BILPIN PUBLIC SCHOOL NEWSLETTER Excellence in Learning 2517 Bells Line of Road, BILPIN 2758 Telephone: 4567 1154 Fax: 4567 1388 Email: bilpin-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

www.bilpin-p.schools.nsw.edu.au

Term 2 Week 4 Tuesday 16th May 2017

TERM 2 2017

16th May - 27th June Athletics Program K-6

22nd May Parent Asembly

26th May District Cross Country

29th May Richmond Rotary Public

Speaking Awards

30th May Power of One K-6 visit

7th June Responsible Pet Program

K-3

Dates to Remember

Small Schools Cross Country Carnival The Small Schools Cross Country Carnival was held on Friday 5th May with 25 competitors attending. All students tried their very best with outstanding results. There were some nail biting finishes with results being decided right on the finish line. So outstanding were our results that Bilpin actually won the carnival this year! A tremendously exciting result and we are extremely proud of all students who ran on the day as each runner contributed to the end result! Yay team! I would like to thank Mr Hynds for convening another highly successful carnival. We would like to thank the following people for their help in the lead up to the carnival and during the day; Angie Pirie, April Vigurs, Sue Croumbie-Brown, Cheryl Baird, Rachael McKinlay, Judy Miller, Kelly and Jim Haines, Mick Pattison, Darryl Carle, Isabel Lester and David Hazeltine. We would also like to thank the following families for making food and donating produce to sell on the day which was a great help; Rebecca Tadrosse, Vanessa Smith, the Ingersoles, the Galbraiths, the Piries, the Bourkes, the Vigurs, the Bairds, the Peters, the Carles, the Tydemans, the McLaughlins, the Williams, the McKinlays and the Hazeltines. It was wonderful to have so many helpers supporting our main fundraiser for this year. We raised over $1800 for the day which is a fabulous effort. We are waiting on a few payments to confirm the total amount raised and will announce it in the next newsletter.

P & C Meeting

Tuesday 6th June

The Staff Room 3.40pm

We wish our fabulous team all the best at the District Cross Country Carnival on Friday 26th May! Go Bilpinites!

District Cross Country Congratulations to Leander, Abby, Aliza, Zane, Alana, Olivia, Lily and Jack who will be representing Small Schools at the Hawkesbury District Carnival next Friday. We wish them all the best. NAPLAN Our Year 3 and Year 5 students completed the NAPLAN tests in English and Maths last week. Reports on these assessments will be returned to school next term. Congratulations to all students for their hard work, perseverance and excellent efforts.

Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens Excursion Yesterday the whole school travelled to the Botanic Gardens for a Geography excursion. Last term the excursion had to be postponed due to the excessive rain we had. Yesterday however, we were lucky to have fabulous weather that put on display the spectacular colours of the autumn trees in all their glory! We began the excursion with a bower bird nest making competition and egg hunt. The students worked in K - 6 groups to collect natural materials from the garden grounds to build a bower then collect their eggs to fill their nest. Once they finished building their nests the groups had to perform a bird dance to make their nests the most appealing. The boys and girls worked together cooperatively to build some amazing structures. After this activity the students branched off into class groups to undertake hands-on activities. K/1 went on a treasure hunt through the gardens. The students were each given a map to follow which had a special space for them to stick their collections. They discovered the different shapes, textures and colours in the garden. To finish their lesson they graphed all of their findings according to colour. The special words we learnt from the day were ‘lichen’, ‘Tomah’, basalt’ and ‘leucadendron’.

Bilpin Public School P & C Committee are as follows

President Angie Pirie 0414 570 364 Please feel free to contact any of Vice President Michelle Coe 0427 593 963 these representatives if you have Treasurer April Vigurs 0404 476 806 any concerns you wish to discuss Secretary Nikki Wheen 4567 1154

Term 2 Week 4 Tuesday 16th May 2017

2/3 began with a texture hunt then had to find plants in the garden to match paint sample swatches. After they collected their examples the students had to graph their collections based on a category of their choice e.g. colour, size. Their concluding activity was a scavenger hunt around the gardens to plot 10 different images on a map, creating their own key. They all did a fabulous job at identifying the different pictures. 4/5/6 completed a rainforest walk and study. Students made compasses from natural materials and used ipads to create a collage of different views of the rainforest.

We would like to thank all of the Education Staff at Mt Tomah for travelling from all over Sydney to run this enjoyable program for us. The program was provided free to us for participating in the Waratah Festival last year. We are very grateful to Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens for their generosity!

Reports and Semester 1 Interviews Semester 1 reports will be sent home in Week 10 of this term. Interviews will also be conducted during Week 10, the last week of the term. Notes to book interviews will be sent home later in the term. Any parents who have concerns and require an urgent appointment will need to contact the class teacher to make a mutually suitable time to meet.

Rotary Public Speaking Awards

On Monday 29th May, Alana will speak at the Rotary Public Speaking Grand Final at Richmond High School. It is an excellent achievement to make the Grand Final and we wish her the best of luck and know she will represent us proudly!

The Power of One Performance On Tuesday 30th May ‘The Power of One’ performance will be taking place at school. This performance complements our Personal Development units. The Power of One is a series of skits presented by actors who use boxes, colours, and masks to vividly portray what bullying is, what can be done about it, and how every child has the power of one, the power to report and deal with bullying when they see it. The Power of One:

Explains the roles in bullying: Bully, Target, Bystander, and

Upstander

Shows vivid examples of different types of bullying: Physical,

Verbal, Exclusion, and Cyber bullying

Alerts children that Targets need help and shows them how to

be Upstanders rather than Bystanders

Provides solutions to bullying including reporting, intervening,

and assisting the Target

Emphasizes the need for individuals to take action to make their

community a safer, better place

Refers children to parents, adults, and teachers for further

assistance and instruction

Parent Assembly Our first assembly for the term will be held on Monday 22nd May to present students with Bronze and Silver Awards as well as Cross Country trophies. The assembly will begin at 2:45pm. All parents are welcome to attend.

Music Program - Mrs Oram As most of you will know, Miss Perry was in a car accident last week and has broken her arm and wrist. She is recovering well and says thank you to all of the families for their well wishes. She will not be completing lessons this week, however she will be back next week to continue teaching. She will now be at school on Thursdays, so if you could remind your children to bring their guitars/ukuleles and books on Thursdays from now on, that would be fantastic. As there is a parent assembly this Monday coming, I am inviting any students who didn’t perform at the first assembly to show us what they have learnt so far. I was listening to the guitar lessons this afternoon and they are sounding fabulous.

Regional ‘Arts In Action’ Music Camp - Mrs Oram Last week, Ariarn Pattison, Joel Barrett and myself attended the Department of Education regional music camp. They stayed at Merroo Conference Centre for 4 days and attended a large variety of workshops including; African drumming, body percussion and rhythm, guitar and vocal. Each of these workshops were run by a mixture of professional musicians and Department of Education music specialist teachers. During the afternoons and evenings, they took part in team building games, recreational activities as well as night activities such as hungry human hippos, trivia, air guitar competitions and a camp talent quest.

The 4 days concluded with a camp concert, where they were able to showcase all of the amazing things they learnt. I will show a brief shap shot of the concert at the parent assembly on Monday. I would like to congratulate Ariarn and Joel on the amazing job they did representing Bilpin Public School. They were polite, respectful, resilient and untiring throughout a very busy 4 days.

If you are interested in your child attending the camp next year, please come and see me for details.

State Dance Workshop

Congratulations to Annika Hazeltine, who was selected to participate in the State Dance Workshop at the Sydney Dance Company last week. We hope you had a fantastic time and we are positive you were an asset to our school while you were there.

Mrs M Mackie PRINCIPAL

CLASS NEWS

KINDERGARTEN/YEAR 1 - Mrs Oram and Mrs McCloy We would like to welcome back Mrs Gerisch, who will be completing her practicum with us this term. She will be with us for the next 4 weeks and we are sure she will do a fantastic job teaching the students.

C

O

M

M

U

N

I

T

Y

N

E

W

S

Term 2 Week 4 Tuesday 16th May 2017

We had a fantastic day at the Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens yesterday. Over the next few days, the students will be writing about all of the interesting facts they learnt while we were there. If there are any parents who are able to join us for reading groups, we would really love any help that we can receive. Reading group times are; Monday 9.45am, Tuesday 10.30am and Wednesday at 10.15am. Homework - If there are any questions about the Year 1 spelling homework, please don’t hesitate to ask us either in person, or send us a message on Class Dojo. As part of our K/1 History Unit with Ms Wheen, the students have been asked to talk about an object from the past and compare it to the modern day version. These talks are due on Tuesday 30th May. A sheet is attached to this week’s newsletter regarding this presentation.

CLASS 2/3 - Mrs Mackie Students have begun their preparation for the Athletics Carnival with Richard Berrell. They have been working on the following skills; sprinting, relays, hurdles and discus. All students are trying very hard. Literacy groups will resume this week. Rotations will take place on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 12 - 12:45pm. If any parents are able to come along to assist with reading we would love to have you! Today students were given the option to continue with their term homework grid based on the Zoo and Spelling strategies or take home a weekly grid that also includes mentals. I would like to congratulate the year 3’s for their excellent efforts in NAPLAN last week. Whilst a lot of importance is placed on these assessments, what our students achieve each day, their social and emotional growth and their desire to always achieve their best is important to us.

CLASS 4/5/6 - Mr Hynds

Congratulations to all the competitors at the Small Schools’ Cross Country Carnival in Week 2. We had a very successful day with all of our students running their hearts out and many now becoming part of the Small Schools’ Team to compete at the Hawkesbury District Carnival. A special thank you from me to Mick Pattison who once again was a tremendous help in organising the course to be safe and ready, and for helping with the set up the day before. Also thank you to the Haines family for helping to get the BBQ to and from the field, Miss Wheen for all her help as team manager on the day and to the many parents who offered to help and were able to come along and support our competitors. Well done to the Year 5 group who completed their Naplan tests conscientiously last week. I look forward to seeing some fine results to reflect their excellent effort last year and so far this year. Our three week Reading groups rotation will conclude this week and a new one commence next week with new readers and online activities. I look forward to having any parent helpers, so please let us know if you are available, even if it’s not every week. We would love to see you. In Maths over the next two weeks we will be covering a range of topics in addition, subtraction, multiplication, fractions, decimals, 3D, mass, length chance and data. In our History unit ’First Contacts’ we have been looking at the significance of James Cook’s discovery of the east coast of

Australia and how this historical event impacted on the original custodians of the land. Our class will be discussing the cultural differences of the Aboriginal people and the Europeans and we will study important aspects of Aboriginal life such as the connection to the land, The Dreaming and totems. Students will also be completing a project with Mrs Carroll in the library covering the life and voyages of Cook.

P & C NEWS

Canteen News

Many thanks to Vanessa Smith who will be working with Liz as Canteen Co-ordinator for the remainder of this year. Canteen roster for the next few weeks:- Thurs 18th May - Cheryl Baird Mon 22nd May - Vanessa Smith & Rebecca Tadrosse Thurs 25th May - Michelle Coe Mon 29th May - Vanessa Smith & Judy Miller Thurs 1st June - Kelly Haines & Sam Craigie Just a reminder that we have Spinach and Ricotta Rolls for sale as a special for $2.00 each this term. Hot Sausage Rolls are also available for $2.50. On Monday 22nd May and 19th June we will be having ‘Egg & Lettuce’ sandwiches available for sale for $3.00 each.

Mother’s Day Stall Thank you to everyone who assisted in our very successful Mother’s Day stall on 8th May. We had lovely gifts for the children to choose from and we raised $500 towards the Year 6 farewell.

Term 2 Week 4 Tuesday 16th May 2017

Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens Excursion