Welcome to our Week 6 Newsletter!

It is hard to believe we are now almost at the end of Week 6 and have managed to navigate our way

through the winter months. Time seems to disappear so quickly, but staff and students have had a great

couple of weeks focusing on learning and wellbeing across the school.

This week has been particularly special as we celebrate our wonderful School Administrative and Support

Staff as part of SASS Recognition Week. At Northmead Public School this includes our office staff,

school learning and support officers (SLSOs) and general assistants. Whether it is working in the office,

managing administration and finances, looking after children when they are hurt or unwell, supporting

student learning and wellbeing in classrooms or caring for our school grounds, this team works incredibly

hard and our school just would not be able to operate without them. Our students have been enjoying

finding lots of little ways to show their appreciation and say a big thank you!

As a school we continue to be committed to pursuing excellence and providing high-quality education

opportunities for all students. Over the last couple of weeks we have started to engage with the next

school excellence cycle, adopting a whole school approach to evaluate all aspects of our school . This

process, along with community consultation, will inform the development of our new Strategic

Improvement Plan. We will continue to keep you updated on our engagement in this process over the

next couple of months.

Last week the NSW Department of Education released another update on their COVID-19 operating

procedures and I would like to thank you all for your understanding and patience as we implemented

these changes. The latest advice was sent home to all families last week and continues to be available from

the NSW Department of Education: https://education.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/advice-for-families

CONTINUATION OF DROP-OFF AND PICK-UP GATES/ARRANGEMENTS Our current

drop-off and pick-up arrangements remain in place, including the earlier 2:45pm pick up for Kindergarten

and Year 1 students. Thank you to all our families who have been so vigilant in maintaining social distancing

at drop-off and pick- up times.

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE In accordance with advice from NSW Health, parents and carers are

reminded NOT to send children to school if they are unwell, even if they have the mildest flu-like

symptoms (fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, loss of taste, and loss of smell). Schools will

make arrangements for students who present as unwell or have flu like symptoms to be sent home.

Students and staff with flu like symptoms will need to provide a copy of a negative COVID-19 test result

before being permitted to return to school.

ACCESS TO SITE Following NSW Department of Education guidelines, access to site is still restricted

with only essential personnel permitted on school grounds. If you have an enquiry or need to speak to a

staff member, please email or phone the school.

OPPORTUNITY CLASS PLACEMENT TEST To comply with the latest advice from NSW Health

to minimise the risk of COVID-19 transmissions, the annual Opportunity Class Placement Test will now

take place at a student’s own school rather than in examination centres which bring students from across

settings and sectors together. To allow this change to be made, the test date is now 18 November 2020.

Only students whose parents have received a confirmation email from the High Performing Students

Team are eligible to sit the test on the new date of 18 November. The application portal will not be re-

opened for new applications. Further information will be sent home to these students closer to the date.

August 27, 2020 … Issue #12

PARTNERS IN LEARNING PARENT SURVEY- TERM 3 – IS NOW LIVE! We are asking all

families to help us clarify and strengthen the important relationship between parents and school by

completing this survey. It typically only takes 15 minutes to complete and provides the school with

extremely valuable information. Access to the survey can be gained through this link:

http://nsw.tellthemfromme.com/nps20

YEAR 3 AND 5 CHECK-IN ASSESSMENT Students in Year 5 have been participating in the

Check-in assessment this week with students in Year 3 participating between 21 September and 23

October 2020. Thank you to all the Year 5 teachers, Mrs Whyte and Ms Horvath for all their work

coordinating this.

KINDERGARTEN 2021- TIME TO ENROL! We are currently reviewing the in-area enrolments

received for Kindergarten 2021. If you have a younger child ready to start kindergarten next year, or

know someone in our school area who does, please make sure you contact the school office for an

enrolment form.

As I come to the end of my contribution to this week’s newsletter, I want

to share with you two beautiful activities that demonstrate the culture of

care and kindness is alive and well in our school community. The first, a

gratitude tree, has united staff and students in the writing of ‘thank you’

messages as part of wellbeing week. The tree has grown steadily

throughout the week and I know has been a huge encouragement to so

many. The second, a ‘gold coin’ fundraiser being held next week has been

initiated and organised by one of our Year 5 students in response to the

amazing work of NSW Ambulance. It is absolutely wonderful to see our

students and staff continuing to thrive and think of others in what are

extremely complex times.

And... as always, we continue to wish Mrs Ezzy all the best as she steadily

recovers from illness.

Miss Julie Grennard

Relieving Principal

Kindergarten News - KA

Early Stage 1

KA have had lots of fun with our

‘Vet’ theme over the past

fortnight. We have been

learning about caring for living

things and the needs,

behaviours and environments in

which they live.

In Mathematics, we have been

comparing the weight of

different animals, deciding if

they are heavy or light. We have

also been learning about the

time. We are so clever and can

use the word o’clock to book in

appointments for pets in our KA

Vet Clinic when we get a call

about a sick animal.

It was also lots of fun when we

got to design and

make our own pet

rock after reading

the story ‘Petra’.

Miss Archer

STAGE ONE NEWS

Stage Two News (Years 3 & 4)

Eiran: “Today we created some paintings of Cherry Blossoms. First we drew the trees with

permanent markers. Then we used earbuds to dip into paint

which we used to make the petals.”

Stage 2 are learning new techniques of creating

artwork. As Spring is just around the corner, S2G decided to create some

examples of Cherry

Blossoms.

Stage 2 Reminders

Weekly

homework is due

on Friday so

please either

submit your work

on Google

Classroom or

hand in your

books.

Stage 2

speeches are due

in Week 7.

5S have been reading

for their novel study.

We have been so

engaged and are

trying so hard to learn

to speak like Hagrid

does! Check out our

own little Harry

Potters…

In Mathematics, we have been focusing on inverse operations

and Volume and Capacity. We played a game that definitely

brought out our competitive side!

As a part of our People, Spaces and Places unit, we created a

cityscape artwork that focused on reflection and shadows. We

have also been looking at the text “The Best Part of Me” and

discussing the best part of ourselves.

Here are Samaira’s hands – she loves them because she can write AND type.

Kindergarten

EALD

Kindergarten EALD have had the opportunity to explore farms and the characteristics of farm animals. They have learnt about and practised descriptive language to construct increasingly complex sentences.

Students described and recognised common farm animals through participating in games such as animal bingo. This is where students were given a bingo card each and five counters. We read out descriptions of the farm animals depicted on the cards. When an animal on the bingo card matched the description, students then placed a counter on that animal.

We read a selection of picture books about farms and discussed the following:

• What animals are commonly found on farms in Australia? • What do they look like? • Why do we have farms? • How do farms meet my everyday needs? • How can I make my writing more interesting?

Students were given the opportunity to share a variety of sentences about farm animals, including both factual sentences (‘Cows have four legs.’) and opinions (‘Cows are my favourite animal.’). Students contributed their own sentence about a particular farm animal and had their peers judge whether it was fact or opinion.

To finish off we then constructed a model farm using plastic figures of farm animals and buildings. Students created labels for the items using sentences and individual words to demonstrate their learning.

Thankyou

SLSO Team As we come to the end of SASS (School Administrative and Support Staff) Appreciation Week

it is important that we take the time to reflect on the important role played by our SLSOs at

Northmead.

In the course of a day an SLSO can be called upon to perform a myriad of tasks ranging from

working one on one with a student to preparing learning materials or supervising students in the

playground. SLSOs move from class to class quickly “changing hats” from Maths to Reading,

Writing, Art or Science. They work hard to help students reach their potential and achieve their

goals.

This term, our SLSO team has really been focussing on Reading across the school and they

have been withdrawing small groups of students to work on our structured phonics program,

“Get Reading Right” and our multisensory sight word program. This has resulted in a steady

improvement in skills for those of our students who find reading challenging.

Another exciting program has been our Stage 2 group taken by Mr Overton. The group has

been having great fun improving their reading skills while engaging in real life reading activities

such as cooking and silly putty making. This week they have been looking at “Flight” and have

made planes, helicopters and kites. I am not sure who is having the most fun, the students or Mr

Overton!!

Our SLSO team go above and beyond to help our students and the strong relationships that

they build with them is testament to their dedication and belief in success for every student.

Thank you, “Office Ladies” for everything

you do …

In SASS Appreciation Week, we would like to acknowledge our incredible office staff and thank them for their endless hard work with such a wide range of duties. They constantly amaze us with the way that they can multi task, one moment answering phone calls with a cheery “good morning” then applying an ice pack for an injured student the next or placing orders for resources for our incredibly busy school. With the new COVID rules they are even busier following up children who are unwell and absent from class. During these extraordinary times, we are especially grateful for their tireless efforts. If you happen to be speaking to any of our amazing office staff, you might also like to take the opportunity to pass on your thanks for their efficiency and professionalism. What would we do without them?

Northmead Public School Band News

We have all, with the exception of percussion and bass guitar students, returned

to zoom lessons. The percussion students feel privileged to be able to safely

attend tutorials at school. This allows them access to the wonderful range of

percussion instruments which feature in their pieces. This week we catch up

with some of our talented percussion students from Performing Band.

Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

“Percussion's da best Don't you deny it, Percussion's da best C'mon and try it!” Jaiden, Performing Band

“Percussion is the best because there’s a variety of instruments. It’s too hard to pick a favourite because they are all fun to play!” Aydin, Performing Band

Ethan from Performing Band, practicing at home.

…Guest appearance by some of our percussion instruments