2024 Term 2 Week 2

Important Dates

Principal's Report

Welcome

Welcome back to Term 2, I hope you all had a great break. It was great to see all the students arrive at school refreshed and revitalised from their two-week break. I have visited a few classrooms and the children certainly did enjoy the opportunity to catch up with friends, go to the movies, visit relatives, go on a vacation and relax. Teachers returned on the Monday, planning for another productive Term, examining current policies and procedures and are very excited to begin educating all those young minds.

School Uniform

Thank you to all parents who have ensured that full school uniform is being worn. It is great to see all the blue out in the playground.

There still seems to be quite a few students who are wearing caps with sporting teams or other logos on them. We ask that a school hat be purchased as soon as possible.

Also, there is quite a variety of coloured stockings being worn. We understand with the colder weather these help keep the children warm, but we ask that the stockings be black or blue.

It’s important that we ensure that school uniform is being worn, every day. It brings about a sense of school community and pride.

Beginning with Term 2, students are required to wear their complete winter uniform, which includes black shoes (except on designated Sport Days) and the school hat. For more details on purchasing school uniforms, please consult the Uniform Shop.

Eastwood Uniform Shop

Rotary Public Speaking

It is with great pride that we announce that Aathmika P was successful at the Rotary Public Speaking competition, held at Eastwood Heights Public School. Aathmika P will now progress to the state finals. What an accomplishment. We wish her all the best.

New Build

The speed of construction is gathering pace with new build being close to watertight. The windows have been put in and the carpet in some areas has been laid. Walking around the site you get a real sense of what the classrooms will look like. It’s very exciting. At the moment, we are still unsure of the completion date, but we are looking at occupying the classrooms from the beginning of 2025.

Facebook

Eastwood Public School has a lot to be proud of and celebrate, so to showcase all the great talents of our students we post many photos and descriptions on the Eastwood Public School Facebook page. This is a celebration site where we highlight different aspects of the school, be it classroom work, sporting events or special occasions. It will not be a vehicle to communicate the day-to-day happenings of the school or to disseminate notes etc but designed to display the achievements of students at Eastwood Public School.

Please have a look:

Eastwood Public School Facebook

Student’s Arrival and Departure Times

We are becoming quite concerned regarding the large number of students arriving at school early and students who are not being picked up in the afternoon, until quite late.

The school’s expectation is that students arrive from 8:40am onwards and depart the school no later than 3:20pm.

This is a safety issue, especially in the morning, as there are no teachers on duty and if something were to happen the consequences could be dire.

We understand that from time-to-time parents are running late and all we ask is that you contact the school so we can make arrangements until you arrive. Or contact a friend and organise that friend to collect the students that afternoon. Unfortunately, some parents are arriving at 3:40pm on regular basis.

We have a wonderful before and after school care service that can look after your child in the mornings and afternoons.

Thank you for your consideration.

School Grounds

Just a reminder to make sure that you use the correct entrances to enter the school. The staff carpark is NOT an entrance or exit and last week two students were nearly hit by a car as they were walking, with their parents, through the car park. Once the gate is fixed the car park gate will be locked – including weekends.

The school’s car park is for teacher parking only. Parents are not permitted to use this car park under any circumstances.

Thank you,

Michael Kammerer - Principal

Deputy Principal's Report

Opportunity Classes for 2025

Year 5 OC applications for entry in 2025 opened on 4 April 2024 and close on 20 May 2024. All eligible students in Year 4 can apply, with the test being held on 1 August. For more information, please visit:

Effective spellers understand and make use of four kinds of linguistic knowledge, alongside visual and strategic processes. They are: Phonological Knowledge, Orthographic Knowledge, Morphemic Knowledge and Etymological knowledge.

Today’s focus is on Phonological knowledge. So what does PHONOLOGY mean? ‘Phono’ derives from the Greek language meaning ‘sound made by something living, voice, speech, utterance’ and ‘-logy’ also from the Greek language meaning ‘the science or study of’. So in other words, PHONOLOGY means the study or science of speech sounds. (by the way, breaking a word into its meaning chunks (morphology) and explaining its word origins (etymology) is an expectation of a Year 5 and Year 6 student). 

What does this look like in the classroom?

In the Kindergarten classroom, the emphasis is firstly placed on students being able to hear, isolate, blend and manipulate sounds (phonemes) of spoken words. Matching the sounds (phonemes) to their letter(s) (graphemes) also occurs in the Kindy classroom, as well as blending and segmenting words with 3-4 phonemes.

In Year 1 and in Year 2, we move into teaching students the different graphemes that represent one phoneme, for example the phoneme /o/ can be represented by the graphemes [o], [oa], [o_e]. A task they do in class is identifying words that contain the focus phoneme, in context such as in a book they are reading, and then categorising the words into the correct grapheme group. Below is a photo of what this looks like in a Year 1 and Year 2 classroom. Blending and segmenting is still practised in Year 1 and Year 2

In Years 3 - 6, the focus is on more complex phoneme / grapheme combinations, such as [eigh, aigh] graphemes to represent the long /a/ phoneme (straightener) or [s, si, ge] graphemes to represent the consonant phoneme /zh/ (collage). Students are explicitly taught how to use this knowledge to spell multisyllabic words. Tasks in class include segmenting words into their syllables and into their phonemes, as well as identifying words in texts and categorising them according to their graphemes.

Try this out with your child: 

Segment the words below into their phonemes and/or syllables:                                                                                        (Answers - next newsletter)

Mrs Kathy Gounakis

Assistant Principal, Curriculum and Instruction

Kindergarten Matters - KC

KC have had a couple of exciting weeks of Term 2, filled with lots of learning and reuniting with friends. We explored the science topic of Space in a school incursion and through play-based learning. We can't wait for all the fun events coming up this term!

Stage 1 Happenings - 1R

On the first week of term 2, 1R had a lot of fun making healthy chips with potatoes and carrots. We learned to cut using safety knives and used the peeler to peel the carrots. It was challenging to cut the chunky vegetable, but we didn't give up and persisted.

We ate the delicious chips when it came out of the oven.

Stage 2 Happenings - 3K

3K has been hard at work learning all about data. Students began with constructing high quality survey questions and discovered the difference between an open and closed question. They then surveyed their peers, gathering their findings and putting them in a tally chart.

Students then discovered how to use their data to construct different types of graphs. The first graph they created was a dot plot and found that it’s a data display that is quick to make and easy to read. They then increased the difficulty and created column graphs. These took a lot more time to construct but they turned out great!

3K has also been busy practising their reading fluency with their peers. They have been using the class text “Iceberg” by Claire Saxby to read selected passages, focusing on their pausing, expression, and emphasis.

Stage 3 Happenings - 5DV

Big Numbers! 

Over the past fortnight 5DV have been looking at numbers that extend beyond one million.

In this activity they had to work collaboratively to order the numbers from smallest to largest (ascending). Mrs Dawkins was very proud of the class as they showed persistence, team work and a great understanding of place value.

This activity led to a recap of decimal place value from a previous lesson to check for understanding. The students did a great job at putting the numbers in the right columns from listening to a number read out by Mrs Dawkins. It sure was a tongue twister in adding ‘ths’ to numbers that are less than one.

Wellbeing Update

Pulse Launched this Week

This week we launched ei Pulse with our students in Years 3- 6. Pulse is a wellbeing program that we’ll be using with the students at school. As we know, wellbeing can change moment to moment. It is influenced by what is happening at a specific time and the actions taken. 

Pulse is an app that students can use to check in with their mental, social and physical wellbeing. It only takes 60 seconds once a week, and gives students the opportunity to reach out for help, send thanks to staff and peers, and give anonymous feedback about their experiences at school. 

The questions asked in Pulse were developed with an evidence based framework for child and youth wellbeing. The organising framework and questions have been developed over 10 years in close consultation with hundreds of experts and thousands of students

Research by ARACY underpins Student Pulse with Australia’s first evidence-based framework for child and youth wellbeing (0-24 years) - The Nest. 

The Nest defines six interlocking areas of wellbeing which must be supported for a child to thrive. These being:

• Valued and Safe
• Healthy
• Participating
• Learning
• Material Basics
• Identity and Culture

How Does Pulse Work

Pulse allows students to complete quick and easy check ins. Most students will check in at a scheduled time each week, but will also be able to complete additional check ins whenever they like. Students will receive an email prompting them to check in at the same time each week and be given a reminder if they forget. 

The Questions:

The first question is: How are you feeling today? This question is identifiable, so school staff will be able to see how individual students have responded. If students choose the option ‘I need some help’ They will be given the option of choosing who they would like to speak to, and then the staff member will be notified by email and then will able to discreetly approach the student. 

Once they are asked the first  wellbeing question, they will be asked 5 anonymous questions. For example students are asked:

Do you agree with the following stage? When I’m worried about something, I make myself think about it in a different way that helps me feel better. 

These questions gives the staff wellbeing feedback about how the students are tracking as a group, and to give ideas about how to support students’ wellbeing and make changes or see what is going well. 

At the end of the checkin, students are given the opportunity to give gratitude to a friend or staff member. 

Pulse gives students a safe way to ask for help if they need it as well as a new way to make their voices heard and give their opinion about their experiences at school. 

Staff will take the information they gather seriously in order to make meaningful changes where necessary. 

Pulse is used to give the students a voice which in itself  is vital for wellbeing. Allowing them to be heard at school will help in ensuring that the wellbeing of our young people is addressed in a holistic way.

Sport

Cross Country and Athletics Carnival

Students have been practising the skills needed for Cross country and athletics in PE. It is important to give our children the confidence to give something a go that they have never done before. We have had students succeed by doing things that are new and then finding that they enjoy it or simply keep getting better.

After the carnivals, there will be additional practice sessions for students who qualify to represent Eastwood school at zone cross country or athletics. 

These students will be withdrawn from class once a week until the zone carnivals so they can learn more about and practise the skills needed for the events they will represent the school in.

School Fun Run

Social Media Update

Allergy Awareness

Parking and Traffic Rules 2024

Merit Awards

Community News