Starting Big School in 2022

If you know someone living in our catchment area that is due to start ‘big school’ next year, please encourage them to contact the school. The enrolment process has been streamlined and all families living in our catchment area can now apply online and complete most of the process this way. For all information relating to enrolment please click the following link, Enrolment - Pennant Hills Public School (nsw.gov.au) .

Normally in Term 4 we would hold our Kindilinks program to transition next year’s enrolments to school. At this point we are unsure if this will be able to proceed. However, we have set aside the following dates for this process. When we have a clear understanding of what the future holds I will be sure to update our community, so please save the date and stay tuned.

• Tuesday 19 October – Kindergarten Parent Information Session at 7pm
• Tuesday 26 October – Kindilink session from 9:30am-11am
• Tuesday 2 November – Kindilink session from 9:30-11am
• Tuesday 9 November – Kindilink session from 9:30-11am
• Tuesday 16 November – Kindilink session from 9:30-11am

Learning from Home Packs – Week 8

For those families that require the hard copies of the Learning from Home packs please book in via the system we use for Parent Teacher interviews. Please use the following link, School Interviews and enter the code, ecxcj. Select your desired time to come to the 3-6 site. This booking site will be open from Thursday morning at 10am. All packs will be able to be collected this Friday or Monday for next week’s pack. Please only come and collect a pack if you need one. Please do not just call in to the office to try and collect a pack as you will be politely turned away. We have this process to ensure we are following our Covid-19 Safety Plan to assist you and the wider community.

Covid-19 Update

At the time of writing this there has been no update on schools for the remainder of this term and next. The Department of Education has advised Principals that the Premier will be making those announcements later this week. As soon as I receive the relevant updated information from the Department I will be sure to inform you about the implications for Pennant Hills PS.

Kind Regards

Mr Matt Pinchbeck
Principal

Screen Free Wednesday – 25 August

This week is our school’s Wellbeing Week, where we take an extra moment to acknowledge and promote the many facets of wellbeing, including emotional, social, physical, career, financial, mental, community and environmental. Our teachers have noticed a slight decline in student motivation and thought this might be a positive way to re-engage our students. During this week we are supporting Screen Free Wednesday, where our students will be completing all activities unplugged with a focus on connection (to others and nature), exploration and play, all while addressing syllabus outcomes. Further details of Screen Free Wednesday will be outlined in the class Zoom sessions and in the Learning from Home Packs. Students are still required to logon to their first Zoom session to ensure the roll is marked accurately. The remainder of the day will be spent completing tasks offline and unplugged. Teachers will be available for the second scheduled Zoom session, should a student require it. While students will be screen free, teachers will continue to mark and provide feedback on previous work, reflect on student learning and examine assessment information and plan future learning and create resources to support this. Students are asked to take photos or have a journal of their days learning to submit on Thursday.

          

Where’s Wally?

This weekend while you go for your walks and bike rides, you may find a few Wally’s popping up around the neighbourhood – Keep your eyes out! How many can you find? Remember to keep socially distant.

If you would like to keep count of your Wally’s, you can use the attached map to label where you found them.

Where's Wally Map

Thank you to our school leaders for organising the Where’s Wally hunt!

Around the School - Specialist Teachers

Did you know that PHPS has several specialist teachers who implement programs across our school? We have Mrs Krivohlavy and Mrs Callegaro our EAL/D teachers who support students who have English as an Additional Language and/or Dialect, Ms Schmidt and Mrs Holdway who implement the MiniLit and MacqLit programs, Ms Davis who conducts research and literacy sessions in the library, Ms Maddison and Mrs Gartrell who teach the computer program and Ms Stevens who teaches music and drama. Aren’t we lucky?! This week we highlight some of the work the students have been producing in their classes with the specialist teacher.

Ranya - KD

Some screenshots of Ms Schmidt’s classes doing digraph and phoneme work – look at them go!

      Classes with Ms Holdway this morning, such great book characters!

Students across the school have been very busy during library sessions organised by Ms Davis. Below are the front covers of some books that students have written a book review and given a star rating as shadow judges for the Children’s Book Council of Australia.

Busy beaks work by Josh - 3H

Lego cat by Ethan in 3H and a hoverboard by Kay in 3D, both activities based on the book ‘Brobot’ by James Foley, where students had to imagine what kind of robot the main character is.

          

During library this term for K-2 students, classes have been viewing a selection of CBCA shortlisted books completing a variety of activities: completing CBCA shadow judge scorecards, submitting star rating and book reviews on Oliver Library, copying drawing styles used by illustrators, analysing story lines through story maps and analysing character traits.

Ashley - 2A

      

   

Ewan – 2B, Frankie – 1A, Hayden – 2A, Jack – 2A, Yitian – 2B, Shriya – 1E

           

Ms Steven’s was running the music Olympics! See the results of the Olympics below.

Results of the 2021 Musical Olympic Events

3-6

I have great pleasure in announcing the following Medallists:

(Where there was a tie on points, 2 or more medals were presented).

GOLD MEDALS

SILVER MEDALS

BRONZE MEDALS

      Results of the 2021 Musical Olympic Events

K-2

I have great pleasure in announcing the following Medallists:

(Where there was a tie on points, 2 or more medals were presented).

GOLD MEDALS

SILVER MEDALS

BRONZE MEDALS

Kind Regards

Mrs Kate Wasson

Deputy Principal

School Captain's Report

Hi everyone, this is Georgie and Flinn the school captains. We are here today to tell you about some interesting things we have done during lockdown which maybe you could give a go. 

Georgie's Great Ideas:

What I have been doing to stay active and not getting bored is:

• 

  Going on bike rides.
• Going on runs down at the oval with my dogs.
• Keeping in touch with family and friends on Facetime and Zoom. My family and I usually get on a Zoom call every Sunday night with all of our cousins, aunties, uncles and grandparents and we play trivia, quizzes and sometimes we find old photos of everyone and put them in a slide show and have a slide night.
• 

  Working on outdoor projects. On the weekends my family usually spend a day working on the garden or anything else in our house that we may have put off doing because we are usually too busy. Since being in lockdown we have plenty of time to organise our house and it is a great way to spend time with your family (if you're not seeing them enough!)

That's what I have been doing to stay busy during the lockdown and I hope this gives you some ideas that you might like to try too. Stay safe and healthy. 

Georgie

The Penno Girl School Captain

Flinn's great ways to stay entertained during lockdown:

• 

  The main way I keep myself entertained is Facetime or Zoom with my friends. It's a great way to stay happy during these times. 
• You could organise a walk or a bike ride with them to stay away from the screen...which comes to another one of my topics
• Try and stay active during lockdown because when you stare at a screen all day and sit on a chair your bones fall asleep so it's best to go on a bike ride or walk to keep those bones moving. 
• Another thing you could try which I know I enjoy is a teleparty. If you don't know what that is, it's like a place that allows you to watch a movie at the same time as your friends. It's like a party but whilst on the tele.
• 

  Another way is to call your grandparents or cousins. It'll make their day I promise. You ould ask them what they've been doing in lockdown, or you could just have a good old chat. 
• One more thing, cooking is something I really enjoy. I want you guys to give this a go and cook something for the family. Maybe cupcakes, a cake and if you want to give yourself a real challenge maybe cook dinner. Trust me, it's something that's not only fun but tastes great!

Now that's all from me. I hope I've given you some ideas of what you can do.

Just stay active and safe. 

Flinn

The Penno Boy School Captain

Some Funny Jokes

Q. Why do we tell actors to "Break a leg?"

A. Because every play has it's cast! 

Q. What's the best thing about Switzerland?

A. I don't know but the flag is a big plus!

Riddles

Q. What goes up but never comes down?

A. Your age!

Q. Yesterday I saw a guy spill all his scrabble letters on the road...

A. I asked him "What's the word on the street?"

I hope you have a laugh and enjoyed reading what we have been up to during lockdown! Stay safe and stay active. Bye!

Mrs Griffith

Relieving Deputy Principal

KB - Benji H, Jack M, Chloe N

KC - Vasu P, Sophie L, Sophia G

KD - Dylan S, Felicity N, Viraj G

KL - Obadiah R, Navya D, Isabella M

1A - Alex P, Dylan H, Vanya M

1E - Maggie R, Adahya S, Luca H

1M - Joanna W, George Y, Chloe H

1/2P - Grace P, Reuben L

2A - Chloe C, Sid D, Hayden Y

2B - Reyansh S, Sean B, Maddie P

2W - Joshua A, Anamarie A, Millie V

3D - Hannah R, Gemma D, Adam C

3H - Lara B, Yumo Z, Yoninah F, Eugene L

3R - Akshaj J, Zachary C, Jayne K

4B - Francesca I, Sidharth G, Carlito P

4F - Kaya G, Mana A, Raiyan A

4M - Lewis W, Lauren N, Elinore F

5B - Anthony T, Lauren G, Leo J

5M - Lilly M, Annabelle R, Callum D

5W - Seb J, Lachlan C, Mariane O

6M - Koby C, Hannah Q, Kate A, Mary P

6R - Mihira Y, Sophia K, Ayaana S

6S - Campbell W, Declan W, Callum R

This week we are celebrating Book Week at home!

This week, Book Week is being celebrated throughout Australia.  Since 1945 the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has brought children and books together through this annual event.  Its aim is to highlight the importance of reading and to celebrate Australian children’s literature. This year the CBCA Book Week theme is “Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds”.   

Today, we celebrated Book Week by holding a “virtual” book character/theme day. Characters from many worlds – the ancient to futuristic, attended class Zoom meetings throughout the day. Definitely, Zooming with a difference, was the case at PHPS!

Throughout this week, the students are also participating in a variety of Book Week webinars ranging from author talks to creative writing workshops.

Well done to all those characters from other worlds who participated in today’s “virtual” Book Week celebration.

The CBCA’s Book of the Year awards were announced last Friday.  The following books won this year’s awards:

Book Character Theme Day

Ms Davis

Teacher Librarian

Well done to Dave and all Pennant Hills PS students for continuing with their online band rehearsals and tutorials.

                    

  

If you have any questions, or would like to be involved with the canteen, please contact me.

Heather Tyler

0425 274 681

canteenphps@gmail.com

The Uniform Shop is closed due to the current Covid-19 restrictions introduced during the school holidays. Once the lockdown restrictions have eased, we will advise you of the operating procedures that will be put in place for the remainder of Term 3. 

Any outstanding Flexischools orders will be processed as soon as the shop re-opens.

Order forms are available on the Uniform Shop page of the school website or by using the link below

https://pennanthil-p.schools.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/doe/sws/schools/p/pennanthil-p/about-our-school/uniform-shop/Order_Form_and_Price_List_Term_3_2021.pdf

Opening hours are currently suspended

Alison Parker

Uniform Shop Manager

phpsuniformshop@gmail.com

Sydney Eisteddfod Results

After what seems like a long time waiting, we have finally received the results for the Sydney Eisteddfod which all the bands entered via Video submission.

I'd like to send out a Massive Congratulations to all the Senior Concert Band members who received a "Highly Commended" in their category.

This is a wonderful achievement and places them just outside the Top 3 of all bands who entered in their category.

Now the results are in, we can share the performances more publicly. Please have a watch and give us a "Like” and subscribe to our channel.

(Ugh, I sound like a millennial...) https://youtu.be/OvgvRq368dc

For those students in Intermediate Concert Band and Training Band, I'd personally like to congratulate you on entering your first events. I appreciate just how hard it's been for everyone over the last 18 months, and to have been able to put in a good entry is a win in and of itself. Keep up the hard work!

More Lockdown Videos

Our Jazz Bands lockdown video will be released shorty, we will have a link to it next week's Newsletter. Videos from both ICB and TB are also in the works.

Google Classrooms and Zoom for Band

Please make sure you are logging into the Band Google Classrooms and attending the Zoom sessions.

Links for the Zoom sessions are going out via the WhatsApp groups.

Tutoring

We think it's really important that your children remain engaged with the band program during the time we have to learn from home. It's also important that they continue to receive tutoring. If you are having issues with tutoring due to the lockdown please let us know and we will see what we can do to assist.

Future Events at a Glance

We are keeping our fingers crossed that we may be able to do the Christmas Carol concert, but other than this we think it highly unlikely that any other events will take place this year. 

Watch this space and your email for any updates.

Term 3 Fees

We hope to issue Term 3 fees soon. If you are under any financial pressure due to the lockdown and are concerned about band fees, please reach out via email. Any correspondence will be treated under the strictest confidence.

Award Worksheets
Please keep your children working on their worksheets with their tutors.

Please submit completed worksheets as soon as possible through the new Worksheet Submission Web Form. https://forms.gle/NpPEG9jk2FsYdmmq7

If you have issues with the web form you can still send through to phpsband+worksheets@gmail.com

A Note From the Committee Convener

I'd like to thank everyone for their continued support during this time. Conducting a music program online is a difficult task. We're all trying our best, and will endeavor to keep it as interesting as possible for the students. But we'll need your help in encouraging your children to continue to take part in the band exercises.

Pennant Hills Public School Band Committee

phpsband@gmail.com

Website: http://www.phpspandc.org.au/band/

Dear Strings parents

All communications regarding the String Ensembles will be via email until kids return to school.

PHPS String Ensemble

Website: http://www.phpspandc.org.au/string-ensemble/

Feedback: http://www.phpspandc.org.au/string-ensemble/contact-us/