www.kotarasth_p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

kotarasth_p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

(02) 4957 5319

150 Rae Crescent Kotara South 2289

Kotara South Public School

Newsletter A Great Place to Be!

6 March 2018 | Week 6 | Term 1

From the Principal Welcome to week 6 ! KSPS is working hard each day to make every learning moment count. We focus on learning experiences where children are able to co plan, co design and co evaluate their learning so as to build knowledge and skills for the future. This takes place in classrooms where future focussed spaces are flexible and meet the needs of the learner. Every teacher is explicitly teaching curriculum that is stage and age appropriate with adjustments made through differentiated learning experiences. KSPS has a strong three

year plan 2017-2020. Our strategic directions are: Quality Learners, Flexible Thinkers Quality Teacher, Innovative Practices Quality Teams, Collaborative Practices Hear more about our directions at the P & C meeting on Wednesday 14 March 7pm in the Library. All welcome. The AGM proceeds the meeting at 6.30pm. Please see the P & C section further on in the newsletter.

Attendance is a very important part of a successful student. Put simply, missing a day a week over the year, equates to almost a loss of term’s learning! If your child is away from school, please contact the school and explain your child’s absence. This can be done in a variety of ways: Skoolbag app, writing a note, emailing the school or calling the front office. Parents have 7 days to explain an absence, after this time it remains an unexplained absence. Please consider taking holidays with the least impact as possible on your child’s learning. All applications for leave must be made in writing to the Principal. This form can be obtained through he front office. For further information see: https://education.nsw.gov.au/student-wellbeing/media/documents/attendance-behaviour-engagement/attendance/attendance_parents.pdf PSSA Sport has a strong presence in our state, region, zone and school since early 1900s. Recently on assembly, I had the honour to present a PSSA Life Time Member medal to Mr Paul John. Mr John has given many years of service to the PSSA to ensure that all children have high quality equitable access to strong sporting pathways. Congratulations Mr John, we are super proud of you. School Photos are next Tuesday 13 March. Please hold envelopes at home and bring in on the day. If you would like your school children to have a school photo together, you can pick up a siblings order envelope from the front office. Payments can be made either online using The School Photographer website or cash inside the envelope. Please note we do not carry change at the front office. This Friday, KSPS kids will be participating in the annual Clean Up Australia Day activities. This important civic event teaches our students that it is each and every person’s job to keep our little part of Australia looking good. Gloves and plastic bags can be bought in on the day to help with the collection. Thanks to Ms Gibson and our Environment Ministers Grace Ryan an Tyson Edwards for coordinating this event.

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The term 1 disco is fast approaching. Please mark your diaries with the following information Wednesday 21 March. The Juniors (K-2) 5pm to 6pm, Seniors (year 3-6) 6pm-7:30pm. Entry $5. Theme to be decided at School Parliament this Thursday. P & C will be hosting a sausage sizzle with other food items available, you can pre-order food by clicking on the link in the P&C section further on in the newsletter. The Stage 2 Sleepover is this Thursday night at KSPS. All students in years 3 and 4 will be involved in fun opportunities to develop their independence, resilience and confidence in a familiar school setting. This sleepover builds experiences in preparation for our overnight excursion to Myuna Bay in term 4. Even though the annual KSPS Stage 2 Sleepover is only in it’s 2nd year, many fun tales from previous students build the excitement for all. I can’t wait to share this with Stage 2 children this Thursday night. The Parent Portal is coming… This portal is an online space utilising our school website platform that allows parents to check attendance, review their profile information and to receive their child’s reports. To access this service you will firstly needed an active email address. We will be launching the Parent Portal later this term. Please ensure you have a working email address so that you may access the portal when it is launched.

KSPS will be involved in the National Day Against Bullying on Friday 16 March. All students will be involved in learning about bullying and how to help someone if they are bullied. Together, we will wear orange on the day to show our support and raise awareness. Visit https://bullyingnoway.gov.au for further information.

As there are many events this term, please keep a close eye on our school website calendar for the latest information. This can be found at: http://www.kotarasth-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/calendar Looking forward to a huge week of learning so that we all make #KSPSagreatplacetobe. Sue Maxworthy PRINCIPAL

RIDING TO SCHOOL SAFELY IS IMPORTANT!

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School News YEAR 6 PARENTS - MOVING INTO SECONDARY SCHOOL IN 2019

All Year 6 students have brought home an Information Guide and Expression of Interest form this week about moving into Year 7 in a NSW Government School in 2019. The Expression of Interest form must be completed for your child to be enrolled at their local High School in 2019. The form needs to be returned to school on or before Friday 16 March, 2018. All forms have been sent home with details of your child’s designated local High School. If you are hoping to seek an ‘out of zone’ placement at Kotara High School, you will need to make contact with the High School to discuss your child’s enrolment. Please contact me if you have any problems or difficulties completing the form. Catherine Ward – Assistant Principal

STAR STRUCK DANCE AND CHOIR Last week we filmed our primary dance and choir auditions for Star Struck 2018. Thank you to our fabulous dancers and singers who gave up their lunch times to be a part of the audition process. We eagerly await news from Star Struck. Fingers crossed for a successful audition. Miss Martin and Ms Gibson – STAR STRUCK COORDINATORS CLEAN UP SCHOOL’S DAY A message to remind all students that clean up School's Day is this Friday 9 March. Make sure you bring a pair of gloves (preferably gardening gloves) as they will not be provided, although plastic bags will be! If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to speak to either of your environment ministers, Grace or Tyler in Year 6. Ms Gibson - Clean Up Day Co-ordinator

SAFETY ON WHEELS As part of a whole school approach to road safety education schools are encouraged to regularly share information with the whole school community about the importance of being a good road safety role model as a pedestrian, passenger, cyclist and driver. Recently, I have had reports of KSPS students riding down the middle of the road, not wearing helmets on bikes or scooters and generally being unsafe. These are very dangerous practices by students. To help keep our children safe, families are reminded about these key road safety points below. I encourage all parents to be discussing road rules with their children.

• Talk to your child about being a safe road user. Reinforce safe road behaviours by being a good role model! Children learn safe road behaviours from the adults who care for them. Talk about what you are doing to be safe when near roads, in the car and when riding.

• Point out road safety differences and dangers in new environments. This is especially important when on holidays in different surroundings. Roads, footpaths, parks, carparks, bike tracks and bike lanes may look different in holiday areas.

• Stop, look, listen, think every time you cross the road. If your child is aged 8 years or younger hold their hand when walking near or across roads. If your child is 9-10 years old always actively supervise them.

• It’s the law that everyone wears a helmet when riding a bike in a public place. It makes sense to wear a helmet when riding scooters and skateboards too!

• Click clack front ‘n back every person for every trip. Everyone in the car must be securely buckled up in the right seatbelt or child restraint.

• Click on the link below to watch an animated video on bike and road safety. http://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/stayingsafe/bicycle-riders/index.html Sue Maxworthy Principal

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Canteen Hello from the canteen for another awesome week. A massive thankyou to everyone for your ongoing support here in the canteen. We would not be able to achieve this level of commitment without you. Please ensure to check you child’s lunch order has the correct class on the bag as this saves a lot of confusion when preparing lunches. Please note the following price changes: Ice Monys $1.00 Chicken Chippies 6pkt $2.50 Chicken Nuggets 5pkt $2.00 Also on the menu we have: Fresh Frozen Watermelon Wedges 50c each Grapes in a cup 50c Devondale Milk Poppers Banana flavour $2.00 Paddle Pops in assorted flavours: Banana, Chocolate, Rainbow and Bubblegum $1.00 each

Fiona Best – CANTEEN SUPERVISOR

Sweet Chilli Wrappin $5.00 Paddling Chippy $4.00 1 Sweet chilli chicken tender ,mayo and salad wrap 1 pkt Cookies 1 Bulla Frozen Custard Ice Block

6 Chicken Chippies 1 pkt JJs 1 Paddle pop

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Assembly Awards

WEEK KO’R Sophia

Alani Jed

2C Reed Sonny Molly

5/6E Cooper Harry Chase

K/1P Maverick Gemma Isabella

2J Elsie Flynn Brayden

5/6P Amber Kiera Bryson

KG/R Cooper Ivy Marcus

3/4F Yulanda Jackson Eloise

5/6W Lucinda Layne Nate

1G Joe Zahli Chloe

3/4W Lucas Matilda Matthew

HSUB Bailey Deacon

1M Matthew Lucy Bowie

3/4G Matthew Clara Holly

Important Dates This Week This Month This Term (2)

8 March Stage 2 Sleepover 9 March Clean up Australia Day

9 March Chess Tournament

12 Mar Hallogen Leadership 13 Mar School Photos 14 Mar P&C Meeting (AGM) 16 Mar Bullying. NO Way!

21 Mar Disco Junior 5-6pm 21 Mar Disco Senior 6-7.30pm 23 Mar Cross Country 29 Mar Easter Hat Parade 30 Mar Good Friday

2 Apr Easter Monday 11 Apr P&C Meeting 13 Apr ANZAC Assembly 13 Apr Last day of Term

For more details and events visit http://www.kotarasth-

p.schools.nsw.edu.au/calendar.

MERIT AWARDS

Gold No recipients

Silver No recipients

Bronze No recipients

EXECUTIVE AWARDS

Noah H Amber S

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P&C Association

P&C DAY – WEDNESDAY 7 MARCH 2018 P&C Day is a day for P&C Associations to celebrate and acknowledge the efforts of those hardworking volunteers and members, who work tirelessly year after year to support their public school and students.

I would like to acknowledge and extend a big THANK YOU to all our hardworking P&C members past and present.

Your commitment to KSPS is undoubtedly second to none, nothing is too big or too small for the committee to help out with. KSPS children would not have the extra resources or play areas or covered areas, canteen, etc, etc, etc, if it was not for the KSPS P&C – THANK YOU.

P&C AGM – WEDNESDAY 14 MARCH 2018 @ 6:30PM Our annual AGM meeting will be held on Wednesday 14 March 2018 at 6.30pm in the school library. Positions are all open. If you wish to nominate for a position, please complete the attached Nomination form and hand it into the office.

If you are interested in taking on any of these roles, please contact our P&C Executives via email at kspspandc@gmail.com. We have a very supportive group that will work with you.

P&C UP AND COMING EVENTS Our P&C will be running several events over the next month and will really be relying on help from KSPS parents. If you are able to volunteer your time and/or some Easter Eggs for these events, we would really appreciate it. For this term, we have organised:

Disco Canteen – Wednesday 21 March 2018 – 5 pm until 7:30 pm. The P&C run the canteen whilst the disco is on for the infant and primary students. This term we are also going to run a sausage sizzle to add a more substantial food option. We are also limiting the purchase of soft drinks to the primary time slot. Water will be available for purchase for both sessions. The sausage sizzle and limiting of soft drinks is a trial and we would love to hear your thoughts on this at the P&C meeting (or via email to kspspandc@gmail.com).

Please click here to pre-order your sausage sandwich. A very limited number of additional sausages sandwiches will be available for purchase on the night until sold out.

If you can help out at the disco, please click here to sign up.

Bunnings BBQ – Sunday 25 March 2018 – The P&C will be cooking and serving sausage sandwiches and drinks from 9am to 4pm. We are looking for helpers on the day. There are 4 spots available per shift. If you can help for an hour, please click here to sign up. Thank you to everyone who has already volunteered to help on the day. Half of the spots have been filled already!

Easter Raffle – Thursday 29 March 2018 - details below.

Athletics Carnival BBQ – Friday 6 April 2018 – The P&C will be running the BBQ and Canteen for the school’s athletics carnival at Nesbit Park. We will call for sausage sandwich and drink pre-orders in the next couple of weeks. There will also be sausage sandwiches available on the day. We will be looking for volunteers to help run the canteen (in between watching your child race/participate). More information will be provided about this event shortly.

MEGA EASTER RAFFLE The Mega Easter Raffle will be drawn at the Easter Hat Parade on Thursday 29th March. We will be sending home tickets in the next week with the eldest child. Tickets are $1 each and come in books of 10. It would be appreciated if any unsold tickets could be returned to the office. Those eager sellers can also obtain extra books from the office if needed.

We would greatly appreciate donations of Easter Eggs and other items to make the MEGA Easter Baskets. These can be handed into the school office from Monday 12th March. Thank you for your support.

Next Meeting: 14 March

6:30pm in the Library

kspspandc@gmail.com

Kotara South Public School P&C

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FRIDAY FUNDAY FETE – 26 OCTOBER 2018 Our Fete subcommittee met on Sunday to keep the ball rolling on the organisation of the fete. The P&C will be running the following stalls on the day:

Cake Stall 2nd Hand Book stall Showbag stall Sausage Sizzle Raffle

In the coming weeks we will be sending out information on the following:

Seeking corporate sponsorship

Obtaining prizes for the raffle

Seeking expressions of interest for KSPS parent business stalls

Hello and welcome to another Gardens and Grounds update.

Please note this year’s Volunteer Days in your diary. All Volunteer days start ay 9am and finish at around 11am.

There are four key projects we will be assisting the school with this year. They are:

The reflective Space/Bike Storage area between the canteen and the top oval Creating a garden space for our school OOSH Moving the Infant Tub Gardens to the OOSH gardens Enhancing the gardens at the Library.

We have a limited supply of tools and just ask that people bring a hat, gloves and water. If you have some hand tools you are welcome to bring them along, just make sure they are clearly marked with your name so they don’t get mixed up. You don’t need to be a P&C member to join in the fun just a willingness to be involved in an important part of the school’s environment. Your children are most welcome to come along as it is the students who will pass on the stories of the day to their friends and take ownership of the gardens and grounds just from being involved. Morning Tea is provided by the P&C.

I hope you will be able to join us on any or all of the Volunteer Days this year.

Matt Playdon – P&C GARDENS & GROUNDS COORDINATOR

mjplaydon@gmail.com

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