Somersby Snippets

I would like to thank Mrs Gowans for leading the school as relieving principal during my recent leave. She not only kept things running smoothly across the school but also continued to work closely with Mr MacCallum who was teaching Eucalypt during this time.

Since returning, I have had the pleasure of seeing some great learning happening throughout the school, from Wattle students locating facts in a text about lions and planning to write their own information reports, to Mrs Carter’s Kindergarten reading group making great gains, to stunning artworks being created and the whole school enjoying a big ‘Jump Off’ together.

Teachers have been looking at the progress made this term with classroom assessments. It is wonderful to see the results and hear teachers talk about the achievements happening in their classes. It is, after all, why we are all here. 

At this Friday’s assembly, another group of our music students will perform assisted by Nate from Primary Music Institute.

Assembly will commence at 9:15am.

I hope you can make it to enjoy these musical performances. 

Thursday 22 September has been confirmed as a ‘National Day of Mourning for Queen Elizabeth II’. This means that our school will be non-operational (closed).

In the last newsletter, we had Friday 23 September listed as a mufti day. The mufti day was since moved to last week when Year 6 raised money for their environment project. Please accept our apologies for the confusion.

This Friday, students are to wear school uniform. 

Today we wish Arielle, James, Hudson T, Emily, William, Cameron and Connor the best of luck as they head to Lisarow Public School to participate in the Central Coast Public Speaking competition. These students, who won our school competition earlier this term, will present their speeches and are sure to inform, entertain and persuade their audience. The Central Coast grand final will be held at our school in Week 1 next term. 

Tuesday’s ‘Jump Off’ was a fun and successful way to finish this term’s hard work in PE lessons. Miss Preston ran the event with music and a series of challenges to keep everyone jumping for as long as possible. The playground was full of lots of red and very smiley faces. 

All classes have created an artwork to enter in the Country Fair art competition. This year’s theme is ‘heal’.

Somersby Public School students created a series of artworks depicting the phases of healing following the devastating bushfires of 2019. Each class created an artwork based on one of the stages in the cycle of regeneration from forestation to devastation and regeneration. Our school and many of our families were all impacted in some way during that time. Working in groups across the school, students set out to reflect the healing of the mountain through their art

As we continue our planning for 2023, we kindly ask if you could notify the school office by phone or email as soon as possible if your child/children will not be returning to Somersby Public School next year. The number of students at our school affects the planning for classes, staffing and school organisation for 2023.

Miss Ellen has begun preparing the orientation program for Kindergarten 2023. Details will be emailed directly to families who are enrolled to commence next year. If you know of anyone who is yet to enrol, please remind them to get in touch. It is important we have all of our new Kindy students here for the orientation. 

Over the next few weeks students in Years 3-6 will participate in the Check-in assessment.

The Check-in assessment is a NSW Department of Education online literacy and numeracy assessment available to support schools to assess and monitor student learning.

The assessment can supplement existing school practices to identify how students are performing in literacy and numeracy and to help teachers tailor their teaching more specifically to student needs. The information for the Year 6 assessments is also used to support transition to high school.

Students with a disability may receive the same level of support during the assessment they would normally receive in the classroom.

·         The assessment will be scheduled for our Year 6 students this week and for Years 3 – 5 in Weeks 2 and 3 next term.

·         All students complete a reading assessment and a numeracy assessment. Year 6 students will also complete a writing task.

Students will be asked to bring headphones or earbuds that plug into a computer to enable them to hear audio during the assessment. Earbuds used for mobile phones or other portable devices may be suitable for use during the assessment. If your child needs earbuds provided by the school, please contact your child’s teacher.

We are aware of a number of cases of gastroenteritis in our local community, which is highly infectious and can rapidly spread. The main symptoms of viral gastroenteritis are vomiting and watery diarrhoea. Other symptoms may include nausea, fever, abdominal pain, headache, and muscle aches. 

If your child experiences vomiting or diarrhoea they should not attend school while sick and for 48 hours after symptoms resolve. 

After the past two years, our community is now well-equipped to control the spread of viruses. For the health and safety of all of our staff and students, we appreciate your cooperation. 

During English this term in Wattle we have been focusing on using adjectives in our writing. We have looked at the books Tilly and Giraffes Can’t Dance, and we have used adjectives to describe the characters in each text. Tilly is a small girl who is curious and miserable when her treasures get lost, while Gerald is a tall, brave giraffe who is an amazing dancer.

In art we have been focusing on using warm and cool colours, along with texture in our artworks. We first learnt that red, orange and yellow are warm colours, while blue, purple and green are cool colours, and we used these colours to colour in warm and cool colour landscapes. Last week we used our knowledge of cool colours to create an under the sea landscape after listening to the book Rainbow Fish. This week we used a range of colours and texture to create emu drawings.