6684 5226 l thepocket-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au l thepocket-p.schools.nsw.gov.au l Find us on

FROM THE PRINCIPAL Welcome Back Welcome back to 2019. We are set for another amazing year at The Pocket. A HUGE welcome to our new families that have joined us in 2019. We are also excited to welcome Ms Foxwell and Mr Attard to the team of teachers! Communication After reflecting on our 2018 school year, we realised that many parents and carers had noted that they weren’t aware of school events until the last minute. We took this as great feedback!

Newsletter You will notice a change to the newsletter to reflect this. Our school newsletter is the best tool that we have to communicate with all of our families. We are seeking your support to read the newsletter each fortnight to ensure you are up to date with everything that is happening at your school. If you require a hard copy then let us know. Sometime it is easier to have it sitting on the fridge than it is to have it in your emails!

FlexiBuzz We use Flexibuzz a lot! FlexiBuzz is an app that you can download from your app store. We use flexi buzz to send photos of our children’s day, send reminders and even send out notes. If you don’t have FlexiBuzz, you should!

Notes Home If there is an event happening at school that requires your permission then you get a note home regarding this. To help us, please return the note by the due date.

Your Teacher If you are unsure of any events or general communication please ask one of us. As I am sure you are aware we love talking about our great school so we are always here to help! School Fees and Book Packs We need your support! Each year we sell book packs that have all of the essentials that our children need for the year (textbooks, workbooks, pencils, whiteboard markers, online subscriptions etc). We try our hardest to keep the cost as low as possible. This year our book packs are $55 per child. Our voluntary contributions are $25 per child. If you could make these payments by Friday 8 February it would be greatly appreciated.

Quick Check! Date Event Who’s Involved

Thursday 7 February VoSS Swimming Carnival

Students aged 8 years and over.

Friday 8 February Deadline for bookpack payments

Whole School

Thursday 14 February Welcome BBQ, 4/5/6 assembly, badge ceremony and meet the teacher morning.

Whole School

Reminders Details

Swimming note due on Wednesday 6 February Canteen order due Wednesday 6 February Book payments due by Friday 8 February

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Welcome BBQ Our Welcome BBQ will be held on Thursday 14 February (feel free to bring the teachers some roses for Valentine’s Day). This is a great school community event where we all get together for breakfast. Breakfast is free! After breakfast, class 4/5/6 will host our first assembly of 2019 where we will hand out the captains badges and the SRC badges. As we are trying to streamline many of our processes at school, after the assembly we will have a 20 – 30min meet the teacher session. This is where you can go to the classrooms and the teachers will discuss how the classroom runs and what your child can expect.

8am – Free Breakfast BBQ 9am – Assembly 9:30am – Meet the teacher 10am – Children return to class Teachers Learning and Planning If you drove past the school over the holidays you would have seen how many times we were here planning and sorting for 2019! Over the holidays, we came in for two whole days together to organise our classrooms and prepare the learning sequences for our children. At our Staff Development Day on Tuesday of last week, we focused on our school plan and broke our goals down into achievable 5 week “chunks”. We are really excited about the direction of our school! Ask one of our teachers for more info on this or come along to the first P & C meeting. External Validation This year our school will be completing External Validation (EV). Every year we self reflect on our schools progress and achievement against the School Excellence Framework. This year we will have a panel attend our school to validate if our self reflection is consistent with their assessment of our school. I am incredibly excited to be able to show off the amazing things that we do and hopefully get some great feedback as to how we can continue to improve. Learning Goals As many of you would be aware, we have been transitioning to having individual learning goals for our children. Our main focus has been on writing. With an improved assessment schedule we are now able to identify our students learning goals across reading, spelling and mathematics. This means that by week four of this term you may see children moving between classrooms during the morning literacy sessions and the numeracy sessions so that they can meet their learning

goal. If your child is moving between classrooms your classroom teacher will let you know.

2020 Enrolment I know we have only just started 2019 but as I am sure you would be aware our school is a very popular place to send your child! As many of our families live outside of our zoned intake area, we have limited spaces to offer. We would appreciate your help with this by letting us know if you have another child that intends to enrol for 2020. All you need to do is see Pauline and she will make a note of it. Enrolment applications don’t open until Term 2 but we like to make sure that we are open and transparent about the number of spaces available with new families trying to gain access to the school. We have already had requests for tours! This Fortnight’s Expectations Week 2 – I am kind and respectful to others. Talk to your child about how this might look at home, in the playground and in the classroom. Week 3 – I am sun safe. What things do we do to protect ourselves from the sun? MEAL DEAL Order Form coming home today. This Friday we are having sushi. Please return orders by Wednesday this week. Also, on the back is a request for canteen helpers. Please tick any days you are available to help out. Your contribution is appreciated. New Boys/Girls Shorts Our new blue shorts are now available from the office. There is both a boys and a girls fit option. They are $15 each.

Attachments

• Permission to Publish • General Permissions • Canteen Meal Deal • Newsletter by Email – new students

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Music For Kids is a music program that has been running at the school for the past 12 years. Joanne Sloane is the founder of the program. Her classes incorporate lessons in Piano/ keyboard and African Percussion. These lessons run on a Tuesday at the school. The piano/keyboard lessons include a thorough learning of music where the children learn to read music and train to be in a band. They are encouraged to create their own songs and learn to play by ear. The drumming groups are all rhythm based and a great way for the children to learn to play as a team and learn timing and polyrhythms. The students are supported to perform at the end of year performance and smaller performances at the school throughout the year. If you are interested in your child learning either/or both of these instruments during school time please contact Joanne on 0422562179 or email musicforkids.oz@gmail.com

ENROL NOW

COMMUNITY NOTICES

LEARN TO SWIM AT BILLINUDGEL Swim For Your Life provides top quality lessons for new swimmers, adults, mums and bubs, mini-squads, stroke development and children with special

needs. We take pride in progressing the student with good technique through encouragement, patience and knowledge. Swim For Your Life is an Active Kids Provider. Call today 66801614. www.swimforyourlife.net.au

• We apologise for the poor quality of copying, our photocopier is awaiting a much-needed service.

www.jalayoga.com.au Emma 0406 090 791

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