy. We are looking forward to it. All BNPS families are welcome to attend.

Koolkuna News

Kindy Progression
We would like to advise you of the great progression that all of the Kindergarten children have made at Koolkuna. It has been wonderful to see the development across Term 1 as each child made new friendships, tried new activities, learnt new skills and have finally grown into their backpacks!

As we've noticed the Kindy children gain their confidence in knowing which days they should be heading down to Koolkuna in the afternoon, we want to trial the children walking down to Koolkuna alone beginning next week - Monday 20^th May.

We have updated all the Kindy teachers with the Class Lists outlining your children's current permanent bookings. The teachers will then read out this list and ask those children to walk directly to Koolkuna to be signed in each afternoon.

We will contact teachers directly if there are any casual bookings that arise prior to 3pm.

Although, we do ask that parents also please remind their children of which days they are coming to Koolkuna to further gain this confidence.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.

Kind Regards,
Koolkuna OSHC Admin