Willoughby Public School Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers

Congratulations to every student in our school! What a tremendous term of learning we have had despite the ongoing interruptions from illness. Thank you, parents and carers, for your ongoing support of your children and our school. I hope that you have a restful and relaxing holiday with plenty of time to recharge and keep healthy ready for Term 3.

NAIDOC Assembly

As NAIDOC Week falls during the school holidays, Willoughby Public School celebrated NAIDOC Week today at a special K-6 NAIDOC Assembly. Brothers Taj from Year 3 and Rome from Kindergarten opened the assembly with a special Acknowledgement of Country. 

Thank you to all involved in the organisation of the day and special thanks to the students who read out the Acknowledgement of Country that each grade had collaboratively composed, and the Stage 3 groups for their presentations around the Protection poem by Eva Johnson. 

A recording of the NAIDOC Assembly can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZrHgmCTA6k

Stage 2 Vivid Experience at WPS

Our stage 2 students combined creativity and imagination with science to create our own vivid festival. Thank you to our P&C for loaning the battery tealights for the displays. Thank you, Miss Holland and the Stage 2 teachers, for sharing your creations with the rest of the school. Some comments by the students: KR – “so cool” "we loved it". “Very well done!” What a lovely thing to do with our buddy class and the experience enjoyed by everyone! The little faces in KJ were lit up too! It was awesome! Thanks for the experience!

Our Track carnival on Wednesday was an excellent day for everyone – the sun was shining, excellent organisation, competitive sportsmanship was apparent. Thank you, Miss Chen and Mr Goodwin, for the superb organisation, thank you to the teachers and parent helpers for your great support. The students returned to school very excited and congratulations to the students that will be representing WPS at the zone track carnival. The field event carnival will be held on Monday August 1st, Week 3.

Sydney North Dance

Our WPS dance group were outstanding at the Sydney North Dance Festival. All the hard work and rehearsals were worth it. Thank you to Ms Rist and Miss Mikhail for the time you put into getting the group ready to perform. We hope that the dance group will perform for the rest of the school during Education Week in Term 3.

Mr Graeme Hancock our fantastic General Assistant has made the decision to retire. I’m sure you will agree with me that Graeme has been the best General Assistant ever during his time at WPS. We are currently advertising for a replacement GA but this is proving difficult. Graeme has agreed to work 2 days a week while we find a replacement. Thank you for all the extra things you have done over the years you will be missed.

I hope everyone has a relaxing holiday with your family and friends. I will be taking long service leave from Monday 18 July until Monday 8 August. My trip to the Northern Territory, The Ghan and South Australia was postponed for 2 years due to Covid.

Mrs Blake will be acting principal while I’m on leave.

Kind regards

Jennifer Simmonds

Greetings Willoughby Public School Community,

We have had a massive term in sport again in this term. Many of our students have made selection at Zone and Area level in sport.

Connor Fallet competed in the Sydney North Area trial and his Zone team came third over all on the day. Well done Connor what a tremendous achievement.

Girls and boys Zone Soccer Trials have happened over this term. Max Charlton made it through to represent North Shore Zone and Chloe Laffan and Sofia Pinto just missed out on selection in the girl’s team. Max’s Zone team went on to win the gala day being undefeated in that competition. Willoughby Public School is super proud of you Max, well done!

Hugo Bunting made selection in the Boy’s Zone Cricket Team and will be attending the Sydney North Area trial in August. We wish him all the best at the next level of trials.

Kyan Seale made selection to the Zone AFL team. He went on to compete in the Zone Carnival on the Central Coast and his team made the final of that competition but lost by a few goals. What an all round great sportperson you are Kyan, great job!

Our Zone Cross Country Carnival team competed in their carnival in week 5. Blake Watson came 4th and Hugh Walker 5th in the 8/9 year boys race. Kyan Seale came 2nd in the 11 boys race. All three boys are through to the Sydney North Area Cross Country Carnival. Emma Fogale and Nicholas Lindsell made reserve for their respective age groups.

Congratulations and good luck to all our amazing sporting representatives. The whole school and Willoughby community are super proud of you. It is so great to have our students representing on the sports fields again.

Kind regards

Simon Hutchison

Sports Coordinator

The photo above is of the three boys who represented Willoughby Public School and North Shore zone at the Sydney North Cross Country held at the Entertainment Grounds at Gosford last Thursday.

Blake (Year 3, placed 41), Kyan (Year 6, placed 8) and Hugh (Year 4, placed 56).

We have reached the end of a busy and successful term for the Library. I would really like to mention the fantastic contributions that our Library Monitors make to the day-day running of the Library. They all have their set day that they come in, and they rotate through a variety of different responsibilities each week. They have impressed me with their level of commitment and their great team spirit. If one needs help, others pitch in, and it has been great to see this develop over the past 6 months. Thank you to Sasha, Madeleine, Sterling, Zoe, Daniel, Lotta, Keisha, Gabby, Emily, Ben, Sean, Lilly, Kalen, Claudia, Nali, Sofia, Chaehee, Isla, Siena, Sophie, Mimi, Josh, Amaris and Chris – your help each week is much appreciated and without you all our job would be that much harder. 

Where can I find some really great reading material for my children over the holidays? 

Looking for some quality reading ideas for your child? The PRC booklists are fantastic for this, as all the books that make it onto the Challenge lists are ones selected for their suitability to the age group and are good stories. You will find them here – no special login needed to access them. 

Another fantastic spot to look is on the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Notables, Short-List and Previous Winners lists. They can be found here CBCA. Use the Book Of the Year drop-down to access all the different book lists. It is truly a treasure trove of great books. Your students will be reviewing the 2022 Short-list books in their Library lessons next term. I have read all the short-listed books for this year – they are really worth looking at. Your local Library and bookshops should have copies. You will also find e-copies to borrow on our E-Platform. Just download the App to have books on your child’s device wherever you are these holidays! They use their normal school login to borrow, and the books return themselves after 2 weeks! See the flyer in this newsletter for more details. 

Save the Date! 

Plans are well underway to once again hold our much-loved Grandparent’s Day and Book Fair – the first time we have been able to since 2019! This will also be the first one in our new hall! Thursday August 25th is the date.

This will also be the date for our annual Book Week Dress-Up Day! Students and teachers traditionally come dressed as their favourite book character. They will also bring the book along to share with their Grandparent or another special person on that day. More details to come next term! 

Have a wonderful break together with your family over the school holidays! See you all in Term 3! 

Mrs Debbie de Silva 

Teacher Librarian 

What a term of netball it’s been! As we enter a three week break from competition, we want to congratulate and thank all of our players, coaches, umpires, umpire mentors, and team managers for your commitment to making 2022 a fantastic season so far.

We’re observing all Netball and NetSetGo teams improving their skills, with many teams in contention for the upcoming finals series and some teams regraded to higher divisions based on their performances in the first half of the draw. Congratulations to our WPS12 (Orange) and WPS19 (Silver) NetSetGo teams which recently moved divisions.

Congratulations also to all of our umpires who have improved their skills as they’ve supported our teams over the last 10 weeks of competition. We’re seeing enormous development and growth in the umpires participating in our Year 6 Umpire Mentoring Program with some recently receiving their first umpiring ‘level’, including Tilly N and Holly B. With more ‘levelling’ opportunities in Rounds 10 to 15, we hope to get more of our new umpires to this stage. Some of our ex-WPS students and regular umpires have also been rewarded for their hard work, including Lena M, Rosie M, Kiki G and Millie V who’ve all received JL3 awards; Matilda C who’s received her JL2; and Aqua F who’s been awarded her National C badge.

This term we’ve enjoyed two fun and successful fundraising rounds organised by the Northern Suburbs Netball Association (NSNA) - Pink Round for Breast Cancer Research and Crazy Socks Day for The Kids’ Cancer Project. A big thanks to all our teams which participated and donated to these great causes.

Over these school holidays, the school Astrocourt will be re-marked and the new NetSetGo bracket and hoop welded onto the undercover pole of the Cola. Thank you to the committee members who have arranged and will oversee this work; and to Mr Michaeil and Mr Hancock who continue to assist the Committee to make these improvements to facilities used by Club members.

When games resume on the first Friday/Saturday/Sunday after the holidays (22/23/24 July), we enter the final weeks of competition. It will be Round 11 for the Netball Competition and Round 10 for NetSetGo. Training will resume for all teams from Monday 18 July.

Some of our teams will play 14 rounds this season, plus up to three weeks of finals, with others playing 15 rounds and up to two weeks of finals. NetSetGo do not have finals, instead enjoying a Gala morning scheduled for August 14.

Netball finals times have now been posted by NSNA. For semi-finals, they’ll be no change to timeslot for any grades. Friday finals and grands finals are scheduled for either 5pm or 6pm, with Saturday finals and grand finals scheduled for 8am. NetSetGo Gala timings will be published on PlayHQ closer to the date.

Finally, a few important reminders:

·         Remember, there’s no netball without umpires – Your umpire is someone’s child, parent, and/or friend and by showing up and doing their best, they’re ensuring games can be played. Please keep calm and be respectful, always.

·         Fixtures & results - You can access all team fixtures here on PlayHQ by selecting the NetSetGo or Netball competition, then your team.

·         No dogs allowed - Please remain aware that dogs are NOT allowed at the netball courts on game days and owners will be asked to leave by officials.

·         Next Committee meeting - Our Term 3 Committee Meeting is scheduled for 7pm on Monday 1 August. Please mark it in your diary and look out for further details which will be circulated at the beginning of Term 3. At this meeting we will be outlining the need for new 2023 volunteers to run the Club for the players.

We wish all our members an enjoyable break over the school holidays, during which we hope you’ll get some time to relax and refresh.