Willoughby Public School Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers

Tumbulgum PS PJ Day

A huge thank you to everyone in our Willoughby PS community for your generosity on Wednesday supporting our buddy school Tumbulgum PS. It was great to walk into the playground and see the variety of onesies, oodies and PJ’s combined with big smiling faces. Thank you to our Student Representative Council for promoting the mufti day.  My understanding is our community have raised $3807. These funds will be transferred directly to Tumbulgum Public School.

Safety Reminder

If you are running late for pick up in the afternoons – please contact the office to let us know and your children will be brought to the office to wait for you. Please do not tell your children to wait at the play equipment as we do not have teachers on duty to supervise and it is unsafe for the children.

PBEL update

Our schoolwide expectations of being safe, respectful responsible learners is becoming a positive way of life for all of us at Willoughby. It is lovely to hear back from our teachers on excursions or supervising teachers at sport events of how well our students uphold these values. Congratulations students for your consistent effort in supporting our values with your actions and words. Each fortnight our PBEL team meet to analyse the data that we collect reflecting incidents across the 2 weeks. We look for patterns in behaviour and highlight any issues that we may need to readdress through explicit social skill lessons. We also link the lessons directly to our learning disposition wheel for example over the past 2 weeks we have focused on collaborative learners and taking ownership. The teachers have a supply of resources that include specific lessons, books with particular focus that generates discussion points. We have a big focus on owning your own behaviour, actions and words rather than engaging in a blame game. It is great to see students with help and guidance from their teachers taking responsibility and acknowledging what they could do next time to make better decisions. The teachers have developed powerpoint presentations to share with their classes for the ongoing consistency across Kindergarten to Year 6.

Student Progress Reports

I am currently reading and signing all student progress reports. This process gives me a big picture of where everyone is at across the school. I’m finding it really valuable to read the student reflections on their learning and the goals they would like to achieve to be successful learners. Thank you to our teachers for the time they have put into their class reports.

Inspiring creativity in Year 6

Congratulations Year 6 for your inspiring artworks based around your experience of the Biennale of Sydney - Rivus - recently at The Rocks. Artworks made reference to rivers, wetlands and other salt and freshwater ecosystems, and the impact of humans on the environment. Let’s hope that we can learn from the message of sustainability and have sustainability become an action and an automatic part of our daily lives. Thank you, Year 6, for sharing the inspiration of your artwork.

Kind regards,

Jennifer Simmonds

Library Book Care 

Thank you for helping your child to remember their Library Bag each week to borrow, and for organising a safe place for them to store their Library books whilst at home – it is making a big difference in keeping our Library books in good shape to lend out each week. Keeping books away from very young siblings, pets, pens and pencils and food and drinks so that they are returned to the Library in the same condition that they were borrowed is also so appreciated. Wet and soiled books can rarely be saved, and we find once a book becomes significantly marked, children do not want to borrow it in that condition. Great habits and good care for items loaned out means we have our fabulous books for so much longer. 

Parents are Welcome! 

How lovely it has been to see parents pop in to the Library at different times with questions, comments or queries at drop=off time, or just to have a look around our lovely space! We are open every morning except Tuesdays, from 8.35-8.55am. Students are welcome into the space to return books, borrow and read or draw. 

Watch this space! 

Fingers crossed and all things going well we are hoping to finally welcome back our much-loved Book Fair next term and Book Week Dress Up day! Plans are in the works and we will let you know details as the time draws closer! 

Mrs Debbie de Silva 

Teacher Librarian 

Dear Parents/Carers

URSTRONG’s whole-school friendship strategy has improved the social climate in schools around the world, connecting over a million kids, parents, and teachers with a common language of friendship.

You are invited to attend an online Language of Friendship workshop on Thursday 23 June at 6pm. From the comfort of your home, Tyson Greenwood (Director of URSTRONG Schools) will teach you and your children skills + language to foster healthy, feel-good friendships.

Registration Required: CLICK HERE to register

We believe that empowering our students with these skills will create a culture of kindness at our school and we hope you can attend.