Filter Content
Dear parents and carers,
It’s been great to have our students back in classrooms and settling into the school year. I know all our teachers are looking forward to a successful 2024 and are excited to work with you to make this a memorable year for your child.
The evidence is clear that consistent attendance is the essential first step for your child to have a positive experience at school.
Every day matters for your child’s learning. In recent years we’ve seen too many students miss a day of school here and there. Missing school for students means missing assignments, time with friends, an important maths lesson or getting picked for a sports team. With days missed, years are lost.
Students are required to attend school every day, whether it’s the first or last day of the term, Mondays, Fridays or days dedicated to sports carnivals, school excursions and incursions.
Help us make sure your child is achieving their best and stays ahead in their learning with regular school attendance. The more time your child attends school, the greater their opportunity to learn, make new friends and improve their wellbeing. Together, let’s build positive attendance habits for a lifetime.
If your child is absent from school, please let us know why as soon as possible, even if it’s just a few minutes at the start or end of the school day. Of course, there will be times when your child is unable to be at school (like when they are unwell). Medical appointments should take place outside school hours where possible and family holidays should be taken in term breaks.
If your child is feeling anxious about coming to school and you need support, please reach out to your child’s teacher or me directly. Our staff are here to work with you and your child to help them attend school each and every day. There are also helpful resources for parents and carers on the Every Day Matters website.
Thank you again for working with our teachers and support staff to make sure your child is at school, on time, every day. We all want to see our students learn, grow and belong in our equitable and outstanding education system.
Yours sincerely,
Justine Miller
On Tuesday 27th February, we will be hosting a Meet the Teacher afternoon. There will be four teacher presentations in the hall which we encourage parents to attend in order to gain a better understanding of their child's routines and programs for 2024.
- 3:30pm– Kindergarten
- 4:00pm– Stage 1 (Years 1 & 2)
- 4:30pm– Stage 2 (Years 3 & 4)
- 5:00pm– Stage 3 (Years 5 & 6)
- 5:30-6:15pm– Year 6 High School Enrolment Information Session
Following the presentation, families are welcome to enjoy a free sausage sizzle and a small drink. Please use the link below to order sausages and drinks for your family. We will have beef, chicken and vegetarian sausages available. Please only submit one order per family. There is a maximum of one sausage and drink per person. All sausages will be Halal.
Go to https://forms.gle/WxYABaUveNsXNJCYA to order your family’s sausages
ORDERS WILL CLOSE TONIGHT (Wednesday 21st Feb)!! No late orders will be accepted.
On Monday 26th February, your eldest PEPS child will receive tokens from their teacher which can be used to redeem your order at the BBQ. It is important that these are brought with you on Tuesday 27th February.
For families who are unable to attend, we will make the information handouts and slideshows available later in the week.
We look forward to meeting you!
Each year the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is undertaken by students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Students will participate in tests for writing, reading, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy.
The dates of our NAPLAN assessments are as follows, any changes to these times will be communicated to relevant parents.
Wednesday 13th March
9:30am - Year 3 and Year 5 Writing
11:30am - Year 3 and Year 5 Reading
Monday 18th March
9:30am - Year 3 and Year 5 Conventions of Language
11:30am - Year 3 and Year 5 Numeracy
Please ensure your child is at school on time on the days of their NAPLAN assessments. Any students who are late or absent on the day of the assessment will be able to complete the assessment on an alternative day before the close of the NAPLAN window on Monday 25th March (with the exception of Year 3 writing which must be completed before Monday 18th March).
NAPLAN is just one part of our school learning assessment program. The tests assess literacy and numeracy skills your child is already learning at school.
In preparation for NAPLAN, our school will undertake activities to help students become familiar with the format and functionality of the online tests. These activities are not an assessment of student ability and will not be marked. Excessive preparation for NAPLAN is not required nor recommended.
The public demonstration site (https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/public-demonstration-site) is available to see the types of questions, tools and functions used in the NAPLAN tests.
Further information about NAPLAN is available on the NESA website (https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/understanding-the-curriculum/naplan/parent-information).
If you have any questions about NAPLAN, please contact the school via email or phone.
Thankyou to all the eager parents who have registered for the PATCH program. We will begin next Friday at 9:30am. If you could come and sign in at the office and wait for Mrs Kraljevic outside the front office, she will collect you . Patch sessions will run from 9:30am to 11am each Friday for 5 weeks. Please remember there are to be no children in attendance.
Mrs Kraljevic
After last year's incredible fundraising efforts, we are delighted to announce that our new kitchen cart has arrived. Mrs Kovac can't wait to get started with our students creating delicious dishes from our kitchen garden. We'll provide more updates once we've started harvesting and cooking!
On Thursday the 8th of February, we had our combined swimming carnival with Bayanami and Parramatta North Public School at Epping Aquatic Centre. It was a wonderful day for swimming as it wasn't too hot or too cold! The first stroke to be swam was freestyle, starting off with the 8 year old boys and finishing with the 12 year old girls. Students had to remember to come up for air to breathe! It was followed by breaststroke, backstroke and finally butterfly. Once the 50m races were complete, it was time to move on to the 100m freestyle which we thought would be easy as it was only two laps but, it turns out, it was actually tiring! Our carnival finished with the longest race, the melody, where you have to swim each stroke without stopping. It was nice to see students from our school make some new friends with students from our neighbouring schools. Everyone enjoyed cheering on their competitors and supporting their friends in their races. It was a great day and we can't wait to see who made it to the Zone Swimming Carnival.
Evelyn Zammit and Olivia Hawley
1 Gudugulung have been busy bees learning about counting to 100 using skip counting. This week we have been using Number Jigsaws to learn to count and how numbers work. We all started with the easy jigsaws and were very excited to put together the smaller pieces to create a hundreds chart.
3 Dingoo have had a terrific start to the year. At the beginning of the term, the students had fun playing Elf Express, where they had to work cooperatively in a group to complete a task. To be successful, they had to cooperate, communicate effectively and needed to work as a team. “Working together is success.”
In English, we are studying characterisation and exploring characters in Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox. In art lessons, students are learning the fundamentals of shape language in designing characters. Throughout this term, we will examine examples of existing characters and how shape selection is influenced by the personality of a character. Last week, 3 Dingoo enjoyed creating interesting characters by incorporating circles.
5 Goolagong have started Maths this year focusing on representing large numbers, including decimals to apply place value. Not only are we working mathematically to solve a range of problems, we are also playing different and fun maths games. Most of the games involve versing an opponent to make quick mathematical decisions with the aim of ‘winning’. They are both challenging and enjoyable!
