This year celebrates the 25th edition of the Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition! For 25 years this competition has been encouraging primary school students to explore ideas of multiculturalism in Australia, as well as giving them a place to practise their public speaking skills and improve their confidence. Every year close to 2,000 students are chosen to represent their schools at the local finals, with a lucky few making it all the way to the state championships.

The Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition is open to all NSW government primary schools.

The competition has two different age divisions – one for Years 3 & 4 students and one for Years 5 & 6 students. Schools can enter a maximum of two contestants in each of the age divisions, totalling four contestants overall.

Students in Years 3-6 will have the opportunity to enter our BHPS Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition in the coming weeks, then two representatives for each division will be selected to represent our school at the finals.

This year is a significant year for multicultural education in NSW government schools. It isn’t just the 25th year of the competition, it’s also the 20th anniversary of the Racism. No way. project and the 21st birthday of the Calendar for Cultural Diversity. To celebrate those milestones, ‘Racism. No way’ and ‘Our place’, the theme of the Calendar for Cultural Diversity 2020, have been included in both age divisions. 

Years 3&4 Topics 2020	Years 5&6 Topics 2020
Our place	Our place
Racism – No way	Racism – No way
Refugees	A world of difference
Our national anthem	Colour matters
Kid power!	Sports – bringing people together
Respect	Welcome to Australia
When does a migrant become an Australian?	It’s complicated
The Olympics – breaking down barriers	Becoming a global citizen
Belonging in school	Learning from the past
Words can hurt	Many voices one land
Australia – the next 25 years	Australia: TV versus real life

Do you love writing? Enter the Seven Steps Narrative Competition! There are  4 categories to enter and win! Entries close  24 August 2020. Seven Steps to Writing Success celebrates student voices and they want to hear yours. Download the details of our 2020 Narrative Writing Competition for four challenges to tickle your tale-telling toes. From scripts to stories, planning and picture narratives, use the seven steps techniques to tell your story and enter the competition. 

Check out the link here:

Seven Steps Narrative Competition

All entries must have the parent permission form attached and can be sent to Mrs Walsh for submission before Monday 24th August. 

The Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC) is underway and goes through until August 28th 2020. The challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge for each student to read, to read more and to read more widely. The Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC) is available for all NSW students in Kindergarten to Year 9.

Year Number of books you must read Minimum number of PRC books Maximum number of Personal Choice books PRC booklists you can read from K-2 30 25 5 K-2, 3-4, 5-6 3-4 20 15 5 3-4, 5-6, 7-9 5-6 20 15 5 5-6, 7-9 7-9 20 15 5 5-6,7-9

 

Go to the new PRC student website. There is a video on the PRC Support site that you can watch that demonstrates how to login, search for books and add them to your child's individual Student Reading Record (SRR). 

A link to the Premier’s Reading Challenge website can be found in the 

Student Portal under the Learning section.  Students are also able to add a link to the PRC in the My Link List section to make the PRC easier to find. 

The URL to use is  https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/studentExperience.html#/

Students can access the PRC website using their Department of Education (DoE) username and password.  These are the same details a student would use to access the Student Portal and the computer network at school.  If you are unaware of your username and/or password, please contact your class teacher and ask for your Student Portal username and/or password.

We encourage as many students to partake in the challenge as possible. All students who participate will go into a class draw, with a prize for a student per class at the end of the challenge​.

Please come and see me if you would like more information on the PRC or assistance in sourcing books. 

This year we are asking all students in K-6 to log their own books to complete the challenge. 

Happy reading!

Miss Shearer & Mrs Thomas

This year it may look a little different but there are many things that are the same.

·         You can still buy books

·         Every purchase benefits the school and your child

·         You can still donate books

·         You can still browse books, this time on line

·         Your child will still be able to buy a variety of books from fiction, picture books, nonfiction books, games books and more.

·         Students still come home with a wish list of titles that they are interested in.

Things that are different with a virtual book fair is

·         You can shop with your child from the luxury of your own home

·         You can purchase a variety of books, not just book fair books. If you buy other books for your toddlers, novels or books for you the school will still benefit.

·         Once you have ordered you will have to wait a little longer for the books to be delivered to school and sent home

The book fair will run from

Monday 3rd August – Tuesday 18th  August

Click on the link, find the Beacon Hill School and start shopping.

I realise that these are tough times but we really appreciate your support.

Alison Shearer

Teacher Librarian 

The book club catalog will be sent home with each student in the coming weeks, if you would like to have a sneak peek check out the link below.

Book Club link: https://www.scholastic.com.au/media/5667/bc-620.pdf 

Orders must be completed on line by 3pm on Friday September 11.

Please note no cash payments will be accepted.