Newsletter Term 1 Week 8 2021
Principal's report
Harmony Day Celebration
Harmony Day celebrates Australia’s cultural diversity. It’s about inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone. This year’s theme is ‘Everyone Belongs’. By participating in Harmony Day activities, we can learn and understand how all Australians from diverse backgrounds belong to Australia and enrich it. We will be celebrating this on Thursday the 18th of March, with a splash of orange!
Why Orange?
Orange is the official colour chosen to represent Harmony Day. It signifies social communication and meaningful conversations. The colour orange also relates to freedom of ideas and encouragement of mutual respect. We look forward to sharing this celebration with all our students tomorrow.
Colour Run
Our students will be bringing home a pledge card this week to collect sponsors for our Colour Run. Sponsors can pay electronically or when each child returns their sponsorship card. It would be fantastic if you could encourage your child to be involved in this, as it builds a shared sense of responsibility and ownership of making a difference for our school.
We would appreciate all pledge cards returning to school by the 31st of March. The students are quite excited about the class prize for the day! We are hoping to raise money to buy new quality books for our library and our classrooms.This is an in school event so we will not have parents attending. I am sure you will be able to see the excitement at pick up time. We are all very excited about the event!
Class Teacher Allocation
At different times during the year our teachers may be off their class. This can be for a range of reasons such as, professional learning, external school activities, school leadership opportunities or as part of their leave entitlements. At Balgowlah North our leadership team work closely with all teachers in their team to provide quality programmes. Teachers plan across their Stage and assess cooperatively to ensure needs are met for all students. These programs continue whether the class teacher is present or not.
At all times the students are provided with a professional, university trained teacher who is able to deliver curriculum and manage student wellbeing. At all times the decisions we make are based on what is best for our students. This week we have Professional Learning Days planned across every stage and plans are in place for these days. I will also be attending a Principal’s Conference for three days and Mrs Norrie will be supported in the office by Susie Stock and Patricia Vitale.
As can be appreciated, there will be times when a teacher is not present in their classroom for medical or personal reasons and this is unplanned. Regardless of this, there will always be plans and procedures in place to cater for these situations. The Deputy Principal and the Stage supervisor check in daily with all relief staff.
P&C AGM
Our P&C AGM will be held in the hall at 7.30pm. Looking forward to seeing many of you there. The P&C have also organised a working bee this Sunday from 10.00am until 12. oopm. We are looking forward to the opportunity to meet Kindergarten and Year One families. Fingers crossed for sunny weather!
‘Step Up to Clean Up’
IIt was great to see our students helping to clean up our school last Friday. Our school playground and gardens are looking fantastic.
School Assemblies
Our K-6 Assembly is coming up on Monday afternoon the 29th of March. If you have a child receiving a medal or certificate we are now allowing 1 parent to attend. The weekly assemblies are still just for students and teachers. We will let parents know early next term when this changes.
Brooke Keevers
Principal
‘Step Up to Clean Up’
Deputy Principal's report
What Works Best - Assessment
Assessment is not just a once off test, such as NAPLAN, or a topic test at the end of the unit of work. Teachers are assessing student learning multiple times a day through formative and summative assessment practices. This sits alongside last week’s highlight ‘Using Data to inform practice’. Assessment can be sporadic or planned, and the learning students show us through conversations, written examples, worked problems and group work drives the teaching and learning programs.
Check In Assessment
This year Years 3 - 6 will be able to complete the Check In assessment. This is very different to NAPLAN and is another tool that gives us information quite quickly about teaching and learning. Year 4 and 6 will complete it in Weeks 1 - 2 of next term. Like last year, this is not an assessment that provides parent reports (unlike NAPLAN). The Check In assessment focuses specifically on reading and numeracy skills. It is not strictly timed and is completed online. This assessment complements our other online assessments, such as PAT Reading and PAT mathematics.
Tell Them From Me - Years 3 - 6
In Term 2, Weeks 1 and 2, our school is taking part in the Tell Them From Me student survey. The survey will provide us with valuable feedback on what our students think about school life, how engaged they are with school and the different ways that teachers interact with them. Schools in Australia and around the world have used the Tell Them From Me survey to help them improve. The survey is completed online and is run by an independent research company, The Learning Bar which specialises in school-based surveys.
Staff in schools will not be able to identify individual students from their responses. To ensure confidentiality, participating students will receive a unique username and password. Where fewer than five students respond to a question, the results will be suppressed. The survey typically takes 30 minutes or less to complete and will be administered by the school during normal school hours. Once the surveys are completed by students, reports are prepared and in most cases are available to schools within three business days.
As well as schools getting student feedback, the Department of Education, through the Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (CESE), has access to data from across NSW and is running a research project to look at state-wide patterns of student wellbeing, engagement and effective teaching practices. The research is looking at how these things impact on student outcomes, including academic performance. Individual students will not be identified in any CESE publications, and all information will be handled in accordance with the relevant privacy legislation. Students’ personal information will not be disclosed by the department to any other person or body other than as required by law.
This research will help schools in New South Wales to better understand how to improve student wellbeing and engagement. It will also help teachers and principals discuss what works to improve student outcomes.
Participating in the survey is entirely voluntary. Your child will not take part if either you or your child do not wish. If, during the survey, your child is uncomfortable, he/she can choose to stop the survey at any time. The majority of questions in the survey can be skipped.
If you do not want your child to take part in the survey, please collect a form from the office and return it to the school by 31 March, 2021.
Belinda Norrie
A/Deputy Principal
Tech hub
Did you know these small, micro computers can perform such large codes?! That’s due to its processor (the "brain" of a device) and the input and output data; terms that were introduced to Stage 2 classes when using our new micro:bits.
This fortnight in the TechHub, we have been programming these fun micro computers to create LED light patterns using visual block-coding with iPads. The challenge was following the steps to pair the device via bluetooth and create a flashing heart pattern, before students got creative by programming their own interesting designs. Some even wrote their names. Go Stage 2!
Olivia Wakelin
Library news
Premier’s Reading Challenge
It is wonderful to see so many students signing up to complete the reading challenge this year. The aim of the challenge is to encourage children to read a variety of types of books, from picture books, to graphic novels, short stories and regular novels to facilitate a love of reading and to help students find books they love. Students have till August 20 to complete the reading challenge. The following link will take you to the PRC website where you can register and start recording your reading. Alternatively students can go through the student portal. https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/home.html
Play Writing Competition
Reading Australia is offering students in Year 5 and 6 to participate in a play writing competition. This is a great opportunity for students who love to write and be creative. More information can be found at the following link.
https://readingaustralia.com.au/2021/03/playwriting-competition-dubosarsky/
Deborah Horsley
Teacher librarian
Sports news
Zone swimming results
Official Results have come through for the Zone swimming meet which was held on Friday 5th March. We are pleased to report that Balgowlah North came 4th overall out of the 12 schools in our zone. Well done Team! The following students placed in the top 5 places at zone:
Waste Free Wednesday winners
Well done to our 100% winners KM!
Balgowlah North Public School will celebrate Harmony Day on Thursday 18th March. Harmony Day is celebrated in March each year. It is a day to share and celebrate cultural diversity. It’s also about inclusiveness, respect and belonging, celebrating the different cultures that make Australia such a special place to live.
This year’s theme is ‘Everyone Belongs’. Students are invited to wear a splash of orange on Harmony Day. We look forward to celebrating Harmony Day. Read more at https://www.harmony.gov.au
Harmony Day Committee
Dates for your diary
16 &17 March
- Stage 3 science incursion
17 March
- P&C AGM
18 March
- Harmony day
22-26 March
- Year 2 swimming scheme
30 March
- Year 1 Manly Dam excursion
31 March
- Year 2 Manly Dam excursion
01 April
- Colour run K-6
- Last day of Term 1
19 April
- School development day
20 April
- Students K-6 return for the start of Term 2
Community information
Canteen news
We are very excited to introduce Birthday Buckets to our menu. The birthday bucket is a beautifully decorated bucket filled with 30 Quelch sticks for the birthday child to enjoy with the class at lunch time. So why not save yourself the trouble of organising a birthday treat for your child and take advantage of our Birthday Buckets! To order just head to the lunch section of the Flexischools app and place your order just like you would any lunch item.
If you have any queries, please email us via crackercatering@outlook.com.
As always, please remember to add PSSA alert to a Friday orders if your child is participating in PSSA.
Thanks,Alex and Mel
Second hand uniform shop
The second hand uniform shop is re-opoening!
From this Wednesday (17th March), the second-hand uniform shop will be re-opening on school grounds.
The shop will now be open weekly, on Wednesday’s, between 2.30pm – 3.30pm.
We are located on the front verandah (Manning Street side), next to 5M – Just look for the clothing racks!
Credit card facilities available. Cash also accepted.
Please continue to supply us with your new logo, good condition uniform donations.
Looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday,
Brooke Krncevic and Vanessa van Rijswijk
(Second Hand Uniform Shop Volunteers)
Koolkuna
Combined Martial Arts
On Wednesday afternoons in Term 2, Koolkuna will be welcoming Ben from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Manly, who will be running a combined martial arts program for all ages, full of play, exploration, movement, fun, problem solving & self defense.
Please contact the Koolkuna Office for a permission slip.
Homework Club
Beginning in Term 2, Koolkuna will be providing opportunities for children to complete group supervised homework, Monday to Thursday afternoons from 3.15 to 3:45pm.
A quiet space will be available with an educator and a group of Senior children (Years 4+) to assist with Reading, Spelling & Mathematics.
Please contact the Koolkuna Office if you wish to sign your child up for Homework Club.
Koolkuna OSHC Admin Team
Mob: 0400 774 697 | admin@koolkunaoshc.com.au
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