Term 3 Week 1, 2022

Dear Valentine families,

It's lovely to be back at school with our amazing students. This term we continue to be mindful of the COVID advice that the Department of Education in conjunction with NSW Health has given to keep our site as safe as possible. Please know that the school is mindful of these guidelines in everything that we do. Please find below the basic list of guidelines. The full suite of advice is available via the link at the bottom.

These key measures include:

  • strongly encouraging mask-wearing indoors for all students and staff
  • rapid antigen testing (RAT) of students and staff who have COVID-19 symptoms or are identified as close contacts
  • strongly recommending staff and students keep up with their vaccinations
  • maximising natural ventilation
  • requiring mask wearing for staff working with students who are at greater risk of serious illness should they contract COVID-19 in schools for specific purpose (SSPs), support units and some mainstream classrooms.
  • encouraging regular hand washing
  • boosting enhanced day cleaning of schools
  • assessing risk and applying appropriate safeguards across activities and events
  • learning remotely where face-to-face learning is not possible.


In certain circumstances, NSW Health and the Department of Education may advise that additional COVID-smart measures be temporarily reintroduced at your school. Your principal will work with the Health, Safety and Staff Wellbeing Case Management team and provide further details of any changes to COVID-smart measures at your school, when required. These temporary measures may include:

  • ceasing large indoor gatherings
  • ceasing off-site and inter-school activities
  • cancelling or postponing overnight activities and excursions, including school camps
  • mandating mask wearing for adults and high school students
  • limiting visitors to schools separating cohorts of students
  • learning from home or remotely.


Of course, we will inform our community if we need to put any of the guidelines listed immediately above into action. Further information - all information can be accessed via this link https://education.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/advice-for-families

Professional Learning

This term we are focusing on Professional Learning that’s serves to prepare our teachers for the mandatory K-2 English syllabus 2023. The new syllabus calls for the introduction of decodables as the key strategy for teaching reading. Our staff will participate in weekly Professional Learning sessions that cover the ‘Science of Reading’- the evidence behind the chosen strategy. We are also participating in a series of workshops provided by the company ‘Little Learners Love Literacy’ to ensure that all staff understand the purpose, process and impact of using decodable text to teach reading.

Staff Changes

  • Mr Soorley will be back from leave from Week 3.
  • Mr Morris will be taking leave each Friday for the first six weeks of this term.
  • Mrs Rich returns from leave in Week 3.

Band

Congratulations to our Band - both Junior and Senior who came back to rehearsals this week. A favourite moment was seeing our Bandmaster, Mr. Rostas turn up to rehearsal in his PJ’s! Love the persistence of our fabulous musicians. Thank you to Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. Vale for their continued support of our band students and for keeping music alive and well at VPS.

Year 6 Pyjama Day Fundraiser

Well done to Year 6 students for their initiative in organising our Pyjama Day and thank you to our families for the gold coin donation. Absolutely, the best day at school. They successfully raised $600


NAIDOC Week

It has been a delight to see the activities and lessons that our students have been involved with this week as they learn about and celebrate NAIDOC Week at school. It was quite emotional speaking to our student Halle who has been working on this artwork for three months - what a talent! She explained the context of the art so beautifully and her pride as a young Aboriginal lady came shining through as she spoke.


School is joyous

So many amazing things happen on our site within one week, it is hard to capture it all. From watching our students training in the early morning sessions for their sporting team,s to speaking with our netballers about being famous on TV last night. They were so excited as they reflected on their Netball Carnival experience, with one of our teams ending the carnival as an undefeated team. They are now heading to the Hunter finals. This led to conversations with students as they expressed their excitement about wearing our news sports strips as they represent our school and telling me how proud they feel to wear them, turning up to games, feeling very strong with a sense of belonging. Then there is the joy of working with our debaters as they prepare to continue debating this term. The joy of speaking with the new basketball coach as she came to pick up the basketball uniforms, so excited to tell me all about her fabulous basketball teams that will be competing soon. And of course, the joy of witnessing the amazing things that are happening in our classrooms every day in lessons.


Education Week

We will release further information about our plans to celebrate Education Week, as we are reviewing our plans currently up against the current guidelines.

VPSagreatplacetobe#

Student Voice - A weekly selection of pieces written by students.

Stage 3 Hunter-Interschools Public Speaking Finals

On Monday 27th of June, Stage 3 held their public speaking finals. The finals were for the students who were selected by the teacher to represent their class. Everyone in Stage 3 presented their speeches in their own classroom first, as their teacher could only choose 2 people to move on. 

The finalists performed their speeches in the hall. Some of the topics included ‘Mondays should be banned’ and ‘Being the middle child is the best’. One thing we liked about everyone's speeches is that they were delivered with such expressions! 

Unfortunately, again, only 2 students could move on. The students selected to represent our school at Zone level were AJ Watson and Emily Vale. Congrats to the winners! The winners' speeches were ‘Recorders have feelings too’, delivered by Emily Vale and ‘From the future’, delivered by AJ Watson.

Good luck to both students moving forward. 


Ashlyn F and Izzy R

Unnamed Lost Property

If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office
If you recognise any of the unnamed items, please contact the office

Wonder White Recycling Rewards

Help us turn bread bags into school play equipment!

We've teamed up with 1500 Aussie schools to help us collect bread bags in exchange for points they can redeem on new sports equipment, and all registered schools go in the draw to win an exercise circuit made from the recycled plastic we all collect! 

While our box hasn't arrived yet, we are still accepting empty bags. These will go towards sporting equipment for our school. 

Valentine Public School