Vardys Voice

As you would be aware, Vardys Road Public School has had a number of recent staffing changes.

All of these changes were unavoidable with two of the positions involving teachers being offered permanency at other schools.

These teachers did not plan or ask for these job offers and while the timing was unfortunate, the determining factor of when these positions are offered is primarily governed by Department of Education staffing processes driven by a significant shortage of casual teachers across the state.

What the school does have control over is the management of the transition from old to new teachers, the tracking of the students’ progress and the capacity building of the new teachers to cater for the varied needs of their new class. All of these factors are being managed by a team of very professional teachers and support staff.

Please feel free to contact me at school to discuss this further if necessary.

The teachers in each stage have finalised their term overviews. These summaries outline the content and programs that will be delivered this term. You may download the files from the links below.

Students involved in Term 1 PSSA sports would know that the majority of the games were cancelled due to rain or wet grounds. As the cost of bus travel was pre-paid, the school will be crediting the cost of missed games to affected students’ Term 4 PSSA payments, Winter PSSA costs or put against a school event as chosen by the family.

Affected parents will be contacted soon.

On Friday 17th May many schools across the country will be participating in National Walk Safely to School Day. The program aims to encourage children to be more physically active, to be more environmentally aware and to learn some important road safety skills.

Families are encouraged to leave the car at home or park the car a few blocks away so the kids can enjoy a refreshing walk to school.

This day is also a timely reminder that children under the age of ten do not have the physical ability to safely cross a road independently. Until a child is ten, they should be holding an adult’s hand when crossing a road.

We are looking forward to seeing many energised Vardys Road students walking through the school gate on this special day.

The school and the P & C have often discussed ways to make the cost of educating our children more predictable for families so parents and carers can better plan their ever increasing family budget.

To further assist families in planning for school based costs, Vardys Road will be trialling term based invoicing, where the costs for the term will be invoiced to each family.

This term’s invoice will be sent home shortly and will include school resource fees and school based activities.

Vardys Road Public School teachers have traditionally prided themselves on producing and performing entertaining assembly items throughout the year. However, over the last few years, these performances have slowly become longer and more intricate and have taken the classes away from valuable literacy and numeracy programs for many hours leading up to each performance.

To help address this issue, teachers have been asked to ensure that they limit each item to one or two performances, to ensure that the items are linked with what happens in the classroom and are aimed at ensuring every child has an opportunity to perform.

The importance of providing these opportunities cannot be understated, however, the above is aimed at finding the balance between curriculum delivery and performance preparation.

Many thanks to the parents and carers who contributed to the discussion on possible changes to the school prayer and school pledge. The many varied perspectives will be drawn together at a parent forum that will aim at developing a pledge that reflects the values of our school and community.

Parents wishing to add to this discussion are encouraged to email me at ian.d.short@det.nsw.edu.au

You can find further information in last weeks newsletter on the skoolbag app or school website. Here is the link too: https://enewsletter.skoolbag.com.au/b700106d

Recently our new school website was released. We are no longer able to continue with a third party program but have moved to the Department of Education school website service.

The new website has a some limitations and differences. Some of the issues are related to security of government property, accessibility guidelines, and some are related to a very large organisation trying to generalise needs across the organisation. For example, the DoE website team, based on it's surveys and trials, decided to collect things such as canteen and uniform shop under a general menu called "What we offer".

We have added a quick text link on the home page to the canteen and uniform shop information. Unfortunately we cannot link to some sites, such as the Vardys Road P&C Association while they go through the process of updating their security. 

We intend to make things easier and more obvious as staff time allows. Thank you for your patience.

An information session about cyber safety will be held for parents on Tuesday 21 May. It is presented by Snr Constable John Bollard in the school library at 6pm.  This is a very important topic for all families.

Further information will be added to the school website events and sent via the skoolbag app.

We would like to start a community vegetable garden at the front of our school and we would love the help of parents to get it started. You can grow and take home any produce you grow, and you can get to know other like-minded families in our community. You don't need any experience as long as you're keen to give it a go. If you are interested, please email me at ian.d.short@det.nsw.edu.au

As a resident of Blacktown City Council every household is entitled to two free plants a year.             

If you are not wishing to collect your plant allocation, the school would like to collect them on your behalf and use the plants to beautify our grounds.

Scores of plants were donated in previous years, which have added to the beauty of our many school gardens.

 A note will be sent home soon to give our families the opportunity to donate their plants.

This year Vardys Road OOSH will be participating in the Woolworths Loyalty program, Earn and Learn. A basket has been set up in the school office to collect any stickers donated by community members.

These stickers will be passed onto our wonderful OOSH staff.

Following the success of the in-school NRL lessons, Vardys Road will be hosting a series of NRL after-school clinics, starting on Wednesday 15th May. More information about these clinics and how to register are in the pamphlet included below.

For many years Interrelate has visited Vardys Road teaching sexuality education programs to our children. Later this term Interrelate will once again be conducting two sessions, named, ‘Where do I come from?’ and ‘Preparing for Puberty’.

An information flyer is included below.

Later this term, the school will be working with Teeth on Wheels to provide a free dental service for our students.

Teeth On Wheels provide an on-site dentistry service to schools and childcare facilities within the greater Melbourne and NSW area. They pride themselves on providing the highest quality dental treatment while making it fun, positive and memorable. Their vehicles are fitted out with state of the art dental equipment and include entertainment systems with classic movies and music, providing a stress-free and relaxing atmosphere for the students.

Certainly a fun way to go to the dentist!

More information will be posted in upcoming newsletters.

Junaya is a community service program that supports parents and families with the difficult task of raising children.

Please find attached to this newsletter a number of flyers regarding parent workshops being offered by Junaya in the near future. Some flyers have incomplete information, please contact Junaya directly for further information.