The term that has been like no other. A term that has seen drought replaced by flood, and flood replaced by Coronavirus!I just wish to say thankyou to parents for your understanding and support as Ms Smith and I evolve into distance education teachers. We miss seeing our beautiful students each and every day. Not that I always knew it, but face-to-face is definitely my preferred teaching option! We should always look at the positives and it is quite ironic that Ms Smith and I had decided at the beginning of the year that we were both going to focus on developing our capacity to digitally communicate and collab-orate through Microsoft Teams

Fairfax students are never too far away with their fantastic self-portraits

FAIRFAXPUBLIC SCHOOL NEWS

Term 1 | Week 11 | 08.04.2020

2227 Harparary Road|Maules Creek|NSW 2382|T 02 6794 4502|F 02 6794 4547|fairfax-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Welcome to our final newsletter for the term.and extend this into our teaching practice. Then along comes Coronavirus giving us the perfect opportunity and definitely forcing our hand.Thank you, parents and students, for being our guinea pigs in experiments with Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Hopefully these platforms will give us a greater opportunity to connect with all our students face-to-face but also the opportunity to provide effective explicit instruction. Thank you for the wonderful support you have been providing to your children in order to maintain continuity in their learning.It is looking like Term 2 will continue as we are now. Therefore, when we return for Term 2, we will be

required to be organised and disciplined and responsible for our own learning.If parents require desks and/or chairs, they are available to borrow if this will assist in creating a great learning space for students at home. We will be lending out devices next term to assist in our teaching and learning.I am sorry for those students that are missing out on opportunities they were looking forward to this year but there are many positives to be gained also.

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Learning at Home

Continued from page 1 There are endless online platforms for students to engage with, but I am not making any suggestions as I feel our school day next term will provide a sufficient amount of time on devices that is relevant to our learning. I would strongly encourage family projects be a priority. Involve students in designing, planning, organising, creating and evaluating. Make

time for these processes. Create opportunities to represent these steps in written and visual form. The 4 C’s (critical and creative thinking, communication and collaboration) are all chomping at the bit to be forefront in our thinking and doing during life with Coronavirus. Please take the time to step back, enjoy who and what you have and relax these holidays. Please be safe and stay healthy.

Keep up the isolation and hygiene practices so we can all get back to Fairfax. The sooner the better!Remember the public page I shared with you to keep updated on NSW Department of Education.Please remember that Monday, 27 will be a Staff Development Day with students to pick up their packs on Tuesday 28 April, 2020. I will send a text to ensure staggered pick-up times on Tuesday morning.

Welcome to our final newsletter for the term.

Unfortunately, this year Maules Creek is unable to hold its annual memorial celebration of ANZAC Day on Sunday 25 April. We encourage families to discuss ANZAC Day at home to show our respects.

ANZAC Day

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Premier's Reading ChallengeTips for parents and carers for participating in the Challenge

D Find out the name(s) of your school’s Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC) coordinator(s) and how they

plan to administer the Challenge.

D Familiarise yourself with the new PRC student website. There is a video on the PRC Support site that you can watch that demonstrates how login, search for books and add them to a Student Reading Record(SRR).

D Visit the Premier’s Reading Challenge Support website. It allows you to search for information about the PRC and how to use the PRC website and also how to contact the PRC team.

D Set reminders for Challenge opening and closing dates in your and your child’s calendar.

D Find out your child’s logon details. For public schools, students’ logon will be the same one they use to

access computers and the internet at school. Non-government students will need to contact the PRC

Coordinator at their school if they cannot remember their login details.

D Assist your child to borrow books from the school or local library. Listen to your child read and talk

about the story/ characters/ information. Read to or with your child if she/he is participating in the K-2

Challenge.

D Help your child to add books to her/his Student Reading Record regularly.

D Follow The Arts Unit on Facebook and the NSW PRC on Instagram to keep up to date about

information about the Challenge throughout the year. We regularly run contests and Author events

your child may be interested in taking part in.

D Contact your child’s PRC coordinator if: Your child has any difficulty using her/his logon details to access the PRC website.

You are concerned that your child’s name is spelt incorrectly in the PRC website.

If you need to check your child’s Challenge history, please contact your child’s PRC coordinator.

D Your child’s online Student Reading Record must have the required number of books recorded to

complete the Challenge by the student closing date. School PRC coordinators have an extra two weeks to validate the SRR. Only students with a validated SRR are eligible for a certificate.

D In the final weeks of the Challenge, log on regularly to the website to check the status of yourchild’s SRR. Contact your child’s PRC coordinator if you are concerned your child’s SRR has not been

validated.

Visit our website: www.artsunit.nsw.edu.au/reading-challenge Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheArtsUnit

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Traditionally at the end of each term, we reflect and celebrate our learning. This term there will be no assembly but I encourage students to reflect on this term both at school and at home. What are the big messages you could

communicate about your learning. It could be what has been good, what has been bad or challenging and what has been interesting. You may even have a suggestion or two for improvement, for both teachers and yourselves (and parents). Talk

to your siblings and complete the following table before Easter is over to provide feedback to Ms Smith and I. Please return at the beginning of next term.

End of Term

Term One Reflection on Learning

Good Bad (challenging) Interesting Suggestions for improvement

Eileen Murphy Possessing an excellent understand-ing of this term’s English textChelsea NobiloFor sustaining a focus on improving her performance and connecting her learningMolly MurphyHer growth in confidence express-ing herself

Blake Nobilo Engaging in all that he does with a positive and enthusiastic attitudeGrace Nobilo Showing increased confidence in her learning and constructively using feedback to improveJackson Smith Thoughtful contributions to class discussions and excellent commit-ment to learning from home

Hezekiah De Busch Being a brave and flexible student, settling into Fairfax PS with ease and confidenceElijah De Busch Settling into Fairfax PS with confidence and enthusiasm and embracing school rules and routines

End of Term Awards

Happy Easter