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Kindergarten Enrolments for 2020

We are now taking enrolments for Kindergarten 2020. Any child turning 5 years of age before the 31st July, 2020 can start Kindergarten at the beginning of 2020. To obtain an enrolment form you can :-

Collect an enrolment form from the school office and return it as soon as possible or

Ask an older brother or sister to bring one home. Documented evidence of date of birth will need to be shown when the form is returned.

Please tell your friends / neighbours about 2020 enrolments.

Newsletter of Fairfield Heights Public School

September 2019

HIGHLIGHTS

Kindergarten Orientation Day DATES to REMEMBER

OCTOBER

14 Students return to school.

18 Last day for BLUE AWARDS to be

presented to the office.

18 Summer PSSA Round 9

Oct 28 to

Nov 8

Year 2 Swimming and Water Safety Scheme.

31 K-6 Gold Banner Assembly

NOVEMBER

6 Kindergarten Orientation

8 SRC Disco *more information to follow.

11 3-6 Remembrance Day Ceremony - School.

11/12 Year 2 Digging Dinosaurs shows.

22 Summer PSSA Grand Finals

28 Last day of Scripture lessons for 2019.

DECEMBER

4 Annual Presentation Assemblies.

5 3-6 Sports Presentation Assembly.

10 Year 6 Farewell - Smithfield RSL *more information to follow

11 * K-5 Picnics. * Year 6 Excursion.

12 P & C Christmas Stall.

18 LAST DAY OF TERM 4 - 2019

19/20 School Development Days

SCHOOL RESUMES for Years 1-6 Wednesday 29th January 2020

WEDNESDAY 6TH NOVEMBER, 2019.

** More information to follow.

eSafety Commissioner Australian Government

Online Safety Start the Chat

eSafety.gov.au

Talk to your kids before a

stranger does. No matter what their age, if your kids are online, now’s the time to talk about online safety. It can be hard to know how and when to talk to kids about staying safe online. While they might know a lot about technology, they don’t always know as much as you do about life. To better understand the issues and start the conversation, you need the right tools, tips and advice. Through our eSafety website, you can learn how to talk to your kids about cyberbullying, online predators, sexting and other inappropriate content.

Visit eSafety.gov.au

FRIDAY 8:24PM SENT BY UNKNOWN

Don’t tell Ur

mum or dad

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Student Safety Matters

Dear Parents, Please be aware of the following safety matters. SCHOOL GATES The school gates are locked at 9.30am each morning. One single gate in Station Street is left open during the

day. Other pedestrian gates are opened at 3.00pm. PLAYGROUND TEACHER SUPERVISION commences at 8.45am. STUDENT TOILETS are only for use by our students. Parents / visitors are not permitted to use the student toilets.

Road Safety Message

Road safety is top priority in our local area. A special reminder that police and the community enforcement officers have renewed their blitz on illegal parking and speeding in school zones. Double parking in Camden Street, especially in the afternoon, is placing our children in a potentially dangerous situation. The ‘police regularly patrol all schools in the local area and will take necessary action if motorists are double parked or parked in “no-parking” areas.

ANAPHYLAXIS Our school is concerned about the safety and well-being of all our students. Many of you will know someone who is affected by anaphylaxis, a life threatening allergic reaction. Our school does its best to be an allergy aware school. Staff have had training in severe allergy management and we have implemented lots of strategies to help keep students at risk of anaphylaxis as safe as we can. We now have a number of students who live with the risk of anaphylaxis to foods and insect stings. Whilst these children are being taught to care for themselves at an age appropriate level, we ask that you help us educate your child on the importance of not sharing food with others, washing hands after eating and calling out to an adult if they think their friend with allergies is sick. 9 foods cause 90% of food allergies. These foods are:

Peanuts are the leading cause of severe allergic reactions, followed by tree nuts, shell fish, fish and milk. To learn more about anaphylaxis and food allergies, go to www.allergyfacts.org.au and www.allergy.org.au

Egg Sesame Peanut

Milk

Soy

Fish

Wheat

Tree nuts

(cashews,

almond,

pistachio

etc.)

Crustacea

(prawns,

lobster,

crabs etc.)

RESPECTING OUR NEIGHBOURS

We request that parents / carers respect our neighbours when choosing where to park before school and at the end of the school day.

* Please DO NOT park in or across driveways. * NO double parking - this is dangerous for our students.

Tell Them From Me Survey

Dear Parents / Caregivers Each year Fairfield Heights Public School participates in the Tell Them From Me surveys. These surveys ask students, staff and parents about their experiences at our school. The survey is confidential. We will not know who completed the survey. We will receive the results and these will help us plan future initiatives for our school. If you would like to participate in the parent survey, please contact Mrs Lind, via the front office during Week1, Term 4 (14-18th October). We will make an appointment for you to complete the online survey at school.

Thank you for your participation.

Mrs S Lind - Deputy Principal (R)

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School Captains’ Report

Term 3 has been a great term with lots of exciting things happening. Students participated in a spelling bee competition and public speaking competition. All the students should be proud of their fantastic effort. Well done to all the students

who made it through. Healthy Harold visited our school and helped students make safer and healthier choices through education. The lessons were fun and interactive and really engaged the students. Our 3-6 dance groups and the choir

performed at The Gillawarna Festival. Congratulations to all the students and teachers for all their hard work and effort. The performances were magnificent. Earlier in the term Year 3 went on an excursion to Wattamolla National Park. The excursion was an engaging learning

experience for the students. Year 5 students attended Fairfield High School and experienced their first exciting step of high school education. The students and teachers were excited about the opportunities and experiences they had. During Week 10 Kindergarten will be visiting

The Golden Ridge Animal Farm. They will have the opportunity to feed, pat, hold and milk the farm animals. The students are looking forward to the day out. The seniors of the school will be going to camp. Year 5 will be going to Bathurst and Year 6 will be going to Canberra and the

Snowy Mountains. We all hope they have a wonderful time there. Thank you to the teachers for their willingness to support these ‘overnight’ excursions. This term, Year 6 students had the opportunity to lead groups of children from K-5. Each week the lessons helped develop the

skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to identify their individual strengths and maintain a positive outlook on life. Peer Support has been successful this term. The seniors are certainly becoming great leaders, being supportive and encouraging during the

lessons. The younger students love the engaging activities. Open Day occurred during Education Week in Week 3 of this term. Families visited classrooms and donated books to the school. Education Week is an opportunity to showcase and celebrate excellence in

education. Book Week was in Week 5. Students and teachers were able to dress up as their favourite book characters. Everyone looked amazing on the day. This term, the PSSA teams finished off their season with outstanding results. The Year 4

Netball girls were successful in winning the Premiership and the Year 5/6 AFL Boys were runners up in the Grand Final. The Athletics Carnival was a success this term. All the students tried their best and enjoyed the day. Congratulations to all the students that qualified for regionals.

It has been a very exciting term! Great job everyone!

Olivia & Jordan - School Captains

Mrs Lind’s Report This term has been extremely busy and exciting for our students and teachers.

Once again I have had the pleasure of working with 3-6 classes this term, in the use of technology. Students have been learning to use and write simple code to make the Beebots complete a task. Students thoroughly enjoyed working with these simple robots and were able to write simple code. New robots have been ordered and students are excited to begin more difficult coding tasks with more complex robots next term. I had the great pleasure of watching and listening to our Recorder Group perform at the Opera House this term. What a wonderful experience for the students! They were

fascinated by the variety of instruments that were there and mesmerised by the orchestras. Our students displayed a vast amount of musical knowledge and skill. A huge thank you to Mrs Crofts and Mrs White who have been teaching our students how to play and for giving up their evening to be there with them. I also attended the Gillawarna Festival with our dancers and choir. This event was held at Bankstown Sports Club. Our students performed three dances. They were amazing!! Our costumes were very impressive – we even had one with lights attached to the student’s

gloves! This looked really cool when the auditorium lights were dimmed. Our choir did a fabulous job, having to perform for two nights. We also had two soloists perform. Thank you to Mrs Crofts, Mrs White, Mrs Attard, Miss Salanitro, Miss Pagano, Miss Nichol and Mrs Agda and all the other teachers and parents who helped prepare our students for this event. What a wonderful experience. Year 5 spent the day at Fairfield High School and I was excited to spend the day with them. Students experienced what it was like to go to high school, change classes and find

their way around a very big campus. Students enjoyed lessons in cooking, art, math, English, geography, history and science. They were excited by the science labs at the high school and watched some really interesting experiments. I think the students would all agree that playing soccer at the end of the day on the excellent soccer facilities, was the highlight of the day – oh, and the free sausage sizzle and ice blocks! As the term draws to a close, Years 5 and 6 students will be attending camp. I am looking forward to accompanying Year 6 on this fun and educational adventure to Canberra and

the Snowy Mountains! Have a peaceful holiday! Samantha Lind - Deputy Principal

Mrs Craig’s Report On behalf of the students and teachers I would like to say Thank You to our student leaders. Our School Captains set an example every day at our school assemblies and their reports at the Gold Banner Assembly celebrate the achievements of all of our students, K-6. The school prefects support every school initiative and play a vital role in welcoming our 2020 Kindergarten students at Kindergarten Orientation. The SRC members support all students both on the playground and in the classroom and will be organising the School Disco in Term 4.

Year 6 students have led our Peer Support initiative this term and it gave me great pleasure to see the way our Peer Support Leaders encouraged the effort and participation of even our very youngest students. A special note of appreciation to Ms Stefanovski, Mrs DeMartin and the Year 6 teachers. I am excited to see that in Term 4 we will be making changes to enhance both our sporting and CAPA programs together with ICT.

We will be building a positive skill set for students 3-6, looking at STEM, Robotics and other aspects of technology. All students in Year 5 and Year 6 will have the opportunity to play major games and the Year 5 and Year 6 students are preparing their dances for the Year 6 Farewell. Our library has been focussed on helping students develop a love of reading and an appreciation of different authors and book genres.

Mrs Ryan, Mrs Currao and Mr Panagiris have made the library a very welcoming place and the interactive displays encourage our students to explore worlds they haven ’t entered before. Our teacher-librarians happily help your child choose appropriate books or suggest authors and book titles to enthuse a reluctant reader and all of our students K -6 have had the opportunity to explore the wonderful world of picture books.

I am looking forward to a very exciting and challenging Term 4. Thank you for your continued support and have an enjoyable and safe holiday break.

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All the very best ! Mr S J Gerard - Principal