our mission statement dawson public school is committed to … · 2020. 8. 23. · 1 dawson p.s...

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DAWSON P.S NEWSLETTER ISSUE 4, 2019

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Monday 18th March, 2019 Issue 4, Week 8, 2019

Our Mission Statement Dawson Public School is committed to creating a

safe, respectful, flexible and caring environment

that empowers students to discover, acquire and

articulate skills as a life-long learner.

COMING UP

WEEK 8

Thur 21/3 Koori Kids

Fri 22/3 3-6 Cross Country 9 – 10.50am

Fri 22/3 K-2 Cross Country 11.20 – 1pm

Wed 20/3- Fri 22/3 Life Education - All week

Week 9

Mon 25/3 - Wed 27/3 Life Education

Wed 27/3 School Photos

Thur 28/3 Koori Kids

Week 10

Thur 4/4 Koori Kids

DAWSON

P.S IN THIS ISSUE

Page 2 – Principals Report

Page 4 – 3-6 Achievement Roll

Page 5 – K-2 Assembly Photos

Page 6 – Early Stage 1 News

Page 7 – Stage 1 News



0 – Pre School News

Page 11 – Deputy Principals

Report

Page 12 – Attendance Report

Page 13- Steam News

Page 14 – Dawson Sport News

Page 16 – SRC Report

Page 17 – Dawson Dynamoes

Page 18 – School Photo

Information

Page 20 – 25 – School Community

Information

ASSEMBLIES (Fridays from 2pm)

WEEKS 2, 4, 6, 8 - 3-6 ASSEMBLY

WEEKS 1,3,7,9 - K-2 ASSEMBLY

WEEK 5 & 10 - WHOLE SCHOOL ASSEMBLY

P&C MEETING

2ND WEDNESDAY OF EACH MONTH @ 2pm

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National Day against Bully and Violence

It was a wonderful display of support and strength from our whole school community last Friday. Seeing the sea of pink

worn by our students and some family members certainly promoted the positive message of ‘Bullying. No way! Take action

every day!’ and gave us the chance to highlight the work that we do, as a school community, every day to counter bullying

and violence.

What is bullying?

Bullying is an ongoing misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that

causes physical and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power over one or more

persons. Bullying can happen in person or online, and it can be obvious or hidden. Bullying of any form or for any reason

can have long-term effects on those involved, including bystanders. Single incidents and conflict or fights between equals,

whether in person or online, are not defined as bullying. However, these conflicts still need to be addressed and resolved.

A Community Approach

Cooperation and communication between the home and school about preventing bullying is essential. As a school and

community, I ask that we tackle problematic behaviour, and in some cases bullying, together. Despite the effort of all staff

members, there may be times where the school is unaware of issues impacting your child due to their unwillingness to

disclose what is happening and how they are feeling at school. In this case, your child may come home and express concerns

to you. In this situation, I encourage all our families to bring this to our attention so we can work together to solve the

problem. Staff at Dawson will openly talk to you about the strategies we are implementing and regularly ‘check in’ with you

to inform you of the progress being made. Maintaining open lines of communication and building positive relationships

between the home and school plays a crucial role in achieving success in these situations. Research suggests that

maintaining open communication between parents and children are unlikely to succeed when school and home are treated

as separate and distinct settings without overlap. Collaboration, communication and support is central to positive solutions

to bullying. I do understand, both as a parent and a principal, that there are times when our emotions can get the better of

us. If this situation arises, I ask that we remember that we are all here to support each other and together we can, and will

act in ways that promote a positive school culture that is Safe, Respectful, Cooperative and Responsible (our PBL school

core values).

Last week I spoke about the progress we are making in Strategic Direction 1: Learn. This week I would like to share the

progress we are making in Strategic Direction 2: Teach. Our aim in this area is to create a collaborative school culture where

formative and summative data is used expertly to inform and improve teaching strategies, provide explicit feedback

ensuring students have a clear understanding of how to improve. To date, we have:

● developed and implemented a new writing rubric and assessment tool. Led by our aspiring assistant principals, our

teachers were engaged in professional learning that taught them how to plot their student’s writing samples

against the tool. This new tool allows our teachers to target their teaching to the needs of their students.

● used assessments to provide individual learning intentions and goals for all our students to achieve in literacy and

numeracy. Teacher feedback is essential as it informs our students what they are learning and how to achieve it.

The next step is teaching our students what to do once they have achieved their goals.

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● continued our focus on providing professional learning to further develop explicit teaching strategies in the area of

writing. This terms focus has been on imaginative and persuasive writing.

● created systems that enable our executive teachers to work alongside their teams, in their classrooms, to support

their development and provide ongoing instructional leadership and feedback. This is building a culture of high

expectations and collaborative practice across the school.

● engaged our teachers in professional learning on how to use Seesaw (an online application that shares student

work with our parents) As a part of our reporting to parents, our teachers will be using this application as a tool to

demonstrate how our students are learning and to communicate the progress they are making on their goals.

● created opportunities for student, parent and teacher goals setting meetings this term. This will be followed by

reports being sent home and traditional parent teacher interviews scheduled for the end of Term 2.

● developed a new report format based on staff and parent feedback. This will be shared for consultation with

members of the school community at the next P&C meeting later this term.

● coordinated the first of our ‘Open classrooms’ for week 10 this term. Our teachers will be opening up their

classrooms for an hour, inviting you to see how ‘maths’ is taught in your child’s class. There will also be the

opportunity to take resources home so you too can work with your child at home.

These are just some of our achievements to date. We are continually trying to improve our practice to ensure teachers are

equipped with knowledge and our students receive personalised, explicit, expert teaching. We are also committed to

involving you in your child’s learning to continue building an educationally connected school community focused on high

expectations.

Mr Garry Sheen

Principal

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3-6 Award Recipients

Class Academic PBL Class Academic PBL

3M Lydia K

Shekofa A Alysha BN 5S

Mel T

Emily S

Maryam H

3S Sarah T

Sia V Qasim A 5/6D Anthony T

Ellanorah I

Angelikah V

4I Kiyani S

Thomas L Lillyarna S 5/6R Shiloh B

Stephen A

Melody P

4P Tariaroha C

Merry D Tau T

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KB, KR and KS are lucky enough to be buddies to the amazing Stage 3 classes. Our Kindergarten students love the weekly time slots where they meet their buddies and complete activities or lessons together. They have all

made some lovely friendships with the older students in such a short amount of time. Kindergarten find it comforting to know that even though their own teachers are not in the playground every break, they can

always find their buddies to help them or even play a game. These friendships will continue to grow throughout the year. Each class has a different focus each week, but the aim is the same, for Kindergarten it is about

becoming confident members of the Dawson School community. The Kindergarten teachers love being on the playground and being asked by both Early Stage 1 and Stage 3 students ‘have you seen my buddy’?

KB & 56D KS & 5S

KR & 56R

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Science in 2M

Taronga Zoomobile Incursion Last week Stage One were visited by some very furry and scaly friends! Zookeeper Jess talked with the students about the adaptations that animals make to ensure

their survival in the wild. Did you know that the Ringtail Possum has developed a curl in its tail to help it gather things while in a tree, and for balance? Or that the Shingleback Lizard has developed a tail that looks like its head to confuse its

predators?

2MB are using their learning to help them explore the ways that Native Flora and Fauna have adapted to the Australian Environment.

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Part of healthy learning requires a healthy mind and with that, class 4I hits the

grounds of Dawson to undertake their weekly sporting challenge. The students of 4I

are learning techniques in the team sports of tennis, basketball, and soccer. Students

that were undecided when it came to the area of sports are really enjoying

themselves with this active shift. It brings natural PBL behaviours to be incorporated

like turn taking, patience, assistance, and friendly communication. We hope you like

the action shots of our class enjoying fitness on a weekly basis.

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Stage 3 Report – 5S

“Buddy Classes”

Students in 5S and KS have been working together on building the

skills of all students. The children from KS have been learning to work

with students from other classes on counting, reading and building

sentences together.

The students from 5S are developing their leadership skills and

working on helping the younger students settle into big school. The

students have been helping them with their counting, sharing their

favourite picture books and helping them build new sentences.

We have also been helping them with their art projects and working

on their fine motor skills and have created some awesome art works.

The students from 5S look forward to Thursday afternoons and can’t

wait to see their buddies again.

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The Preschool children are busy developing their fine motor

skills through stamping activities, building complex towers

with lego, drawing on whiteboards and manipulating cars. The

girls discovered the foam magnetic blocks and after exploring

with them on the big whiteboard spontaneously began to sing

the “ABC” alphabet song. This is part of our early literacy

happening in the preschool.

Link to EYLF Outcome 2: Children develop a sense of belonging to

groups Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing Outcome

5: Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these

texts

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94% is our whole school attendance goal.

Just a reminder that school starts at 8:50, any students who are late to school must be signed in

at the office. All students who are late must provide a reason for why they are late. Students

who are late miss out on important periods of instruction in their learning specifically in reading

and writing.

Please make sure all absences are explained. You can ring the office on 9625-9031 and leave a

message with the ladies, bring a doctor’s certificate or note in from home OR remember you

can use our Skoolbag app to notify the school of your child’s absence. The absentee form is

located in the ‘eForms’ section of the app. To download the app, please follow the instructions

located later in the newsletter.

Mr Sterling

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Dawson P.S.

Sessions

This week the STEAM students have been looking at the thinking process

when working on STEAM based challenges. Simply by breaking it down to

its raw context, we realised it’s about extracting data by gaining

information using our five senses. Once we start thinking in a sequential

order, checking off each step we can extract all types of data that can be

used later on as we process it.

When we as students look at a

scenario and use our senses, we

start to extract specific

information. Today scientists

are building Robots that act like

humans. One of the biggest

challenges scientists face,

is how robots can utilise data from various types of sensors to process that

information on hand, the thinking part. We as humans subconsciously do

this, however by consciously looking at each phase we can observe a lot

more as to what is happening. Above we are learning to use a new building

kit known as LEGO Mindstorms. Once we understanding components and

the purpose of each part, we can then use these parts to undertake

experiments, by using the natural method of comparing and contrasting.

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Dawson Sports News

School Sport

The students at Dawson have been participating in our regular Friday 3-6 sport lessons. Each 3-6 class

has been given the name of an Australian sporting team that they compete as and the competition has

been tight! Each week classes verse each other in games of Cricket, T-Ball and Newcomb Ball. The

students begin their lesson with a warm up and skills practice before a friendly game. The winning team

of each game receives 10 points. Students can also earn points when they receive a caught you being

good. Every caught you being good earns an extra point for your team. Check out the scoreboard in the

canteen to see how your class is going

PSSA

We have made it to round 3 of the PSSA Tag League summer competition. The Dawson students have

proudly represented our school and tried their best. Although we haven’t come away with a win over the

last 2 rounds, our students have worked together and continue to get better each game. We wish them

luck for the coming rounds.

3 0 A M - 1 2 : 0 0 P M

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N G A L L

U W A L A

B O R I S E

PSSA – Tag League

Round Team Result Players of the Match

2 Junior Girls

Dawson vs Tregear

Loss

Lillyarna Suitupe

Kiyani Sigsworth

2 Senior Girls

Dawson vs Tregear

Loss

Pretty Thin Tuep

Monica Tauga

2 Junior Boys

Dawson vs Bidwill A

Loss

Cooper Pratt

Petelo Tauga

2 Senior Boys

Dawson vs Bidwill A

Loss

Tylique Setu

Ephraim Falaniko –Falemoe

3 Junior Girls

Dawson vs Crawford

Loss

Shanae Pratt

Lillyarna Suitupe

3 Senior Girls

Dawson vs Crawford

Loss

Monica Tauga

Tori-Ana Newcomb

3 Junior Boys

Dawson vs Tregear

Loss

Jamaine Morris

Peter Kaena

3 Senior Boys

Dawson vs Tregear

Loss

Ephraim Falaniko –Falemoe

Pasi Hu’ahulu

PSSA Results

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SRC Report

The SRC met on Thursday 14th March to discuss a number of important topics. We began our meeting

by selecting the winning entries in our PBL Postcard design competition. Each student at Dawson was

given the chance to design a postcard that is based around our PBL school values of being Safe,

Respectful, Cooperative and Responsible. Due to the large amount of amazing entries, each class was

asked to conduct a class vote and select their 2 favourite postcards that were sent to the SRC for a final

vote. It was a really tough decision but the SRC have selected a design from each grade (k-6). The

winning designs will be printed soon and sent out to families when students receive 20 Caught You

Being Good Awards.

Secondly, we discussed our passive play areas on the playground and how we can manage these areas.

The SRC have decided that we should create a roster for SRC representatives to help with these

activities during breaks. The students agreed that this area needs equipment like Lego, art supplies and

board games. We will aim to have this area up and running very soon.

Thirdly, we chatted about the fundraising events we would like to conduct this year at Dawson. The

students decided that they would like to have 2 discos and 2 dress up days. We have asked students to

go back to classes and vote on themes for these events. We will discuss potential dates for these events

at our next meeting in Week 9.

Finally, the SRC discussed setting a goal for the year that we could all work towards. Unfortunately we

ran out of time at our meeting to decide on a goal but stay tuned for our goal in the next edition of the

newsletter.

Please don’t forget that our friendly SRC members are always happy to hear any ideas or suggestions

you may have.

Stevie-Leigh Addo on 9672 4173/0498 550 086

Alice Fang on 0407 981 358

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Dawson Dynamoes

The Dynamoes have been busy over the last two weeks continuing to develop their skills to be effective

team members. Our focus has been to work together and we have started to understand what this really

means. The students had activities to do that were almost impossible to do individually but together they

could be conquered. We talked about the importance of working together and how it’s true that “many

hands make light work”.

One of our activities involved a circle game; together we set a goal and knew we had to work as a team

to achieve it. The first round of the game included a number of disagreements and took us 90 seconds

but after we discussed what worked and what didn’t work, we came up with a new strategy. The

Dynamoes knew they had to work together and encourage one another instead of disagreeing. Our

second attempt saw an increase in positive comments and more encouragement that resulted in the

team cutting our game time down to 52 seconds! It was an amazing result and everyone in the group

felt proud of their efforts.

After the game we discussed what worked well and what we need to do to be even better next time. We

all agreed that every member of our team had to work together and play their part if we want to be

successful in achieving our team goals.

The Dynamoes know that the skills we work on together in our sessions on Tuesday afternoons are

skills that they can use with their own classmates and on the playground too.

I hope you get to see the Dynamoes being awesome team players in your classrooms and on the

playground over the coming weeks!

See you next time with more delightful Dynamo news

Miss Dunn &Mr Bill

[email protected]

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Dawson Public School Photos

27th March, 2019

Envelopes should have arrived home already. Please see your class teacher if you have

not received these as yet.

If you would like sibling photos, please collect an enveloped from the office. The

photographers will start to take these at 8am on the day. Please remember that

supervision does not start until 8.30am, so if you arrive early for photos, you will need to

supervise your children until then.

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Gulyangarra Yellamundie Aboriginal Program

Aboriginal Cultural Learning is offered at three local primary schools. At Dawson Public School. through weekly sessions during school terms, children learn about their Aboriginal background and heritage through storytelling, song (in Darug language), art, craft, painting and local language.

The teachers from Gulyangarra Yellamundie attend Dawson every Thursday from 10 am to 10:45 am and work with our aboriginal students in years 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Gulyangarra Yellamundie Family Support Program

The family support program provides a range of services to families in the Blacktown local government area. Family support is

a program for Aboriginal families with children aged 0-12 years old with a focus on early child development respecting the

culture structure of families.

Parents/ Caregivers who may need support with

Parenthood

Information on child development

Children entering in child care, pre-school and primary school

Information in relation to social isolation

Reconnecting with the community

Information and referral to other services

The Family case worker provides

Individual support through confidential discussions

Visits the family in the home or at a pre-arranged venue once a week

Encouragement to book the parents strengths, confidence and self esteem

Parenting issues

Goal setting

Housing issues

information and referral to other services if needed

school based culture programs

Provide help for parents/carers who want to make changes in their lives and need support

Provide Information on child development, health and safety

advocacy with Government and Non-Government agency’s

Support and information in relation to social isolation

Connecting to culture

Support and assistance with information about local resources and how to access other organisations

Referrals for financial support including electricity and gas

Contact us Anglicare Mt Druitt 94 Kurrajong Ave Mt Druitt NSW 2770 PO Box 217 Rooty Hill NSW 2766

P : 0 2 8 8 0 5 0 9 9 8

F 8 8 0 5 0 9 9 4

E : f a m i l y s e r v i c e s @ a n g l i c a r e . o r g . a u

www. Anglicare. org. au Off ice Hours Monday – Friday 9: 00 a m – 4. 30p m

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our mission statement dawson public school is committed to … · 2020. 8. 23. · 1 dawson p.s...

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