Five Dock PS Newsletter Term 2, Week 6 2024

We Learn on Wangal Country

Principal's Report

Welcome to the Week 6 newsletter, where we find ourselves over the halfway point of the school term. It is that time of the year when teachers are busy preparing and writing student progress reports for the end of the semester. 

Student reporting is the process of communicating information about student learning, their level of attainment and the progress they have made. Student reports show progress and allow this progress to be monitored over time. 

Reporting provides feedback to students, parents and other teachers about student progress. The A–E grading scale or equivalent provides a common language for reporting. Teachers use the grading scale to report student levels of achievement. Teacher judgements about student achievement are based on quality evidence. The evidence used by teachers to make that judgement can include results from formative and summative assessments as well as teacher observations.

The Common Grade Scale describes performance at each of five grade levels. Teachers use this scale for each indicator for English and mathematics. 

A -The student has an extensive knowledge and understanding of the content and can readily apply this knowledge. In addition, the student has achieved a very high level of competence in the processes and skills and can apply these skills to new situations.

B -The student has a thorough knowledge and understanding of the content and a high level of competence in the processes and skills. In addition, the student is able to apply this knowledge and these skills to most situations.

C - The student has a sound knowledge and understanding of the main areas of content and has achieved an adequate level of competence in the processes and skills.

D - The student has a basic knowledge and understanding of the content and has achieved a limited level of competence in the processes and skills.

E - The student has an elementary knowledge and understanding in few areas of the content and has achieved very limited competence in some of the processes and skills.

Teachers at all schools are now working extremely hard writing their Semester One Student Progress Reports. They are spending many hours not just writing the reports, but analysing work samples, collaborating with others to form assessments, discussing work samples, liaising with their supervisor and team about grades….the list goes on. Much of this work goes on outside of work hours, but also during recess and lunch times. Parents can be reassured that teachers take this process very seriously and approach the task with a high degree of professionalism. A lot of thought goes into the content of the report; this includes the grades students are given, their effort levels and the written comments. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our teachers for the time and effort they are taking in preparing these reports.

Parent/ Teacher Interviews 

Based on parent feedback last year, we are sending reports home one week earlier this year to enable you to have a look at the reports prior to the interviews and be prepared for the discussion you will have with teachers. These interviews will be held in Week 10 on the following days: 

Monday 1 July - Stage 3

Tuesday 2 July - Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 

Wednesday 3 July - Stage 2 

* Please note: 3K interviews will be held on Thursday 27 June due Ms Bakoulis being on leave in Week 10. 

Two weeks prior to the interviews you will receive information for how to book for these interviews, which will include a code that you use when logging in. The time the interview bookings will open will be communicated to you via a Sentral notification. Bookings will close a few days prior to the interviews, and this date and time will be included in the information. 

Michael Grose, a parenting expert that you may be aware of, offers his top 10 tips on parent-teacher meetings and if you’re interested in finding out how you can make the most of these interviews, you can visit this link to find out: 

https://www.melrosehs.act.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/442338/insight-michael-groses-top-10-parenting-tips-for-school-meetings.pdf

We do understand that 10 minutes is a short time and we appreciate that a longer time would be ideal. However, the time does add up when you have a class of students. If you feel that you need a longer time, then we encourage you to book an additional time early in Term 3 to ensure that you are able to have the time to include the things you wish to discuss. 

The Resilience Project

Last week Mrs Reddy and myself attended a conference organised by "The Resilience Project". We have entered into a partnership with this organisation to support student wellbeing, their mental health and sense of belonging at school. Whilst we won't officially start this program until 2025, we will be starting a couple of things to get us ready for the launch this year. These will be communicated in the newsletter in Terms 3 and 4. 

The core purpose of The Resilience Project is to use evidence-based programs to support the health and wellbeing of young people. It delivers a whole school approach to teaching and embedding positive mental health strategies to help people become happier and more resilient. The program works with teachers, students, parents and carers to support the wellbeing of young people and develop their furture capacity to deal with adversity. 

The core focus of the program is on "GEM" - which stands for Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness (see images below for what they are). We have also added an example for each that you can start discussing this with your children at home. We are excited about this program, as well as committed to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of all students. We know that this will help with: 

* Emotional skills/ literacy

* Social relationships at school and home

* Confidence and self-esteem

* Supportive classroom environments

In Term 3, we will be running a Wellbeing parent information session. If you would like to suggest a topic, please use this form to provide your feedback. https://forms.gle/pHnKfkYsyPmEY6tq9

Some parents have already suggested they would like advice on digital devices. Last year we organised an online session for this through YSafe. We have access to their website until October of this year.  YSafe has become Australia's leading provider of cyber safety education. They are known for their experienced team of child psychologists, ex-police officers and teachers who specialise in cyber safety. Our engagement with YSafe included a session for students, a session for parents and a session for staff. The staff one was held late last term and at that session, we were reminded of the fact that our school has access to YSafe's specialised resources until October of this year. These resources can be accessed using this link: https://fivedock-p.onlinesafetyhub.com.au/

Please use these resources to support you to engage in meaningful conversations around online safety. 

Professional Learning 

This week, teachers at our school completed some professional learning around the importance of fluency in reading. Fluency is reading expressively, with accuracy and at a good pace. It is one of the key components of learning to read. It is the progression from developing automatic word recognition skills to comprehension.

Fluency is made up of three core components:

• Accuracy is the reading of words correctly.
• Rate is the speed of word identification. It is usually recorded as words read per minute.
• Prosody is the sound of the reading. This can be explained as the expression used when reading.

This year we are implementing a new reading assessment tool which is based on oral reading fluency. One of the strategies for developing fluency is reading the same text multiple times. If your child is asked to practise reading their home reader multiple times, please do not be alarmed. Explain to your child the importance of practising to read a text multiple times. One strategy you can try at home is a 10/15 minute routine such as this. 

1. Partner A reads aloud, Partner B tracks (1-2 mins) 

2. Partner B offer oral feedback (30 secs)

3. Partner B reads aloud, Partner A tracks (1-2 mins) 

4. Partner A offers oal feedback (30 secs) 

For more information, visit this website: https://fivefromfive.com.au/fluency/evidence-based-fluency-instruction/repeated-reading/

Learning Support Team 

One of the suggestions we received for a parent workshop is to unpack what is the role of the counsellor in relation to student wellbeing.

In a newsletter from Term 1 (Link: https://fivedockps.schoolzineplus.com/enews?nid=14) we explained Learning and Support at our school in detail. 

Learning and support teams includes specialist staff and executive involved in supporting students with disability and additional learning and support needs. If your child’s teacher is concerned about your child, they will make an appointment with you in order to discuss their concerns and their intention to refer to the learning support team for further advice. You will then be provided with a consent letter that provides permission for the school counsellor to support the teacher and child. Conversely, if you are concerned about your child and would like to either refer your child to the learning support team or see the school counsellor, please contact your child’s teacher and they will provide you with a referral form where you can record your concerns. Our school counsellor is at our school for three days a fortnight. This means their role in providing individual support is limited.

The school counselling service provides short term interventions for school-based issues (3-5 sessions) Unfortunately it is not a formal therapeutic intervention, it is more like a GP model. We will refer to external services if further intervention is required outside the scope of the role. 

Good News Story 

Good luck to Toby Paton and Eloise Bitmanis who will be representing our school at the Regional Cross Country Carnival next Wednesday. Well done on making it this far!

Have a wonderful fortnight. 

Suzi Chosid 

We want to do all we can to be sure your child achieves their potential and enjoys being in school.

We know that school is the best place to learn. By attending school every day your child will get the most out of their learning and improve their career and life options.

When your child is absent it is important you let the school know, including the reason why, on the day or the day before. This helps make sure we know where our students are and offer support for you and your family if needed.

If you are having trouble getting your child to school every day or on time, please talk to our school staff so we can work together, because every day counts. 

Missing a day here or there may not seem like much, but absences add up and can negatively impact your child’s learning and wellbeing. When your child misses one day per fortnight, that's 4 weeks of missed learning in one year. Over an entire school journey this adds up to 1 year of lost learning.

In the Classroom - 2T

In science the students in 2T have been learning about observable changes in the in the night sky. They have identified and recorded changes in the shape of the Moon and investigated star groups. Students enjoyed learning about constellations and how different cultures throughout times have named star groups. They drew and labelled the phases of the moon and used their dictionary skills to define scientific terms and illustrate each concept in a picture glossary. Students thoroughly enjoyed designing and making their own constellations. 

2T

In the Classroom - 5R

5R Update by Eleni and Sam

Our class is a bundle of joy, full of enthusiastic and unique characters including our class pet rat Miss Ratsaby Ratatouille Rizzler (don't worry she's fake), we are excited to share our update with the school community. Recently we have finished our literacy unit on genre where we read multimodal texts like 'Bright New World' and 'Dry to Dry' before making our own narrative and informative texts about endangered places in Australia. We have just started on our new text 'One Small Island' and we are both intrigued and nervous to present an argumentative speech at the end of term. In maths, we are now learning about data, and we've recently learnt how to turn data into graphs on excel. In science we are learning about solids, liquids and gases. We have conducted experiments to test the viscosity of liquids and testing to see how gas takes on the forms it is held in. In history we are finishing up our unit on the gold rush in preparation for camp which we cannot wait for!  Our other fun activities include word of the day (which is memorising the pronunciation and meaning of a long or complicated word) and the kindness jar (we nominate and acknowledge acts of kindness each week and use marbles in a jar to keep track of the amount, we are so close to a class prize now!). Speaking of surprises, we have an assembly coming up in Week 7 and we can't wait to perform to you! We hope you've enjoyed a peak into our very special class. 

5R

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UR Strong Update

We have been implementing this social-emotional program this year. This week students in Year 5 have been encouraged to squash their automatic negative thoughts and switch them to positive ones. 

SRC Update

Pyjama Day

The school had a wonderful and successful Pyjama day. Thank you to everyone who brought in a gold coin donation to help us revamp the school bathrooms. Everyone looked so happy with their pyjamas and had a really good time.

By Atticus, Hesam and Karem

Thank you very much to our wonderful SRC who organised Pyjama Day to raise funds to support the upgrade of our toilets. Thank you to our community who supported this initiative and raised $430. 

Pyjama Day

Kindergarten 2025

This year we are introducing a Kindergarten exhibition Day, where we will provide all prospective parents the opportunity to come into the school to view our school, its programs and support a strong and successful start to school and learning. If you know of any families in Five Dock who have children that will be starting school next year, please let them know. This is an opportunity to begin the transition from preschool to primary school to enable this successful start to school. One of the goals in the current NSW Plan is to "Give children the best start in learning", and this will be an opportunity to support a better transition between early education and primary school. We encourage as many families to attend this day as possible, which will be held on Monday 17 June at 8:30am in the School Hall. We look forward to meeting families, both current and prospective ones. 

Please enrol any siblings starting Kindergarten in 2025. If your child turns 5 before 31 July 2025 they are eligible to start Kindergarten next year. Please complete your child's application as soon as possible, attaching a copy of their passport or birth certificate, proof of your home address (ie latest electricity bill, rates notice or lease etc) and their immunisation statement from Medicare. Any additional OT or speech therapy reports, additional needs and the like should also be included.Please submit your enrolments online at :   Online Enrolment Application (nsw.gov.au)

Preschool 2025

We are hosting a preschool information session to support the EOI process and answer questions about preschool. We look forward to meeting families on this day. If you know of any families who may be interested, please let them know. This will be held on Tuesday 25 June at 5pm in the school library. 

Library news

Last week we celebrated National Simultaneous Storytime with over two million other participants, reading the beautiful Bowerbird Blues by Aura Parker. Our K-2 students enjoyed the story together in the hall, while 3-6 enjoyed the story in their classrooms.

Thank you to all the teachers for supporting this wonderful Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) initiative.

Debating Update - by Ms Rassaby

Our FDPS debating team has had a packed first term. Firstly, let me introduce you to our full team. From Year 6 we have Zadie C, Naomi C, Ethan H, Sonja B, Isobel B, Mabel W, Alyssa M and Izzy L. From Year 5 we have Olive M, Olivia G, Emmy P and Eibhlinn W. We have three mini teams of four students who rotate, competing against other schools as the affirmative (agreeing) team, negative (opposing) team and as the facilitators of the debates. Our first debates were in Week 2 against Newtown Public School; the topic was “Schools should be co-educational”. We lost that week, but the students took on all the feedback, they have been focusing on their rebuttals and on incorporating and expanding their high modality and persuasive vocabulary. This week we had our second debate against Rozelle Public School; the topic was “Australia should have a four-day working week”. Both teams competed with vigour and conviction. Our negative team WON! It was a very good debate; our team were praised for thinking out of the box and for their excellent public speaking skills. Our affirmative team didn’t win but the adjudicators said it was very close. In the coming weeks we will continue developing our rebuttals, vocabulary, delivery and development of the model for our cases. Our teams work tirelessly before and after school to attend trainings and develop their speeches and arguments. I am so proud of them and can’t wait to update you all on how we go next time.

Debating

P&C Update

Merit Awards

Nationally Consistent Collection of data on school students with disability - 2024

The Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) takes place annually in August.

The NCCD is a collection that counts:
• the number of school students receiving an adjustment or ‘help’ due to disability
• the level of adjustment they are receiving to access education on the same basis as other students.

Students are counted in the NCCD if they receive ongoing adjustments at school due to disability. This support provides access to education on the same basis as a child without disability.

The NCCD uses the definition of disability in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. Schools provide this information to education authorities.  It is compulsory for schools to take part in the data collection.

Co.As.It News

A reminder to all parents who attend Co.As.It ltalian lessons that the program will not be held on the last day of Term 2. The Out of School Hours class on Friday the 28^th June will be replaced with a parent-teacher interview which will be held on Zoom instead. 

Stefania Sgaramella

Coordinator – Enrolments and Course Administration

Basketball School Holiday Camps