School Leader Changes

We congratulate Nat Munoz who has won a position with the Education Directorate for Term 3. This is a wonderful opportunity for Nat to strengthen her work with community, in particular the 3 year old preschool program. Many of you of formed strong connections with Nat and she will be greatly missed. In her absence, please contact any of the school leaders or myself. 

Futsal Brilliance!

On Tuesday 30th July we had two year 5/6 teams participate in the ACT Futsal Cup. Both teams went through the rounds winning the majority of their games.

Ngunnawal team 1 made it through to the semi finals and things got very exciting! The team won in a penalty shootout to make the grandfinal. In the grandfinal they came up against the team who beat them in an earlier game 5-0. The team executed the game plan to apply constant pressure and become champions winning 2-1.

All players should be proud of the way they represented NPS.

Kindergarten Cultural Experience

Last week our Kindergarten students welcomed Aunty Winnie and Aunty Sue Bulger, Aboriginal Elders from Wiradjuri Country to share their Indigenous culture and Wiradjuri language. Aunty Winnie is Lulu's grandmother in KLP and regularly visits their local school in Brungle, NSW to share their passion for reading.

The kindy students spent the morning listening to yarns, storytelling, and acting out the characters in the story of Tiddilick. They enjoyed singing songs in the yarning circle and creating artwork from the story ‘How birds got their colour’.

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Day

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Day is held annually on 4 August and is a day dedicated to celebrating our children. National Children’s Day allows all Australians to show their support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and learn about the impact that culture, family, and community play in the life of every child. 

The 2024  theme Strong in Culture, Stronger Together elevates the intention of Children’s Day, focusing on the strength of our children that comes from their connection to culture and mob.

Our Cultures Student Leadership Team read books to students in the library to recognise this day and it's importance. 

Books, books and more books!

This term, there are 2 opportunities for students to purchase books looking for new homes for a gold coin donation. The first opportunity is the $1 Book Sale on Wednesday 21 August, the same day as our Book Week Parade. We will be selling a range of books we currently have at school. Funds from this day are going towards new books for the school library.

The second is The Great Book Swap on Wednesday 4 September. We are accepting donations of books in good condition for this day. Books are being collected at the front office now! Funds from this day will go towards the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

Rebecca Turner

Principal

Fortnightly Focus

‘End of May, hats away. July has gone, hats back on!’

It is that time of the year where the students are asked to wear a sunsmart hat during break times and for PE lessons. To be clear – a sunsmart hat is either a bucket hat or a legionnaires hat, not a cap.

This is our focus for the next fortnight and we ask that you support by ensuring your child has a clearly labelled sunsmart hat for school each day. Some students like to keep these at school to ensure it is always here whilst others have a spot in their school bag where the hat lives. 

Yunggi Bengal Target

After achieving our 60,000 Yunggi Bengal target at the end of last term we are now working towards 90,000. The PBL team returned to our student voted reward options and have decided our next reward will be a "Yes" afternoon. The team are now hard at work planning what this will look like for staff and students. 

The PBL Team

Responsible Learner

Respectful 

Respectful

Safe 

Respectful

Safe 

Reader’s Workshop 

This term we have had the exciting opportunity to begin a new class novel, ‘A Long Walk to Water.’  This text links with our learning in Geography (investigating Africa), and Science (The Water Cycle), and enables us to grow as readers by learning and practising reading strategies together from Jen Serravallo’s Reading Strategies Book. We are continuing to build the range of strategies students need to become confident readers. All students have individual reading goals which they are working towards in conferencing and indpenedent reading time. 

 Students Voice: 

“In reading this term, we have been reading A long walk to water, a dual narrative about Nya, and Salva, who live in South Sudan. The author is Linda Sue Park, and she chose to write about the war in 1985, and Nya’s life in 2008. This story has lots of key features that we have been noticing throughout, like different fonts, and shorter sentences. We noticed that shorter sentences raise awareness and make the story more tense, while different fonts represent the perspectives of writing that was modern at that time. We have been practising a strategy where we write down the plot, so what is actually happening, and then we look for the theme for that part of the book. This strategy helps us to understand what the character is feeling.” 

 ‘I am learning to understand characters more by thinking about how they are feeling.’ ‘I am working on my goal and reading harder and longer books’ 

‘I am learning new words that help me with my reading’ 

‘I am excited about starting book club’ 

‘My goal is to build my vocabulary. I understand a lot more parts of words using clues like –tion.’ 

 Writer’s Workshop 

Year 4 are writing to entertain with a focus on the genre of ‘narrative non-fiction,' beginning with considering language features and literary devices that can be used to engage the reader. In Wirter's Workshop we are using the book “Fire” by Jackie French as a mentor text. Students are learning how to effectively collect ideas from the texts they read and record them as drafts as we work through the writing cycle. We are using strategies from Jen Serravallo’s Writing Strategies Book on how to elaborate on ideas and learning that organising our writing is more than paragraphing, it is about making sure the ideas within our writing fit together in a thoughtful, sequential order. 

 Student Voice: 

‘I’m growing as a writer as my vocabulary is growing and I’m learning new ways to describe things.’  

‘I’m growing as a writer by using more detail and learning new strategies.’ 

‘I love doing alliteration and I’m getting good at writing rhymes.’  

‘My handwriting is getting better, and I am starting to get more ideas when writing a narrative.’ 

‘Getting better at similes...’ 

 Student Work: 

First was a spark, then a big fire arose like a lion waking up hungry for prey. The black smoke was so thick I could barely see and there was some falling debris. The noise was like a tiger roaring from pain.  The fire gave wood a black stain.  The sky was like a war between smoke and the ruby red fire. 

• Akela, 4NS 

 Red blood wall, a bushfire sea. On goes the fire. On goes the fire. An oven’s breath swallows the day.  

• Tomas, 4NS 

 The crumbling house was turned to ash as the blood-red monster set it alight. Debris from the house flew all over as it was burnt bare. A bright blue hose turned black as night. 

• Atticus, 4NS 

 The flames flickered like lightning. The marshmallow melted in my mouth.’ 

• Charlotte, 4NS 

 A person with black clothes was seen walking away suspiciously from the chair and stopped right in front of an abandoned house. With a loud crack, a big tree fell onto the red chair. The red chair crumbled loudly as it broke. 

• Aurora, 4NS 

 Maths

To support learning in Geography, Year 4 started the term by learning about mapping conventions, including grids and grid references, cardinal directions, and keys. In week 2, we had a whole-year group treasure hunt around the school, using the knowledge from week 1. Students worked in small teams following cardinal directions on a map of the school marked with grid references, to reach their destination. 

Student Voice: 

‘I have also been focused on reviewing my times tables. I have been using multiplication grids and other activities to help me remember.’  

‘I love doing mapping!’ ‘It’s on the fun side of maths for me!’ 

‘I like playing battleships and looking at maps.’ 

‘I enjoyed doing maps on the Chromebooks.’ 

 Geography 

We have begun to investigate the importance of environments to people and animals in Australia and on other continents, including vegetation and water sources. We will compare our learning about Australia with our investigations about Africa and South America. 

 Student Voice: 

‘I have enjoyed learning about climate. I am looking forward to learning about continents like Africa and South America’ 

‘I like learning about the Aboriginal people’s seasons.’ 

‘I have learned that Aboriginal people use fire to protect country.’ 

‘I enjoyed learning how Aboriginal people can predict the weather from looking at the stars.’ 

‘I’m enjoying reading a story about Africa as well as research.’ 

 Science 

Our learning in Science continues to support our learning in Geography as we investigate the Water Cycle, including key sources of water. This week, we will go on a ‘water walk’ in our local area to observe local waterways, collecting data about the litter that may be present, and use this information to investigate the effects of litter on water. We will also use this as a stimulus for some amazing descriptive writing. 

 Student Voice: 

‘I’ve learned about all the –tion parts in the words of the water cycle like in our spelling.’ 

‘I’m looking forward to doing water cycle experiments in science.’ 

‘I enjoy learning about the water cycle.’ 

‘I can’t wait to do the water cycle dance in our assembly.’ 

Welcome to your P&C update. To get in touch with us on any of the announcements below, please send us a message on Facebook or email us at ngunnawalpandc@gmail.com

Bullying No Way: National Week of Action 2024

As part of the “Bullying No Way: National Week of Action 2024” students will be creating a large sign on the school oval on Wednesday 14 August. If any parent has or knows someone who has access to a drone and would be willing to assist in the capturing of footage please get in contact with us.

Also, the school is seeking parent volunteers to assist in the creation of a ‘protective speech bubble’ around the sign, and for more creative parents volunteers to read books ‘in character’ during recess and lunch. If this is of interest to you please let us know.

Book club

Issue 5 orders for the book club are now open with catalogues having been sent home. The due date is 11 August.

Please note, from Term 3, book club ordering will be online only.  Cash orders will no longer be accepted.

Did you know that every book club order placed through the P&C earns us credit to buy even more books for the school library?  In 2023, your book club orders allowed us to donate over $1400 worth of brand new books for the school library!

Will my children still receive their orders at school?

Yes!  Orders are still processed on the due date. They are then received and sorted by P&C volunteers, and delivered to students via their classroom teacher.

How do I register a LOOP account?

Head over to https://scholastic.com.au/LOOP or download the LOOP App on your phone.  You will need to register an account.  On your account profile, you will need to add your child/ren and select their school and class name.

How do I place an order?

Orders can only be placed for school delivery up until the due date for that issue, which is stamped on your catalogue and advertised in the school newsletter and on the P&C Facebook page.  Just log in, select "Order", make sure Ngunnawal Primary is the selected school, and follow the prompts all the way through to payment.  You can order for each of your children separately, so they will each get their own parcel of book club joy!

I didn't get my catalogue, can I still order?

You can view the catalogue online and still order through LOOP!  Visit https://www.scholastic.com.au/book-club/book-club-parents/issue-preview/ to view the latest catalogue, and check our Facebook page and the school newsletter for the due date.  

School Lunch Clubs:

Did you know that our school student leaders run a number of clubs throughout the week during lunchtime?! 

If you, or somebody that you know would be interested in lending a hand with any of the clubs (particularly any keen gardeners, artists, writers, coders or legoists) please reach out. Also we would welcome any equipment that can be donated to the clubs.

Secondhand School Uniform Shop

The Secondhand Uniform shop is open every Wednesday from 9am - 10am. Pop by the canteen and ask for Kat or Jason. Items are $1 - $5 and card or cash payments are accepted. 

Follow us on Facebook for regular updates. 

We happily accept donations of secondhand uniforms in good condition. We cannot accept clothing that is marked, discoloured, broken buttons/zips, or items that are not Ngunnawal colours. 

Please contact Kat directly if you have any questions - 0417 393 887

Lost Property

Has your child lost a uniform item or personal property at school? Please check the lost property to see if it is there. There are 2 lost property tubs located outside the library (these tubs are emptied and the property sorted every Wednesday). Sorted lost property is located on a rack just inside the entrance to the school gym.

It is a timely reminder for parents to label/name your child’s jumpers, jackets, hats, water bottles etc to ensure that it can be returned to your child when the lost property is sorted.

School Canteen

Use the 

app to check the menu and order your lunch orders.

Remember: Canteen orders need to be in by 9:30am each day. 

Get involved

Our next P&C meeting will be held at the school staff room from 6pm on Tuesday 6 August. All are welcome to attend. P&C meetings are held on the Tuesday of weeks 2 and 7 every term.

We are always looking for willing volunteers to assist us with our activities throughout the year. If you’d like to express your interest in being involved please reach out and let us know!

Contact Us

You can contact us by email: ngunnawalpandc@gmail.com

And stay up to date by following us on Facebook or Instagram.

It’s important for students to be kind and safe while riding on Transport Canberra buses. Here are
some key rules for bus travel:

• Be polite and listen to the bus driver
• Give up your seat to someone who needs it more, like an elderly person, someone who is
pregnant, or someone with a disability
• Look after the bus, don’t leave any rubbish, and hand in any lost items to the driver
• Avoid eating, drinking, and making loud noises on the bus  

Safety is our top priority. Talk through these tips to help your children know how to keep and stay
safe:

• Signal the bus driver from the pavement and wait for the bus to drive away before crossing
the road.
• Don’t walk in front of the bus, it’s dangerous.
• Bus stops are for waiting quietly and not for playing.
• When using phones or listening to music, be aware of your surroundings.
• Always use pedestrian crossings and to know that our drivers are there to help if needed.

Thank you for helping us make the journey safe and pleasant for everyone using the Transport
Canberra buses.
For more information, visit the Transport Canberra City Services website and read Travel safely to
school and Bus passenger information.

Travel safely to school - Transport Canberra (act.gov.au)

Passenger information - Transport Canberra (act.gov.au)

It’s Rail Safety Week and we’re asking you to always Stop on Red. It’s not a suggestion.
Light rail has become part of the daily commute of many Canberrans, which is why it’s important
we’re all aware of our personal responsibilities in ensuring the safety of ourselves and others.
To stay rail safe, remember to:
• always stand behind the yellow line at light rail platforms and only cross at designated
walkways
• limit distractions such as mobile phones and headphones
• always obey traffic lights and road signs. Be aware of intersections and road line markings
when driving near the tracks.
A moment of distraction can change your life forever. We all need to be vigilant when it comes to rail
safety, whether we’re passengers, pedestrians, cyclists, e-scooter riders or motorists. If everyone
follows the rules, we all stay safe!
Visit Learn more about staying rail safe Rail Safety Week 2024 from Monday 5 to Sunday 11 August - Transport Canberra (act.gov.au)