Five Dock PS Newsletter Term 1, Week 4, 2024

We learn on Wangal Country

Principal's Report

Welcome to Week 4. This week we held our "Getting to Know You" interviews, to provide you with an opportunity to speak with your child’s classroom teacher and pass on information about your child that will support their learning in the classroom. The interviews were extremely successful and we had 90% of our parents and carers attend, which is wonderful. We have received positive feedback about these interviews and during the year you will get an opportunity to provide feedback on our interviews and student progress reports. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our teachers for the time they spent in preparing and undertaking the interviews, as well as for their professionalism. We appreciate the opportunity to connect with parents and work in partnership to support your child's learning. 

As a parent or carer, your engagement is critical to your child’s learning journey and education outcomes. Helpful ways to engage in your child’s education include:
• Understanding their education goals and aspirations, whether academic, social, wellbeing or beyond
• Finding ways to reinforce learning at home by engaging with your child’s interests and what they are learning at
school. Access the NSW Education Standards current curriculum and links to resources to support your child’s
learning at home.
• Working together with educators and staff to support your child’s development
• Respectfully sharing compliments, feedback or suggestions through your school or other channels of feedback

2024-2027 Strategic Improvement Plan (SIP) 

By the end of this term we will have published our SIP following a rigorous consultation with students, staff and our community over the last six months. On the School Development Day at the start of the year, the staff were provided with a summary of the consultation process and an indication of the three Strategic Directions that would be articulated for our school. Below you will find some images that summarise both the consultation so far and what our three Strategic Directions will look like. In summary they focus on data practices, high expectations, explicit teaching and collaborative engagements for wellbeing. What is explicit teaching?

Students learn best when teaching is explicit, especially when learning something new. Explicit teaching involves teachers clearly explaining to students why they are learning something, how it connects to what they already know, what they expect students to do, how to do it and what it looks like when they have succeeded.

We will communicate with the community once the plan has been updated and provide further information about its progress. 

Staff Professional Learning 

Over the past two weeks staff have been engaged in a range of professional learning that will support the implementation of the new Strategic Improvement Plan. This includes Initial Lit training for K-1 staff, and Spellex training for Stage 2 staff. We have provided fact sheets for further information for parents and carers. One of our strategic directions is focused on explicit teaching and much of this is based on research related to the specific strategies that support this. These include developing positive relationsips, establishing expectations, sequencing concepts in small steps, modelling, scaffolding, cold calling (no hands up), checking for understanding, quizzing, review and guided practice. These evidence based teaching strategies are rooted in a deep understanding of how learning works. Each strategy breaks teaching techniques down into five clear steps. Below you will find the five step model associated with each strategy.

Finally, we are continuing to explore evidence-based mathematics teaching which is closely linked with review and modelling and focuses on developing number sense. What is number sense? It is the ability to understand numbers and number relationships and to solve mathematical problems that are not bound by traditional algorithms. Below you will find two links that may be helpful in developing your own understanding of what number sense is. 

https://teacher-blog.education.com/3-strategies-for-teaching-number-sense-to-kids-30dcab6da6fa

https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/en/home/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/literacy-and-numeracy/professional-learning/teaching-strategies-building-number-sense/How_many_ways_can_you_represent_a_number.pdf

Teacher Librarian Position 

We are now able to announce that the successful applicant following the merit selection panel we recently undertook was Ms Kristi Davies-Weir. Ms Davies-Weir is currently working at Belmore South Public School and is on a temporary contract until the end of this term. Ms Davies-Weir is an experienced teacher librarian and we look forward to utilising her expertise within our school. She will start working one day a week from Thursday 7 March for Term 1 and then begin working four days a week in Term 2. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs Christopoulos for her commitment and dedication towards making the library a vibrant learning hub. I would also like to thank Mr Terry Justic and Ms Beth Collinge for their work in being a part of the merit selection panel. 

I hope you will all join me in welcoming Ms Davies-Weir to the Five Dock PS teaching team. 

Have a wonderful fortnight. 

Suzi Chosid

Principal

NAPLAN 2024

NAPLAN will be online once again this year, with the exception of the Year 3 Writing test. The NAPLAN test window begins on Wednesday 13 March and concludes on Monday 25 March. The schedule will be communicated closer to these dates and will consider technology access. Students will have an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the online format in the coming weeks. For more information, please see the attached NAPLAN brochure for parents and carers.

Attendance Matters Every Day

Last week the Department of Education launched a campaign to improve attendance rates across NSW. 

Every day matters for your child’s learning. Parents play an important role in ensuring students get to school and stay in school every day.

The more time your child attends school the greater their opportunity to learn, create social connections and improve their wellbeing. 

Your child may fall behind in their subjects and this can have an impact on their learning in the long term.

Missing school for students means missing assignments, time with friends, an important math lesson or getting picked for a sports team.

What you can do

Building positive attendance habits

You can help build positive attendance habits by: 

• helping your child learn the importance of punctuality and routine
  

• making sure your child arrives on time from the start of the school day, ready to take part 
  

• reducing disruption to learning where you can, by planning any necessary appointments outside of school time 
  

• contacting your school to explain any absences (within 7 days of the first day of any absence) 
  

• making sure any holidays or medical appointments are taken outside school hours
  

• working with the school to encourage and support regular attendance. 
  

Reasons for missing school

Being absent, late or leaving early

• If your child misses school for any reason, please contact the school within 7 days to explain why.

• If your child needs to arrive late or leave early, please notify the school.

• If you have difficulty getting your child to school on time every day, please also contact your school. School staff are here to support you and your child to help them come to school.

Term 1 Invoices

Last week parents and carers were invoiced their "Statement of Account" for Term 1, along with information and details about its inclusions. Please remember that if you would like to discuss your financial circumstances confidentially, you are encouraged to make an appointment to speak with the Principal.
Thank you in advance for your prompt payment of the Term 1 statement. These fees allow our school to continue to provide the best quality learning materials and experiences for our students. 

FDPS Office Staff

Class Parents

Sports News

We have PSSA websites for each sport; they can be found on the school website (see image below for how to find). These have been  updated with current schedules, results and training times for the 2024 season.
Here are the links for the summer sports this year: 

https://sites.google.com/education.nsw.gov.au/fdps-pssa-basketball-2023/home

https://sites.google.com/education.nsw.gov.au/fdpspssat-ballandsoftball/home

Elevate Dance Classes

There is still time to join in these fun classes at lunch times. See details in the flyer below and fill out the details in the google form below. We are planning some exciting performing opportunities for the groups. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSekO7flmFKuG1IYYdXTxf-NeiX4SBEdWHzRZ9iqOd_PpUAM6g/viewform

Ashfield Boys Open Night

Concord High School Open Night

School photography day - 27 March

School photography day is coming up soon. Group and portrait photographs can be purchased by following the link below. If you prefer to order using an envelope please visit your school office, collect an order envelope and hand your payment to our photographer on school photo day.

2 easy ways to purchase:

1. Visa, MasterCard or PayPal
2. Cash – complete the envelope supplied and return it to our photographer on photo day

Order school photos here

Or visit: www.advancedlife.com.au
And enter online order code: Z3R A87 LHJ

School photography information:

• Online orders - do not require an envelope returned to your school
• Sibling Photos - Don’t forget to pre-order your sibling photos online up to 24 hours before photo day. We provide your school with a list of sibling orders right up to the day of photography, so no one misses out. If you miss the online order deadline, you can submit a completed sibling order envelope first thing in the morning of the day of photography, so your school is aware you want the photo taken and can bring your children together in time for it. Sibling photographs only apply to children enrolled at your school. Please note not all schools offer sibling photos
• Late fees - a late fee will be applied to each package purchased after photo day due to the additional cost of producing these packages separately.
• Package delivery - School photographs will be returned approximately 6 weeks after the day of photography. Please note this delivery timeframe is dependent on proofing and additional photography days at your school.
• Previous Years’ photos - Past years’ photographs including sports, co-curricular and representative groups are also available to order under the “previous years or group photo” tabs at your school’s advancedorder site when you click on the “Order School Photos Here” button above. You can also order past packages, portrait images and gifts from your child’s unique, individual and secure advancedyou image archive site using the unique 9 digit image code found on packages you have ordered in the past.

Keyboard Lessons at School

In the classroom

1FC

Students have participated in STEM (Science, Technology and mathematics). STEM requires students to work creatively together in groups to achieve a task in a given timeframe. Our challenges so far have included making the longest paper chain from one sheet of A4 paper and how to support a book (or many books as it turned out) with one piece of light cardboard. Students have very much enjoyed discussing the challenges and sharing their results and ideas about what worked and what didn't. This comment from one of the students was very creative, 'STEM should have an F for FUN'!

6E

Term 1 has had a fantastic start in 6E. Everyone has settled well into life in Year 6 and we’re all looking forward to the amazing things this year will bring.

We started the term getting to know each other and to help with this we worked in groups on a few projects. The most popular activity was building a ‘Paper Town’. Like much of Australia at the moment, 6E expressed their Taylor Swift fever with one town featuring several buildings and areas named after Swifty songs. To combat this, one town created ‘Swifty Free’ areas with some friendly banter between the two!

We have begun our Novel study on ‘Wonder’ and students are really enjoying analysing the characters and themes in the story. We are using this analysis to create a book review and have looked in depth at the language features and writing techniques the author has used to engage the reader.

We have been developing our mathematicians as we work through the new Mathematics curriculum and have begun diving into events that shaped Australia in the 20th century and getting our scientific brain activated learning about the causes and effects of Natural Disasters.

All of 6E can be very proud of the way they have embraced the new school year with positivity, kindness and respect.

Library News

This week the Premier's Reading Challenge has started. See details below about the rules and where you can go to find more information. 

School Bytes Parent App

School Bytes has introduced an App for parents with Push notifications (an alert that gets sent straight to you instead of emailed).  Download from the Apple Store or Google Play.  Push notifications will automatically activate when you download the School Bytes app. Please note that the app will only display the modules FDPS has subscribed to.

OOSH News

Dear Families,

I hope you and your children has had an exciting start to year and term!

Communication

We are excited to announce some important updates to our contact information.

From next week onward, we will be beginning our transition to our new email address: admin@fdpsoosh.com.au. Our previous email will still be reachable during this process but will be being completely phased out by March 31st, 2024.

We would also like to make you aware of our service mobile number – 0477 809 642. Please feel free to contact us on this number with any booking enquires or to notify us of daily absences. Please ensure when messaging you let us know your child’s full name, and continue to email us for permanent bookings, billing enquiries or changes to your account.

Our landline number 9712 3260 is still operational. New email – admin@fdpsoosh.com.au

Mobile contact – 0477 809 642

Vacation Care

The development of Autumn Vacation Care program is currently in progress.

We are aiming to release the Vacation Care to all families by the start of Week 7 which will be the 11th of March 2024.

Parent Volunteers for Sub-Committee

Do you want to be involved with what’s happening in the background at FDPS P&C OOSH? We are currently looking for parent volunteers to be a part of our sub-committee!

If you are interested, please email me at director@fdpsoosh.com.au

Kind regards,

Andrew and the OOSH Team

Health Alert

Please read the following information carefully.