Willoughby Public School Newsletter

Dear Parents/Carers

Thank you to our families within our Willoughby community for submitting your child’s enrolment application for Kindergarten in 2023. We are starting to organise our Kindergarten Transition program ready for Term 4. If you have pre school children who are ready for “big” school please log onto our website and complete your application for enrolment. Please share with your neighbours and friends – so we have them on our list for our transition program. Our Year 5 student leader nominees are looking forward to welcoming our new kindergarten student to Willoughby PS.

Years 3 and 4 had a great night on Friday 12 August. Thank you to our parent organisers and support on the night and Mr Aitken for his great MC & DJ skills. A fun event for everyone – it was wonderful to see our students with huge smiles as they danced the night away.

Our Year 6 students had a fabulous time at Broken Bay Sport and Recreation Camp last week. There were lots of excited students waiting for the buses to arrive on Wednesday morning and tired but happy students returning on Friday afternoon. Our playground was very quiet over the 3 days. Congratulations to our students for being wonderful ambassadors representing our school and participating in all activities with enthusiasm. Thank you to Mrs Leslie, Mr Atkinson, Ms Mikhail, Mrs Dixon, Mr Michaeil, Miss Dixon, Mrs Rodgers, Miss Babayigit, Lis and Emily for taking such great care of our Year 6 students while on camp. We acknowledge and appreciate that you had time away from your own families during camp. I’m sure everyone had a very relaxing weekend catching up on your sleep.

Child Protection - Term 3

Our PD/H focus in Term 3 is teaching the NSW Curriculum's Child Protection lessons. In response to an incident that occurred near WPS on Wednesday, yesterday, teachers reminded students to always walk home together, revised keeping themselves safe and the importance of letting an adult know about dangers or safety concerns. 

We are very grateful for the ongoing support of our WPC P&C Association. The P&C have a great working relationship focusing on improving the outcomes for our students. The support is provided in a variety of ways:

Social events – Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, school welcome events, and Starry Nights to name a few. These social events provide opportunities for the adult to develop and strengthen relationships across the school as well as provide fun times for the children to play together.

Whole School Program support: UR Strong friendship presentation last term was outstanding, WPS has implemented the strategies across K-6. It fits well into our PBEL values and provides ways for children to strengthen their skills around friendships providing a toolbox of strategies when facing challenges with friends.

School Learning and Support Officer’s (SLSO’s) We have a great SLSO team who work across our school supporting students and teachers in class, with additional lessons, at recess and lunch times ensuring ongoing care and support for our students.

Technology – we have through the support of the P&C updated and replaced our iPad, Chromebook and laptops, purchasing mobile charging stations that can be moved around the school as required. This supports the student’s skill acquisition as they seamlessly integrate technology into all key learning areas.

Curriculum implementation support especially English. We have been able to top up our reading resources to support the implementation of the new K-2 English syllabus. Decodable texts and variety of books to support home reading as well as in class resources.

On Monday 29 August our Year 5 students will be participating in the Met North Gala event at the Quay Centre, Homebush. This is the culmination of their dance lessons. It is a truly spectacular event and I’m looking forward to seeing our students perform along with the other schools across Met North. Thank you to Miss Tonks for coordinating our Year 5 dance team. Thank you to our Year 5 teachers for your support over the weeks. Good luck to our students, I can’t wait to see the performances at the Met North Gala.

What a wonderful day we had yesterday celebrating reading and the joy and adventures that books bring – dreaming with our eyes open.

Thank you to Mrs DeSilva and our teachers and office admin for the wonderful team effort. Thank you, grandparents and grand friends, for your generosity in purchasing books for our library. The library is the heart of our school. Please see the gallery of photos attached.

We have started the leadership selection process with our Year 5 students. The Year 5 group participated in a whole leadership day and have completed the School Captain and Vice-Captain nomination form. The sport house nomination forms will be distributed today, once we have those nominations in the students will receive their student leader nominee badges.

Voting will occur in Term 4. The first round all of Stage 3 and the Stage 3 teachers will vote for the final 10 -12 nominees. These students will then present their speeches to Years 2- 5. The students will then complete their ballot paper for the final selection. The 2 captains and 2 vice captains will receive their badge at our end of year presentation day.

The sport house captains and vice captains will present their speeches to the members of their sport house team. All students in each house will cast their vote after the leader nominees present speeches in the sport house meeting. The house captains / vice captains will be presented their badges at our end of year presentation assembly.

Thank you to Miss Chen and Mr Goodwin for accompanying our WPS team to the carnival on Wednesday and today. Congratulations to our students for the great results. We will publish the information in our next newsletter and highlight the achievement of our students.

Kind regards

Jennifer Simmonds

Book Week 

Another fun-filled and exciting Book Week has come to a close, and we celebrated well! We started the week with surprise school assembly visits from none other than Harry Potter’s Professor McGonagall (Mrs de Silva) who launched Book Week and spoke to students about the importance of the week, the meaning of the theme – Dreaming with Eyes Open – and the stars of the week, which are the characters in the stories that we read. When we read, we dream with our eyes open. We follow those characters right through the story, to its end – and sometimes right into the next book in the series! We celebrate these characters, and the books we love by dressing up as them. By dressing up as them we let others know we love them, and we have fun ‘being’ that character for the day in some way.  

The Children’s Book Council of Australia always announces their Book-of-the-Year prize- winning reads at the start of Book Week. You will find them at this link CBCA ! Some great reading ideas right throughout this website! 

Grandparents and Others Day 

What a fantastic time we all had welcoming our Grandparents and Others back into our school this week! A big thank you to Yrs 5 and 6 parents for providing such lovely food for the Morning Tea! Our students were so happy to spend time with their family members in this way – and plenty took up the chance to sit down for a lovely story time at recess with them too! The Book Fair was a resounding success! Thank you so much to all who bought books to donate to the Library. As a result of your generosity 550 new books will be making their way to our shelves! Over the next few weeks these books will be made ready to borrow out first to the student who donated them, then made available for everyone to borrow after that! We are so very lucky! Thank you also to my 4 parent volunteers – Amy, Juliette, Andi and Krista who kept the tables stocked and gave assistance wherever needed. We really appreciate it! The morning ended with a Book Character Parade, giving so much enjoyment to all who attended.  

Author Visits 

Kindergarten really enjoyed their visit with highly respected author Lesley Gibbes, who showed them how to take a life experience or memory and turn that into a great story by changing the setting and various elements. A great technique! She also read two of her books to the students and explained more of the writing process to them! A very worthwhile visit!  

Over the coming week Stages 1, 2 and 3 will have their author visits with prize-winning authors Ashleigh Barton, Tim Harris and Tristan Bancks respectively! We look forward to the learning that those experiences will bring. 

Mrs Debbie de Silva 

Teacher Librarian 

It’s almost a wrap on a wonderful Winter netball season with just the finals left to contest. 

Congratulations to all of our 172 WPSNC players who have shown up with energy and a positive sporting attitude throughout the season.  

A special congratulations is extended to our four netball teams – WPS1, WPS 8, WPS9, WPS10 – all playing this weekend for a place in the championship grand finals for their divisions, and also to the players of WPS5 who contested last week’s semi-finals.  

Our NetSetGo teams ended their season with a Gala Day enjoyed under glorious sunny skies in mid-August. It’s been wonderful to see our youngest Club members having fun, keeping active and learning new skills with their coaches and peers – and we hope to welcome you back in 2023 for more netball fun. 

We will have the chance to celebrate our first uninterrupted season in three years with the WPSNC Presentation Day, scheduled for Sunday 11 September in the school hall. Our entire netball community of players, coaches, umpires, umpire mentors, team mangers and families are invited, and we hope to see as many of you there as possible. 

There is an opportunity for your children to play more netball in Term 4, if so desired. Information regarding the NSNA Twilight Competition - which runs for 8 weeks in Term 4 on a Monday night -  has been distributed earlier this week. Although the Club is not directly involved in Twilight team formations or registrations, we are a first point of call for any issues and ask that you please be kind and sensitive regarding the players you’re ‘inviting’ to join your team.  

A few reminders for upcoming events as we close out the 2022 Season and begin preparing for the year ahead: 

• Team Photo Day – Friday 2 September in the WPS hall. Please come to school in netball uniform and bring your school uniform to change into afterwards. 

• Presentation Day – Sunday 11 September in the WPS hall. NSG 3-4.30pm; Netball 4.45-5.30pm. More details to come. 

• Kit collection - The preference for collection of kits is at the Club Presentation Day on Sunday 11 September. A checklist for kit cleanout has been shared with Team Managers. For any team hoping to play in the NSNA Twilight competition, WPSNC kits are available for use. Please advise us if your team will be holding onto your kit, or requires one, so we can keep track of equipment. 

• EOIs for the NSNA Twilight Competition – due to NSNA by Friday 23 September with EOIs received determining if the competition proceeds. Please copy wpsnetballclub@gmail.com when submitting your EOI email. 

• Next Committee meeting - Our Term 4 Annual General Meeting (AGM) is scheduled for 7pm on Monday 24 October 2022. Please mark it in your diary and look out for further details which will be circulated at the beginning of Term 4.  

• Consider joining the Committee for 2023 – With a number of our dedicated Committee members leaving at the end of 2022, we’re looking for our next generation of parents to lead the Club into 2023 and beyond. More information will be shared soon but if you have an interest in volunteering, please let us know via wpsnetballclub@gmail.com.