G. Walker...Our school Vision Girraween P.S. will create 21st century learners through innovative,...

Our school Vision Girraween P.S. will create 21st century learners through innovative, culturally sensitive teaching practice with

a focus on project based learning.

GIRRAWEEN PUBLIC SCHOOL

Principal: Mr. G Walker 9 Bando Road

Phone: 9631 3650 GIRRAWEEN NSW 2145

30th October 2014

Disco – Thursday, Years 1-2 4.00 -5.30, Years 5-6 6.00-7.30 2015 Kindergarten Orientation 11th & 12th November

This week we held a combined scripture event to mark the celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of

light. I hope all our Hindu families enjoyed the celebration of Diwali last week. The combined scripture

session this week will deepen the understanding of Diwali across our whole school community.

To prepare for continued increases in our school enrolment, classes have begun to relocate rooms. The

plan for our classroom allocation will require most classes moving rooms over the next few weeks. The

class teacher will remain with their students unchanged for the rest of the year, only the room locations

will change.

Life Education classes continue for the rest of the month. Our students are learning about healthy life

choices and the benefits of making positive choices to maintain healthy relationships and a healthy

body. Harold, the Life Education giraffe mascot has been involved in all lessons and will be attending

our school discos this week. Apparently he is a good dancer!

Last week’s Games-a-thon was a very active and enjoyable day for all students and staff. Thank you to

all those families who have supported the sponsorship fundraising. All students returning money will be

included in a raffle as well as prizes for those returning $10.00 or more. All money raised will go towards

classroom resources.

In this newsletter we recognise those students who have contributed to our school’s excellent results in

the ICAS Mathematics Competition. Our results are outstanding and continue to demonstrate the high

standard of programs offered at our school as well as the contribution teachers and parents are making

to the development of students at Girraween P.S. Congratulations to all our students who received

awards and participated in the competition.

The warmer weather is with us now. Please remember that school hats are part of our uniform and stu-

dents should wear a school hat every day.

Enjoy the weekend everyone.

G. Walker

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

5th November Keyboard recital, 5.00pm hall 11th & 12th November Kindergarten Orientation 12 November P&C meeting, 7.30pm library 13 November Parent information session on students moving from Yr 2 to Yr 3



ICAS MATHEMATICS COMPETITION

Recently we had 268 students from Years 3-6 sit the ICAS Mathematics Competition. Of those students who sat the competition, 8 received a High Distinction, 63 received a Distinction, 92 received a Credit, 19 received a Merit and we had 86 receiving a Participation Cer-tificate. Well done students.

Year 3 High Distinctions: Tarunesh Srikrishna, Vinujan Sivachchelvan

Year 4 High Distinctions: Harini Palanivel, Khushi Bangur

Year 5 High Distinction: Dhruv Shah

Year 6 High Distinctions: Hannabeth Marchant, Siranjeev Suresh Balan, Arthiga Vickneswaran

Year 3 Distinctions: Ananya Todkar, Ragav Subramaniam, Arishan Shan-kar, Anne Sebastian, Pranav Sam-path, Saransh Rastogi, Rohan Raj, Naveen Premkumar, Ashmeet Kaur, Parth Kalyani, Edward Hu, Aaliya Garg, Mannan Zaveri, Het Patel, Kishan Kanthasamy, Aishwari Ed-ward, Himadri Pandey, Riya Jani, Absent: Shanmathuran Kumaran



Year 4 Distinctions: Raveen Jayalath, Linda Wu, Thaurn Yogenthra, Sanjey Thevarajah, A Thavarajasingham, Shahana Sarvananda, Abinesh Ravichandran, Siay Pujair, Smaran Pillai, Maya Nair, Anoosha Mohanaraj, Sidarth Menon, Aritra Kundu, Amitabh Kumar, Ronit Kulkarni, Tharshan Indrakumar, Arroon Ilango, Dhruvi Budhbhatti, Aditi Bhave, Sharanya Adaikalavan, Absent: Aditya Godbole

Year 5 Distinctions: Mahika Arora, Dimpi Garnepudi, Pratham Bhatt, Archanaa Ka-nanathan, Meshwa Patel, Aarathe Ramraj, Abarna Sathasivan, Harrish Sasi-karan, Absent: Nathan Lai

Year 6 Distinctions: Chowdary Kondeypati, Thanuskan Indrakumar, Aarini Puvichandran, Sahithyah Baskaran, Keshavi Anphlahan, Abiishek Mohanaraj, Minol Jayalath, Aishani Ravichandran, John Boby, Praveen Premku-mar, Shruti Mohite, Swetha Adaikalavan, Melanie Liyanage



Value of the Month: Cooperation

Working together to achieve common goals, proving support to others, and engaging in peaceful resolu-tion of conflict: In School Communities, evidence of this value includes:

working together to plan a school function addressing issues through consultation and negotiation initiating change by involving consultation with and the representation of all stakeholders working together to address a school issue.

In Classrooms, evidence of this value includes:

accepting class protocols for group work and working with others working well with others outside immediate friendships initiating problem solving identify issues and possible solutions to help resolve conflict.

P&C NEWS

Volunteers Needed

The P&C are looking for 2 volunteers to co-ordinate our school banking program. The position would be 1/2 day per week. This would include collecting the money from the students and entering data. If you are interested, please leave your name and contact details at the office. P&C are also seeking some volunteers to assist with morning tea for our Kindergarten Orientation on 11th and 12th November. If you have some time to help out, please leave your name at the office. Thank you

Friendly Debate

On the 27th October 2014, Swetha, Abi, Usha and Archanaa went to West-

mead Public School to take part in this year’s last friendly debate. The debate

topic was newspapers are a thing of the past; we supported the negative

side, conveying our opinion of this interesting topic. We competed against

Greystanes Public School whose main points were that newspapers are cost-

ly and are detrimental to our environment. Our two main points were the relevance of newspapers in to-

day’s society and the changing needs of readers in the 21st century. Both teams presented strong argu-

ments. To end this amazing experience we were given free cookies and

drinks.

Swetha, Usha, Abi, Archanaa



Silkworms by 1W So you think you know your silkworm information?

Try our Quiz…

True or False? 1. Silkworms are white worms that wriggle. 2. Silkworms turn into butterflies. 3. They lay dark coloured eggs. 4. Mulberry leaves are their favourite leaf to

eat. 5. Other silkworms help to form the cocoon. 6. Cocoons are made from silk. 7. A silkworm helps to make a sari. 8. Pink silkworms make pink silk. 9. Silkworms eat porridge. 10. All silkworm moths lay eggs.

Answers are on the next page

Here is Joan our K-2 Assembly mascot looking after our silkworms.

We are still waiting for our silkworms to change as we have only had them in our class for one week now. We love watching them move, eat, tumble over each oth-er and sleep.

HELP!

If you have mulberry leaves at home could you please bring them in and give them to any of the Year 1 or 2 teach-ers. We don’t need the fruit only the

leaves. Thank you!



Silkworms by 1W True or False Answers:

1. False- Silkworms are not worms; they are larva similar to caterpillars. Some silkworms have black and white stripes.

2. False- Caterpillars turn into butterflies. Silkworms turn into moths. 3. False- Eggs are white when first laid. They turn a darker colour when they are ready to hatch. 4. False- Silkworms don’t have favourite leaves. They only eat Mulberry leaves. 5. False- A silkworm does all the work by itself. The silk that forms the cocoon comes from inside the

silkworm’s body. They will work hard to wrap themselves inside the cocoon. A silkworm inside the cocoon is called a pupa.

6. True- Yes the silk cocoon will become the silkworm’s safe place while it develops into a moth. The

cocoon is one long and strong strand of silk. 7. True- A sari is made from the silk of a silkworm’s cocoon. 8. False- Pink coloured silk is colour dyed by the manufacturers. However, scientists have been able to

harvest brightly coloured silk by feeding silkworms a mulberry mixture containing a fluorescent dye.

9. True- Yes but this usually only happens when they’re kept in classrooms and there are not many

Mulberry trees nearby. The mulberry porridge is made from the mulberry leaves and will help the silkworms to grow, shed their skins and build their cocoons.

10. False- Only female moths will lay eggs.

Here are some of our favourite clips on Silkworms life cycle, eating and spinning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8A2sn4Uzfo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtHjDRVRM_Y

Challenge: Can you draw the life cycle of a silkworm?

Send your work to 1W, with your name and class on the back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8A2sn4Uzfo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtHjDRVRM_Y



LIMITED VACANCIES!

Preschool is a necessary stepping-stone to ‘big school’ and an important stage in a child’s devel-opment. At First Academy Preschool Childcare, we pride ourselves on providing a safe and nur-turing environment in order for your child to reach their full potential. Our centre caters for children from 0- 6 years of age, operating between 7:00 am and 6:00 pm and offering: Quality supervised, learning and develop-

ment programs integrated with play time School readiness and transition programs

for preschool children Fun and enriching activities All meals, including hot lunches, fruit and

milk For enrolments or any enquiries, please call 9863 2361 or visit the centre at 35 Carinya Rd. Gir-

raween and meet our qualified and friendly staff. First Academy Preschool Childcare

The Kids Paradise.

http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/

Keep brains ticking

If your child is working on a personal project or a school assignment or you want to do a little revision, don’t for-get www.SchoolAtoZ.com.au has lots of information and fact sheets to help with homework. For students polishing their spelling skills, the free Spelling Bee mobile app also allows them to record a list of their own words and then test themselves. You might even want to challenge them with a list you create. Here’s where you’ll find the free app to download: http://bit.ly/Q9ez0G



http://www.SchoolAtoZ.com.au

http://bit.ly/Q9ez0G



Oh so serious When Malcolm Dix found himself taking life too quickly and too seriously, he decided to take a dose of his own medicine. Everywhere I go I hear from parents that they are too busy, too stressed, and have too much to do and not enough time. Many social observers say parents seeing themselves as ‘time poor’ is at epidemic levels, a belief that is only compounded by technology that enables us to be connected 24/7. At one point I personally had to take some time to stop and honestly reflect upon my own life and that of my family. It didn’t take long for me to see that I too had become caught up in the ‘busyness’ of life. I knew that for the sake of my kids and my family, I had to make a change but it requires a day-in day-out conscious level of commitment – a commitment to practise joy, fun, patience, forgiveness, silliness, bad dancing and reflection. Currently I’m doing seven things to calm my life down and that of my family while trying to create more space for my chil-dren to simply enjoy their childhood. (Some of the following I’m sure you already do but it’s taken me a while to figure them out). My strategies to slow down and not be so busy are as follows: 1. Eat together as a family at the table at least four nights a week There has been more and more written about the importance of families eating together and the positive effect it has

on children and adults alike. I have to say I’m enjoying it.

2. Avoid watching the nightly news I’ve stopped watching the news and to my surprise the sky never collapsed as I had feared. I’m a much happier man

not watching the oh-so-depressing’ news.

3. Turn off the TV and sit around an open fire I’ve constructed a simple fire pit in our inner-city backyard and every second weekend my partner, the kids and I toast

marshmallows, listen to funny songs, talk and look up at the stars. Who needs to go camping to enjoy the outdoors! My eldest boy (13 years old) is also learning to set a fire and his younger brothers are learning a lot about flames, hot coals and what happens to marshmallows when they are left in the fire for too long. Meanwhile my 16-year-old daugh-ter will stare at the flames for an hour thinking about who knows what … but for me this is better than seeing her star-ing at social media or watching mindless television.

4. Dance together I’ve made the conscious decision to start dancing in the kitchen with my kids at least three times a week. I can’t dance

to save myself, however I have three boys and if they are ever going to learn to dance and be comfortable with mov-ing their bodies, I suddenly realized I have to lead the way. This parenting caper sure can be humiliating at times, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

5. Exercise together I exercise with my kids at least four times a week, usually at the local park kicking the footy, throwing a frisbee, run-

ning with our dog and so on. I have realised that the best way to get them all moving is by moving myself too. 6. Explore nature together I’ve started spending more time in nature with my kids by taking them to the river, the hills, lakes, nature parks. I keep

it local, with the occasional longer drive on weekends. I contacted my local council and found so many fun things to do as a family in my local area that I never knew existed … who would have think it!

7. Limit your own social networking

I have severely reduced my time spent on social media such as Facebook, Twitter etc. My personality type could dis-appear into social media and never come back so I knew I had to significantly change my ways and, once again, it’s all about positive role modelling for my kids.

So there you have it, my strategies for simplifying and calming my family life.

As a result I’m happier, less stressed and far more ‘present’ for everyone which, in turn, is having a positive effect on my kids.



Girraween Public School Bando Road, Girraween, NSW, 2145.

9631 3650 - 9631 9632 (Ph); 9896 3392 (Fax); [email protected]

30.10.2014

Expression of Interest: Community Language Teacher – Hindi, Temporary 2015.

Expressions of interest are invited from teachers with accreditation to teach in NSW Department of Educa-tion and Communities schools, for a temporary community language – Hindi position in 2015. Specialist teachers of community languages are appointed to schools additional to normal staffing estab-lishment. Specialist community language teachers have the same status and working conditions as any other teacher. They are required to fulfil the same duties as other teaching personnel, i.e. • submit a teaching program and daybook when required • prepare a timetable • participate in playground duty rosters • participate in staff and grade meetings • participate in assemblies and sport activities • report on student learning outcomes. The teacher appointed to these positions will be engaged in teaching the community language classes within the organisational patterns appropriate to the school. Community language teachers seeking permanent status must be approved by the Department of Educa-tion and Communities and have successfully undertaken a language fluency test in the community lan-guage. These language fluency tests will be arranged by the School Staffing Unit, in conjunction with the University of New South Wales Institute of Languages (UNSWIL). Suitably qualified and interested applicants should send an application stating qualifications, including the required approval to teach in NSW Department of Education and Communities primary schools and expe-rience to; The Principal Mr G. Walker Girraween Public School 9 Bando Road Girraween NSW 2145 Email; [email protected] Applications close; 4.00pm 7 November, 2014.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



Phone: 1800 460 870

G. Walker...Our school Vision Girraween P.S. will create 21st century learners through innovative,...

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