Term 3 Dates

Thu 30 Aug School Choir attending ‘Celebration Sing Out’ - Penrith

Mon-Fri

3 – 7 Sept NAPLAN Online – School Readiness testing for Year 3 and Year 5

Tue 11 Sept Band Night – “Out of The Shadows”

Thu 13 Sept Kindergarten Excursion – Featherdale

Tue 18 Sept Primary Proms – Rehearsal day and concert night

Thu 27 Sept Year 2 Excursion – Sydney Olympic Park

Fri 28 Sept LAST DAY – Term 3

The Rocks Report NEWSLETTER OF NORTH ROCKS PUBLIC SCHOOL

Ph: 9871 1772 | Fax: 9872 1448 | 359 North Rocks Road, North Rocks NSW 2151

e northrocks-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au | w http://www.northrocks-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/

2018~ Term 3- Week 1 At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

FROM THE PRINCIPAL Welcome back to another exciting term of learning and progress at North Rocks PS. It is great to be back at school for the commence-ment of Term 3 after an excellent holiday break. Along with our staff, I hope all our students and their families enjoyed a restful vaca-tion and are now ready to continue driving learning forward. Term 3 is always a very busy term, so I encourage you to read the fort-nightly newsletter to keep up with what is happening around the school.

FAREWELL MS WELSH

At the end of Term 2 we farewelled Ms Welsh who was successful in seeking promotion to the position of Principal at Beaumont Hills

Public School. Ms Welsh has been an instrumental leader at North Rocks for the past three and a half years, driving quality learning and a strong focus on student wellbeing. She has been a wonderful colleague and pillar of support to so many students, teachers and parents

and we wish her every success in this new chapter of her career.

With the Deputy Principal position now vacant, Mrs Dooley and Mrs Abbott-Atchison have agreed to continue to relieve in this role. The substantive position will be advertised in coming weeks and it is anticipated that a new Deputy Principal will be appointed with a

starting date for the new person to be negotiated. I will keep the community updated on this process as it unfolds.

SCHOOL ATHLETICS CARNIVAL The 2018 NRPS Athletics Carnival will be held on Tuesday 31st July at Gooden Reserve, Baulkham Hills. This is a very special, annual K-6 event and we would love to see every student participate on the day. We invite parents to join us for the fun and excitemen t of the carnival and look forward to a wonderful day. OC PLACEMENT TEST Applicants for Year 5 placement in an opportunity class in 2019 are required to take the Opportunity Class Placement Test to be held

from 9.00 am to 11.15 am on Wednesday 1st August. The test centre for students from our school is: Muirfiled High School. If you in-tend to drive a student to the test centre, you must not park on school grounds. Park in car spaces in Don Moore Reserve which can be accessed via Tiernan Avenue, North Rocks. Please walk candidates to the test centre from the car parking area to the school gates in

Barclay Road and follow the signs to the test centre.

Term 3 Dates

Mon 30 July ‘Magic Words’ - Incursion for K-6

Tues 31 July NRPS Athletics Carnival

Wed 1 Aug ICAS English Competition

Mon 10 Aug Author Visit Yr 3-6—Oliver Phommovahn

Mon 20 Aug BOOK WEEK Begins

Wed 22 Aug Book Character Parade

Fri 24 Aug Author Visit K-2—Stephen Michael King

Sat 25 Aug SCHOOL FETE DAY

SCHOOL FETE Saturday 25th August 2018

The Rocks Report

YEAR 6 CANBERRA EXCURSION Congratulations to our Year 6 students and their teachers for an outstanding visit to Canberra at the end of last term. The s tudents visited many significant venues across the capital and participated in high quality learning activities during their stay. Feedback from our staff and members of the general public indicate that students were very well-behaved, respectful, engaged and wonderful am-bassadors for North Rocks Public School. Well done Year 6!

SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE – NORTH ROCKS PS BUILDING PROGRAM At a recent infrasturcture meeting the Program Refererence Group (PRG) were informed that a new project management firm, TSA Management, will now be project managing the construction of our new classroom facility and the major upgrade to the Administra-tion building. Architects shared some interesting insights into the layout of the facilities and it was very pleasing to see many of the ‘future focussed’ learning principles discussed with the school staff have been incorporated into the preliminary designs. Over the holidays, two classrooms were relocated to make way for the new project. The 4H classroom is now located adjacent to the rear boundary of the school and a new demountable has been placed beside this in readiness for 4M’s transition towards the end of Term 3. Planning for the project is ongoing and the PRG has been assured that timeframes for commencement of construction at the end of 2018 still apply. CONGRATULATIONS – SYDNEY EISTEDDFOD MEDALS Over the recent holidays George Chen of Year 5 competed in the highly competitive Piano Competition as part of the Sydney Ei-steddfod. George’s exceptional performances resulted in two medals, second place in Piano Polyphony 12 and under and third place, for 20th or 21st Century Piano, 12 years and under. Well done George on these wonderful results.

AFTER SCHOOL USE OF SCHOOL PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT The fixed playground equipment is a wonderful resource for helping students develop their gross motor skills whilst having a lot of fun at school. I would like to remind students that once they are released from class in the afternoon, they are to go straight home, to OOSH or to their bus lines. They are not to go and play on the playground equipment. If parents are with their children in the after-noon and they allow their children to use the fixed equipment after school, the responsibility for supervision rest with the parents. In the interests of safety, please supervise your children whenever they are using the equipment outside of regular school hours. KINDERGARTEN ENROLMENTS FOR 2019 With Term 3 now underway, I would like to remind parents that enrolments for Kindergarten 2019 are now due to be returned to school. If you live in our school catchment area and have a child who will be starting Kindergarten next year, please visit the front office for an enrolment form. This will ensure the school can maintain places for all our in -area students. I would like to thank those families that have already visited the school and completed their enrolment details.

Mr Rob Ieroianni Principal Year 6 Canberra Excursion The Year 6 students from our school completed an educational tour of the national capital. Students were given the opportunity to participate in a variety of educational programs with a focus on Australia’s history, culture, heritage and democracy. The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit the national capital as part of their Civics and Citizenship education. To assist families in meeting the cost of the excursion the Australian Government will be contributing the funding of $20 per student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program towards those costs. The rebate is paid directly to the school upon com-pletion of the excursion.

At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

MERIT AWARDS 2018

Daphne Corpus 5R

Jessica Lulan 4L

Eva Severich 5J

Celine Tran 6F

Kindergarten Teddy Bear’s Picnic Kindergarten had a wonderful time at the Teddy Bear’s Picnic during the last week of Term 2. The students were asked

to dress for the conditions as part of their science unit of work on weather. Luckily it was a beautiful day and they were able to participate in lots of fun, active games as well as enjoy their lunch in the sun. Thank you to Miss Reid for organis-ing the excursion and to the other hard working Kindergarten teachers for making it so much fun for all!

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

ICAS SCIENCE COMPETITION RESULTS The results from the 2018 ICAS Science Competition have arrived with many outstanding results from the students who par-ticipated. The competition was open to students in Year 3-6. This year, of the 111 students who participated, 28 students re-ceived High Distinctions, 39 students were awarded distinctions, 25 were awarded credits, 7 were awarded merit certificates and 12 were awarded participation certificates. This is an excellent result! Well done to all the students who participated in this year’s Science competition. HIGH DISTINCTIONS: YEAR 4 – Nancy Chen, Echo Xu, Vicky Yan YEAR 5 – Brendan Boomla, George Chen, Gina Chen, Joyce Chen, Joshua Hong, Eamon Jia, Jonathan Jin, Anthony Law, Oscar Li, Wayne Prout, Lisa Song, Inesh Upadhyay, Andrew Wang, Mya Wu YEAR 6 – Joanna Huang, Ethan Kang, Sarah Leeken, Polly Liu, Aaron Mendes-Shineberg, Jonathan Pan, Ryan Qi, Sanjay Sureshkumar, Trevin Thasanthan, Daniel Toole, Jason Yan DISTINCTIONS: YEAR 3 – Jennifer Nie, Marc Zhou YEAR 4 – Emma Xue YEAR 5 – Nikil Andepalli, Krisha Batra, Janice Chang, Ivy Chen, Mark Chi, Isabella Choi, Leah Choi, Karthikeyan Kuma-ran, Jamie Lee, Katy Lee, Kevin Lee, Justin Liu, David Lu, Raymond Wang, Stanley Wu, Mikayla Young YEAR 6 – Catherine Ahn, Kevin Chen, Victor Fu, Annie Guo, Ada Hu, Florence Ip, Varun Irani, Scarlett Jang, Jeff Jiang, Sally Kang, Chelsea Kim, Priscilla Leung, Emily Lin, Mylen Manivasahan, Chloe Nguyen, Jordan Raffoul, Charlie Wei, James Xue, Bryan Yu, Maggie Yu CREDITS: YEAR 3 – Su Chen, Nicole Griffin, Oliver Jin, Zhiyi Lei, Carson Li, Leah Lim, Melanie Wang, Elle Wei, Jessica Zhang YEAR 4 – Benson Carungay, Emily Chau, Faith Irani, Bethany Kartawidjaja, Daniel Noh, Anrui Zhu YEAR 5 – Ruihao Cai, Emily Chen, Ruth Jilesh, Tayla Ryan, Joshua Truong, Michael Zhao, Matthew Zhong YEAR 6 – Adrian Chau, Sowon Lee, Mia Rossetto MERITS: YEAR 3 – Benjamin Coulon, Addyson Ryan, Leigh Tan, Gerald Wang YEAR 4 – Matilda Heagney, Reuben Sutton YEAR 5 – Daniel Lee

P&C Report

Welcome back to another term, hopefully everyone had a safe and enjoyable break but are no doubt happy to have the kids back at school! This term will be busy from a P&C point of view. In just over 4 weeks we have the NRPS fete…. a day that brings the community together in a great event. These days do not run themselves and volunteers are always needed on the lead up to and on the day. If you haven’t volunteered and are willing, make yourself known and send an email to nrpsfete@gmail.com. Make sure you give the NRPS fete Facebook page a like and follow as well (https://www.facebook.com/NRPSfete/) to keep up to date. The first NRPS Dad’s event was held on the last Friday night of last term. It was a casual get together at the Hillside Hotel and around 15 dads had a fun night out. I will look to organise another Dad’s event later in the year so keep a look out! John Bolwell

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

6M: Growth Mindset Escape Room.

I had the pleasure of being invited into 6M’s classroom this week. 6M students were already in their groups and were eagerly awaiting instructions for their ‘Escape Room’ lesson. I am sure some families are familiar with the very popular Escape room venues that offer a variety of problem-solving challenges to answer a riddle set in an authentically decorated, themed setting. 6M students needed to ‘Escape their Fixed Mindset!’ They were given a variety of collaborative tasks to solve. All tasks were focused on the central theme of developing a growth mindset. Once one task was completed each group received a hint as to the location of the next growth mindset task. A group representative then needed to find the problem solving question. I saw a class of students that were enthusiastically engaged; I saw deep discussion on the benefits and value of a growth mind-set; I saw a class of happy, sharing students. Congratulations to both the students and teachers of 6M. I look forward to having many more visits soon.

A Fixed vs Growth Mindset.

Carol Dweck is one of the world's leading researchers in the field of motivation and is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Her research has focused on why people succeed and how to foster success. Students with a fixed mindset see their intelligence as a fixed state. This may relate to how they see themselves as a learner across all subject areas or it may be a specific subject. For example, “I’m not very good at Maths, I just do my best”, may be something you have heard your child say from time to time. Students with this mindset may avoid chal-lenges, preferring to stick with what they know how to do and give up easily when they see their effort as a waste of their time. Students with more of a growth mindset understand that their intelligence is developing all the time and they need to focus on their learning as a journey, where they are encouraged to take risks and understand that failure is an oppor-tunity to learn. If a usual strategy doesn’t work for these students they will try a different approach as they strive to improve. Most of us have both a fixed and a growth mindset at the same time, transitioning from one to the other. However, the

research does show that a student with a growth mindset will outperform their fixed mindset classmate as they see suc-cesses and failures as learning opportunities towards mastery.

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

Lee Shipley Deputy Principal

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

The Rocks Report At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

The Rocks Report

At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

The Rocks Report

At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

The Rocks Report

At NRPS we value RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, HONESTY

COMMUNITY USERS Community groups using our premises include the following activities:

Art Classes— Jen Burns 0488 446 657

Goshin Khan Karate—Thurs 6.30 - redentorleano@gmail.com

GKR Karate Wed 6.30 & Sat 10.30am—mlendrum@gkrkarate.com

Key Martial Arts - Wed 3pm (rear hall) Thur 12.45 – 1.30pm VIP Music – 9411 3122

Dance - various - admin@dldstudios.com.au

Table Tennis - Wednesday mornings 8am—Paul Zhao - 0411 205 398