May 4th, 2012

Vol 1, Issue 1

Sir Eric Woodward – A brief

insight

SEW Staff

School Uniform

SEW ARCO Officer

Dates for your Diary

Birthdays

Principal‟s Message

News from the Classrooms

Attachments

Sir Eric Woodward

School Newsletter

Cnr Ayres and Acron Roads, St Ives NSW 2075

Telephone 9449 6003 Fax 9983 9334

Email: sirericwoo-s.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Website: www.sirericwoodwardschool.com.au

Sir Eric Woodward is a unique special educational setting that incorporates diverse modes of quality instructional delivery. The school hosts both face to face teaching and distance education. Delivering quality education across diverse instruction both face to face and distance education is very exciting and enables the amazing teaching staff insight into various resources and modes of working with young people with additional needs within the Department of Education and Communities (DEC). Sir Eric Woodward has five classes at Ayres Road which include the Junior, Intermediate and Senior classes and the Autism Support Unit comprising of two classes. Quality educational programs are offered supporting a range of communication and physical goals which are embedded through a rich curriculum. Students enrolled in the Autism Support Unit attend Sir Eric Woodward four days a week and one day is spent at a mainstream school known as the students „home school‟. Students enrolled in the Autism Support Unit like all our students work towards the Board of Studies (BOS) outcomes through a solid program incorporating all key learning areas with a sense of fun and achievement. Another mode of delivery at Sir Eric Woodward is the New South Wales Distance Education Support Unit (DESU). The DESU consists of eight classes with five students in each class. Each student enrolled at Sir Eric Woodward School in the DESU are significant members of our school community. The student in the DESU attend to their learning through a unique delivery which enables each and every student full access to a diverse curriculum and quality educational experiences. The diverse modes of delivering special education to over 70 students characterises Sir Eric Woodward School as a unique educational setting.

At the core of different delivery modes of quality teaching is a strong and committed team. This team is dedicated to all students and supporting their families. At Sir Eric Woodward the team is passionate about special education and finding the best fit for each individual student, providing an authentic curriculum, aligning with Board of Study and DEC requirements. SIR ERIC WOODWARD STAFF Quality teaching and learning at Sir Eric Woodward School is a credit to all the staff, a team that has a student centred approach and who celebrate the individual and all successes. Over the coming weeks, all staff will be introduced or re-introduced to our families and wider school community. Please meet the executive staff, School Administration Mangers (SAM) and General Assistants (GA) at Sir Eric Woodward School The executive staff members include JoAnne Gardiner (Principal) Narelle Turner (Deputy Principal) and Norma Kendall (Assistant Principal), Donna White (Assistant Principal) and Louise Sonter (Assistant Principal Relieving). The executive work alongside a team who honour all student‟s abilities and their families as positive partners in their child‟s education. Maureen Dagg and Brenda Clark, Sir Eric Woodward‟s SAM‟s are two integral team members, who lead the office area and support the smooth operation of the whole school Ian Gilkes and Duncan McDiarmid share the GA role at Sir Eric Woodward and no job is too big or too small. The school‟s grounds and maintenance supporting the welfare of all students and staff is managed efficiently and effectively by both Ian and Duncan.

The SEW Executive Team Narelle, Jo, Louise, Norma and Donna

SEW wonderful General Assistants Ian and Duncan

SEW Senior School Mangers Maureen and Brenda

SCHOOL UNIFORMS

Omar and Daniel looking great in full school uniform

It is wonderful to see students attending Sir Eric Woodward School in the school uniform. We look forward to the number of students wearing the uniform growing. A uniform unites the school and gives recognition of the wonderful community we are. The colours are white and blue. The uniform is a white polo shirt and blue shorts for summer and a white skivvy or long sleeve polo shirt and a blue track suite for winter. Uniforms can be purchased from the school with the school logo on the shirt.

Please contact the office for any assistance and or to place orders. An order form has been attached to the newsletter for you convenience. Currently we have many students throughout the face to face classes wearing the school uniform. It would be wonderful to see all our face to face students wear the school uniform representing their school with pride. Seeing the students in the playground and during assembly in the school colours displays a sense of connectedness. A school uniform is great form of recognition and highlights the school when our students are accessing the wider school community on excursions or community access proudly promoting Sir Eric Woodward as a wonderful public education school. Tom, Thomas and Luke wearing their SEW uniform

SIR ERIC WOODWARD ARCO OFFICER Donna Blatchford has been nominated as member of the teaching staff to be the school‟s Anti-Racism Contact Officer (ARCO). The ARCO is the contact between students, staff, parents and community members who wish to make a complaint regarding racism and the appropriate procedure that will be used to resolve the complaint, including the person who will have responsibility for dealing with the complaint - the delegate. If there is anything you would like to speak to Donna about please contact her at the school on 94496003 or via email to arrange a suitable time to meet donna.p.white@det.nsw.edu.au.

Donna, SEW’s trained ARCO Officer

Dates for your Diary

Parent/Carer Meeting -Ylana Bloom Speech Therapist – In-service for parents with students attending Face to Face – Monday May 28th, 2012

Parent/Carer Meeting -Rob Hardy– Family Planning – In-service for parents with students attending DESU and Face to Face – Monday May 28th, 2012

Student Reviews – o Autism Support Unit- Thursday May

24th, 2012 –Year 6 only Year 5 TBA o SSP – Thursday May 30th, 2012 o DESU – Thursday July 24th, 2012

Biggest Morning Tea – Thursday May 24th,

Birthdays

Phoebe one of our lovely young ladies from the senior class celebrated her 14th birthday and Mary-Jo one of our dedicated team members who teaches on the junior class also celebrated her special day, this fortnight. A very happy birthday to both Phoebe and Mary-Jo!

Principal’s Message

Welcome to the first issue of the new look Sir Eric Woodward School Newsletter. The newsletter will now be distributed to all our families and wider school community via preferred methods including website, email and post. The revised newsletter will incorporate fortnightly school events, classroom news outlining the quality teaching and learning, student successes and exciting curriculum participation. The newsletter will also include each fortnight important dates for your diary, birthday notices attachments and a principal message and on occasion other significant messages from the deputy principal, school based nurse and parents and community committee. What a fabulous first fortnight of term two and in my new position! The team at Sir Eric Woodward have all been extremely welcoming and supportive. Instantly I have recognised a truly dedicated team, who are supportive of best practice for all students and their education. I have been having fun getting to know all the students enrolled in the face to face delivery mode of the school and over the next few weeks, I will be sitting with individual teachers from the Distance Education Unit to find out more about their students and their learning goals and achievements to date. I look forward in near future to attend a few field visits with the DESU class staff to meet some of the Sir Eric Woodward students in the DESU. I look forward to many of our parents and carers attendance at the parent information meetings and luncheon later in the term and I look forward to meeting and talking with those parents and carers on this day. The parent information meetings and luncheon is an opportunity for Sir Eric Woodward families to not only be involved in important information sessions but also to have an opportunity to meet and network with other parents and carers. I hope our families and wider school community will enjoy reading Issue 1 of the SEW Newsletter, please do not hesitate to contact the school when you would like to speak with me, I look forward to fostering positive relationships with the entire school community. Have a wonderful weekend.

Jo-Anne Gardiner Principal

News from the Classrooms

Barbara’s Class Alex is in Year 8 with the Distance Education Support Unit. Recently he volunteered to have his head shaved as part of The Great Shave to raise funds to help cancer patients. Alex did this with his Scout group but was the only one brave enough to shave rather than colour his hair.

Barbara

Alex before and after the Great Shave raising money and awareness for Leukaemia

Alex along with his Scout Group contributed to the funds raised by this great initiative raising $15,795,000, congratulations!

Senior Class This term we are exploring the lives and culture of Greek Australians. We have researched on the internet to make some PowerPoint programs to watch in class. We have also begun cutting out Australian maps and making interesting objects that are typically found in Greek families. Hydrotherapy sessions are now twice a week and for a longer period and all students are benefitting from the extra exercise.

Sandy, Sandra & Louise

Georgia with Sandy completing her physiotherapy in the

hydro pool

Sophie assists to cut up a map of Australia

Phoebe feels the texture of materials used in making Greek themed objects

Deborah’s Class Tristan Heaton (Year 10) and his mother Maria, working with speech therapist Ylana Bloom, 30.4.12. With the collaboration of Tristan‟s team of carers, Ylana is designing an individualised, interactive and functional communication system for Tristan

Deborah

Tristan with his mum and Ylana working on his individual communication

Louise’s Class It was wonderful to again visit Fionn and his family - particularly as my earlier planned visit was postponed due to flooding. Fionn continues to make amazing progress with his reading, of which he should be very proud. Fionn particularly loved to use the new iPad apps and participate in fun hands-on activities with me during the visit. Well done Fionn!

Louise

Fionn completes a fun alphabetical hands on assessment

Lorrin listens to the gentle strumming of the guitar with

Roxanne, Music Therapist

Sharon’s Class Logan has been participating in on-going cooking sessions. He enjoys preparing both snacks and meals. His cinnamon toast is a tasty treat!

Sharon

Logan cracks eggs in preparation with food technology

lessons

Intermediate Class

It is great to see all our students back at school looking happy and keen to begin another busy term. We have been continuing with our “Living Things” theme concentrating on how plants grow and what they need to survive. We were amazed at how tall our sunflower grew over the holidays after planting it from seed last term. We are looking forward to the large bud on top bursting into flower.

We planted some succulent cuttings we gathered from the school garden. We are hoping that if we keep them moist and in the sunshine the plants will produce roots.

We love using our class interactive whiteboard. All the students in Intermediate class have been working to keep a virtual reality plant alive by giving it water and sunlight at the right time. We did lose a few plants.

Our theme for the remainder of the term will be “The Australian Bush”. We have collected some native plant specimens in the school garden to use in an artwork.

If you have any interesting objects you have found in the bush (e.g. seedpods) we would love to look at them in class.

Julie, Christine, Jennie & Paula

Intermediate’s sunflower before the holidays

Intermediate Class examining how tall their sunflower has grown

Norma’s Class Jessica is in Year 10 in the Distance Education Support Unit. As part of achieving her Work Education goals Jess started work experience at her local supermarket in March last term. After the first day it was clear that Jess was going to be a great employee. The store manager is so pleased with Jess she has already doubled her work hours with a view to completing a full day per week every week. I am very proud of Jess for always doing her best. She is loving being in the workforce and looking forward to working when she leaves school. Congratulations Jess!

Norma

Jessica at work experience

Junior Class There is a nip in the air and the Juniors are celebrating autumn while beginning activities for our new theme, „This Is Me!‟ Colourful autumn leaves adorn our classroom door to herald the new season. We are enjoying being outside in the fresh air and warm sunshine.

Our „This Is Me!‟ theme is off to a good start. We had fun presenting the assembly item last week. We had everyone involved in singing „Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes‟. Charlie, Oliver and Omar have enjoyed playing with Mr Potato Head, taking turns attaching his ears, eyes, nose and mouth.

Daniel, Rifa and Brooke planting succulent cuttings from around the school garden

Stuart uses the interactive white board with his class to

water their virtual plant

Lucy finds a native plant specimen

Daniel cannot help laughing out loud when we do the „Wiggle‟ song in music therapy with Roxanne. The „wiggle‟ starts in our toes and moves all the way up to our head! Nathan and Amira enjoy listening to the rustle of the autumn leaves when we do our sensory poem called „Autumn Leaves are Falling‟. We have plans to each make a family tree using family photos from home. We want to look at how we have grown and changed and use all of our 5 senses to explore the world around us. It is going to be a busy term! Until next time...

Mary-Jo, Christine & David

Oliver having obvious fun playing with Mr Potato Head

Charlie spins the body parts wheel to play Mr Potato

Head

Lyndsay’s Class Morgan is in year 10 and has just completed a unit of work on the respiratory system. As well as completing a number of experiments she has helped to create a model of a set of lungs. Well done Morgan!

Lyndsay

Morgan displays her model of lungs

Class 5/6 B and Class 3/4B In English we are continuing to work on Text Types that include Expositions and this week Luke made valuable contributions to a modelled example using the Interactive Whiteboard. During Maths this week Matthew and David tested

their „table facts‟ by playing with cards and racing each other to multiply the two digits together. What a hit this game was! Congratulations to Andrew who is showing confidence and perseverance with more difficult mathematical concepts. In our Science program ‘Smooth Moves’, the students have experimented with games to find out what they think they know about how forces can be exerted by one object on another through direct contact or from a distance. During our HSIE program ‘Identity and Values’, we learnt about the famous Australians who are found on our bank notes. Did you know that his picture on the $10 note is taken against scenes from the town of Gulgong in NSW? Dylan has been actively involved in labelling and identifying the people on our bank notes. This week during PDHPE, the class have been playing

games to improve their catching skill. Tom has been improving his underarm catching technique. Roxanne has been teaching us in Music Australian

themed songs to fit in with our HSIE topic and we are preparing „Waltzing Matilda‟ to perform in assembly later this term. Thomas has displayed amazing knowledge of our great Australian poet Banjo Paterson, and WOW what a voice Thomas has!

Joanne’s Class It was lovely to meet with Ellaine and her mum out in the community on a recent field trip to Wagga Wagga and very pleasing to see how well she coped with changes to her normal routine on that day.

Jo

Ellaine in her local community

Amanda’s Class Alex is in year 12. He is studying Media at Hornsby TAFE one day a week. He is currently designing a web page for computer gamers to share ideas and hints. He hopes to work in IT when he leaves school at the end of this year and is already impressing people with his computer knowledge. He loves the TAFE course. Alex admits he finds it hard to stick at things but is already a third of the way through his course. Fantastic, Alex! Keep going. Everyone is very proud of you.

Amanda

Alex at the local library

Alex at the local library

Visual Art is our Creative Arts focus this term and already the students have researched Claymation, watch this space next newsletter for some cool clay characters. This week was our first week with Sydney Grammar Buddies and each student has been paired up with a „buddy‟. We will keep you updated on the great games we get up to during these sessions.

Donna, Sue, Anita, Paula & Jennie Matthew, Andrew and Thomas experiment with forces during science

Matthew, Thomas and Dylan with Sydney Grammar

Buddies

Tom and Luke using multiplication facts during

numeracy

Sir Eric Woodward School

Parent Lunch You are invited to come to our first Parent Lunch for 2012.

Topic: Supporting your child’s sexuality – positive and safe.

Where: The beautiful grounds of Sir Eric Woodward School

75 Ayres Road, St Ives NSW

When: Monday 28 May 2012

Time: 11.30 am

What to expect: Rob Hardy from Family Planning has been organised to talk with you for approximately one

hour. Parents generally have a strong desire to protect their children. This can be even

stronger if the child happens to have a disability. Knowledge, understanding and acceptance of

your child’s sexuality is an import step towards reducing the vulnerability of your child and

improving their well-being. Rob will be highlighting some of the various issues parent’s

encounter related to your child’s sexuality and he will provide you with important information

on this topic. You will have the opportunity for discussion with the speaker and more

importantly, with each other.

You will be provided with a delicious lunch after the speaker session and a chance to chat with

each other about your own experiences working with your children.

We hope that you will be able to attend. The feedback from parents who attended our previous lunches has

been very positive. This is a great opportunity for our parents to come together with other people who will have

some common experiences and perhaps a greater understanding of your life.

Please fill in the attached RSVP or talk with your teacher by 24 May 2012 to indicate whether or not you will be

attending. We need definite numbers so that we can organise catering. We look forward to seeing you

regardless of whether we have a small or large group.

Yours sincerely

Narelle Turner Jo-Anne Gardiner

Deputy Principal Principal

27 April 2012