Principal's Message - Frenchs Forest Public ...
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Term 2 Week 2, 29 April 2021 Principal’s Message What’s happening at school? Check the school calendar on SkoolBag Read the notes via the app or email on a Thursday Read the Forest Focus (alternate Thursdays) Remember… Monday 3 May P&C meeting at 7pm via zoom Friday 7 May Warringah zone cross-country carnival Thursday 13 May School photos NAPLAN for Years 3 and 5 NAPLAN assesses literacy and numeracy skills that students have already been learning through the school curriculum. Teachers will ensure students are familiar with the test formats and will provide appropriate support and guidance. Parents can help their child prepare for NAPLAN by reassuring them that NAPLAN tests are just one part of their school program and reminding them on the day to simply try their best. A detailed information sheet has been sent home via skoolbag and email today. PSSA winter sport Trials for the PSSA (primary school sports association) competition will be held over the next 3 weeks at school. Children in years 3-6 may choose to try out for the netball, AFL and soccer teams. Children should bring sport specific requirements to school on Friday 30 April, Thursday 6 May, Thursday 13 May and Friday 14 May. The competition will begin on Friday 21 May. (AFL – mouthguards, soccer – shin pads and long socks, moulded boots if you own them). Winter sport years 3-6 We have again been successful in gaining a ‘sports in schools’ grant for students in years 3-6 not participating in PSSA. We are looking to have baseball coaches come on a Friday morning to give children skill sessions.
Chess Matt McCarron will be running beginner chess lessons on a Monday at lunchtime in the library. This is open to any interested children and is at no cost. COVID update As we continue to be in an enviable situation in Sydney regarding COVID, the Department of Education continues to relax restrictions within schools. Parents are able to come on site and join us for assemblies, canteen, reading groups and other activities. Volunteer parents are asked to come to the office and sign in using the QR code and collect a lanyard when coming on site between 9.10 and 3.10. Parents dropping off or collecting children are asked to come to the office to sign children in and out, and are also required to sign in using the QR code. External Validation The NSW Department of Education ‘School Excellence’ policy gives schools direction on planning, ongoing self-assessment, annual reporting and external validation. Each year a group of schools are nominated to participate in the external validation process. This provides an opportunity for schools to discuss their judgements about their practice – and the evidence that underpins them – with a panel of peers. This self-reflective practice ultimately points schools in the right direction for continual improvement. We have been chosen to participate in EV this year, with our panel meeting on Thursday 17 June. The executive team are currently in the process of working with me to plan our evidence sets, collect, annotate and analyse our evidence and write our submission. I will look forward to sharing our submission with the community. Thank you in particular to Frances Separovich and Matthew Philips for their commitment to this task. What happens when my child’s teacher is away from school? All our teachers are committed to the learning and wellbeing of students in their class and across the school. There are times when teachers are not able to be with their class. This may be for a planning day, all types of leave including sick, long service and jury duty, to attend an interschool event – zone sport events – or attend professional learning. Executive teachers are required to undertake some additional duties to support the learning and wellbeing of students across the school. The team are currently working on mandatory Department of Education requirements for whole school improvement and future directions. When a teacher knows they will be away from their class they prepare the lessons ahead and have a handover to the casual teacher either in person, or via email. This means the children are following the learning program planned by the teacher. During the handover casual teachers are given further information that will support children’s wellbeing during the day. Casual teachers are asked to leave a report of the day for the class teacher so anything that may need following up can be done when the teacher returns to class. We are quite selective with our casual staff and where possible try to have the same teachers returning to work with us. That way they are familiar with the school expectations and begin to know the children.
Our goal at FFPS is to ensure that learning continues in every classroom every day and that the
children’s needs are met so they can continue to be happy, safe and productive at school.
Gail Smith
Principal
Respectful Responsible Learner
The focus of the week is: I will keep myself and others safe.
School News
SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHS WILL BE TAKEN ON:
Thursday 13 May 2021
ORDER NOW go to www.advancedlife.com.au and enter the
code
NJJ J33 YNF
Dear Parents
School photographs are scheduled to be taken by advancedlife. Whilst an envelope and
flyer has been distributed, if possible it is preferable that ordering be completed online
to reduce administration and potential security issues related to the return of cash and
envelopes on photo day.
Orders for packages and sibling photographs can be placed securely online at
www.advancedlife.com.au using your school’s unique 9 digit advancedorder code. Portrait
and group package orders are due by photography day.
Should you wish to purchase a sibling photograph online, the order must be placed no later
than the day before photography day. Sibling photographs will only be taken if an order has
been placed.
Should you have any queries concerning school photographs or online ordering, please
contact us at www.advancedlife.com.au/contact
Library News
At Frenchs Forest we want our students to develop a lifelong love of books and know the joy of
reading for pleasure. Children who read, or are read to, at home as well as at school have a
head start on reading success.
To encourage this, our school is participating in Scholastic Book Club this year. Once a term, I
will send home the Book Club catalogue with a different selection of books offered for all ages.
You will find award-winning books and bestsellers, as well as old and new favourites. The
books span a wide range of children’s reading levels and interests and are inexpensive (some
books cost as little as $2).
It is easy to order. The Book Club LOOP platform for parents allows you to pay by credit card.
Your child’s order is submitted directly to Scholastic and the books will be delivered to their
class. You can place your child’s order at scholastic.com.au/loop or by using the LOOP app,
which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.
This link provides more information about Book Club and the ordering process:
https://issuu.com/scholastic_australia/docs/scholastic_book_club_parent_guide?fr=sODVlMDM
0NDU5MDI
Selecting your own books from the catalogue is something fun for the students to do! My own
children spend ages circling their choices in the catalogue and get so excited when the order
arrives. Each order helps earn free books for our school, but there is never any obligation to
order. I hope this will be one extra tool in our kit to create the next generation of readers for life.
Nicola Brandt
Teacher Librarian
P & C News
Canteen
ffpspandccanteen@gmail.com
Have you seen the menu?
Our canteen follows the NSW Healthy School Canteen Strategy, which has a combination of
everyday and occasional food. Any food with a star rating of 3.5 or above is classed as
Everyday or Occasional. I am happy to announce that more than 80% of our menu has
Everyday items on it.
Every Thursday we will be selling a warm healthy meat pie. Butter chicken is back and available
and we also have a very healthy brownie as an over the counter purchase.
Volunteering in the Canteen
We still have a few shifts remaining for the term, in particular Thursdays. Below is a table of
shifts available over the next two weeks. I still have plenty of other shifts free in the term.
If you are free, please be in touch by emailing me at ffpspandccanteenrosters@gmail.com
As you can see, we have not been advertising morning shifts anymore. Our preferred shifts are
definitely the afternoon shifts, just so we can guarantee that we have all hands on deck come
service time. If you are only available in the morning and would like to volunteer, please email
me.
Shifts Available for the next two weeks
MAY
WEEK DATE SHIFT AVAILABLE
3 Thurs 6 11.50-2pm
3 Friday7 11.50-2pm
4 Wed 11.50-2pm
12
4 Thurs 11.50-2pm
13
4 Friday1 11.50-2pm
4
Birthday Frozos
To order Birthday Frozos, please call the school on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday and ask for
Rhiannon, our canteen manager. Once she confirms that there is plenty of stock, you order
through school 24. Please ensure you give us at least 48 hours notice.
Mother’s Day
This year we will be holding Mother’s Day on Friday 7 of May in the afternoon, from 3.10-
4.00pm. Bring a picnic rug and have a relaxing afternoon sitting on the oval. Food and drinks
can be purchased on the day in the canteen. Keep an eye on our P & C Facebook group and
notes next week for updates.
As this is a day to celebrate the wonderful ladies in our lives, is there any chance a few dads
wouldn’t mind volunteering for service? Contact me via ffpspandccanteen@gmail.com if you are
free.
For all other enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact me. I can be reached via
ffpspandccanteen@gmail.com
Looking forward to seeing you in the canteen.
Tara Howard
Canteen Convenor
Fundraising
ffpspandcfundraising@gmail.com
THANKYOU to everyone who participated in our GYG Fundraiser last weekend! We made a
total of $608 for our school! That’s a lot of burritos!! We are so grateful to the team at Guzman y
Gomez for hosting our fundraiser and look forward to some more great events in the future.
We are straight into our next event: The FFPS Jolly Soles Sock Fundraiser is about to start.
Remember the old chocolate box fundraisers of the past? Well, this one will be very similar but
instead of chocolates, the box is full of fun and crazy socks!
In a few weeks, each student at FFPS will come home with a handy carry-box full of socks to
sell to your family, friends, co-workers and neighbours for $5 per pair. There will be a variety of
sizes and patterns in the box so there will be something to suit everyone. Please ensure
children are accompanied while selling the socks around the neighbourhood.
Once you have sold your socks, you place your money into the silver letterbox with the student’s name and your job is done!! You must also return any unsold socks. There will also be a prize for the student who sells the most socks!! This will be an OPT-OUT event. This week we will send out a note to be returned by Thursday 6th May if you do not wish to participate in this event. Otherwise, we will allocate each student one box to bring home. If you have several siblings at the school you may wish to opt-out for one of them. If you think you can sell more than one box let me know via email and I can allocate an extra box to you. Mother’s Day is also just around the corner…. Still stuck for a present idea? How about an Entertainment Membership? We can celebrate Mums every day of the year with more than just a bunch of flowers on Mother’s Day. An Entertainment Membership is the gift that keeps giving all year round. Use the link below to purchase Entertainment Memberships before the 30th of April and our school may also win $10,000! It’s a WIN for everyone! https://au.entdigital.net/orderbooks/200y050
Finally, if you would like to join the Fundraising team and help us to organise these important events, drop me an email and I’ll happily include you in our plans. We’re a fun team and we’ve still got lots of great things coming up in 2021. Pip Bucknell Fundraising Convenor ffpspandcfundraising@gmail.com
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