ABOUT - Term 3 Week 6 - 29 August 2024

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

DIOCESAN ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

Congratulations Katie - Junior Girls Champion!

Congratulations to all of our athletes who competed at the Diocesan Athletics Carnival in Dubbo last Friday.  Special mention to Katie, who was named Junior Girls Champion and smashed the Junior Girls Discus record - well done Katie!  The following athletes will now go on to compete at the NSW Catholic Polding Athletics Championships to be held in Newcastle on Friday, 13 September:  Katie - 1st Junior Discus, 1st Junior Long Jump, 3rd 10 years 100m, 3rd Junior 200m, Layla - 2nd Junior Shot Put, Thomas - 1st Senior MC Discus, 1st Senior MC Shot Put.  Special mention also to our Junior Girls Relay team, comprising Hannah, Rose, Katie and Mary, who came 3rd.  Unfortunately only the 1st and 2nd placed relay teams proceed, but what an amazing effort by these girls.  Well done to all of our talented athletes!

BOOK WEEK - INFANTS DRESS UP DAY

Thank you to all the infants students and staff who participated so enthusiastically in dressing up and parading for Book Week last Friday.  We had a fabulously fun-filled day.  Thank you also to all the families who attended the parade and prepared the costumes.  “There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island” - Walt Disney.

FATHER'S DAY STALL

Tomorrow, Friday, 30 August

Our Father’s Day Stall will be held tomorrow, Friday, 30 August. Thanks to all the families who have sent gifts in for the stall.  It would be great if we have enough gifts for the children to purchase 2 gifts each.  It's not too late to send in some gifts if you haven't already done so.  Please send a plastic bag with your child to take home their gifts.  Thank you to our stall coordinator, Bianca Williams, for organising the stall and all those who will be helping at the working bee this afternoon, wrapping gifts. 

If anyone can come in tomorrow to wrap last minute gifts and help run the stall, it would be greatly appreciated.  If you can help out, please head to the school hall around 9:00 a.m.

FATHER'S DAY RAFFLE

A raffle is being run in conjunction with the Father's Day Stall.  Tickets are $2.00 each and a book of five tickets was sent home with each family last week.  There are some amazing prizes up for grabs, as can be seen below.  Extra tickets are available to purchase from the school office. We thank the following local businesses for supporting our P&F Association:  Rohrs Home Timber & Hardware, Merton White Suffolk Stud, Collie Hotel, Three Rivers Machinery and Koda Cafe.  The raffle will be drawn at the conclusion of the Father's Day Stall tomorrow, Friday, 30 August, so please ensure your raffle tickets and money are returned to school by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.

FATHER'S DAY STALL WORKING BEE

A working bee will be held this afternoon from 3:30 p.m. to wrap and price gifts for the Father's Day Stall.  If you can help out for an hour or so, please head to the school hall.

NATIONAL CHILD PROTECTION WEEK

National Child Protection Week is coordinated by NAPCAN and commences this Sunday, 1 September and runs through to Saturday, 7 September. 

In 2024, the message that ‘Every child in every community needs a fair go’ will be complemented with the theme ‘Every Conversation Matters’.  Conversations are powerful tools to keep children and young people safe and well.  They can help us understand issues, craft solutions, value community knowledge, and build the brains and social connections of children and young people.

Conversations between:
…children and their caregivers matter (from the very earliest days)
…children and their peers matter
…families with teachers, doctors and other professionals matter
…friends or neighbours matter
…decision-makers and the communities they serve matter,

and, of course, conversations in the public realm and media matter…

So this National Child Protection Week you are invited to speak up – and speak together – about what needs to change for every child in every community to have a fair go.

LITTLE ATHLETICS NSW VISIT

Tomorrow, Friday, 30 August, a representative from Little Athletics NSW will be visiting our school to speak with the children about joining Little Athletics in the upcoming 2024 season, as well as involving the students in some great activities.

A flyer will be sent home with registration details for those wanting to join the Little Athletics Gilgandra club.

KINDER LITURGY

Kinder will celebrate a class Liturgy next Thursday, 5 September at 10:30 a.m. in St Joseph's Church.  Everyone is welcome to attend and parents are invited to join us at school for morning tea after the Liturgy.  Please bring a plate to share.

EXCURSION SNIPPETS

These are the last of our Years 5 and 6 'Snippets' from the Canberra/Snowy Excursion that was held earlier this term.  We hope you have all enjoyed reading about the students' amazing trip!

Australian Institute of Sport
At the A.I.S we met some young athletes who trained there full time. We went into the Sportex room where you could play fun interactive sport games like football, basketball, rowing, riding a bike and even virtual downhill skiing. We started our tour afterwards at the gym where we saw an athlete warming up and all the gymnastics equipment. Then we went to the volleyball room and we were told how someone shot the volleyball machine and broke the trophy cupboard! We then went to the weightlifting room and saw a team of basketballers lifting weights. Afterwards, we visited the swimming pool area and saw all the swimmers training. It was great fun seeing where so many of Australia’s finest athletes train. 
Thomas McIsaac, Kurt McBurnie, Harrison Newton, Oliver Peart

National Capital Exhibition
The National Capital Exhibition was so cool! We watched a video about how Canberra was created, designed our own city and looked at the giant diagram of Canberra. It was really interesting and fun. 
Jackson Towns, Mitchell Beaton, Chloe Heffer 

Canberra Reptile Park
On Friday we went to the Canberra Reptile Park. We first saw a lot of reptiles and also watched an entertaining show. The man who conducted the show was very funny and cracked a lot of good jokes! He showed us blue tongue lizards, a shingle back lizard, a crocodile and even a snake. After the show we went inside and saw a huge crocodile which we thought was fake - that was until he moved! There were also shingle backs, a ring-tailed possum and an albino blue tongue lizard which we got to touch. It was great getting up close to these amazing reptiles. 
Mitchell Cosier, Oli Chandler, Archie Valler, Akhiro Baker,  Bayley Dent

P&F WORKING BEE

The P&F Association will be holding a working bee at school on Sunday, 15 September from 2:00 p.m. to move all of the P&F gear into the newly built shed.  If you can assist, it would be greatly appreciated as many hands do make light work!  Just turn up on the day.

HEAR OUR HEART EAR BUS

Representatives from Hear Our Heart Ear Bus will be visiting the school during Week 9 on Wednesday, 18 September.  If you have any particular concerns regarding your child’s hearing, please let us know.

CANTEEN HELPER NEEDED

We still have a canteen shift to fill this term.  A helper is needed on Wednesday, 18 September.  If you can assist, please inform the ladies in the office ASAP. 

MORE COMMITTEE MEMBERS REQUIRED FOR ST JOSEPH'S DEBUTANTE BALL

As mentioned in last week's About, Bianca Williams has offered to take over the coordination of the St Joseph's Debutante Ball.  We are still in need of volunteers to join the committee and help Bianca organise and run the 2025 ball.  If you can assist, would you please contact the ladies in the office as soon as possible.

WE ARE STILL IN NEED OF A COW (OR PODDY CALF!) FOR THE FETE

We are still in need a quiet cow, or poddy calf, that can be led around the yard at this year's fete for the Cow Pat Lotto.  If anyone has a suitable cow, could you please let us know.

SRE FUNDRAISER - SUNDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER

"A Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Variety Concert" will be held on Sunday, 8 September from 2:00 p.m. in St Joseph's Church.  If anyone would like to participate in the concert, please contact Mrs Newstead. Thank you to those children who have already offered to perform.

St Ambrose Memorial Anglican Church Colouring Competition

All students were today given a colouring competition from St Ambrose Memorial Anglican Church.  Madeline Foran from the SAMAC restoration team spoke to the students regarding the the history and restoration of this wonderful building.  On the back of the colouring competition are some questions regarding the church.  If you have anything to contribute, please feel free to do so.  The completed colouring in sheets can be returned to school and will be collected by Madeline on Friday, 20 September.

POSITION VACANT: ASSISTED TRAVEL SUPPORT OFFICER

The Department of Education currently has a position to fill to assist with the transport of a student with additional needs to travel safely to and from school.  This position is for three days a week.

The Assisted School Travel Program (ASTP) plays a significant role in meeting the needs of eligible students with a disability by providing free specialised transport to and from school where parents and carers are unable to provide or arrange transport for the student either fully or in part.

Benefits & Perks:

• Work reduced hours, twice a day and time to pursue other interests in your free time.
• ‘Feel-good’ work opportunity while giving back to your local community.
• Providing support to the disability community and their families.
• Only work school terms and enjoy school holidays.

As an ATSO you will:

• Play a significant role in meeting the needs of eligible students with a disability by ensuring they get to school safely and ready to engage in learning.
• Work with the school, parents, contractors and drivers to provide a high level of supervision.
• Be provided training in Child Protection, Code of Conduct, Anaphylaxis, emergency care and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
• Be provided with individual training on the specific travel support needs of students on transport.

Further information on the role can be found at:

https://education.nsw.gov.au/public-schools/astp/atsos  

All successful applicants need to obtain a Working with Children Check, obtain the necessary proof of identity and complete the Expression of Interest form online.

HOW TO APPLY: The EOI and documents should be sent to ASTP at atso.astp@det.nsw.edu.au

MERIT AWARDS

Congratulations to the following students who received Merit Awards at Assembly on Tuesday: 

KINDER: Freyer Williams for fabulous work in Geography, Kyro McKenzie for super sounding out in Phonics Warm Ups, Evelyn Easman for lovely illustrations and great sentence work in our Literature unit and Harry Harvey for working hard in Phonics and Handwriting.

YEAR 1: Alfie Mudford for wonderful work in Grammar revision tasks, Flynn Weston for being a polite and friendly member of Year 1, Ally Wykes for consistently working well in Phonics and Esther Jijo for happily settling into our class.

YEAR 2: Charlie Budworth for working hard in Comprehension Groups, Samuel Luckie for using great strategies to solve tricky problems in Maths and Parthiv Rajesh Nair for being a whizz at mental computation.

YEAR 3: Aaron Robin for “Giving Of His Best” in our Grammar topic each week, Tom Mudford for a great effort with our zoo research project and Manu Binu and Meenakshi Binu for settling well into the Joey’s family. 

YEAR 4: Dusty Jordan for writing a fabulous diary entry from Quin’s perspective, Michael Vermeluen for working efficiently in Maths and Lleyton Lummis for a conscientious effort in all areas.

YEAR 5:  Mack Hutchison for fantastic work identifying the adverbial clause in sentences and Jakirah McKenzie for a fabulous postcard from the perspective of our main character, 'Jones'. 

YEAR 6: Lucy Zell for making a super effort towards her reading goal, Lucas Riley for improved time management skills when completing tasks independently, Jocelyn Altmann for consistently achieving 100% in her weekly Spelling test and Harrison Newton for using a variety of considered reasons why we should live in Gilgandra in his persuasive writing task. 

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

Congratulations one and all on our fantastic Book Week parade. Everyone looked amazing and a big thank you to our family and friends who organised our costumes and came along to support us.  In our classroom we have been busily preparing for our Liturgy next week whilst completing some special  Father’s Day treats. In Maths we investigated sharing a collection of objects into equal groups and discussed how we could record our findings. During Geography we worked on our Portfolio task ready for the end of term. We wrote some funny stories about a yak and enjoyed a variety of reading activities based on the picture book, “Meg’s Car" by Helen Nicoll. We had fun painting a colourful background for our crazy witches that we constructed out of different types of paper. We would like to wish all our Dads, Grandads and Pops a very Happy Fathers Day. Enjoy your weekend. 
Mrs Alison Newstead & Miss Lisa  Harvey

Year 1

In English this week Year 1 has been looking at the book, "Three". We studied the main character of the story and learnt about how the words and illustrations help to describe his personality. We also revised pronouns in Grammar and learnt about the ‘or’ sound in Phonics. We have been working hard on different activities during Reading Groups each day to improve our skills in areas such as comprehension. During Maths Year 1 has been doing a range of activities on addition and subtraction and creating equal number sentences. Year 1 is looking forward to having a special visitor from Little Athletics to lead us in some athletics activities tomorrow. We have also been busy creating some fabulous gifts and cards for our wonderful dads for Father’s Day! We hope all of our dads have a fantastic day on Sunday! 
Mrs Julia Jeffery & Mrs Prue Best

Year 2

It has been another busy week in Year 2. During Maths we completed many hands-on tasks and games where we combined groups to work on our 2, 5 and 10 times tables. We placed the photos of places we have been on our class map, thank you for sending them in. We have been to lots of amazing places! Our Spelling focus has been 'ell', 'ill' and 'all' words and we have placed our list words in alphabetical order, cracked the spelling code and placed the words in sentences. Everyone painted beautiful cats during art time and we look forward to sharing these with you in our portfolio. Our Literacy unit has focussed on the text, ‘Out’, which is a narrative about a little girl who is an asylum seeker. She and her mum made their way to Australia and started a brighter life together. We talked about the amazing paralympic athletes competing in France and we look forward to watching them over the weekend! Enjoy a relaxing weekend and we wish all the dads a very Happy Fathers Day! 
Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

This week we read Chapters 9 and 10 of "Rowan of Rin". We discussed the text to ensure the students' understanding. After reading Chapter 10 we highlighted  different parts that gave us more information about the character of Allun. We recorded words and phrases that described Allun on a concept map. We used these ideas to write an inner monologue for Allun in first person. We presented our monologue adjusting volume, pace and intonation to enhance meaning. In Maths we’ve spent the week identifying and comparing angles. We honed in on right angles in particular and used the term right angle to describe a quarter turn. During Religion we learnt about how saints are connonised. We hope everyone has a great weekend and a happy Father’s Day. 

Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Swade Wilson

Year 4

During Maths we have been learning how to create symmetrical patterns and shapes. This has involved us practising how to translate, rotate and reflect shapes. Yesterday we used these skills to transform quadrilaterals  into  a number of different shapes. Some proved to be very tricky! In Geography we are looking at biomes around the world and discussed the vegetation and animals that are found in each one. The children were surprised to discover that not all deserts are hot! We are over halfway through our novel and the children are still very engaged with the story. We are excited to read on and see what happens in Quin and Allie’s journey. We are wondering if Quin will return to his family on Elipsom or stay on Evantra where he can help others. Happy Father’s Day to all our wonderful Dads on Sunday. Have a great weekend! 
Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

It's been another great week here in Year 5. In Maths we are looking at 2D objects and the properties of these shapes. We did a classifying task and got to build the different types of triangles with paddle pop sticks. In our novel unit we completed a paired writing task from the perspective of August, one of the main characters. We wrote about how we can help Jones and distract her from what is going on. The paragraphs were very interesting and every student came up with some amazing ideas. During Art we started a new artwork inspired by Picasso’s blue period and also completed our Fathers Day gifts, which in my opinion, look amazing. We have started preparing our concert item and in the weeks to come we will spend more time perfecting our dances and script. Have a great weekend celebrating all dads.
Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 6

In Science we investigated which heat source was the most efficient for cooking popcorn: a frying pan, microwave or popcorn maker. After reviewing the results and sampling the popcorn, it was decided that the microwave was the most effective appliance. ‘Why should we recycle?’ is our topic in Text Types. We discussed opinion and emotion versus fact, researching three documented facts about the benefits of recycling so we could apply this to our arguments. Tomorrow we are look forwarding to having a visitor from Little Athletics. Year 6 students have been busy creating some fabulous gifts and cards for our wonderful dads and we look forward to the Father’s Day stall tomorrow. Have a great weekend and Happy Father’s Day to all of our dads on Sunday!
Mrs Meichelle Schier, Mrs Donna Colwell, Mrs Haylee Barry

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