NNPS Newsletter

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Yesterday we had a visit from the St George Illawarra Dragons. Two o their player development officers accompanied two the Under 20 team to our school. One of the Under 20 players, Beau Henry, was the Dally M Under 20 player of the year. At the school assembly the players told our students of the values that the ST George Illawarra Club for all players. The values of respect and responsibility were two that the players emphasised. They explained how they show these values in their daily training with their teammates. These are two of the values that we are working to develop in our students through the Positive Behaviour for Success initiative that are implementing at our school.

Our PBS team is working very hard, at the moment, to make sure that we can begin full implementation of this strategy to improve behaviour and ensure that students experience success at school in 2010. We will be using one of the School Developments at the end of term to work with all staff so that we all have a common understanding of where we are heading in this area.

Coolendel Camp a Success

From all reports the Stage 2 camp to Coolendel was a great success last week. It seems we had many great campers who were able to stay dry on Wednesday and Thursday nights. This would have been great fun and a real learning experience for the campers.

One of the sponsors at the conference that I attended last week was the Department of Sport and Recreation Camping program. I spoke with these people and they made the point to me that they are having some difficulty filling their camps with school camps these days. I can remember when it was very difficult to get a booking for one of these camps. It seems that cost and preparedness of staff to take students on camp are influencing school ability to send students. We are very lucky at North Nowra that this is not a problem and that we have staff who camp. Be it locally or at MyunaBay, as an important part of the school’s program.

Thank you to Mr Hansen, Mrs O’Connor, Ms Ryder and our two students, Miss Penfold and Miss French for taking our students on camp and ensuring that our students had a great time.

Kindergarten Orientation

We will be beginning our Transition to School Program for Kindergarten 2010 tomorrow evening in the school Library at 7:00pm. This session is the initial session for parents and will be followed by two more sessions on Wednesday 18 and Wednesday 25 November. These two sessions will be held from 2:00pm. Tomorrow’s session will be focussed on the school’s programs and our expectations of Kindergarten. For those parents that haven’t had a child in kindergarten at all or for some time they will find there have been some significant changes to how kindergarten operates these days.

The two followup sessions will involve students, who will be in the kindergarten rooms with Mrs Dilley and Mrs George, and parents in the school hall where we will have a number of speakers who have important information for parents.

David Hogg

Principal .

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

This week is another very busy week at school. I will be in Sydney from the afternoon until Friday. I am attending the New South Wales Primary Principal’s Annual Conference. I am one of the two delegates from the Shellharbour Primary Principal’s Council, who has a vote on the issues raised in the business sessions. The Primary Principal’s Association is a key player in gaining benefits for students in our school. Many initiatives put forward from the Association have be implemented by the government. At the moment we are pursuing the government in respect to changes that have been mooted in relation to the school’s Support Teacher Role.

In my absence Mrs Lees and Miss Graham with replace me. If you have any issue that you would like clarified please contact them.

SASS Staff Recognition Week

At our school we are fortunate to have great support staff. Our support staff are responsible or the efficient running of our school front office. This is a very complex role that includes ensuring that the school accounts are in order, the phone calls that come in are directed to the right staff, ordering of essential supplies occurs, sick students are cared for and the list goes on. As ell we have a number of very caring School Student Learning Support Officers who work with students in classrooms. This is a most important role in ensuring those students with a special need are having this need met. Our General Assistant is well known to all for the great job he does with major and minor repairs as well maintaining our grounds to a high standard.

Without these people our school would not be a happy and effective learning environment that we experience.

Stage 2 Camp

On Wednesday our Stage 2 students will be attending camp at Coolendel. This is a very valuable educational and social experience for these students. They will have a great time whilst at Coolendel. They will lean much in the areas of environmental education and social interaction in a large group. I am aware that parents will be involved in preparing meals at the camp. I thank these parents for their support. Our teachers are once again giving freely of their time to make this camp happen. Thanks to them for once again for giving that extra yard that makes the difference for our students.

School Organisation 2010

We are beginning preliminary organisation for 2010 in the next few weeks. If you know that your child will not be at NorthNowraPublic School in 2010 could you please let us know of your intentions. You can do this by telephoning the school or sending a brief not to your child’s class teacher.

ShoalhavenRiver Learning Community

As many parents will be aware our school is a member of the Shoalhaven River Learning Community. This group of schools is comprised of all the schools in the Nowra area. The Community of Schools is planning for a launch in March 2010. Our school will be involved in a number of activities that will occur at the Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre and in the CBD of Nowra. The reasons that the learning community has been formed are to actively promote the benefits of public education and to work as a collaborative group to create effective programs to improve student outcomes.

It is envisaged that through the learning community we will be able to offer workshops, using the expertise of particular staff in our schools, across school in all Key Learning Areas. Another very positive area that the learning community will e working towards is a much more coordinated approach for Year 6 students to transition to high school. In time there will be many more initiatives implemented by the learning community.

David Hogg

Principal

.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Stage 3 students have returned to school after a fantastic week at the Myuna Bay Sport and Recreation Centre. They have had many enjoyable stories to tell about the great activities they learnt whilst at the camp. Of course one of the great things about camp is that each student is part of a lodge group and as such are part of a team. This situation is much different than being at home as there about seven other students who are all the same age in the group. The students learn to cooperate and live in a more shared environment as there are tasks to do such as keeping the lodge tidy and preparing and cleaning up the mess hall before and after meals.

Many students remember camp as the best thing they did at Primary School. On a personal note I still have students who talk to m about when I was involved in taking them to camp.

I am very appreciative of Mrs Fletcher, Mrs Brennan and Mr Williams for being prepared to spend a week away from home so that our students could enjoy this great experience. In recent times many schools have withdrawn from the camping program because of the amount of time that teachers are required to be away from their families. We are very fortunate that we have staff who always give that little bit extra to ensure that our students get the best experiences.

Thank Mrs Fletcher, Mrs Brenna and Mr Williams.

Mathematics Competition Results

The school has received the results of the University of New South Wales Mathematics Competition.Congratulations to Hamish Spencer of Year 4, Jordan Collins and Toni Mudditt both of Year 5 for achieving a Credit Award. Well done.

Money Collection at School

There are times when the school organises excursions that require that student pay to attend. When we organise these we usually give parents at least two week’s notice. This allows for parents to organise and allocate the money from the family budget if they wish their child to attend.

The school only handles money on Mondays and Fridays. All notes and money are to be placed in the silver box allocated for money collection found in the school foyer on these days. The reason that the school only handles money on these days is because the security banking service only collects from the school on these days. Money must be placed in the silver box as soon as your child arrives at school so that it can be counted, receipted and banked.

Note money is only counted and receipted on these days. If money is placed in the silver box on other days it stays there until Monday or Friday before it is counted. The school has no safe in which to store money and we are not allowed to keep more that $300 on the school premises at any one time.

If students try hand money to their teacher on a day other than Monday or Friday they will be asked to take it home and bring it back on the appropriate day. I know that this is less than ideal but we have no choice given that we cannot guarantee the security of the money if left on school.

David Hogg

Principal

This is placeholder text for your new blog entry. Replace it with your own.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

I hope that all parents and students have enjoyed the vacation and a ready for what will be a very busy term. This term is only nine weeks in length and there will be all of the normal end of year activities and tasks to be completed in this time. We will need to be very well organised so that there is no confusion as to when things are being held. I will make sure that I keep parents informed of all happenings at the school through this newsletter.

Sometimes parents, for a variety of reasons, don’t receive a hard copy of the newsletter. There two other ways that you can receive the newsletter. The first is by supplying the school with your email address and we will add you to the distribution list and you will receive the newsletter by email each week. The second method is to go to the school’s web page on the internet and you will find that it is published on this site. The web address for our site is www.northnowra-p.schools.nsw.edu.au.

Jasper Macey Successful

In the final newsletter last term we made mention that Jasper Macey was representing NorthNowraPublic School at the Victorian Schools Judo Tournament over the October weekend. It is great to report that Jasper achieved a silver medal in this event. Congratulations and well done Jasper.

Stage 3 Camp

This week our Stage 3 students are at Myuna Bay Sport and Recreation centre which is at LakeMacquarie near Newcastle. Mr Williams, Mrs Fletcher and Mrs Brennan are accompanying the students on what will be a very enjoyable week for them. The students will come back to school next week with many great stories ofabout the activities that they experienced and what a great time they had.

Jungle Book Excursion

On Friday students in K-4 have the opportunity of going to see the performance of the Jungle Book at the Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre. We have booked 120 seats for this performance. The first 120 students to return their note and money will be guaranteed a ticket.The cost of this activity is $14.50.

Important Dates for Term 4

Presentation Assembly Monday 14 December 11:30am

Year 6 Farewell Wednesday9 December

End of Year Reports go home to parents Monday 7 December

Thursday 17 and Friday 18 December School Development Days ( Pupil free days)

Please note that both the 17 and 18 December are student free days. This is new for 2009.

David Hogg

Principal

This is placeholder text for your new blog entry. Replace it with your own.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

This is the final newsletter for the term. What a busy term it has been with our students involved in such a wide variety of activities. All students have been provided with opportunities to experience extra curricula activities. The Southern Stars Spectacular, the Shoalhaven Public Schools Music Festival, the SpecialSwimmingSchool, the school Athletics Carnival, District and Regional Athletics and the Gymnastics Program are examples of these activities.

Next term our Stage 3 students will begin the term by going to Myuna Bay Sport and Recreation Centre and in Stage 2 will be going to Coolendel in week 4.

School Photos

The school photos have arrived and have been distributed to the students today. I am very happy with the quality of the photographs. If parents would like to give feedback about the photographs please contact me at school.

Ensemble Visit

Yesterday our students were treated to a wonderful performance from the South Coast Regional Public Schools Performing Ensemble. This group played, sang and danced to many popular tunes. There were over six hundred students who auditioned for this group thus ensuring that the performance was of a high quality. We are fortunate to have this group visit us each year. Mr Williams gives freely of his time to help coordinate this visit.

Trivia Night

The P&C organised and ran a very successful trivia night on Saturday night. We had over 100 people compete in the evening. The quiz master, Mr Lloyd, organised a very challenging and interesting group of questions. The questions were organised in to various categories that made the night all the more enjoyable. The P&C ran a number of auctions and games to help raise money. At this stage the final amount raised has not been determined but we anticipate this will be close to $4 000.

The business community of Nowra were very generous in their support of the night through their donation of many prizes. The school is grateful for this support and thanks those businesses that supported the event.

Good Luck

Good luck to one of our students, Jasper Macey, who will be representing NorthNowraSchool at the Victorian Judo Schools Tournament over the long weekend.

School Vacation

Friday will be the last day of Term 3. Students and staff will be on vacation until Friday 16 October. All students and staff will return to school on Monday 19 October. Please note that there is no school development day at the beginning of Term 4.

I wish all staff, students and parents a restful and enjoyable holiday.

David Hogg

Principal

This is placeholder text for your new blog entry. Replace it with your own.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

The term is fast drawing to a close. Our school though is still very busy. Over the next fortnight over 30 of our students will be going to the Bomaderry Aquatic Centre to learn to swim. This is a very important lifelong skill. Too many Australians drown each year because they are unable to swim. It is essential for all Australians to learn to swim if it is physically possible.

Music Festival

Our choir gave an outstanding performance last Wednesday Evening as part of the Shoalhaven Public Schools Music Festival. The audience of around 300 were treated to a night of excellent singing. Our School Education Director, John Hambly, has written to the school congratulating the students on their wonderful performance. Of course these opportunities for our students only occur because teachers and interested parents give of their time. A big thank you to Mrs Lees, who only arrived at the beginning of Term 2,and to Jodie Taunton who both gave of their time and expertise to ensure a quality performance.

Regional Athletics

Last Thursday we had a number of students compete at the South Coast Area Athletics Carnival at BeatonPark. Although we did not have anyone qualify for the state carnival Mr Lloyd has reported that all of our competitors gave of their best on the day.

Principal’s Reward

The reward for attaining a Blue Award this term will be a sausage sizzle to be held at lunchtime on Thursday. The sausage sizzle will include a drink and an ice cream as well as a few other goodies. Those students who have attained the Blue award will receive an invitation. If there are any students who feel that they are entitled o the reward and who don’t receive an invitation then they should see Mr Hogg.

English Competition Results

Congratulations to Cameron Musgrove who has attained a Credit award in the University of New South Wales English Competition.

David Hogg

Principal

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

What a wonderful performance by our students in Southern Stars. I was fortunate enough to be in the audience at the Wollongong Entertainment Centre last Friday evening. The show was fantastic and our students made a very positive contribution to the performance. Our dancers were easily recognisable as they entered the auditorium and performed with great skill. Our members of the massed choir supported many of the acts with their singing. This added to the whole spectacular.

Well done to these students who represented our school with great pride.

A big thank you to the staff of; Mrs Fletcher, Mrs Ryder, My Lloyd, Mrs Lewis and Mr Williams who all put in much of their time to ensure the success of the show and that the experience for our students was a positive one. I also thank parents for their support of the school and the students in participating in this great show.

Athletics Success

Our school competed in the Shoalhaven District Athletics Carnival at Ron Brown Field on Friday 28 August. A number of our athletes had a successful day and will now represent our district at the South Coast Area Athletics carnival to be held at BeatonPark, Wollongong, on Friday 18 September.

Those athletes to gain representation are: Adam Watson who will compete in high jump, long jump, 100m and the senior boys relay. Paddy Hutchinson will compete in the high jump, Bryce Mason will compete in the long and Sash Gibney will compete in the 100m. Blake Wakeling, Cameron Musgrove and Brady Blacker will be in our Senior Boys Relay team.

The school came 5th in the overall competition. Well done to all of our team. Good luck to those competitors that are going to the regional carnival.

Shoalhaven Schools Music Festival

Our school choir will be participating in this excellent evening of entertainment on Wednesday 16 September. The performance will take place a NowraHigh School beginning at 7:30pm. Mrs Lees and the choir have been working hard to ensure that we give a great performance. Our students will be part of a massed choir of about 220 students as well as performing a individual item. This show has been of the highest quality in past years and highlights the talents of students in our local public schools.

Tickets for the performance cost $6 and can be purchased from the school office.

David Hogg

Principal

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

The devastating news of a student at MullumbimbyHigh School being killed has brought much sadness to that community and the education community in general. Whilst at this stage there have been no firm conclusions made about the circumstances of his death, there is some evidence that the school culture did involve some violence and bullying.

At a time like this we reflect on our policies at NorthNowraPublic School and assess them in terms of the safety and well being of our students. Whilst we have had some incidents of violence, which have been dealt with according to school and Departmental Policy these are rare and not common place. I would like all parents to be aware that the school is a non violent zone. There is no reason that is acceptable for the use of violence against another student. We deal with incidents of violence by withdrawing the violent student from the playground, placing them in the BLC and suspension from school where the incident is extreme or unprovoked. Parents are involved where BLC and suspension are imposed.

In cases of bullying, which are infrequent in our school, counselling of the bullied student and the bully occurs. The BLC and suspension are used as a consequence of bullying. Parents are informed when BLC and suspension are used. The school has a bully register where incidents of bullying are recorded. The biggest problem with bullying is our understanding of what constitutes bullying. For bullying to occur there needs to be one person or a group of people exerting power of another.

Teasing is not necessarily bullying. It is not pleasant and not condoned by the school but unless it involves more than one student or an older more powerful student teasing a smaller weaker student it is not bullying. Fights where more than one student “pick on” another student is an example of bullying. The same can be said where an older or bigger student is violent towards a smaller younger student.

When a child is the victim of violence or bullying he / she should report this to a teacher. If the incident occurs in the playground then this should be the teacher on playground duty. When the incident occurs in class then the class teacher should be informed.

Where parents are concerned about a violent incident or bullying of a student they should contact the office and make an appointment to see the principal.

Southern Stars

This week our students involved in Southern Stars Dance and Choir will spend Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Wollongong rehearsing and performing. This is a great opportunity for these students to perform in front of a large audience in a world class arena. We have a number of teachers, who are committed to the Southern Stars concept, both as teachers involved directly and in the production crew that ensures a quality performance. Mrs Fletcher and Ms Ryder have given much of their time to prepare our choir and dancers. Mr Lloyd has worked with our dancers and is part of the stage crew. Mr Williams is also part of the production crew. This makes our school a proud contributor to the overall performance.

Music Festival

Our school will be performing on Wednesday 16 September at NowraHigh School. Mrs Lees has been working hard with these students and they are sounding very good indeed. Once again this is an excellent opportunity for our students to perform in public.

Parents can obtain tickets for this performance from the school office. The cost of the tickets is $6.

Spelling Success

Congratulations to Hamish Spencer, 3R, on attaining a Distinction in the University of New South Wales Spelling competition. This is an excellent result and places Hamish in the top 10% of those students who sat for the test.

Area Schools Gymkhana

This weekend the local schools’ gymkhana will be held at the Worrigee Common at South Nowra. Our school will be represented by Naomi Crossley. I am sure that she will give her best in the competition and look forward to hearing of her success.

David Hogg

Principal

This is placeholder text for your new blog entry. Replace it with your own.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Last week the Home School Liaison Officer came to the school and conducted an audit of the school’s late register. As a result of the audit he contacted a number of parents because he considered the number of times particular students were late to school to be excessive.

The Department’s Policy on attendance at school is very specific. It states that students should attend school on time for lessons each. On occasions where a student is late or does not attend school on that day a note of explanation should be provided by the parent.

Lateness causes other problem for students in that they are behind in their learning all day. It is difficult for teachers to keep students engaged in learning when a arrives late and interrupts the lesson. Please endeavour to have you child at school by 8:50am each morning. This will ensure that they have the best chance of achieving the best learning outcomes.

Reading Evaluation

Thank you to those parents who have returned the Whole School Evaluation of Reading Survey that was distributed with last week’s newsletter. This survey gives parents an opportunity to participate in our evaluation by giving the evaluation team their opinions of how effective the school’s reading program in relation to their child’s ability to read.

If you have misplaced or did not receive a survey and would like to participate in the evaluation a survey can be collected from the school office. We would like all surveys to be returned by Friday 4 September.

Book Week Competition Success

It was great to receive a phone call from the Nowra Town Library yesterday. The call was to inform me that students from our school had won a number of the competitions in the Book Week Competitions.

Sophie Mudditt won the K-2 colouring competition

Toni Mudditt won the Y3-6 Post Card competition

Kindergarten won the Peter Mason competition for the second year in a row.

A presentation of prizes will take place a the library on Friday afternoon at 4:30pm It is great to see our students achieving in another area of school life.

Science and Writing Competition Results

The school has received the results of the University of New South Wales Writing and Science Competitions. I am very pleased to announce that Jordan Collins has attained a Distinction in the Writing Competition. This result places Jordan in the top 10% of all year 5 students who sat for test. Another very pleasing result was attained by Cameron Musgrove who has been awarded a Credit.

In the Science Competition it is pleasing to announce that Chloe Bowers gained a Credit Award. This is a very pleasing effort by Chloe.

District Athletics

On Wednesday and Friday our school team will be competing in the Shoalhaven District Athletics Carnival. I know that our athletes will give their best and represent our school with pride. I would like to wish all of our athletes the best of luck. I hope to hear of a number of students progressing to the Regional Carnival in Wollongong.

David Hogg

Principal.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

The next month will see many of our students participating sporting and cultural events. Next week on Wednesday and Friday the school athletics team will be competing in the Shoalhaven District Athletics Carnival at Ron Brown Oval, ShoalhavenHigh School. I am confident that we will have a number of our athletes that will qualify for the South Coast Area Athletics Carnival to be held later in the term in Canberra.

The next few weeks will see our dancers and choir perform in the Southern Stars Spectacular at the Wollongong Entertainment Centre. The performances for Southern Stars will be on Friday 4th September and Saturday 5th September. On both days there is a matinee and evening performance. The Southern Stars Spectacular show cases the enormous amount of musical and dance talent that students in public schools in our region are able to display. In our case our dancers are performing in three aspects of the show and our choir is part of the massed choir that supports many of the performances.

Over the last week we have had a number of parents volunteer to make the costumes required for the dancers. Thank you to these parents for their support of our students and our school.

In the middle of September our junior choir will be performing at the Shoalhaven Public Schools Music Festival at NowraHigh School. These students have been working hard to learn a number of songs that will be performed by the massed choir as well as an individual item.

Whole School Self Evaluation

Accompanying this newsletter is a survey related to the teaching and learning of reading in our school. This survey is one of a number of ways that we are evaluating the teaching of reading in our school. Parents are asked to complete the survey and return it to school by Friday 4th September. It is important that as many parents as possible complete this survey.When completed and returned to school the responses and suggestions of parents will be analysed and used to influence the future teaching of reading in our school.

Student Details

If parents have changed of their contact details could you please notify the school of these changes. It is important that the school have updated information in respect to telephone numbers, addresses and emergency contacts for our student.

I would also ask parents to notify the school if there are changes to their child’s routine for going home at the end of the school day. We have recently had a couple of cases where students were confused as to what they were supposed to do in respect of catching a bus or being collected by a parent.

Where has not been notified of a change to this routine and the child is confused we will normally insist that the child follow the usual routine.

David Hogg

Principal.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

The Annual School Athletics Carnival will be held on Thursday at Drexel. The carnival is for all students from Kindergarten to Year 6. All students should have received a permission note to attend as well as a medical note. These notes must be returned to school by Thursday. It would be appreciated if the notes were returned by tomorrow as this will make organisation on Thursday morning much easier. All students are expected to attend the carnival on Thursday.

The canteen is running a sausage sizzle on the day and students received an order form with the newsletter last week. If you have not received the order form you can order by contacting the canteen.

Parents are very welcome to come on the day and support their children in the day’s activities. Students are free to wear their house colours on the day.

Swine Flu

The school was contacted yesterday by a parent who advised that her child is suffering from Swine Flu. The student is under the care of a doctor and will not be returning to school before next week. I have attached the latest Department Bulletin on Swine Flu to this newsletter. Please take time to read the bulletin and to implement the procedures suggested in it.

Computer Competition Success

I am pleased to advise that Chloe Bowers of Year 3 andJasperMacey ofYear 4 have gained Credit Awards in the Australasian Schools Computer Competition. Both of these students were placed in the top 24% of students who sat for the test.

Well Done!

P&C Meeting

The next meeting of the P&C will be held tomorrow evening. The meeting will be held in the staff room from 7:00pm. Items on the agenda include the funding priority list for 2009.

Performing Arts Focus

For many of our students this term will have a focus on the performing arts. Our senior students are involved in the Southern Stars Spectacular that will culminate in two days of performances at the Wollongong Entertainment Centre in September. Mr Lloyd and Mrs Ryder have been working hard with our dancers who will be part of three aspects of the performance. Our students, with students from other local schools, have had a number of practices already.

Mrs Fletcher is working with the choir that will be part of a massed choir at the performance. The choir supports all phases of the show including individual performers. This group has had one combined rehearsal with other schools and there will be more of these as the performance date comes closer.

Mrs Lees has been working with our Stage 2 choir in readiness for the Shoalhaven Schools Music Festival to be held in September. These students have been learning songs for the massed choir item as well as for our school’s individual item.

We are fortunate to have teachers who are prepared to make time to provide our students with these opportunities to perform in the wider community. These activities further enhance the reputation of our school.

David Hogg

Principal

.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Term 3 is up and running already. Today we have had our introductory gymnastics demonstration. This will be followed in the coming weeks with most classes participating in an organised program where gymnastic skills of the students will be further developed. Parents of students in participating class, all classes with the exception of 4H and 11MC, will need to have signed a permission note and paid the $20 for their child to be able to participate.

Athletics Carnival

The annual Athletics Carnival will be held next Thursday 6th August at DrexellPark. Parents will receive a separate note giving details of the day and permission for their child to participate. This is always a great day with our students doing their personal best and gaining points for their house in the overall point score. Parents are very welcome to join us on the day and support their child.

School Photos

School photos will be taken on Wednesday 12 August. All parents will receive a brochure outlining the package available form our photographer. The envelopes should be returned to school on the day and they will be handed on to the photographer. Family photos are part of the day and envelopes for these can be collected from the school office.

School Development Day

Yesterday the staff participated in a school development day. These days are set aside for staff to participate in professional learning and planning. Yesterday the staff was involved activities related to the introduction of the Positive Behaviour for Success (PBS) Program that we are implementing in our school. The reward system to be used was a focus. This time gave staff time to brainstorm around a revamped reward system for our students. The PBS Team now have some direction from the staff in what line to take in revamping the reward system at our school.

The PBS team meets, out of school hours, on three or four occasions each term. These meetings will be used to further develop the reward system at our school. Before full implementation of our PBS Program parents will be involved in a meeting where the program will be explained.

The other activity that we focussed on yesterday was the areas for the whole school evaluation this year. The evaluations this year will be on the curriculum area of Reading and the broader area of Extra Curricula Activities provided by the school. During the term parents, students and teachers will be surveyed as to their thoughts around the effectiveness of these programs in our school. The purpose of these evaluations is get feedback that we can use to further improve the delivery of these program to our students and in doing so improve educational outcomes for all.

Cold and Flu Season

We are all aware of the impact that the swine flu pandemic is having in our community. It also appears that colds and the common flu are also having a greater impact than normal. We at school will be encouraging students to practise good hygiene habits. These habits include washing of hands and covering of the mouth when coughing and sneezing. If you child is unwell with a heavy cold or the flu and has a temperature I would ask that you keep them home from school until their condition improves.

David Hogg

Principal

This is placeholder text for your new blog entry. Replace it with your own.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

All parents should have received their child’s 1st Semester Report last Friday. The staff has put a lot of work into providing parents with a detailed report on their child is progressing at school. As part of follow up to the report we are holding parent / teacher interview sessions on Wednesday 1 and Wednesday 8 July between 3:30pm and 5:00pm. Last week’s newsletter contained a booking sheet for parents to book their time with their child’s teacher. If parents are unavailable at these times and would still like to discuss their child’s progress with the class teacher, this can be done by telephoning the school and a convenient time for both teacher and parent will be organised.

Principal’s Morning Tea

The first Principal’s morning tea for those students who have achieved a Blue Award will be held on Thursday. We have eighty six students who have gained this award this semester. This is a great effort by all of these students. Invitations to the morning tea will be issued today. If a child feels that an error has been made and that they have been missed then they should se Mr Hogg who will check his records.

Congratulations to all those students who have achieved the Blue Award.

Life Education

The Life Education Van will be visiting our school this week and early next week. The cost of Life Education is $7 per student. We are asking that students pay $5 and the school will subsidise the rest. We feel that life education is an important part of our school’s program and we encourage all students to participate.

NAIDOC Week

Next week the school will be celebrating NAIDOC Week. On Monday we will be holding an Assembly at 10:00am. The assembly will have a NAIDOC theme with the class item being performed by 8G. I know that Miss Graham and her class have been working hard to make this a special assembly.

After the assembly parents of Aboriginal students are invited to share morning tea in the school library. Invitations for the morning tea will be sent home today and tomorrow.

On Friday of next week we will be visited by the Thulli Dreaming Workshops Company. The school will be divided into vertical groups and move between five activities with the students learning new skills and gaining an appreciation of aspects of traditional culture.

Attendance Matters

Last week the Home School Liaison Officer conducted a roll check at school. As a result of the roll check I will be contacting a number of parents and asking for explanations for unexplained absences and for the growing number of partial absences, usually being late to school. It is not acceptable to arrive late for school without a note of explanation just as is the case for all absences. In more serious cases the Home School Liaison Officer will be following up the absences.

David Hogg

Principal

This is placeholder text for your new blog entry. Replace it with your own.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

All students will receive their Semester 1 Report on Monday June. The report will be similar to those issued last year. All Key Learning Areas will have a comment that tells parents what their child has achieved and the areas that need some improvement. The Key Learning Areas of English and Mathematics will have an indication of the level of achievement of each student. This will be indicated by the words: outstanding, high, sound, basic and limited. There is a scale of 1 to 5 to indicate the amount of effort that each student is using in class.A general comment will also be written by the class teacher.

As with last year the report will have a section on social development. Extra curricula activities that are undertaken by students in Stages 2 and 3 are also reported.

Kindergarten will receive a different report format to those received by students in years 1 to 6. The kindergarten report is much more appropriate to the student’s stage of development.

Parent Interview Sessions

All staff will be available for parents to discuss their child’s report on Wednesday 1 July and Wednesday 8 July. The sessions will run from 3:30pm to 5:30pm on each of these afternoons. If parents are unable to make any of these times and would like to discuss their child’s progress with the class teacher they need only to contact the school or teacher concerned and a time convenient to both will e organised.

Please complete the tear off slip below and return it to school as soon as possible and an interview time will be organised.

Staff Professional Learning

This many of our staff are engaged in professional learning related to using our connected classroom. The learning is taking over two days, Monday and Tuesday, and will equip our teachers to use the connected classroom and the interactive whiteboard to the best advantage in engaging students in learning. I am hopeful of having an interactive whiteboard in all classrooms by the end of 2009.

Last weekend Ms Dubbelde attended a professional learning day with the renowned expert on Autism, Tony Attwood. This activity has given Ms Dubbelde a better understanding of the needs of these students.

Australian Schools Cross Country

The School Sport Australia Cross Country will be held in Nowra at the Willandra Course from Friday 28 August until Monday 31 August. As there are competitors coming from all state of Australia and New Zealand this is a large event. Some of the competitors will require billeting as their parents will be unable to accompany them. Our school has been approached by the NSWPSSA, as the hosting state, to provide some of the billets. At this stage I am unsure of the number of billets that will be required. I would like to have an indication of those families who would be prepared to take a billet. If you are able to assist by taking a billet could you please complete the slip below and return it to school. I will then send you a more detailed note outlining the itinerary for the event.

David Hogg

Principal

Parent Interview Session Request

Student’s Name:_______________________Class:__________________

Wednesday 1 JulyWednesday 8 July

Time:

3:303:30

3:403:40

3:503:50

4:004:00

4:104:10

4:204:20

4:304:30

4:404:40

4:504:50

5:005:00

5:105:10

5:205:20

5:305:30

Expression of Interest for Billet

I am interested in taking a billet for the Australian Cross Country and would like more information about this activity.

Signed: ____________________

Parent / Caregiver

This is placeholder text for your new blog entry. Replace it with your own.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

The schools Positive Behaviour for Success team met on Friday and began planning for the implementation of this strategy in our school. The team have been working on our school values ofRespect, Responsibility, Resilience, Cooperation and Personal Best. During the next semester the school will begin embedding these values into our school culture. This will be done by having specific symbols of what the values look like when they are being exhibited. There will be explicit lessons to teach our students about these values and what they look like when being displayed.

It is early days with this program. There is much work to be done for us all to get a common understanding of these values and how they will become an active part of our school culture.

Illawarra Dance Festival

Last Thursday and Friday members of Joshua Lawrence and Keiron Oliver of 11MC, Jordan Taunton and Rebecca Kennedy participated in the Illawarra Dance Festival at the IPAC theatre in Wollongong. These students were part of a dance that included students from Havenlee. Our students performed really well and from all reports had a great time. Thanks to Havnlee for offering our students the opportunity to participate in this great experience.

Adam Watson to Represent South Coast Again

Adam Watson is having a great year in representative sport. On Friday 5 June Adam was selected in the South Coast Area Touch Football team to compete in the NSWPSSA State Carnival in Term 3. This is Adam’s second selection to represent our Area. M Hansen has informed me that Adam is the first student from North Nowra to achieve this feat. Congratulations Adam on a wonderful achievement.

P & C Fundraising Success

Last Friday the South Coast Area held the annual cross country at the Willandra course at West Cambewarra. Students came from all over the region to contest both primary and secondary events.

Members of the P&C manned the canteen on the day. As you can imagine this was a very big event with so many students and parents coming to the venue. The hard work of these volunteers has realised a profit of more than $2 000. This is a fantastic boost to our P&C funds.

Thank you to all of those parents who helped on Friday and also to those who helped get the canteen organised before Friday.

Gastric Bug

We have been informed by the ShoalhavenHospital that there have been a great number of children reporting with gastric problems. Parents are advised to have children take special care to ensure that hands are washed before meals.

Principal’s Morning Tea

The Principal’s Morning Tea for Semester 1 will be held on Thursday 2 July a 10:45am. The last day to hand in merit cards to be included in this celebration will be Friday 26 June.

David Hogg

Principal

This is placeholder text for your new blog entry. Replace it with your own.