The newsletter for our school community

Passfield Park School

53 Guernsey Avenue Phone: 9820 1700 Minto NSW 2566

Passfield-s.school@det.nsw.edu.au www.passfield-s.schools.nsw.edu.au

Diary Dates………

Thursday 20th June Year 10 Vaccinations Friday 5th July Last day of Term 2 Tuesday 23rd July First Day of Term 3 Saturday 12th October Shopping Trip Date to be advised Trivia Night Friday 29th November School Formal

Dear Parents and Carers

Illness We have had a number of students with gastric and vomiting viruses. To stop the spread of this debilitating virus to other students and staff, we request that you please keep your child at home if he or she is unwell.

NDIS We are trying to accommodate the large number of occupational and speech therapists who visit students during their educational learning day. Appointment times are restricted to minimise the impact to the education of students.

University students During the term, four University of Western Sydney medical students participated in our volunteer’s program as part of their medical degrees. Students enjoyed spending time with them in both classroom and playground activities.

Community Liaison Officer (CLO) Many of you have met Tia, our CLO, through her organisation of morning teas for Mothers’ Day, International Women’s Day and other celebratory events. Tia also helped families with NDIS, and Companion Cards during the term. She is very knowledgeable with NDIS so please call the office on 9820 1700 if you would like to make an appointment to see Tia either on Tuesdays or Thursdays.

Staffing At the end of Term 1, we said farewell to Narelle, SLSO on Yellow Class, who decided to retire. Narelle has assisted in teaching many hundreds of students during her 18 years at Passfield Park School. We wish her relaxation and enjoyment in this next stage of her life. Narelle took on many extra tasks during her time at Passfield Park School such as organising and caring for the vegetable gardens and running a drinks machine to raise funds for student learning items. Her enthusiasm and humour is missed.

Reports Teachers are currently assessing student progress in curriculum areas and PLSP goals and preparing student reports. The reports will go home later in the term and we hope you enjoy reading the progress your child/ren has/have made.

May 24, 2019

Valuing and respecting student and staff learning in a safe 21st century learning environment

Our charity, Passfield Park Kids Inc., was set up in 2013 to support the therapy needs of our students. The committee meet once each term. If you would like to find out more or be a part of this wonderful charity, please call Cheryl (in the office).

From the principal……

Kind regards, Wendy Low

Welcome to Red Class Term 2, We are enjoying our weekly music sessions with Daniel from Rhythm Village. The focus for the term is Made in Australia, exploring the different sounds of our culture. Each week we have had the opportunity to play different types of percussion instruments. We thank Teal Class for welcoming us into their room each Tuesday morning for music. This term we are continuing our study on the human

body, focusing on how we look after ourselves and

looking at the skeleton. Students enjoyed building

skeletons on the smartboard, dragging and dropping

them into place. It was a good time had by all

students.

Sarah and

Kris W

Silver Class has returned in Term 2 ready to build on knowledge and skills! Many of our learning programs have been updated to reflect students’ achievement of goals, which is very exciting! Most exciting of all for our students, has been the start of our swimming program on Friday’s. We are working on independence skills to get dressed, safely transition, travel in the school bus and water safety at the pool! Communication skills are a big focus for Silver Class this term and we have dedicated each afternoon to build on skills using their personalised system. A strong emphasis on communication each day has supported students in building their skills to engage more meaningfully in learning activities and empow-ered students to voice their wants and needs.

Silver Class would like to wish our community

Eid Mubarak – Happy Holidays!

Amanda, Lucinda and Di B

CLASS NEWS

Red Class Silver Class

It is hard to believe we are halfway through Term 2 already! We are having lots of great experiences during our every day living skills lessons. We are learning to follow recipes, write shopping lists, purchase groceries and cook our own meals. We practice setting our place at the table and using a knife and fork to eat our meals. It has been lots of fun. During Science lessons we had an explosive time! We made our paper-mace volcanoes erupt! There will be a video put together of our class and posted on ClassDojo very soon! This term we are undertaking a ceramics unit for Visual Arts. We will be making ceramic koi fish as part of our integrated studies on Japan. We used plasticine to practice making pinch pots. Follow us on ClassDojo for regular updates as we build and create our fish. In week 2, high school students attended the athletics Come and Try day at Leumeah Sporting Complex. What a fabulous day it was! Students participated in100m and 200m running races. They also had the opportunity to learn and practice throwing javelins, shotputs and discus. The favourite athletics event was the long jump! Some of the teachers couldn’t resist having a go on the day! Congratulations to: Ronnan: 1

st place in the 200 metres and 2

nd place in

the 100 metres. Jamie: 2

nd place in the 100 metres

Billy: 3rd

place in the 200 metres Tia: 1

st place in the 100 metres

Karen and Rob

CLASS NEWS

White Class Yellow Class is growing their own garden. We had a go at preparing the soil, sowing the seeds and watering. It was very exciting to watch the seeds grow into seedlings. Students also enjoy engaging with the sensory garden made of dry seeds and pretend flowers in the class room. We look forward to making a scarecrow the or garden and harvest our produce. Yellow Class is focusing on water safety and their swimming skills on Fridays. Most of us have achieved starfish and stingray levels of swimming ability. We also have a great sensory experience in the pool. Happy birthday to Justice and Nicholas! We had great time eating yummy cakes and party food. Hope the birthday boys loved their presents.

Yellow Class

Earn & Learn From May 1, Woolworths will be running their 2019

Earn and Learn program giving shoppers stickers

earned with purchases. This program gives schools the

opportunity to gather great resources. We have a

collection box at school and at Minto Mall, Macarthur

Square & Glenquarie Woolworths stores. Let your

friends and family know that we are

happy to receive stickers by mail too

if they live further away.

CLASS NEWS

This term, Purple Class has begun a new fitness routine. After visiting White Class to observe their FitMaths program in action, our students were excited to have the opportunity to join in and try out a variety of exercises including sit ups, shuttle runs, shoulder presses and squats. Our thanks go to Karen, Rob and White Class for their assistance and inspiration. It is great to see Purple Class enthusiastically starting their day in such a healthy way. Tuesday’s music sessions with Daniel from Rhythm Village continue to be very popular. Purple Class enjoys having their friends from Green Class join them. Both classes love music and it is wonderful to see their high levels of engagement, participation and enjoyment each week.

Di, Leanne and Kris

Purple Class

Congratulations to all of Blue Class on a fantastic start to Term 2. This term we are continuing our learning on Japan. We have been learning about Tsunami’s, the different landforms of Japan whilst also writing some familiar words in Kanji. This term we are also focusing on independent living skills. This has included joining with Green Class for weekly food technology lessons. Each week we are working on using our utensils correctly whilst also displaying appropriate eating behaviours. Blue Class students should be very proud of all of their achievement during this session. They also thoroughly enjoying eating the chicken schnitzel, potato and peas. We are all looking forward to a fun filled remainder of

the term. Holly & Rami

Blue Class

Orange Class have had a great start to Term 2. Congratulations to the high school students who

participated in the come and try athletics day! All the

students had a fantastic time. We are continuing to

learn about Japan and are practicing our greetings,

counting and common Japanese words. This term we

are learning about Australian music in weekly lessons

with Daniel from Rhythm Village. The students in

Orange Class have shown fantastic progress in

preparing food in our weekly food technology lessons.

Our high school students are looking forward to the

upcoming excursion to Campbelltown Performing Arts

to see a performance.

Cameron and Julie

Orange Class

Check out our school website www.passfield-s.schools.nsw.edu.au

CLASS NEWS

Congratulations to Green Class on a fantastic start to Term 2. Green Class has welcomed Alana and Nicole to the class. The students of Green Class have managed extremely well with the changes. This term, we have been studying all things Japanese. We have started to practice greeting each other each morning in Japanese and have enjoyed listening to songs that allow us to practice some common Japanese words. Green Class has continued to enjoy Music lessons with Daniel. We have been able to experiment with a range of props to add to our experience. This term we have also started cooking with our neighbours in Blue Class. Green Class students love going to the kitchen and are making great progress in developing different skills. Thank you for welcoming us into Green Class.

Alana & Nicole

Green Class

We have had such a busy start to Term 2. Last term we introduced the Zones of Regulation and bucket filling programs that will continue throughout the year. The focus of the Zones of Regulation is to teach students self-regulation and self-control. Students check in every morning by placing their photos in the Zone where they are in (green-happy; blue-sad, sick; yellow-worried and red-angry). The focus of bucket filling is to encourage students to do or say something that makes someone happy. This will increase their positive emotions and other people’s as well. Students have also been implementing the bucket filling skills in the playground by finding a friend or friends to play with, initiate interaction, share toys and take turns. Music, sports, swimming and cooking remain the

favourite programs for all students.

Tapiwa and Michele

Teal Class