Pennant Hills Public School eNewsletter

Digital Devices

At Pennant Hills Public School (PHPS), we aim to empower our students to engage and learn with confidence, courage and empathy by providing an education that inspires them to become global citizens. For the purposes of this guideline, ‘digital communication devices’ refers to mobile phones and smart watches.

PHPS discourages students from bringing mobile phones and smart watches to school. These communication devices cause disruption to the teaching and learning in class and the playground and can be used inappropriately to access social media and take photos without permission. This can cause distress and breach the privacy of others.

If a parent feels it is necessary for their child to bring a digital communication device (mobile phone or smart watch) to school, then the rules for student use of mobile phones and smart watches in the school are listed below:

Devices brought to and kept at school are used entirely at their owner’s risk. The school cannot accept any responsibility for theft, loss or damage of these devices. Students and parents should also recognise that mobile devices are a highly prized target for theft.
During the school day, mobile phones are to be kept in the 3-6 office at all times including, before school, recess and lunchtime, and must be switched off or on silent.
During the school day, smart phone, smart watch, notification alerts and location must be switched off. Parents are able to contact their children by calling the school phone number. If necessary, students can contact parents from the office phone.
During the school day, phones and watches are not to be used to call home in an emergency. This is the duty of the school and the administrator/teacher in charge.
During the school day, phones and watches are not to be used to call home in the event of a mishap at school or because belongings have been forgotten unless at a teacher’s discretion and under the supervision of the teacher – in the main, these events are to be dealt with by the school. Parents will be informed of any events that have impacted on their child.
Phones and watches are not to be used in the classroom, playground or incursion/excursion for any of the following purposes; check text messages, access games, the internet, images, the camera or videos.
Phones and watches are not to be used to harass, bully or intimidate students or staff. Breaches will be dealt with as per the Department’s and school’s Behaviour Guidelines.

Any use of mobile phones and smart watches by a student, that is in breach of these rules, will lead to the confiscation of the device. In this instance, parents will be notified and confiscated devices will need to be collected from the administration office by the student’s parent or guardian at the end of the day.

Statement of Accounts

You will have received your term invoices for most of your child’s school-related educational requirements, events and activities associated with your child’s learning experience at school. Our core business is teaching and learning in classrooms - and we do that well! The additional user-pay co-curricular offerings, including excursions and engaging experts such as gymnastics teachers, allow your children to have other rich experiences which will help them to learn and grow beyond what happens in the classroom. We appreciate that the additional expenditure can make things tough for some families and we thank you for making the effort to pay your invoices as quickly as possible. If you experience financial hardship, or you would like to explore payment plans, please feel free to contact me, for a confidential discussion.

Harmony Day

Harmony Week is the celebration that recognises our diversity and brings together Australians from all different backgrounds.

It’s about inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone.

Our school will be celebrating Harmony Day on Wednesday 22 March. Students are encouraged to wear their cultural dress or a touch of orange to celebrate our diversity.

The following link will take you to the Harmony Day website, Harmony week - Everyone belongs .

Parent/Teacher Meetings

Each year the school arranges a time for parents and carers to meet with teachers to discuss the academic progress and needs of their child. These meetings are held at the end of Term 1 to allow the student and teacher relationship to have developed to a point where they both feel they know each other to ensure the meetings are beneficial to support student growth.

These meetings for most classes will take place in Weeks 10 (week starting 27 March) and 11 (week starting 3 April) of this term.

Please note that the 3/4 Sugar gliders Parent/ Teacher Meetings will take place in Week 9 (week starting 20 March). The Parent/Teacher Meetings for 1/2 Cockatoos will take place in Weeks 9 (week starting 20 March) and 10 (week starting 27 March).

Bookings for these meetings are currently open. You can access the booking system by clicking the following link, School Interviews and enter our unique school code vq397. Once you have entered the system please select your child’s teacher, your preferred day and time. You will receive a confirmation email with your bookings. Bookings will close this Friday at 3pm.

Kind Regards,

Matt Pinchbeck
Principal

NAPLAN

The majority of our students have now completed their NAPLAN assessments. They all tried their best and did an amazing job, displaying resilience on occasions when the technology took some time to load. Thank you to all of the class teachers; Mrs Cummings, Mrs Milligan, Mrs Macnaughtan, Mr Bryant, Mrs Hansell, Miss Nelson and Mrs McLoghry for being so organised and ensuring their students were calm throughout the assessment period. Thank you to our teachers; Ms Holdway, Ms Schmidt, Mrs Hobbs and Mrs McLaren and Student Learning Support Officers (SLSO’s) and admin; Mrs Wright, Mrs Bunn and Mrs Zoreen for checking in and supporting our students. Thank you to all of our families for supporting their children during this time, ensuring they had enough sleep, ate well and were in a positive frame of mind. Now back to normal programming! Thank you everyone!

Performance Assembly

Students from the Intermediate Band, Weemala Choir and Stage 3 Dance will be performing.

Planning Days

Each school receives a small amount of funding for ‘Quality Teaching, Successful Students’ which is for staffing allocation to enhance professional practice (https://education.nsw.gov.au/public-schools/schools-funding/quality-teaching--successful-students). As a school we have determined that some of this funding is used best for stage teams to have a day a term to reflect on programs they have taught, look at programs for the term to come and adjust their teaching and learning as required. Over the coming weeks, each stage as well as the executive team will be engaged in a planning day.

Kind Regards,

Kate Wasson
Deputy Principal

Tomorrow, Wednesday 22 March, our school will be celebrating Harmony Week. Australia is one of the most multicultural countries in the world – from the oldest continuous culture of our first Australians to the 49% of Australians who were born overseas or have a parent who was.

All around Australia schools, workplaces and our wider communities will be celebrating our cultural diversity which is a great strength and brings with it a whole host of traditions, religions, languages, and of course, food! It helps us to do things in different ways, reduces discrimination and lets us accept difference.

Today, is also the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The message of Harmony Week is “everyone belongs”. Orange is the colour chosen to represent this week as traditionally it signifies social communication and meaningful conversations. It also relates to the freedom of ideas and encouragement of mutual respect.

Tomorrow, we are asking the students to wear a touch of orange e.g. orange t-shirt, orange socks, orange ribbons etc. or if they wish to do so, wear their national dress to show their support for cultural diversity and an inclusive Australia.

We are looking forward to celebrating our multicultural society.

The Harmony Week Committee

Gai Davis, Angela Krivohlavy and Amanda Callegaro

Supporting your child’s learning at home

The NSW school curriculum has undergone the first comprehensive reform in 30 years after an extensive curriculum review and consultation.

Further information about the curriculum reform can be found following this link https://nswcurriculumreform.nesa.nsw.edu.au/home/siteAreaContent/adbaffbc-6ac9-46fc-9b2d-65fcc8bc9064

Forming groups

Kindergarten

Year 1 and 2

Forming groups focuses on

§ forming groups through sharing and counting objects

§ making and continuing patterns which repeat.

Forming groups focuses on

§ using groups to solve multiplication problems or share to solve division problems.

You can help your Kindergarten child at home by:

§ teaching them to share cutlery for each place when setting the table

§ sharing a packet of lollies equally between siblings or family members by repeatedly giving each person one in the same order until the packet is empty. Discuss what it would be fair to do if there are leftover lollies

§ identifying and discussing patterns in and around your home such as lounge or curtain material colours or shapes. For example, blue square – yellow circle, blue square – yellow circle, blue square – yellow circle

§ singing songs, making dances and readings books with repeating, rhyming or rhythmic numbers

§ making patterns from objects in nature. Start with a repeating pattern of 2, then 3 and then 4. For example, leaf – rock – leaf – rock – leaf – rock (repeating pattern of 2). Also, flower – stick – rock – flower – stick – rock – flower – stick – rock (repeating pattern of 3).

You can help your Year 1 and Year 2 child at home by:

§ playing skip counting games or taking turns to count by 2s, 3s, 5s, and 10s

§ using 5 cent, 10 cent or 2 dollar coins to skip count money

§ drawing a skip counting hopscotch path with chalk. Use the hopscotch path in reverse to skip count backwards

§ using collections of objects to show groups. For example, share a container of marbles equally between groups. Discuss the number of groups and the number of objects in each group. Refer to the leftover marbles as remainders.

Mrs Hobbs
Assistant Principal Curriculum and Instruction

KE - Maneli G, Stella P, Gabriel P, Elena E, Dexter G, Simone G

KK - Donal M, Isabella C, George P, Aimee K, Zayne G

KL - Luning Z, Lucy C, Nour S, Chloe B, Olly B

KW - Myla F, Sadie H, Aidan K, Raiel T, Abigail L

1K - Lewis F, Charlotte Y, Malaki S, Nathan Z, Ollie D, Caitlin R

1P - Stuart G, Darcie F, Stephanie D, Zachary D

1Q - Adriano D, Naia R, Andy C, Reyansh G, Vasiliki J, Liam J, Heidi R, Jono H

1/2C - Obadiah R, Tayyab J, Noah A, Phoenix, Ciel Y, Catherine L

2B - Fynn T, Jordan S, Emma K, Isabelle S, Angus W

2G - Siara D, Savannah C, Felicity N, Angus C, Willem G, Gavin Z, Alex E, Valentino D

2T - Leroy I, Chloe N, Maya V, Daniel H, Julien T, Ethan S, Will H

STAGE 2

League Tag
Girls: PH defeated CP 8-4

Boys:CPS defeated PH 9-11

Teeball

Girls: PH Drew 12-12 with CP

Boys: PH Drew 15-15 with CP

Mr Bryant and Mrs Buchberger

Stage 2 Interschool Sport Coordinators

STAGE 3

Softball

Girls: RPS defeated PH 2 - 5

Boys: RPS defeated PH lost 4 - 10

League Tag

Boy: RPS defeated PH 8 - 9

Girls: PH defeated RPS 17-7

Miss Griggs & Miss Ings
Stage 3 Interschool Sport Coordinators

For more information on zone sport click here or scan the QR code below

Hi All,

Our next P&C General Meeting will be held on Tuesday 4 April, in person in the hall on the K-2 site. This will be a great chance to hear from Mr Pinchbeck’s reflections on Term 1 and from the P&C team about what is in store for Term 2.

Unfortunately our Uniform Shop Manager, Janine, has resigned and will be moving on at the end of the term. Janine has made some amazing improvements to the shop over the past year and I thank Janine for her contribution! I’m currently recruiting for Janine’s replacement, please email or call if you know of anyone who may be interested in this casual role.

Have a great week.

Luke Whenman
P&C President
pandcpresident@gmail.com

Tomorrow, Wednesday 22nd March is our special Harmony Day lunch. No other lunch or recess orders will be available, and the K-2 canteen will not be running tomorrow. It will be back on Friday.

We are in need of helpers to run the K-2 canteen on both Wednesdays and Fridays. If you are available from 1-1.45pm on either of these days please consider coming to help. The children will love you for it, and so will I!!

REMINDERS

New cut-off time for placing orders is 8.45am.
For Friday orders, please use the “Stage 3 PSSA” Alert if this applies to your child. These orders need to be ready by 12.25pm.
Sushi is available on Wednesdays.

Thank you,

Heather Tyler
0425 274 681
canteenphps@gmail.com

WINTER UNIFORMS

Winter uniforms will be available to purchase both online and during appointments from 27^th March 2023.

YEAR 6 POLOS

The year 6 polo order is scheduled to arrive within the next week. I will be distributing the polo shirts to everyone who placed an order as soon as I can after they arrive.

YEAR 6 POLOS – ADDITIONAL ORDERS

I have had a couple of parents request extra orders for the year 6 polo shirt. To place an additional order, there is a minimum requirement for 10 polos to be ordered.

I have re-opened the availability to order the polo’s on Flexischools as an expression of interest. This will close at 5pm on Wednesday 29^th March. There will be no opportunities to add a polo after this date.

You will need to pay for the polo at the time you submit the order. PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF ORDER. If there is not enough interest to meet minimum requirements the order will not go ahead, and you will receive a refund of the amount to your Flexischools account.

If the additional order is placed with the supplier, then the lead time will be approximately 9-10 weeks.

Janine Sherlock
Uniform Shop Manager
phpsuniformshop@gmail.com

Apologies for there not being a band entry in the newsletter last week. Sometimes life gets in the way...

What To Be Practising

TB - Working on your exercises in the Red Book for the Term 1 worksheet.

ICB - Clarion Call, George of the Jungle, Louie Louie, and exercises in the Blue Book for Term 1 worksheet.

SCB - Cantina Band, Best Of Queen, Shadows Unleashed, Tumba Rumba (only look at this if the others are good)

Jazz Band Tryouts

Last week SCB read through some jazz band music to give the students a taster of what the parts might be like. This Thursday we will do the same again, and then the following week we will have official Jazz Band try outs. Following this Mr Odams will make decisions about who will be in Jazz Band for 2023.If your child is keen to be part of Jazz Band this year, to prepare for this, please download and print your child's part for "The Funky Monkey" from this PDF file. There will not be any printed parts handed out at the rehearsal. (Please do not print all of the parts, as there are a lot of them!)https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dslq4J3zqqf8eBjzqfCe00HjVScPpWxd/view?usp=sharing

Award Worksheets

We're getting close to the end of Term 1, so Training and Intermediate bands really should be turning in their Term 1 worksheets shortly. If your tutor has not been signing off on their exercises please work with them to ensure they do so. If you're working on AMEB examinations instead please let us know so we can make note of it.

Once complete these are to be submitted through the Worksheet Submission Web Form.

If anyone needs a particular worksheet you can print them from the Band web pages here.

EVENTS

Band	Date	Event

Term 1
ICB	29th March, 1:45pm	*Performance Assembly

Term 2
ICB, SCB	Sun 28th May (TBC)	Ryde East Music Festival
TB, ICB, SCB	Sat 3rd June	Northern Beaches Instrumental Festival
SCB	14th June (TBC)	PHHS Music Night
All Bands	18-20th June	Music Camp
All Bands	23rd or 30th June (TBC)	*Post Music Camp Concert
SCB	Sat 24th June (3-9pm)	PHHS Winter Carnival
SCB, JB	28th June, 1:45pm	*Performance Assembly

Future Events:

We will continue to work with the conductors and the school to determine which events we will take part in and will update this list as soon as we know.

Parent Helpers

A full list of parent helper duties is available here.

When walking the students, especially Training Band, back to the 3-6 site try to have them line up in pairs on the path to the side, count them twice, check with Rose head count. Tell the students to walk nicely and stick together on the walk & you should stop at the driveway, Weemala corner, school crossing at the 1st driveway at the big site to be recounted. If possible, have a parent front and end and discourage wandering. Once all accounted for you are free and thank you for helping.

Term 2 Roster

Doodle polls are now open to fill in for Parent Helper slots for Term 2. Please remember the band doesn't function without parent helpers. And if we don't have a parent helper for a rehearsal it will not go ahead.

Big thank-you to this week's helpers:

Xaio M & Asish C (TB)

Agnes B (ICB)

Claire M (SCB Mon) & Tina L (SCB Thurs).

PHPS Band Committee
phpsband@gmail.com
www.phpspandc.org.au/band/

MAIN ENSEMBLE REHEARSAL: IS THIS AFTERNOON

3:30pm - 4:30pm in school hall K-2 site.

FOIM REHEARSAL: IS THIS AFTERNOON 4:40pm - 5:20pm in school hall K-2 site.

Pick up time for FOIM students will be 5:20pm.

Students not doing FOIM should be picked up at the usual time of 4:30pm.

Main Parent Helper today is Claire Smith - Thankyou

FOIM Parent Helper today is Jessica Baik - Thankyou

! THE TERM 1 ROSTER IS OPEN - The String groups can't run without help from the parents.

Week 10 still requires a volunteer please - OPEN LINK: Main& FOIM Roster 2023 Term 1

FOIM 2023 - FOIM students and parents - our rehearsals are going at a good steady pace. A friendly reminder that ALL music will be expected to be memorised eventually. Please see below dates for FOIM that need to go in your diary.

We are in the ACACIA CONCERT:

Preliminary Rehearsal (strings) Monday 15 May 9:15am – 1:00pm
Ticket Bookings Open Tuesday 16 May 9:00am
Concert Rehearsals Tuesday 13 June 12:30pm – 3:15pm (recorders) 12:00pm – 4:00pm (strings)
Evening Concert Tuesday 13 June 7:00pm – 9:30pm

Music Camp 2023 Music Camp has been scheduled for 18 - 20 June. Please put this in your diary. More information will be coming from the Music Camp teams in the coming months.

STRING EVENTS FOR TERM 1, 2023

WEEK 10

MAIN ENSEMBLE REHEARSAL - Tuesday 28th March 3:30pm - 4:30pm
FOIM - Tuesday 28th March 4:40pm - 5:20pm

! WEEK 11 - Tuesday 4th April – End of Term Open Rehearsal… the open rehearsal offers an insight into the Ensemble and the conductor progress throughout the term.

Any questions, do not hesitate to reach out the String Committee Group.

Families interested in enrolling children in a String Ensemble 2023 should contact the PHPS String

Committee for further details: phpsstrings@gmail.com

PHPS String Ensemble

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

If you need any further information, you can reach out via email: phpsstrings@gmail.com

PHPS String Ensemble
Website: www.phpspandc.org.au/string-ensemble
Feedback: www.phpspandc.org.au/string-ensemble/contact-us

Erin Jeacle
Centre Director
9980 8950
www.pennanthillsbasc.com