Issue #26 4th May 2020

Term 2 Week 3– Students start returning one day per week.

Principal’s Report

Hi everyone, I hope you still enjoyed your school holidays even

though we couldn’t do many extra curricula activities. Who

would have ever thought that going grocery shopping would be

a highlight of our weekly going out activities?

It was a relaxing holiday with our families. I loved having all my

boys home and had some bonfires, damper and great family

meals. We even had the Fahey Family Olympics, of which our

teenagers now see we are actually very capable athletes. A very

positive outcome for the older generation in our house. I hope

you all enjoyed two weeks of no home schooling.

We welcome all our students back to school for one day per

week, next week. I have tried to group families together to

support parents at home. We will have our essential workers

children every day as well. It is extremely important to keep to

your day as we are Social distancing. Our teachers are really

looking forward to seeing their class starting next week. Each

class will see 25% of the class return either on a Monday,

Tuesday, Wednesday or a Thursday. Teachers will be still

planning, uploading and looking at work on a Friday.

Please let me know if you have any concerns with this model, or

even if you would like to touch base with me or a staff member

about any of these issues.

To make a difference in someone’s life,

you don’t have to be brilliant, rich, beautiful, or perfect.

You just have to care

CONTACT DETAILS

Mrs Michelle Fahey, Principal

Yass Public School

Laidlaw St, YASS NSW 2582

Ph: 6226 1017

E: yass-

p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

W: yass-p.school.nsw.edu.au

Stage 1

Last Thursday, students in Stage 1 wrote recounts about their holidays. We heard lots of

exciting things about everyone’s holiday, including how the Easter Bunny found us, lots of

backyard/farm camping, riding scooters and bikes, standing at dawn to commemorate

ANZAC Day, baking sweets, planting and growing veggies and much more!

Pictured, is Luca Dowling, who wrote about growing veggies and riding his pushbike.

Well done Stage 1!

Stage 2

Welcome to Term Two Stage Two students and families,

For week two of Term Two, at home learning will be continuing in the way that we have

been accustomed to. We hope that our students have been enjoying the new topics that

we have begun. We are particularly excited to see the creativity which will occur in our

Drama unit about puppets. (Hint to parents and careers – now you will have a use for all of

those odd socks that have been reproducing around your house!)

School packs and math textbooks for students are available for pick up at the school office.

This week in our phone calls to you, we will update you with the changes that are

occurring with students beginning the transition back into learning at school in week three

(next week). These very important changes will affect everyone!

Our staff have worked very hard to structure this in a way to help support individual

families. It is crucial that our school community follows these procedures, to ensure that

the stage one transition into learning at school has the best possible outcome.

Kind regards,

Stage Two Teachers

Ms. Marple, Ms Bird and Mrs Phillips

Finger puppet making at school

Stage 3

Welcome back to Stage 3 students and families. We hope you have had a restful holiday and

have been able to think of creative ways to keep busy at home together. We look forward to

seeing students one day each week from Week 3 and have already started phoning parents

to inform them of the day their child is coming.

We are really excited about the topics students will be learning about this term. We have

tried to integrate different Key Learning Areas to help make learning more meaningful. In

History, students will be learning about early settlement and so we have chosen a novel that

ties in beautifully- ‘Surviving Sydney Cove’. In Creative Arts, students will be channelling

Joseph Banks and looking at botanical drawings. In Science, we will be investigating forces

and Mrs Barlow has planned some fantastic experiments.

We are excited to be part of the Royal Far West sponsored writing program ‘My Life Story’.

Each student will plan, write and illustrate their own story which will be published into a

book. If you would like more information about this program, please check out the website

https://www.littlescribe.com/

We are proud of the effort our students are putting into their online learning tasks and we

know that they can’t do it without the support from their parents and carers. We know the

last 6 weeks have been really difficult and while we are unsure what the whole term will

look like, we believe that with the amazing partnerships between teachers and parents and

carers, we can face them together and hopefully come out the other side with a bit of sanity

still intact.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns about your child

or online learning. We are here to help.

Take care and we will see you soon,

Kate Barlow, Phil Beresford & Gillian Stuart

Learning at home– by Shalyce Slade

Working from home has been quite challenging, the days seem to blur into each other. It feels weird not being in my usual working space at school. The structure and routine of going to school is not the same when you know you don’t really have to be anywhere on time.

You lose attention easily and sometimes it’s really hard to focus on what tasks you are supposed to be doing.

You can’t really ask as many questions and you don’t have teachers helping and in-structing you on what to do. It isn’t the same reading instructions as to getting told by your teacher.

I miss my teacher a lot!

The worst part of all of this is not being able to see your friends every day at school or be-ing able to go outside as much as we used to and doing afterschool sports. You just start to feel a bit lonely without your group.

Some good things about learning from home are that you don’t have to wear a uniform and just enjoy the life of comfy clothes. You get your work done by lunchtime so you have more time to do whatever you want and some of the rules at home have been more re-laxed. Learning to use technology to talk to friends has been fun too. I get to talk to my friends using zoom and they get to see where I live and talk to my baby brother which everyone really loves.

Can’t wait for things to get back to normal!!!!!!!!!

By Shalyce Slade!!

KM’s New Screen

KM were excited to return to

school last week and discover

that their new smart board had

been delivered during the school

holidays. They are eager to start

using it next week when

students return one day per

week.

Learning at home- by Anzac Longley

I'm doing school on our farm off Gundaroo Road near Gunning. I am doing it in a bedroom that I turned into a school room. I like home-schooling because I get to have more time for lunch and recess. I like having Breville’s for lunch. I like jumping on my trampoline during lunch and recess. I like my school room because it has a reading area with a beanbag. I don’t like not seeing my friends and teachers. I don’t like not going down to the river playground. I'm kind of happy that I’m not doing Naplan this year because I find it really stressful. I hope stage three camp goes ahead because I really want to see the dish. I miss doing swimming after school. I can’t wait to get back to school and swimming.

Learning at home- by Matilda Duncan When this Covid-19 all started, my parents thought is was a good idea if my two

sisters, grandparents and I went out to Warren, where my aunt, uncle and two little

cousins live on a farm. Oh, and I can't forget their dog, whose name - believe it or not

- is Corona, but they named her before this all started! You've probably never heard

of Warren, its a five hour drive northwest. Driving for five hours in a five seater car

with three kids, you can imagine how much fighting went on. When we got there, my

Aunty Taz had tubs full of our schoolwork, and of course I brought my school stuff.

Normally we finished all our work before 11:00, so we had the rest of the day free.

My aunt is a year five teacher so the extra work she gave me wasn't too hard or too

easy. The one show I got sick of was The Wiggles. My little cousin Lachy is obsessed

with them, so every time we turned the TV on, immediately he said "wiggle wiggle",

the first words he said when he woke up was "wiggle". I was sad to leave, but happy

to be home.

Social Distancing

Just a gentle reminder now that school students are returning, our car parks are

encouraged to be kiss and drop zones. Parents are also encouraged to be outside the

gate in the afternoon and the teachers on duty will supervise students at the gate.

Paper Copy of Work

Please call the office ahead if you would like to request a paper booklet for home

learning. Once you have done that, then it will be done each week for you. We are

endeavouring to have these books ready for Monday Morning Pick up. Work in Google

Classroom also gets posted on Monday morning. You can also drop in last week’s work

into the baskets for your teacher to look at when you pick your new booklet up.

One Day A Week Return

Each student is required to return one day a week starting next week. A teacher will ring

you this week and let you know what day is your day to return. We have tried to group

families together so that they have school on the same day. We do not have a lot of

flexibility for returns as we have to have social distancing rules applying to our learning

spaces. Your child may not be returning with their friends but they will be returning with

at least 10 of their classmates.

Absences

Please note that your child will be marked as absent if they are not attending on the day

that they are required to. Please ring if your child is sick or if your child won’t be attend-

ing for any reason. Please don’t send your child if they are unwell as we will be ringing

you and sending them home. Let’s try to keep everyone safe.

On Your Rostered Day

Parents can you please remind your child or if you are packing the bag for school please

pack both the mentals and go maths books the day you come to school. We will be

working in this book so we will need to have it here at school. Please also pack pencils

and other essential items if you would prefer to use your own things.

Canteen News

Starting from next week, our canteen will be re-opening for 2 days per week. We will have

a very limited menu as shown below. Initially for weeks three and four the canteen will be

open LUNCH TIME ONLY, and accepting CASH ONLY payments– no online ordering.

As previously, we can supply paper bags for 10c each.

Week Three: Canteen open Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th of May

Week Four: Canteen open Monday 18th and Tuesday 19th of May.

Special Menu:

Lunch:

Sausage Rolls (GF avail)

Cheese & Spinach Rolls (v)

Meat Pies

Pizza Roundas

$5.00 for one of these items, plus a milk or juice popper

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Drinks:

Water (250ml) 60c

Chocolate/Strawberry Milk $1.50

99% Juice Popper (apple, blackcurrant & strawberry) $1.50

Glee Sparkling Fruit Juice (raspberry, tropical & bubble gum grape) $2.50

Frozen:

Quelch 99% Fruit Juice Ice Blocks 50c

Ice mony 99% Fruit Juice Ice Blocks (blue raspberry-sour & red berry blast-sour) 80c

Chocolate Dairy Ice Block $1.00