6th September 2019

Dear Parents and Carers

This week is Child Protection Week. The theme for 2019 is on the development of children. The new framework works on the premise that to raise thriving kids parents need support to navigate the choppy waters.  They further develop the story of families navigating the seas:

“For healthy development, children need life to be on an even keel. But for families experiencing poverty and stress, raising children is like sailing in rough waters. Helping parents with counselling, quality child care and financial support makes sure that they have the lighthouses and safe harbours that they need to navigate these rough waters.

To develop in healthy and positive ways, children need life to be stable, even when families face rough times. Just as a strong skipper learns to be adaptable and to seek help when they need it, we can help parents to navigate life’s storms.” Napcan (the Nation Center for Child Abuse and Neglect) has some good resources for parents. These resources can be accessed at the Napcan website

Topics range from: 

• Keeping children safe from sexual abuse
• Listening to children
• 30 ways to boost a child’s confidence
• When a child feels sad

In class this week the children have all had lessons on their year’s focus for Child Protection Week. Each of those has a developmental focus around keeping children safe from abuse. 

A reminder to all parents that your child should not be at school before 8.10am. (Unless in before-school-care. Siblings of children who are attending practice cannot be left unsupervised in the playground at training times either in the morning or afternoons. Students who are waiting for later training may stay with a designated parent who is responsible for them having afternoon tea, staying in the correct areas (away from the training area) and having a warm up for their training. 

There have been a number of cases of Influenza B in the school as well as a large number of children with the stomach “bug”. Please keep children home if they are showing any of the symptoms. 

Influenza viruses are mainly spread by droplets made when an infected person coughs or sneezes.  Influenza can also be spread through touching surfaces when infected droplets have landed. Those infected can be infectious from the day before their simptoms starts. Adults are most infectious in the first 3-5 five days of their illness, while children remain infectious for 7-10 days, and people with weakend immune systems may be infectious for longer.  It helps a great deal if we have all parents contact details up to date at all times.

With the implementation of new school expectations there are some wonderful rewards (congratulations to 2Gold who had the most PAWS tokens the last two weeks.). There are also consequences for not meeting our expectations. If a child is given a Long Time Out as a consequence they will miss some play. This is often for not keeping their hands and feet to themselves or not being kind to each other. If this happens, parents will be informed either with a phone call or email. This process is so that you can help us reinforce the behaviour expectations at home. If the child has a number of Long Time Outs in a short space of time then I will request a meeting with the child’s parents to problem solve regarding the behaviour expectations that the child is not meeting. 

Cowen & Lewis will have a summer uniform pop up store at school on Tuesday 17th September from 8am till 9.30am.  Please note that the weblink for SHM uniform shop is currently under construction, for the timebeing please contact them for uniform orders via the phone or at their Turramarra store: https://cowanlewis.com.au/contact/

Congratulations to our students who will make their First Holy Communion this weekend and next. Thank you to the teachers, parents and the parish leaders who have walked with you on this journey.

You are all welcome to attend the next P and F meeting in the hall at 7pm on Tuesday the 10th September. I was hoping to give a report on this years Naplan results at this meeting, but as they have not been shared with us as yet, I will give this report in Term 4.

Regards

Julie Caldwell

Over the Father’s Day weekend I had the privilege to attend one of our year 5 students Ice Hockey Games. Oliver O’Carroll in year 5 not only an athlete on land, but also on the ice! 

While I strolled in coffee in hand, Oliver was already on the ice practicing with his team. They practiced like a well oiled machine, all knowing what they need to do and how to prepare for the upcoming match. It was an incredibly fast paced game. I was impressed with how fast Oliver can travel on land, blown away by how fast he can travel on ice! I noticed very quickly that Oliver was a very important cog in the machine. Making a very significant impact whenever he hopped on the ice. It was an excellent game! Importantly, Oliver had a great time playing and had a great game with his team. Well done Oliver! We look forward to hearing more of your ice adventures!

In his first season of Hockey, year 4 student Spencer Zukerman's team made it all the way through to a very tough Grand Final.  Playing in pouring rain and on artificial turf for the first time they managed to come home with the trophy. Spencer set up the first 2 goals which was very exciting but came off and said "Does that mean Basketball starts next week"!!

Congratulations to Grace Prince of year 5 whose team placed second at the State Basketball Championships last weekend. Norths Bears U12s won each of their games to make it to the Grand Final against Manly. Scores were tied at full time, but after nail-biting extra time, they went down by three points. A fantastic achievement Grace, to collect the silver medal at State level, well done!  

Payments for band fees are due for term three.  Please email Mary Lozina if you need a refresher on payment procedures.

Last week, our Technology team and a group of engineers were invited to attend a STEM day organised by ACS Foundation.  It was an excellent day of learning and enrichment. Experiences varied from binary coding to making solar lamps for PNG and coding Mindstorm robots.

Below are some comments by two of the students who participate in a STEM Workshop.

Henry Burton:

It was a phenomenal experience enriching our knowledge of eye-opening topics. We first learnt about binary code; an advanced computer coding language. We were hosted by WiseTech who taught us about basic binary with decoding and adding. After that, we were hosted by the Origin Foundation, an off-spring of Origin energy who provide electricity to cities and countries in poverty. During the activity we built a mobile solar light for children in Papuanew Guinea suffering from light poverty. Finally we visited the UTS workshop for Robotics where coded LEGO mindstorms. We were tasked to code the mindstorms around a grid and collect as many items as possilbe on our mission.

Tiernan: 

A “one of a kind” experience, with loads of interesting knowledge to learn. One of the outstanding topics we learnt about was the “binary code”, from WiseTech, where we learned a basic knowledge of binary code and how it contributes to storing technology and transmitting info. on a device, such as iPads, iPhones, laptops etc. Next we learned from Origin Foundation about Origin energy, they taught us about how some countries/towns suffer from electricity poverty, and how they build mobile solar light to provide with the people who are suffering from electricity poverty. We built our own mobile solar light and got to send it with a message to the people in Papua New Guinea who suffer from electricity poverty. Finally we learnt about coding from the UTS workshop and got to code in teams a robot, so it collects interesting stuff and returns back to safety at “end.” All and all the day was quite amazing and we learnt a lot of interesting information that we can use in our future lives.

Below is a link to a video of the students engaging in these activities for your enjoyment.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/179wBxlWE6bnKv7kUEpMbxHg4krIJCmgp/view?usp=sharing

The students received very positive feedback for the gratitude and excellent behaviours they displayed in each session.

Lastly, a big thank you to the wonderful group of parents who weathered the torrential downpours to escort the children to and from the event. 

Mrs Martina Petersen and Mrs Susan Russell

QKR! Guides on Setting Up Profile and Clothing Pool

QKR - Setting yourself up.pdf

QKR - SHM Clothing Pool.pdf

Parents Information Handbook

Parent Handbook 2019

Compass Guide

We encourage you to update your iPhone app update 5.0.8 Compass app in order for you to continue to get the latest features and improvements being released with each update,  the need to configure auto-updates in the iOS App and Google Play stores will ensure users have the most recent version of the Compass School Manager App. 

How do I check my device has the latest app version? Currently, the iPhone version is 5.0.9 (release Sept, 2019). Steps to check: Tap on App Store > Tap on Compass School Manager > Tap on Update (if update is not an option and it has Open, then the app is up-to-date). See here the iPhone troubleshooting guide

Guide on how your payments for school fees is now via Compass!

Giving Permission to Events now via Compass! 

COMPASS ATTENDANCE INSTRUCTIONS.pdf

Permission Form for Class Lists to Parents Communications 

Class list permission 2019.pdf

Enrolment Forms 2020

Enrolment Forms  

2019 School Fees

2019 School Fees

Application for Extended Leave
Extended Leave Application, 10 days and over during school term