Term 4 Week 8

Padstow North Public School ”A Quality Education in a Caring Environment”

Gold! Gold! Gold! Congratulations to the following

students who have qualified for Gold and will be awarded their certificates at our Gold assembly on Thursday

5th December.Kindergarten to Year 2

Sophia AFatima BStanley SEthan A

Maram EKrisha C

Anthony WOmar A

Benjamin BSelina DIbrahim DIbrahim U

Ayah AAmir DIvy D

Taaleen J

Year 3-6Stephen F

Erika NDeclan M

Alan SYassine HClara CDavid LDaniel LConor R

Androniki TMadeline RYvonne LSaim S

Sandy VJoshua T

Kai SKiara NRaya I

Jayden PAaliyan TEmily C

Marcus MOliver DKostas S

Deweny S & Vicky H

Dear parents and carers,

It is hard to believe this is the last newsletter of the year. It has been a wonderful 3 terms and I thank the staff, students and community for their warm welcome. I have so many highlights such as the colour run, Father’s Day BBQ, Bankstown Dance Festival and Kindness Week just to name a few. An additional positive is the wonderful progress our students have made, which is evident in our NAPLAN results.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the amazing group of ladies who run our P&C, in particular Amy, Jules, Lisa and Jenny. These ladies spend hours organising special events for our students such as disco’s, BBQ’s, fund raisers and now the uniform shop. The P&C initiatives certainly strengthen our school and community partnership. If you are interested in being part of the P&C please come along to our first meeting early next year.

We are preparing for presentation day and I am impressed by the number of students that are engaged in their learning and participate in our extra curricula activities. Our students do have a strong connection with the school and all that it offers. We have introduced a new award this year, the Kindness Award, recognising those students who genuinely care about others and are always inclusive. Our Presentation Day is on Tuesday the 10th December, 9:30am-11am in the school hall.

Earlier this term, Kayla P from stage 2 achieved the great fete of making it into the Grand Final of the Metropolitan South Primary Schools Public Speaking Competition. She was ranked 3rd out of 12000 students (that is approximately 200 schools). I have included a photo of Kayla from this day. We are very proud of Kayla’s achievement! Congratulations Kayla!

Over the holidays, please make sure your child reads daily so that they continue to learn and grow, “Students Who Read are Students Who Succeed”. Also please ensure you have the correct school uniform for your child. We are a proud school and achieve great things, we want to reflect this in our students by wearing the correct uniform every day. Please see the school website for more information on school uniform and how to purchase.

I would like to wish you all the very best for the end of year break and look forward to welcoming you back, refreshed, for what will be an exciting, new year.

Kind regards,Genevieve DennisPrincipal

Kindergarten Iban Every Monday morning this term, Kindergarten Iban visited the Tech Hub to publish our weekend recounts as part of our English lessons. We also developed our knowledge of narrative structure while reading the text ‘Max’ by Bob Graham. Students drew superheroes in our art lesson linked to this topic.

Students shared some of their favourite moments in Kindergarten as they reflected on the year:“I loved when we painted the Singing Mermaid and when we danced in the assembly. I danced to Fight Song. Not all of us danced to this song, some of us danced to Power and Twist and Shout. It was fun!” Aaisha“I loved the athletics carnival because we did fun activities. My favourite was when we had running races. I came third!” Saee“My favourite thing was going to see Possum Magic because we went on a bus!” Emma“I loved the Easter Hat Parade because we got to take our little children around the circle.” Sophia“I loved paying circle champion, we rolled two dice and put the bigger number in our head and counted on.” Ruby“I loved Book Week because we got to dress up. I dressed up as a rocket, it was orange. I won!” Jayden“I loved the disco because my friends were there. I danced to Katy Perry.” Kailey“I loved market day because I got so many lollies and it was fun!” Christian“My favourite thing was the colour run because I had lots of colours all over me!” Ibrahim

K/1 CaribThis year has flown by! I’m incredibly proud of each of my students, and feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to teach them this year. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each and every one of them.

We discussed our highlights from the year and would like to share some of these with you:“At the start of the year, many of my students couldn’t read a single word… Now they all are all experiencing the joy of reading in their own ways. This has been my favourite part!” Miss Wortz“My favourite thing was the disco. The first one. I liked dancing to the song ‘Happy’ from Minions” Jaxon“My favourite was the Easter Hat Parade. I got to ‘high five’ my brother!” Jonah“I loved the Athletics carnival because in some of the races, I came first!” ZaynI loved the Colour Run! It was fun being splattered with all the colours!”“I loved the Market Day because you can play some games” Aaliyah“I loved the Colour Run because I got paint on me!” Ennam

News from the Kindergarten Classrooms

1 MaoriI cannot believe that this is the last newsletter for 1 Maori! It has been a fantastic year and I am very lucky to have had the opportunity to share it with such an amazing class! All students have achieved significant learning goals and should feel very proud. I hope you always remember how special you all are and continue to grow your growth mindset! Wishing everyone a safe and happy holidays!

Students shared some of their favourite moments in Year 1 as they reflected on the year: Rayanne - My favourite subject this year has been learning about Art. I learnt about how the colours show how you are feeling.Peter - I loved how I improved my reading. I am now reading a Level 21!Sonia - I loved doing Maths this year. I learnt how to add and subtract numbers by counting on and back.Sophia - My favourite subject this year has been Spelling because I learnt about homophones. Homophones are words that sound the same, mean different and look different.Jayden - I have enjoyed this year because my writing has improved lots. I have learnt to not write too much and check that my sentences make sense.Omar - My favourite thing about this year is that we have learnt a lot of new things. I liked learning about contractions.

1/2 Cherokee1/2 Cherokee have had a fantastic year of growth and development both in and outside of the classroom. Students have worked hard to build positive relationships with their peers and teachers and have definitely ended the year on a high. It has been an absolute pleasure teaching 1/2 Cherokee and I wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas holiday break!

The students enjoyed reflecting on the year and have shared some of their favourite moments, achievements and experiences that made this year such as success!

‘I liked reading groups because it helped me improve my English and I learnt lots!’ - David

‘I enjoyed Science because you can do fun experiments and see why water is so important to us.’ - Koby

‘I enjoyed this year because we did art. My favourite art was the chicken. For the chicken we used a pencil to draw it then we used chalk to outline it and oil pastels to colour it in.’ - Katia

‘I am getting better at measuring and knowing square metres and how to write it properly.’ - Zainab

‘This year I learnt that in Winter the trees with no leaves on them are deciduous and the trees with leaves on it are called evergreen.’ - Maram

‘I enjoyed doing “Number of the Day” because it is testing your math skills.’ - Anthony

‘I learnt to simplify fractions in maths.’ - Stanley

News from the Stage 1 Classrooms

News from the Stage 1 Classrooms2 Hawaiian2 Hawaiian have had a very busy and fun year together. They have all worked extremely hard to achieve amazing results, and they should be very proud of themselves! I am very lucky to have such a bright and happy class, and wish them all the best going into Year 3! Students have enjoyed the following over the year:Ayla - I liked that we get to play together and always do fun things!Moemen - I am thankful for my friends playing with me, and I have enjoyed sport.Lily - I have enjoyed this year because we got to do lots of fun things, and all the great times we have had together.Leann - I enjoyed this year because I love to meet new friends, and learning new things.Khloe - I have enjoyed this year because my class have done lots of fun activities, and we have met new friends from other schools.Michael - I enjoyed this year because I met lots of new friends, and I got to play on the oval.Jasmine E - I loved the disco because I saw so many people, and I enjoyed the exciting bright lights.Ethan A - I liked the Colour Run because we got to play with different coloured paint. Mouna - I enjoyed going to the Tech Hub to publish our work.Anthony - I enjoyed when Bankstown South came to visit our school, and I got to meet new friends. My favourite part was the ice blocks!Ibrahim D - I liked this year going to swimming, and we got to learn new things. It was nice meeting Miss Haldezos.

1-5 Basque1-5 Basque have had a busy end to the year. We have been creating iMovies about the different things we have learnt in class. We made informative movies about the solar system and road safety. In our road safety move we pretended some people were the cars on our imaginary road during our road safety movies.

We were invited to the Variety Club Christmas Party. We had a great day listening to music, going on rides, having our picture taken with Santa and getting our face painted. It was fantastic to have fun as a class and do different activities together.

News from the Stage 2 Classroomsthing but we all liked different parts of the day best. We would all love to go to the Powerhouse Museum again because it’s super fun!

Stage 2 Powerhouse Excursion On Monday the 4th of October, Stage 2 were very excited to go on an excursion to the Powerhouse Museum. We arrived at school bright and early, ready to catch the bus into the city. When we arrived, we had a quick recess and then listened to what we were going to be doing for the day.

Our first activity was coding. We used an app called Scratch to write codes for a ThinkerShield. Our code made the LED lights flash on the ThinkerShield. Our second code was to make Scratch the cat move along the stage. It was lots of fun because we used lots and lots of codes to make the LED lights flash and to make Scratch bop around the stage! Our third code made Scratch change colour. Scratch looked like a mythical changing colour cat!

We had lunch next and then it was our turn to explore the Mu-seum. The first room we went to was full of fun science experi-ments for us to do. One of the activities was a plasma ball. If you put your hand on it, lines like lightning came out and followed your finger. There was a fun activity where one person sat in the middle and it was like a tug-of-war to try to pull the person to-wards you. Another fun activity was a fire engine that you had to power by riding a bike. If you rode fast enough, the lights would flash and the sirens would wail. There was a monochrome room where the lights made everything look almost black and white, but if you turned on the white light, you could see colour. There was so much to do that we didn’t want to leave the experiment area.

After the experiment room, we went to the Space and Transport room. We saw a bike with a really big wheel and a small wheel at the other end. Then we looked above us and we saw lots of planes and even the face of one of the biggest planes in the world. Next we went on the train and it made different sounds - even a choo choo sound. We saw the front of a huge rocket ship and we went up the stairs to go inside it. When we went inside it, we were in a spinning room. Everyone thought we were stand-ing on a floor that spun around but it was actually the outside spinning. Inside the rocket ship’s face, we also found a camera that showed people in different areas of the exhibition. We also found a game where you pressed a button which showed all the planets and we had to identify their names.

The last exhibition we saw was the Wiggles exhibition. We saw a model of the front of the Wiggles house. Then we went to a room with a stage like a Wiggles Concert where we danced to a few Wiggles songs. Some of us made red paper roses using red tissue paper and green pipe cleaners. We saw some of the clothes worn by the Wiggles and saw pictures of the old Wiggles in a band called the Cockroaches! Last of all we got to ride in the Wiggles Big Red Car!

During the excursion, we went to the lab and we did coding, we went to the Wiggles exhibition, we experimented and we also explored the Space exhibition. We tried to vote on our favourite

News from the Stage 3 Classrooms Stage 3 Camp

On Monday 18th of November, Stage 3 teachers and students embarked on the much anticipated camp to Berry Sport and Recreational Facility. We took 92 students and 6 teachers, for what would be an action packed 3 days which challenged not only physical abilities but determination, resilience and the conquering of some fears. Over the course of the camp, groups rotated through 4 main activities. Below is a summary of each through the eyes of our students;

High Ropes Challenge

Rope climbing was fun, scary and new to all of us. Initially it wasn’t that scary but when we got up there we started to panic. Although by the end we finished the course with flying colours.

Archery

Archery was a lot of fun, we did a competition and Mrs Lynch joined the competition. To us archery was very easy for others it was new and confusing to them. Archery was our favourite out of the activities at Berry - Dan, Jen & Briony

Biscuit Team Rafting

The Biscuit Team Rafting was a challenging exercise. It was located in the creek next to the kayaking station. We had to sit in an uncomfortable position for a long period of time as well as working together to try to make the raft move along the creek. We had to paddle down the creek to the white pole,which was our first stop. After we stopped, we were given a number of challenges to do on our raft. We had to spin our raft in a 360 rotation, stand up on our raft (which was very, very hard) and we all had to jump in and not touch our raft for 30 seconds. We had lots of fun.

Kayaking

Kayaking was another water activity on the creek. We had to work in pairs and make sure we communicated to each other to move our boat and steer it in the right direction. We also had to wear a life jacket at all times for safety reasons. Kayaking was very challenging because we had to paddle at the same time you could possibly get stuck in the trees or you may fall off your kayak. When you get to the white pole you have to arch all the kayaks together and hold each others kayaks in place and if you don’t hold the kayaks all the kaykas we float everywhere in the river.

P&C ReportWe are looking for raffle gift wrapping helpers on Monday 9th at 1.30pm in the hall if you are free to help.

The raffle will be drawn at Carols Night.

Orders for pizza slices can be made on Munch Monitor for the Carols night, orders close Monday 9th.

Christmas Fundraiser – packs of Bakers Delight tarts can be ordered on Munch Monitor by Friday 6th December.

The Uniform shop is open – place your order on Munch Monitor or visit us in the P&C office. Orders made on Munch Monitor prior to Friday 10th January will be available for collection on 28th Jan.

2019 has been a very eventful year, with lots of fundraising activities and the introduction and set up of the Uniform store. We want to thank the school community for their participation and we look forward to 2020 working towards our goal of purchasing installing a new playground.

Finally, we want to say thank you to our wonderful volunteers who helped on the various activities throughout the year, we could not have achieved so much without you. We also wanted to recognise the ongoing support of the Principal and the teaching staff, thank you for you wonderful effort throughout the year.

I thought I’d sign off with a little poem by Helen Steiner Rice

The more you give, The more you get,The more you laugh,The less you fret,The more you do unselfishly,The more you live abundantly,The more of everything you share,The more you’ll always have to spare,The more you love,The more you’ll find,That life is good,And friends are kind,For only what we give away,Enriches us from day to day.

Wishing everyone a safe and Happy Christmas holiday and New Year, we look forward to seeing you in 2020.

Sport UpdateWe have had a very busy and successful 2019 in sport. A huge congratulations to the many students that participated in district, regional and state teams this year, you all represented Padstow North and East Hills with pride. 2019 saw excellent results for Padstow North in sports carnivals, with point scores and participation higher than usual. We would also like to thank our supportive and active house captains, who have carried out their duties with responsibility, and were always ready to assist in any way.

Well done to our Senior Boys Cricket Team who competed in the Grand Finals in Week 6. Although they did not win, they played a fantastic season undefeated for 9 rounds.

Congratulations to Mia M who competed at the State Athletics Carnival on November 6th and 7th at Sydney Olympic Park. She came 3rd in the semi-finals for the 10 year old girls 100 metre sprint, qualifying for finals. In the finals, Mia finished 7th - with the time difference between 1st and 7th being a quarter of a second!! An amazing achievement.

We are looking forward to another fantastic year of sport in 2020! Congratulations to the Emu’s, who are the house champions for 2019!

Library News

Last week was the final week of student borrowing for 2019. All books are due back in the Library. This is to enable sufficient time to check, repair and get the Library ready for 2020. Please assist your children to return their books on time. Thank you to all families who have promptly responded to overdue notices.

The local public libraries offer Summer Reading Programs for students over the summer holidays. This is a great leisure activity during the holidays and a way for students to keep up their reading, and at the same time assisting their vocabulary, writing and comprehension.

Thank you to the library monitors for all their help this year – Andrew, Eva, Omayma, Summer, Ramsey and Saim. They have done an amazing job.

Thank you to Mrs Nguyen (Ryan’s mother) who has covered books for the library throughout the year.

Mrs HarrisTeacher Librarian

Padstow North Public School

Pizza Orders close at 9am Monday 9th December

Bring picnic blankets, rugs and cushions for your family to sit and enjoy performances by each class,

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School CalendarMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Sat & Sun

09/12

WEEK 9

10/12

Presentation Day9:30 - 11:00am

11/12 12/12

Christmas CarolsNight 5pm

13/12 14-15/12

16/12Year 6 Graduation Assembly 9:30amYear 6 Farewell dinner 5:30pm

WEEK 10

17/12

Year 6 Fun Day

18/12

Last day of yearfor students

WOW Factor

19/12

Staff Developement Day

Last day for teachers

20/12 21/12

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

27/01Australia Day

Holiday

WEEK 1TERM 1 2020

28/01

Staff development day

29/01

Students Years 1-6 return

Kindergarten Beststart

30/01

Kindergarten Beststart

31/01

Kindergartenfirst day

01-02/02

NSW Department of Education

Calendar 2020 January February March

S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S Key dates 1 2 3 4 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Term start and end dates*

Term 1 – 28 Jan to 9 Apr 2020

Western division – Term 1 – 4 Feb to 9 Apr 2020

Term 2 – 27 Apr to 3 Jul 2020

Term 3 – 20 Jul to 25 Sept 2020

Term 4 – 12 Oct to 18 Dec 2020

School development days* Eastern division – 28 Jan 2020

Western division – 4 Feb 2020

All schools – 27 Apr, 20 Jul, 17 Dec, 18 Dec 2020

School vacation dates 2020 Summer – 23 Dec 2019 to 27 Jan 2020

Western division – Summer – 23 Dec 2019 to 3 Feb 2020

Autumn – 13 Apr to 24 Apr 2020

Winter – 6 Jul to 17 Jul 2020

Spring – 28 Sept to 9 Oct 2020

Summer – 21 Dec 2020 to 26 Jan 2021

Western division – Summer – 21 Dec 2020 to 2 Feb 2021

Education Week 3 Aug to 7 Aug 2020

Exam dates Selective high school placement test – 12 Mar 2020

NAPLAN paper test – 12 to 14 May 2020

NAPLAN online test window – 12 to 22 May 2020

Opportunity class placement test – 29 Jul 2020

HSC written examinations – 15 Oct to 6 Nov 2020

Public holidays

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

26 27 28 29 30 31 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 29 30 31 School zone speed limits apply on all school days, including school development days.

S M

April T W T F S S M T

May W T F S S M

June T W T F S

1 2 3 4 31 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 28 29 30

July August September S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4 30 31 1 1 2 3 4 5

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

26 27 28 29 30 31 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 27 28 29 30

October November December S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S

1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 *Check with your local school as some dates may change.

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 29 30 27 28 29 30 31

Get connected Follow us on Twitter @NSWEducation Follow us on Facebook @NSWDepartmentofEducation Visit education.nsw.gov.au/calendars for more details.