Term 3 Week 5 Newsletter 2021
From the Principal
WELCOME TO THE VERY FIRST EDITION OF OUR NEW NEWSLETTER
We do hope you enjoy reading the school newsletter in its new format! To select a language other than English, don't forget to change the drop down translate menu at the top of this page.
THANK YOU – YOU ARE DOING A GREAT JOB!
As we begin the fifth week of learning from home, I really wanted to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of the John Purchase learning community – including our students, teachers, parents and carers. Learning from home is by no means an ideal situation. We understand that learning remotely provides a number of challenges and is certainly not the same as face to face learning.
We also understand that motivation will dip from time to time, and there will be occasions when some may feel anxious, worried, frustrated or just plain fed up. Please remember to be kind to yourselves and to those around you, who you love and cherish most dearly. We are so appreciative of parents and carers for the guidance you are providing the children. I really want to reiterate that we are behind you all the way and will work with you to address the challenges raised and to provide as much support as we can. Together, we can get through this safely and come out even stronger and more resilient.
These are times to remember to be kind to ourselves, to take pleasure in the smallest of rainbows, whether it's a walk in the winter sun, sharing a story with your child/ren or enjoying a telephone call with a friend or loved one. These special moments, when we stop to notice and appreciate them, may help us get through our toughest of days.
One of the great strengths of John Purchase Public School is our strong community spirit, and this becomes increasingly important as many are separated from loved ones. The appreciation extended by parents to our teachers and vice versa in so many different ways is indicative of our community who care about one another. To every parent who has taken a moment to appreciate and thank a staff member or another parent, a big thank you for caring!
I am also very appreciative of the efforts of each teacher as they develop quality learning plans for the students, provide feedback and reach out to students and parents with a little extra support.
PARENT SURVEYS
Thank you to those who managed to respond to our parent surveys over the last week. We received some very valuable and thoughtful feedback, which will assist us in ensuring learning at home is further supported in the weeks ahead. Our executive team have begun to closely examine the responses and to plan ways of adjusting our plans. Some have already been adjusted. We look forward to sharing the results and subsequent adjustments with you next week.
STAGE ONE SUPPORTING OUR SCHOOL VISION
How do our Stage One teachers support our school vision, EMPOWERING LEARNERS TODAY FOR TOMORROW?
- Acknowledge and empowering risk taking
- Students feel that they are listened to
- Thanking them for their thoughtful input
- Giving them the ability find knowledge and answer their own questions
- Supporting students to be knowledge seekers
- Making them feel valued
- Foundations skills so they can be successful learners in the future
- Delivering them with the skills and knowledge
- Us as teacher extending the students
- Reflecting on our learning both students and teachers
- Sharing ideas and being collaborative
- Us as teachers challenging ourselves as learners
- Given them the knowledge for the future
- Empower them to be confident in society
- Positive feedback constantly to meet success criteria
- Taking ownership of their own learning
- Provide and comfortable environment for learning
- Encourage students to extend and challenge
- Adjusting your teaching and collaboration to improve all people involved
SPOTLIGHT ON YEAR 2
Year 2 students have been learning to:
- make inferences using clues from pictures and text
- identify the duration of an activity
- read time on analog and digital clocks
Year 2 Learning At School
LEARNING FROM HOME
The children have been learning to:
- identify the main idea in a text
- write an effective introduction for an information report
- write an information report
- recognise the duration of activities and events
- investigate heat energy and its priorities
Year 2 Learning from Home
Year 2 Olympic Challenge
Leonie Black
Principal
From the Deputy Principal
Welcome to Week 5 of Term 3; our fifth week of learning from home.
The dedicated teams of teachers and support staff at John Purchase Public School, continue to work at home, online, and, in a more restricted capacity, on site at school, to support our students and their parents.
Effective communicatiion is a key component of our core business. If you ever have a concern about your child's learning or wellbeing, we encourage you to make contact with the class teacher, in the first instance. Even behind our masks, every member of staff, is striving to be approachable and supportive, in meeting the needs of our students and their families, especially in these challenging times.
Take care everyone and stay safe!
Adela King
Deputy Principal
Our John Purchase community is representative of many cultural backgrounds. Parents please be advised that the SBS portal provides Coronavirus information and updates translated into 60 different languages. I have shared the link below.
Last week, I attended an online forum focusing on wellbeing matters, hosted by the Be You organisation. At this event, educators discussed the impact of online learning on students and school communities. Some excellent resources were shared among participants, to promote student wellbeing. I have continued these conversations with our teachers at school and the Learning and Support Team.
JPPS staff are trying hard to ensure that our students' wellbeing is recognised and catered for during this learning from home period. We do understand the additional stresses that parents are currently facing. In fact, many of our staff are also juggling the demands of teaching remotely, while supporting their own children learning from home.
Each day, students need to have opportunities for recreation, reflection, rest and exercise. Recognising and practising 'mindfulness' has long been espoused as a valuable tool for students and adults alike, to stimulate positive mental health. I am attaching the Mindfulness flyer below, for your information and interest.
As always, I encourage parents to make contact with classroom teachers, or executive staff, if ever you need to discuss a wellbeing matter.
Guidelines from the World Health Organisation, about effective hygiene practices, were the inspiration for this bathroom interlude! Many students have since uploaded their own polished versions, to our online learning platforms, after this snapshot was first created for K-2 students.
Take a 3-minute break and come on a unique, 'fly-through' tour of our school!
Expectation of the Week
Responsibility: think about my wellbeing
Congratulations to all students, demonstrating our school expectations of Respect, Responsibility and Aspire.
Purchase Pride Badges
When students receive ten Purchase Pride award cards, these should be left in Mrs King’s ‘award shelf’ in the administration corridor. The ten awards need to be bundled together and clearly labelled with the student’s name and current class. Purchase Pride cards have a tear off strip. This strip may be removed by the recipient and placed in the appropriate stage box outside Mrs King’s office, to go in the lucky dip draw for a canteen voucher. Badges recipients, whose names have already been published, will be presented with their awards when we all return to school.
Class Awards System
JPPS has an incremental class awards system. When a student has received ten class awards, these should be left on Mrs King’s ‘award shelf’ in the administration corridor. The ten class awards need to be bundled together and clearly labelled with the student’s name, current class and award level reached:
10 Class Awards = Bronze 20 = Silver 30 = Gold 40 = Bronze Medallion
50 = Silver Medallion 60 = Gold Medallion 75 = Platinum Medallion and Principal for the Day!
A clear, snap lock bag is ideal for this purpose!
With the exception of Bronze Awards (which are published at the end of the term and presented at a Principal’s morning tea for students and parents), all awards received by 3pm on Thursday afternoons, are ‘stamped’ and published in the next school newsletter, which is usually on the following Monday. At this time, I indicate when these awards will be presented at the next Thursday afternoon assembly.
Students need to be responsible for their own awards, as replacements are not issued. Please note: During the learning from home period, teachers are noting awards to be issued upon return to school.
Bronze Award (10 Class Awards)
Bronze Awards currently held at school, will be presented at the Principal's Morning Tea at the end of the term. Recipients' names will be published closer to this time.
Where is Johnny Purchase? Chapter 1
Johnny Purchase escaped from Mrs King's office! Can you recognise where he visited on his adventure?
Where is Johnny Purchase? Chapter 2
Can you find Johnny Purchase, our school mascot, as he explores the Year 1 picnic area, knocks on the principal's door, has a sleep outside 6C, finds a book to read from the Library, relaxes in the Library ampitheatre and gets some exercise shooting goals in the K-2 playground?
From the Teachers
Kindergarten 2022
Do you have a child enrolling in Kindergarten at John Purchase Public School in 2022?
With the year flying by, it is time to start thinking about Kindergarten enrolment for 2022.
If your child will be starting Kindergarten at John Purchase Public School in 2022 please go to the link below and complete the online school enrolment application.
https://enrol.education.nsw.gov.au/#/?schoolCode=4572
Dates and details regarding information evenings and transition will be provided in the coming months.
We look forward to welcoming our new students to John Purchase Public School in 2022!
Claire Eiffert
Relieving Early Stage One Assistant Principal
GOT IT ‘Resilient Kids’ Seminar
We are lucky to still have the wonderful ‘Got It’ team still working in our school until the end of this year. They are presenting a new and different online seminar ‘Resilient Kids’.
This seminar is for all parents and carers of students from Kindergarten to Year 6.
Please see the flyer below for details of the course and a registration link.
Leonie Cole
Learning and Support Teacher/Coordinator
Talking with your children about being bullied
Many children who are bullied do not tell a trusted adult, as they think they are dobbing.
‘Dobbing’ is when a person deliberately tries to get attention or to get someone else into trouble.
‘Asking for help’ is when someone feels the situation is out of his/her control and he/she is unable to deal with it alone. If anyone sees someone else in this situation they should also ask for help.
What are students being taught at school to help them deal with bullying situations?
Students at our school are being taught that:
When I have a problem I can:
- Try to stand up for myself in a positive way
- Try to talk with the person I am having a problem with
- Walk away and ignore the person completely
- Get help from a teacher or another person I trust
- Ignore the situation and keep playing or working
- Talk to a friend to get some ideas to help me make a decision or
- Try coming to an agreement with the other person
You can reinforce these messages by discussing them with your children at home.
Leonie Cole
Learning and Support Teacher
From the P&C
P&C September General Meeting
Dear Parents and Carers of JPPS
You are all welcome to join our September General Meeting via Zoom tonight at 7pm. We hope you and all your families are safe and well.
May the upcoming school holidays give you all time to rest, relax and recharge!
Looking forward to seeing many more new faces.
JPPS P&C
Topic: P&C Meeting
Time: 7pm Monday 13th September
Join Zoom Meeting https://rwts-au.zoom.us/j/89148473795?pwd=a0N5YlVTeThFYTYyQ2h6MEFjMDRQZz09
Meeting ID: 891 4847 3795
Passcode: E8xF6Eh0
Community Announcements
JPPS Parents are invited to a free webinar about digital wellbeing presented by Dr Kristy Goodwin on Wednesday 8 September at 8pm. Details appear in the flyer below.