Principal's MessageDear Parents/Carers, Well, we have made it to the end of what has been a most productive and positive term one. We had enjoyed several exciting school events including the ‘Welcome to UPS Fete’ and ‘Meet the teacher’ afternoons. The students have developed many positive relationships in their new classes this term and the learning growth that they have made is exciting to see. · Last day of school for Term 1 is Thursday 6 April 2023 · Staff return for Term 2 on Monday 24 April 2023 · Students return for Term 2 on Wednesday 26 April 2023 ‘Welcome to UPS Fete’ What a fantastic ‘Welcome to UPS fete’ we had recently. A huge thank to Lisa, Joanne and the P & C members and executive team. Additionally, I thank Mrs. Brennan, Mr. Jacobs, Mrs. Martinoski, and the office staff for the incredible amount of work they did to support and enhance the day. My huge thanks are also extended to the staff who gave up their Saturday to help. Many staff brought family members (grown up and not so grown up!) to help and I am immensely grateful to them all for the work they did to ensure that our day was so successful. The whole fete was positive and so much fun for our children and visitors. Everyone was in great spirits and the experiences such as the Creature Features and the Face painting (to name a few) were extremely popular. The extreme heat did not deter our community and the support we received was generous and greatly appreciated. Once again thank you! Reconciliation Action Plan The Unanderra Public School Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) has been completed and approved. My thanks are extended to Mr. Scotland and the AEC for the work they have been doing. NAPLAN NAPLAN was administered in all schools for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, during week eight of this term. Our students were supported through the process with our focus being to encourage each of them positively. We remind ourselves that NAPLAN is, after all, just one assessment. Whilst it provides valuable information on an individual and whole school basis, it’s important to remember that the assessments done in class, on a regular basis, are generally more informative and give greater detail than one-off tests such as this one. 2022 Annual School Report Please see the link for the 2022 UPS Annual School Report. My thanks is extended to the staff, parents and students who contributed to this document. https://reports.sparo.schools.nsw.gov.au/annual-report/2022/3308/2022_Unanderra_Public_School_Annual_Report.pdf Election BBQ The P&C have been working hard and once again dedicated their Saturday to run a very successful BBQ during the election voting held at our school. Lisa Jones made lots of cupcakes and there were several donations which were all sold on the day. Mr. Thomas also spent his day helping to prepare the BBQ and pack up which was very generous of him. A huge thank you to Michael Doig and his team for the great work they did in organising the election BBQ. We certainly appreciate all the hard work you all do to support out wonderful school. Staffing As you may be aware the graduate merit selection took place recently and I am pleased to announce that Christine Solomon was the successful applicant. Congratulations to Miss Solomon! Thank you to our panel members for giving much of their time to this important process. We will be welcoming Mr. James Lloyd formally back to Unanderra Public School next term and he will be now teaching 50 for the remainder of 2023. We thank Mrs. Georgie Old for her dedication and hard work in setting up the class throughout term one. The parents and students will be advised of this tomorrow at school. Mrs. Carolina Vujasin will be remaining as classroom teacher for 6L for the duration of 2023. I acknowledge that originally Mr. Lloyd was to take 6L however the students are very settled, and some unforeseen changes have allowed for this consistency to be possible. Miss Crystal Ryman has been successful in gaining a permanent position as classroom teacher at UPS due to the permanent transfer of Anna Lawler to her current school. We thank Mrs. Lawler and congratulate both her and Miss Ryman on their recent new appointments. Mrs. Newman is currently taking extended personal leave and will continue to do this into term 2. Mrs. Bell has been successful in attaining the Assistant Principal (Rel) position during the time Mrs. Newman is on leave. Traffic Management around Schools The Safer Routes to School Working Group aims to work collaboratively with individual schools. This is done via consultation with the school Principal and a P&C representative regarding educational programs, which can aid schools to develop short-, medium-, and long-term plans to improve safety, promote public transport and encourage walking and cycling to school. We now have a nominated a representative from the P & C to work in partnership and join “A Safer Routes to School Working Group’ that will be established with Council engineers, planners, Council’s Road Safety Officer, and Mrs. Rajendra. Traffic and Transport around schools is a high priority for our school and Wollongong City Council. Please be assured that we share the priority for safety and are working towards an improved network for community members and visitors of all ages and abilities to enjoy. A Safer Routes to School Working Group has been established with Council engineers, planners, Council’s Road Safety Officer, The Principal & a P&C representative. The role of this group is to inform the school community of existing road safety education programs and support schools with respect to transport around schools; to develop short-, medium-, and long-term plans which improve safety around schools, promote public transport and encourage walking and cycling to schools. We ask that your requests and opportunities be raised at your next P&C meeting to ensure that we have consistency and an agreed approach to transport planning around our schools. Opportunity Classes- 2024 Opportunity classes are for primary school students who have high academic potential or who are intellectually gifted. They provide an environment where students can learn and make friends with classmates of similar ability. This can benefit a student’s academic progress and their wellbeing. Opportunity classes are offered in Years 5 and 6, with parents/carers applying in Year 4. Students who are successfully placed will usually have to leave their current school to enrol in a school with an opportunity class for Years 5 and 6. Opportunity classes are just one of the ways that we cater for our high potential and gifted students. Testing and assessment Applications for opportunity class placement are considered on the results of the Opportunity Class Placement Test. Students who wish to be considered for placement are required to sit the Opportunity Class Placement Test on Thursday 27 July 2023. How to apply Parents/carers must apply online between Thursday 30 March and Monday 15 May 2023 at: https://education.nsw.gov.au/oc. You must use your own email address and not one belonging to your child. Late applications are not usually accepted. Staff Professional Learning- Assistant Principal Curriculum and Instruction Term 1 Update Throughout Term 1 the staff at Unanderra Public School participated in professional learning with a major focus on formative assessment and delivering effective feedback to students. This professional learning opportunity is having widespread positive impact in classrooms with teachers reflecting on the feedback they offer students and thinking deeply about how they can use feedback to improve student outcomes. Using student learning data, the school has identified ‘additive thinking’ as our major focus area for 2023. The APC&I has been working with stage teams to create differentiated, data driven and engaging learning opportunities to improve this focus area. During week 10 and 11 all staff had collaborative planning days with the APC&I and RFF team to plan and prepare for learning in Term 2. The collaborative planning days have been a major success with our staff now having the ability to work closely together to plan, evaluate and improve learning opportunities for their students. Our K-2 team have been working hard on implementing the new syllabus and units of work. The new 3-6 syllabus for English and mathematics will be implemented in 2024 and the current 3-6 team is working with the APC&I to prepare for the changes coming and adapt their teaching and learning programs to suit the changes that will occur in 2024. On staff development day in Term 2, the staff at UPS will be participating in professional learning with a major focus on Aboriginal education, supporting our staff to better support our students. Chocolate Coin Toss Thank you to all our parents and friends for your kind and generous donations that went towards our chocolate coin toss. The students had an awesome time trying their hardest to win some delicious chocolate treats. Most of them did. We have managed to raise an estimated $566.35 that will go towards our Year 6 Farewell at the end of the year. Huge Thank to Miss Scruby for all her hard work and time running the event. Easter Egg Guessing Thank you to our P&C for donating some of their easter eggs to go towards more fundraising for our Year 6 students. The eggs went into a jar and were up to be guessed by the students. Our Year 6 students ran the guessing competition at recess and lunch times. Thank you also to everyone who participated. We managed to raise an estimated $225.70 . Congratulations to our winner Dominic Yendall from KB who guessed exactly 179. Try Year 7 for a Day Year 6 students who will be attending Figtree High School next year had the opportunity to experience high school life for a day. They participated in some sport activities, mathematics and geography lessons and also visited the library space. It was a wonderful day and a great opportunity to get a snapshot of what high school is like. Premier’s Sporting Challenge The Figtree High School Premier’s Sporting Challenge that was postponed until Term 2 will now be held on 8th May 2023. A new note will be sent home early next term with more information for those students involved. Thank you once again to the school community for the support and have a lovely Easter holiday break. Anissa Rajendra 5D have had a wonderful start to the year and have been involved in many activities in the school and classroom. We have had fun participating in:
This term, every student in 3/4S has been working hard on their informative writing. We have all become experts on the Laughing Kookaburra, by looking at detailed information from the website animalia.bio. From there, we researched different words that we did not yet know the meaning for to broaden our vocabulary, and wrote down information that we found interesting in our writing books. This information was then used to create the fact files you see before you. We will continue to work on Laughing Kookaburra by using our fact files to create the most incredible information reports to ever exist! In 1/2R we have been embedding Aboriginal perspectives throughout our routine. We start our day by building community links through our morning yarning circle. Where we share stories, get to know each other and discuss what we are grateful for. In writing, we have been using symbols to plan our narratives in our storyboards. We have been enjoying spending time in our school yarning circle, especially when the weather is nice. Our yarning circle has been a place where we have been able to listen to each other and talk about a range of topics in a judgment-free space while getting to know more about Country and the histories around our school and the area around us. Nagangbi Mudjingaal! Hello friend! KS are extremely proud to show you some of the learning we have been doing in the last few weeks. This term we have learnt where Grandmother Mountain and Grandfather Mountain are in our community. We greet them each morning in our Acknowledgement of Country. This week we have been learning about Aboriginal Dilly Bags and what they were used for. KS have discovered that they could hold different items, mainly food sources which sometimes included liquid like honey! The students enjoyed learning about the images used on the Wingaru Dilly Baskets. They were lucky enough to take their baskets home with their own food item- a chocolate egg! K-6 AssemblyKB Merit: Leo.O & Indie. J-H Student of the week: Ziggy.E KS Merit: Lily H & Kai B Student of the week: Indiana S KE Merit: Emily B & Hunter W Student of the week: Oliver W 1/2R Merit: Taj T & Glory P Student of the week: Evelyn W 1M Merit: Dylan M & Kyen C Student of the week: Zachary S 1P Merit: Student of the week: 2L Merit: Austin D & Alya D Student of the week: Fletcher N 2N: Merit: Zayden M & Willow W Student of the week: Annabelle C 3/4C Merit: Lily .D & Annaleise S Student of the week: Bronte W 3/4S Merit: Lara VL & Allira P. Student of the week: Lucy W. 3/4BA Merit: KIai A & Hudson L Student of the week: Cali F 3/4M Merit: Paxton M & Olivia J Student of the week: Eddie C 5D Merit: Harper K & Jake B Student of the week: Charlotte S 5O Merit: Piper B & Marshall F Student of the week: Arinya L 6L Merit: Deklyn.H & Leanne O Student of the week: Amy S 6S Merit: Stefan V & Aliesha F Student of the week: Ella H Bronze & Silver AwardsBronze Awards: Stage 2 Hayley C Stage 3 Ruby H Siara P Matilda C Alana G Mohamad M Finn M Silver Awards: Stage 2 Kaimia W Latia J Freya S Jordi O Freya S Stage 3 Addison C Yarra M Angus J Charles H Amy S Audrey Y Sport at UPS!Over the last few weeks, we have had multiple students trail for district teams for basketball, soccer, touch football, rugby league. We have had 1 student so far to be selected from our school to be part of South Coast sports teams. A big congratulations to Amy (6L) who has been selected in the South Coast Girls Touch Football Team. The South Coast Region is a huge area and selection in these teams is something to be very proud of. Isaac (6L) and Sam (6S) will be off with their district teams trailing for the South Coast Rugby League down in Batemans Bay in term 2 and we wish them luck! Next term is full of more sporting opportunities with the Cross Country coming up in the first week back and then straight to district in week 3. The Athletics Carnival will be coming up later on in the term, along with the Stage 2 & 3 Gala day. Renae Scruby Sports Organiser
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Principal's MessageWhat a fantastic ‘Welcome to UPS fete’ we had on Saturday. A huge thank you to Lisa and her team of P & C executive and community members for the incredible amount of work they did to support what was a brilliant day. A fete such as this required lots of planning and extra time to ensure that everything runs smoothly and everyone attending is safe and can enjoy the experiences. This was certainly achieved, and I cannot thank the P & C enough for making this such a success. My huge thanks are also extended to Mrs Brennan, the administration staff for all the preparation they did beforehand and to the staff who dedicated their Saturday to help. Many staff brought family members (grown up and not so grown up!) to help and I am immensely grateful to them all for the work they did to ensure that our day was great. The whole day was so positive and a lot of fun for our children and visitors. Everyone was in great spirits and the experiences such as the ‘Creature Features’, inflatables, plaster casts and the face painting (to name a few) were extremely popular. The extreme heat did not deter our community and the support we received was generous and greatly appreciated. The money raised by the school will go towards the purchase of Literacy and Numeracy resources to support the introduction of the new curriculum in our K-2 classrooms. I wish to extend my huge appreciation to all our amazing students, staff and parents who have been managing numerous changes to timetables throughout this term. We do have a great partnership and I am certainly proud of the effort that our teachers go to in order to ensure that school routines run as seamlessly as possible. The students are really demonstrating that they can manage unexpected changes to situations while continuing to follow the values of Safety, Respect and Responsibility. Our recent K-2 assembly was a great reflection of this, all students were in correct school uniform and did their best to remain quiet and respectful, even though it was so hot! Well done everyone! As you may know our school run a variety of playtime clubs each day. Activities include Lego, drawing and technology. The thought and time going into these fun and interactive experiences for the children are making a positive difference. Please remember to encourage your child to participate in a play time club that may be of interest to them. The P & C will be running a BBQ next Saturday during the election at our school. If you have some time and can offer some help, I know it would be greatly appreciated. Please let Michael from the P & C executive know when you are available to help. Thankyou! Have a great fortnight ahead! Anissa Rajendra Upcoming EventsWeek 9 Naplan continues for years 3 & 5 Parent Reading Project Begins Harmony Week Week 10 Tuesday 28th March Easter Mufti Day and egg donation Wednesday 29th March K-6 Cross Country Week 11 Monday 3rd April Premier's Sporting Challenge (Stage 3) Easter Egg Colouring Due Thursday 6th April K-6 Easter Hat Parade Last Day of Term 1 In Visual Arts this term in 6S, we have been looking at different types of Aboriginal Rock Art and its importance. As a class, everyone covered their hand in paint and placed their handprint onto a piece of paper. We then used images and words to create a story of our lives and what is important to us. K- 6 AssemblyCongratulations to the following students who received a 'Student of the Week' and 'Merit' awards; KB Merit: Skylah C & Estelle L Student of the week: Emmy.B KS Merit: Student of the week: Odie C KE Merit: Onoeti T & Claudette G Student of the week: Mia M 1/2R Merit: Sage C & Ava D Student of the week: Hugo D 1M Merit: Hollie M Student of the week: Abraham M 1P Merit: Eloise H Student of the week: 2L Merit: Keiren E & Brianna J Student of the week: 2N: Merit: Harlem H & Airlie S Student of the week: Jax T 3/4C Merit: Hayley H & Jordi O Student of the week: Noah P 3/4S Merit: Zoe C & Millie B. Student of the week: Lola R-V. 3/4BA Merit: Cameron K & Nabiha M Student of the week: Keyara W 3/4M Merit: Van M & Bentley C Student of the week: Brodie K 5O Merit: Charlie C & Lachlan C Student of the week: Serena R 5D Merit: Daniel M & Audrey Y Student of the week: Madeleine W 6L Merit: Matilda C & Lucas S Student of the week: Adina M 6S Merit: Callum L & Yerremurra W Student of the week: Lily E Bronze and Silver AwardsBronze Awards: Stage 1: Arlo M Austin D Ella O Stage 2: Ayah S Bronte Stage 3: Callum L Yerremurra W Dakoto B-H Silver Awards: Stage 1: Lyla R Dylan M Jax F Stage 2: Kai A Stage 3: Emily P Ella H Clean Up Australia DayLast weekend was Clean Up Australia Day and the students and staff at UPS were excited to support this annual event once again on the Friday before. Clean Up Australia Day is a great opportunity to recognise what a beautiful country we live in but that it is up to all of us to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle every day keeping our environment clean and rubbish free both for ourselves and the animals that we share our world with. Classes spent 15-20 minutes after playtime on making sure to pick up every scrap of rubbish we could find in the playground. We have decided to make this a weekly event and take responsibility for keeping our school rubbish free and beautiful. Take a look at us hard at work… Ms Prior Clean Up Australia Day Co-ordinator Get Ready for the Big Veggie Crunch!On Thursday 30 March our school will be joining hundreds of schools across NSW to break the record for the most students crunching vegetables simultaneously. But we need your help to make it a success! On Thursday 30 March, please pack your child a container of vegetables (not fruit this time) for them to crunch on. Need some ideas? · carrot, celery, cucumber – cut into sticks or left whole · capsicum – cut into sticks or wedges · corn – raw baby corn spears or a cooked corn cob · broccoli or cauliflower florets - raw or lightly cooked to keep their crunch · tomatoes – small cherry tomatoes or a large tomato that can be eaten like an apple · beans or snow peas - raw or lightly cooked to keep their crunch · mushrooms – sliced or left whole · if fresh veg isn’t possible, try canned or frozen vegetables instead If you require more information on The Big Vegie Crunch, please contact the school or your child’s teacher. Assunta Brennan Vegetable Week School Coordinator |
Unanderra Public School
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