Dudley Public School Newsletter

We made it!! What an epic and sensational start to 2023. We have had a very busy and productive term of teaching and learning at Dudley Public School. Last week I congratulated a few groups of people who I would like to acknowledge in today’s newsletter:

·   Our Kindergarten students have had a terrific start to the year as they have adjusted and settled into life at ‘big school’. A huge congratulations to the Kindergarten students, their teachers and their families.

·   Year 6 have been remarkable leaders in our school as our Kindy Buddies and also as Peer Support Leaders, not to mention the tasks they have all successfully undertaken in their school service and leadership roles.

·    Staff who have ensured a smooth and steady start to the school year by working tirelessly in the classroom to provide the best learning for our students and by giving up their time to organise and coordinate extracurricular activities for all of our students.

·    Our amazing administration/office staff for their wonderful work to ensure all of our systems and processes have begun this year in an effective way.

·    Parents and families who have supported the school in a flying start to the year by preparing your children for learning every day and promoting the importance of education.

·    Our P&C have already begun their fundraising efforts and are setting goals to be active contributors to the resourcing of our school and building stronger community connections throughout 2023.

Thanks for a strong Term 1 for 2023.

This year we have a strong focus on maximising the days dedicated to learning by proactively promoting strong regular attendance for every student everyday. We appreciate your support in this 2023 goal for our school. We continue to achieve excellent weekly results in the average attendance across our learning network of schools.

 On Thursday, parents and carers will receive the first of our new Termly Attendance Reports on the Sentral Parent Portal. The report will indicate your child’s attendance percentage for Term 1 together with the current amount of days (whole and partial) they have been absent from school. We strive for every student to have an attendance percentage of 90% or higher. This report is purely for your information regarding a point in time data share regarding your child that reflects the transparency we wish to have around attendance and reporting on student progress.

These holidays we will continue with departmental contractors working on our playground remediation. This will mean that our school site will once again be fenced off during the Easter holiday break for two weeks. During this time there will be works involving playground improvements, roof restoration and repair and the beginning of the conversion of our old school hall into a new classroom learning space. More information regarding the hall to classroom conversion project will be forwarded at the beginning of next term including information on the relocation of our OOSH to the new hall from a date later in Term 2. 

Our staff are currently in the final stages of pulling together a self assessment documentation of our school performance in reference to the School Excellence Framework. We have mapped our school activities, systems and processes against the descriptions of excellent practice and will submit our report document at the end of this term. The executive team will meet with a judging panel in Week 3 of next term to discuss the assessment and provide verbal support for our report. Following this we will be engaging further with the community as we work as a whole school to develop our new Strategic Improvement Plan. This is a very exciting process and we look forward to letting you know how you can engage with the consultation phase in preparation of the new plan to drive our school’s continued success and achievement. 

Starting from next term, K-2 classes will be escorted by their teachers to the basketball court for pick up time. Here parents and carers can collect their child or children from their class teachers. The current situation sees many students playing on the equipment of an afternoon and this makes it difficult for staff to safely assess who has been picked up by a parent and who has not. Normal processes will be in place for students who go to OOSH, walk home with siblings or utilise the ‘kiss and ride’ option at the end of the school day. Once parents have collected their children they can escort them to play on the equipment under parent supervision if they choose to. Thanks for your support with this process adjustment to ensure the safety of all our young students. 

Thank you to all the families who have paid their book pack and voluntary contribution already.

These packs include online licences and resources required for each child for the year. 

Kindergarten - $100

Stage 1 - $95

Stage 2 - $85

Stage 3 - $90

Voluntary Contribution - $35 per student (families with 3 or more children attending Dudley PS will have their contributions capped at $100).

The NSW Back to School Vouchers are eligible to be used for Book Pack payments at the office. Unfortunately the Back to School Vouchers are unable to to be used for Voluntary Contribution.

Payments can be made upfront or paid off throughout the term by EFTPOS/Cash at the office or using our Parent Online Payment System (POP). 

To pay online please go to the Dudley Public School Website

https://dudley-p.schools.nsw.gov.au/

Select make a payment

Follow the prompts and fill out the mandatory fields

Friday, the 10th March saw Dudley Public School become a blaze of pink, purple and blue to support Charlie’s Run 4 Kids. The students looked incredible in their colours. There was an excited vibe throughout the day as they bought Zooper Doopers, had lolly guesses and handed in their gold coin donation to help raise funds for this amazing local charity. Dudley Public school helped raise an impressive $1018.50 for Charlie’s Run 4 Kids. 

Congratulations to our two very happy lolly Jar winners – Zara Robbs (KH) and Ivy Haggarty (2/3M) with their winning guesses of 823 and 865 lollies in each jar.  

A huge thank you to go out to our wonderful students, teaching staff, office ladies and to our parents for all your wonderful support. A big thank you as well to Coles and Woolworths in Toronto for contributing gift cards and for Dulux Trade Centre in Lambton for donating the jelly beans.  

It’s been wonderful to work alongside the K-2 teachers in their rooms this term. Teachers have created positive learning environments which promote excitement and a love of numeracy. In K-2, we have focused on implementing daily number talks to develop a deeper understanding of number sense. During a number talk, students solve a problem in their heads and then discuss their method and prove their thinking through quality guided discussions. We have seen students very engaged in rich mathematical conversations where they communicate, question and analyse mathematical concepts with their peers. Students are increasingly showing improvement in their ability to justify their mathematical thinking and fluency. We have also been having lots of fun with some hands-on maths games as part of the new maths syllabus and are beginning to introduce open-ended, ‘rich’ tasks where the learning disposition perseverance is very important. It’s been very exciting to see all students so highly engaged in their learning and becoming little mathematicians!

Thank you to the amazing teachers for all their hard work and for welcoming me so warmly into their classrooms this term.

Jess Bell,

Assistant Principal, Curriculum Instruction

On Monday, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from local schools participated in an Aboriginal Dance Workshop at Whitebridge High School. 13 students from Year 3-6 represented Dudley Public School on the day. They collaborated to create an Acknowledgement of Country for our local schools. As part of this, they created an Aboriginal Dance that incorporated animals that represented local suburbs.

We are so happy to be once again involved in this year's Star Struck production of "Ignite". A group of stage 3 students will be representing our school on the dance floor and showing off their amazing dance skills. Buy a ticket and come and enjoy a wonderful time watching an amazing production.

What a busy term we have had here in the Dudley school library. Students have enjoyed a range of new picture books and graphic novels, with the "I survived" series by Laurne Tarshis proving immensely popular.  These books literally flew out the door each time they were returned. It is wonderful to see our students so enthusiastic to read! Stage 2 and 3 have had weekly STEM sessions this term. Stage 3 have been working on creating an interactive video of our school - watch this space!Stage 2 have been developing wonderful skills in photography and learning how to capture features in the school environment in a creative way. They focused on creating interesting photos using perspective, lines and texture! We have a group of budding photographers in our midst here at D.P.S. Please enjoy the selection of our work attached! A reminder to please return all overdue books to the library before then end of term!

EASTER RAFFLE – Thursday 6th April

Don’t forget to buy your Easter Raffle Tickets before 9am, Thursday 6th April! Tickets can be purchased online via the School 24 App or website:

Website:  https://www.school24.net.au/

Download the app here:

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1554433394

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?d=com.school24.app

The unique school ID for Dudley Public School is: 25348963.

 The raffle winners will be drawn electronically and announced at the Easter hat parade.

Good luck and thank you for supporting our children’s school P&C fundraising.

 SAVE THE DATE – DPS Comedy Night!

We are excited to announce that Comedy For A Cause is coming to DPS this year! With a team of professional comedians, this comedy show is sure to entertain! Our Comedy Night will be held in the evening on Saturday 3rd June. Put it in your diary and book your babysitter - it’s a night not to be missed. Tickets will be on sale early Term 2. https://comedyforacause.net/

We've had a busy and exciting time in Garden Club. We continued maintaining our current plants with a really good prune. As always, there were also weeds to pull out. There were lots of amazing pollinators about again which excites everyone. We got a surprise when we pruned our lemon balm to find a secret world of mushrooms growing happily beneath them. Last week, we had a mini lesson about how seeds germinate and grow. In small teams, we planted seeds and took them back to our classrooms so we can watch how they germinate. Mr Horadam tried to distract us with his jokes, but it didn't work! Once they grow, the snow peas and sugar snap peas will be a wonderful addition to our garden beds. Our Year 3 - 6 students did an excellent job, each leading a group of younger students.

Our Garbage Guardians have been on the lookout for environmental warriors. They are placing the names of the students they spot into a nomination box for our assembly environment awards.  A big congratulations to Angus in KF who won our award last fortnight. Helena and Pepper presented Angus with his prize after he was seen bringing nude food in his lunch box, picking up rubbish that other people had left behind and helping others to use the bins correctly. Well done, Angus - you are a superstar! 

Last fortnight saw the commencement of our weekly Waste Workshops. Students in KF and KH have now learnt all about our rubbish bin system and feel confident to dispose of their waste correctly. Our Garbage Guardians also participated in additional learning, with our first ever Garbage Guardians Masterclass being held. The afternoon was a great success and we are very lucky to have such a motivated team of students keeping our planet green. 

We look forward to engaging in other exciting gardening and sustainability activities next term and thank all the wonderful students that have assisted us over the last 10 weeks.  

Enjoy the holidays!

Mrs Mullins and Mrs Adams .