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Swimming Carnvial
Congratulations to our competitive swimmers who participated in events last week. A great day was had by all, well done for having a go!
Student Leaders
Joel is leading a fundraiser to help combat blood cancer by participating in the World's Greatest Shave on 24 March. He has invited students to show their support by wearing orange and making a gold coin donation. The school will collect the gold coins to contribute to Joel's fundraiser. Alternatively donations can be made directly to Joels fundraising page: http://my.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/joelsmidt
School Board Appointments
School Updates and Procedures
Change of details
Please email info@ngunnawal.act.edu.au of any changes to phone numbers, email addresses, home address or emergency contact details. For emergency and correspondence purposes, it is important that these details are correct. If you have any questions, please contact the Front Office.
Arriving late to school
Students must be signed in by a parent/ carer at the front office when arriving late to school. School commences at 9:00am. Any later than this, students will need to sign in at the main front office.
Leaving early from school
Students must be signed out by a parent/ carer at the front office when leaving early from school. Where possible we ask, that written notification be sent to the class teacher or info@ngunnawalps.edu.au. This will ensure that students are sent to the Front Office at the time specified.
Please be aware that locating students at break times can be difficult. If you have to attend an appointment it is suggested that the child is picked up before/ after the break. Break times are 11am-11.30am and 1.30pm-2pm.
Explanation of Student Absences
It is a requirement that all student absences are explained by a parent/carer. On the day the student is absent, a text will be sent by the school's administration system. Please respond to this text to advise the reason for the absence. Alternatively, parents and carers can send an email to the class teacher or send an email to info@ngunnawalps.act.edu.au
Medical Forms and Authorisation to dispense medication
For schools to administer student medication during school hours, families are required by the ACT Education Directorate to provide the following information:
• Medical Information / Consent form
• Known Medical Condition Response Plan
These forms are available from the main administration office.
Volunteering
Parents and carers wishing to volunteer at school will need to sign in at the front office. You will be asked to complete a Volunteers and Visitors in Schools Form on your first visit. This must be completed annually.
NAPLAN Years 3 and 5
ACT schools will participate in NAPLAN Online testing from 15-27 March 2023.
Education ministers agreed that NAPLAN would move to Term One from 2023. This will mean results will be available to education authorities earlier in the year to inform school and system teaching and learning programs and will assist teachers to better determine support students need for the coming year.
As a parent, you can become familiar with NAPLAN Online tests by visiting the public demonstration site, http://bit.ly/naplanonline. The purpose of the site is to familiarise students with the type of items they will see on NAPLAN Online and related functionalities. This level of familiarisation is worthwhile to help students understand and be comfortable with the format of the test.
NAPLAN Online allows for tailored testing. This means that student are presented with sets of questions based on their performance during the test. This model provides students with the opportunity to better demonstrate their range of literacy and numeracy skills and it is more engaging for students. Further information explaining tailored testing can be found at https://bit.ly/2PgG7rL.
If you have any questions or wish to discuss your son or daughter’s participation in this event, please contact [include contact details of NAPLAN Coordinator or principal – you could include a preferred date for administrative purposes].
Further information on NAPLAN Online, including the public demonstration site, is available at www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/naplan-online.
Privacy
The Education Directorate collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information to carry out its functions. Personal information about students and parents/carers will be used as part of NAPLAN Online testing and readiness tests. The use of this information is required for students to participate in NAPLAN testing, provide reports to parents and schools and to undertake research and compile statistics using anonymised data. More detail on how we handle your information is available in the Education Directorate Privacy Policy available at https://bit.ly/2ZYzdtn
As part of undertaking NAPLAN Online, the Education Directorate works closely with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and Education Services Australia (ESA). ESA operates the NAPLAN Online platform which will contain personal information. ACARA will collect anonymised information about each student who takes the test online from the Education Directorate.
Further information on how ACARA and ESA protect privacy is available through the ACARA privacy infographic https://bit.ly/3uA6YiR and ESA Privacy Policy www.esa.edu.au/other/privacy.
Online Safety Webinars
Rebecca Turner
Principal
I have enjoyed working with the student representative council at Ngunnawal Primary School through the years. When I got the opportunity, I chose to run for school captain this year. I wanted to model the PBL values and to be the voice for students and represent the school with pride. I chose to be the leader of physical activity as it is something I am very passionate about and capable of doing. I believe I would be a good role model for the younger students who would like to become school leaders in the future.
I would like to see Ngunnawal Primary School become an even safer working environment for everyone, and for students to be excited to come to school every day. I want to see students put in the effort to make our school community a place for everyone.
My team has generated many ideas related to sport and physical education at NPS, such as more sports resources, sports borrowing with racks for all year levels and mini sport tournaments within the school. We always want to be innovative by working with the Technology team to create a video to showcase what we are working on in the Physical Activity Leadership group.
As school captain I wish to gain confidence to share mine and other students' ideas and opinions and to make everyone who enters our school feel welcome and cared for. I hope to come out of this role at the end of the year with a range of new leadership skills and experiences that personally extend and develop me as an individual and lead me and the other students to a bright future ahead.
Emily
For the past few years, I have dreamed of being a school captain and now I cannot believe that I have achieved this goal. It was a good experience working with the student council from Year 1 to Year 4, because I looked up to the leaders then and now I have the chance to be that role model to the younger students through the student council. I nominated to be a school captain because I want to expand on my leadership skills and help out the younger students by being a role model and I also wanted to help out the SRC to make the school a better environment to learn in. I bring new ideas to the table, and I really want to make this school as good as it can be and promote events and student achievements. The big idea for the Communications team is to create a NPS news channel, so we can work with the Technology team who can create the videos as we report on school topics, issues and ideas. This will help all students see what is happening in and across the school. I hope the school has a good year and I am looking forward to working with the stunted council.
Ben
2023 P&C
Please welcome our office bearers for 2023:
President - Tara Huntly
Vice President - Steven Coling
Treasurer - Rochelle Burdge
Secretary - Gabriella Tauni
Keep an eye out in future newsletters for more information on the wonderful volunteers we have involved in the P&C.
The P&C are always looking for volunteers and people to fill other roles. If you’d like to be involved, please get in touch.
The next P&C meeting is on Monday 27 March at 6pm in the school staffroom. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Book Club
Issue 2 will be out soon. The due date for this issue is 24th March.
The Book Club program allows the P&C to contribute 100’s of books to the school library every year.
Book Club Helpers - Help when you can and help from home. We are looking for volunteers to join our book club team to help sort orders and stamp our booklets. Please get in contact if you would like to help.
Secondhand School Uniform Shop
This week the Second-Hand Uniform shop is open on Wednesday from 10am - 11am. Pop by the canteen and ask for Kat. Items are $1 - $5 and card or cash payments are accepted. Follow us on Facebook for regular updates.
We happily accept donations of second-hand uniforms in good condition. We cannot accept clothing that is marked, discoloured, broken buttons/zips, or items that are not Ngunnawal colours.
School Canteen
Use the flexischools app to check the menu and order your lunch orders.
Remember: Wednesday is Sushi day. Orders must be submitted by Monday 3pm.
Dry Goods Drive
The first event for 2023 started this week with the Dry Goods Drive. This activity helps replenish some canteen items which in turn helps the P&C keep prices affordable. The school canteen is a not-for-profit service funded by the P&C.
Which class will be crowned the winners and receive a morning tea catered by the canteen?
After two weeks of settling into new classes, learning new routines and setting the groundwork for a brilliant year ahead, Year 4 has been full steam ahead, learning across many curriculum areas. But rather than have a teacher’s blurb about all the official “stuff” we are exploring in class, we will hand it over to the students to voice their thoughts and opinions on what they are enjoying about their learning in Year 4, using quotes from our student survey.
In Maths we've learnt:
“Measurement… and how to spell it.”
“100 cm makes one metre and we estimated how long a metre was pretty accurately (within 10 centimetres).”
“My foot is 24cm long but my shoe is 26 cm. And your foot is about the same length as the distance between the crook of your elbow and your wrist!”
“One thousand metres is in a kilometre.”
"We used a trundle wheel to find out how far it is to the canteen and back from our room. It's about 157m each way."
And in Place Value…
“I had forgotten about place value, but was reminded I can make and say numbers up to the ten-thousands. And we learnt that there's HEAPS of other values beyond ten-thousand.”
“I was reminded that, when we're looking at place value, you need to start on the right.”
“I've discovered that adding things in columns (using the vertical algorithm) to solve addition problems is much easier than the other strategies, for me.”
In Reader's Workshop:
“We have practised the strategy of connecting text to self, text to text and text to the world.”
“We are reading The Boy at the Back of the class and they like Lemon Sherbets. I like them too."
"We ate a Lemon Sherbet because it kept coming up in the book and we learned what they were and how delicious they were. We made a mindmap to describe them.”
"I'd never had a Lemon Sherbet before (I'd is a contraction - we're doing them in spelling). Now that I know what they are I understand the story better and have made text-to-self connections."
“I've been reminded how much I love just sitting and reading.”
“I've found lots of new words when I've been reading.”
“It's important to be quiet (which is showing respect) when you read so other people can focus.”
“Punctuation is important. It helps you know how to read something and have more expression when you read.”
“I know what three dots (...) is now. It's an ellipsis and it's used when a character doesn't finish a sentence or the author wants to build suspense.”
In Science:
“We are learning about materials.”
“We investigated different gloves to try and work out what material they were made of and what they would be used for.”
“I saw what a Hungry Jack's glove is made of. It's really bumpy, which I wasn't expecting. I think it's like that to help you hold onto things and not drop them.”
“We are learning about the properties of materials and what makes them good for the thing you use them for.”
“It's important to do a fair test in Science when you're trying to work things out.”
“The things you change in Science are called 'variables' and you only change one thing at a time.”
We also love:
Personal Projects
“Personal Projects are fun because we get to learn about things that interest us. I am gonna learn the saxophone.”
“I'm learning about photography in Personal Projects.”
“Some of us are trying to solve a Rubik's Cube. There's already someone in our class who can do it really fast!”
“I'm inventing new things. I'm not sure what it's going to be yet.”
PE
“We do it (PE) every morning and play games like Softies and Soccer and Golden Child and Link Tag.”
“Doing PE in the morning is fun and you get to run before you sit down to work.”
“We need a lot of exercise and Cricket Clapper Slap was amazing!”
“In PE we're learning Oz-tag and new skills with the specialists (teachers)."
With Books and Buddies:
“We visit the library each week and get new books for our book boxes. Then we spend time (learning) with our little Buddies. They're cute.”
In Japanese:
“We wrote our Japanese names with the calligraphy brushes.”
“We wrote learning goals on Ema then put them on the gold tree”
“We learnt that students our age in Japan get to ride unicycles. They all eat the same tasty lunch and get to watch TV while they eat.”
“We started the karate belts system and tried to remember all of our hiragana to get to black belt.”
In Art:
“We created water-colour animals with Raina.”
In Writing:
"Persuasive arguments are about convincing something about what your opinion is."
"I had some good reasons why we should have free fruit at school."
"Disagreement doesn't mean disrespect. We are learning how to have a debate and attack the point, not the person."
And so much more!
“We learnt that being frustrated was in the yellow zone.”
“I can sign the Zones colours in Auslan.”
“One Good thing is something we do at the end of the day. We write one good thing that we learnt or that happened to us that day. There's always one good thing in every day.”
“I'm excited about being on the SRC.”
Mathematics - Place Value
In Mathematics, the Year 5 students have been learning about place value. This includes reading, writing and ordering numbers up to six digits. The students are using their knowledge of place value to write numbers in ascending and descending order. They have been playing a variety of Maths games to consolidate their understanding of the concepts.
Beginning of Year Art Pieces
As a part of our ‘getting to know you’ and identity activities, Year 5 created a range of superhero themed self portraits.
Inquiry Unit
In week 3, we started our inquiry unit. The big question that we will be focusing on is:
How do living things adapt and survive in different biomes?
Our first tasks have been to activate our prior knowledge. We added post-it notes with our ideas about the animals and plants that live in different biomes, their features and how living things survive in different biomes. This led to us creating a question for our ‘wonder wall’. The classes brainstormed words that we think will be part of our learning and created an alpha box and glossary.
The Office for Disability’s Disability Reference Group is hosting a Yarning Circle for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability and their families to lunch, yarn and connect on 19 March 2023.
Meet at Yarramundi Cultural Centre for lunch from 1:00 pm and conversations from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm. For more information, read the 2023 Disability Yarning Circles Flyer (243 kb PDF).
Contact Office for Disability on 02 620 71086 or officefordisability@act.gov.au.
