Rozelle Public School Newsletter

Rozelle is a place where Aboriginal children learned, played and celebrated their culture for thousands of years on this beautiful, natural land. As we learn, play and celebrate together on this land, we honour the Wangal people of the Eora nation and pay our respects to elders both past, present and emerging.

STAFFING UPDATE

At the end of this term, Mrs Alison Perestrelo will commence her maternity leave. Although securing a teacher for the wonderful 5 Almalfi has proven challenging, I am very pleased to announce Mr Tim Hartnett will be taking over the teaching responsibilities. Mr Hartnett is a very experienced teacher and is returning to Sydney from Melbourne to take up the position. Mrs Perestrelo will return to Rozelle for the first week of Term Three to work with Mr Hartnett and provide a detailed handover. I wish Mrs Perestrelo and her family all the very best and thank her for the past 18 month of teaching at Rozelle.

Our General Assistant, Greg Poynter will be on extended leave for the foreseeable future as he faces a significant health challenge. Joining us on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday each week is Jack Westacott who will do his best to cover the General Assistant duties. The position of General Assistant is a five day / week role. If there is a parent in the community who is interested in picking up a couple of days work (Thursday / Friday) please contact Poppy in the office who can provide more information. 

We continue to send our support and best wishes to Carol Sheppard, who is also undergoing extensive treatment. Ms Sheppard is our wonderful librarian and has always approached the role with creativity, passion and kindness. She has had a positive impact on many young readers. We are fortunate this year to have Mrs Lisa Tohver and Ms Bernie Moloney in the library who do their best to fill Carol’s ‘big reading slippers’.

Over the past few months, there have been a number of complex and challenging moments for the staff of Rozelle. I am extremely grateful for their ongoing resilience and care for each other. If you feel like  giving a positive shout out to a member of staff, I am sure they would love to hear from you. 

COVID, FLU AND OTHER NASTIES!

The past fortnight has seen an increase in school wide absenteeism due to illness. In particular, Influenza is circulating and COVID cases continue to persist. Please note the following:

• If a member of your family tests positive for COVID, your child can still come to school on the provision that they have a negative RAT result each day (5 consecutive days).

• If your child tests positive, they are off school for a week. Please notify the school and register the positive result via the Service NSW App.

• Additional RAT tests will be sent home with students. Please keep an eye out for them.

• Please do not send your child to school if they are unwell. This week there have been a number of students presenting to the office with very heavy colds and headaches. 

• If your child is unwell, you will receive a call from our administration team asking you to come and collect them. This is for their own comfort and wellbeing. 

I would like to thank all families who continue to help reduce the spread of winter colds, flu and viruses by keeping children at home when they are unwell. I understand the challenges this can present for many working families. However keeping your child at home when they are unwell is in their best interest and helps prevent the spread of those dreaded ‘winter lurgies’.

What a wonderful thing to be able come to school dressed in your PJs for the school day!!  Students and teachers felt snug and cozy in a colourful assortment of pyjamas, onesies, ugg boots and oodies!  Thank you to our school Senators for organising the fundraising day which raised $1,220 for the Ukraine Crisis.

On Thursday 9 June, eleven students from Rozelle travelled to the Sydney Latvian Society Club for an all day tournament against some very stiff competition. Thanks to their excellent play they won a 3rd place trophy for Rozelle School. Well done, Team Rozelle!

Zoe Leeshaa (6 Komodo), Hunter Lane (4 Olympia), Henry Tegart (5 Mungo), Connor F (6 Petra), Jack Humphrey (6 Havana), Max Brewster (5 Shark Bay), Davin Carty (4 Kakadu), Flynn Ryan ( 2 Geiranger), Arthur Short (2 Kgari), Lachie Mills (6 Petra) and Tobias Tai (5 Shark Bay).

RPS SCHOOL CHICKENS FOR THE HOLIDAYS?

Dear Rozelle Families, our chickens are looking for a home for the holidays. They are very friendly and resilient chooks who will easily adapt to other chickens. If you have a coop and are able to take them in over the holidays, please email Miss Devitt at christina.devitt1@det.nsw.edu.au

LOST PROPERTY

When parents are up at the school they may have seen the lost property trolley which is wheeled regularly into the Darling Street playground. Should your child misplace a hat, jumper, water bottle or lunchbox…you may find it in the trolley.

PRESCHOOL 2023 ENROLMENT

Applications for enrolment into the preschool program have now opened. All the necessary information and application forms are available on the school website at  https://rozelle-p.schools.nsw.gov.au/ or from the school office. Children are eligible for enrolment in preschool classes from the beginning of the school year if they turn four years of age before July 31 of that year. Applications close at 3pm on Friday 1 July.

There is no priority for the order in which enrolments are received by the office. The Preschool Placement panel, consisting of the Principal, the President of the P&C and one of our preschool teachers, considers all applications in accordance with the priorities of the Department of Education and Communities' Preschool Enrolment Policy and the Rozelle Public School Preschool Enrolment and Fee Policy.

CONGRATULATIONS NALA - NSW PUBLIC SCHOOLS ART UNIT 

Congratulations to Nala (6 Petra) who was selected to perform in the NSW Public Schools Arts Unit. Nala attends 2 hours of singing lessons per week in the NSW Junior schools choir at the Arts unit, and performs  all year around. The past month she's travelled to Wollongong twice recording for school spectacular and spectacular schools, and recently performed for the Arts Unit at The Conservatorium of Music. Nala has also been accepted into the NSW state music camp. 

RETURN & EARN IS BACK!

Please bring your cans and bottles to school on Tuesday 28 June.

• Only empty, intact 10c cans & bottles can be used to earn money for our school.
• You can help our volunteers by separating the cans & bottles and bringing them in bags or boxes
• Drop off between the Darling Street playground and the shed (only on the pick up day). https://returnandearn.org.au/eligible-containers/

VICTORIA ROAD SAFETY CONCERNS

A reminder that there is a working group of parents, in collaboration with the School and the P&C, currently preparing a formal submission to Transport for NSW which aims to address a number of the safety concerns that have been identified for our students when walking to and from school across the Victoria Road / Darling Street intersection.

The working group is eager to engage with RPS parents who:

• can provide stories and testimonials of incidents and near-misses they have observed at the intersection;
• can lend additional expertise (legal, traffic engineering, experience with or within TfNSW, etc.) to the preparation of the submission; and/or
• are interested in receiving information and updates about the submission.

If you would like to engage further on this topic please email John Freeman at johnfreeman53@hotmail.com

AIR QUALITY MONITORING

The Air Quality Monitor has been repaired, returned to the school and is due to be reinstalled next Tuesday 21 June, ready to restart the monitoring and reporting.

Please note that the Uniform Shop will be operating until Week 9, with the last trading day for this term being Friday 24 June. Online ordering cut-off for Term 2 is 5pm Thursday 23 June, via Flexischools. The shop will re-open in Term 3 on Friday 22 July for customers and order processing.

A reminder that size swap requests, returns for credit and good quality second hand donations can be made via the front office at any time and our volunteers will action on Friday mornings. Any enquiries can be made via rozelleuniformshop@gmail.com

Can you help make our Uniform Shop even better??? We are looking for 2 additional volunteers outside of our current uniform shop committee to look at all aspects of the uniform shop, including changes to the uniform range, stock control and ordering platform. Whether you have older children who have used the uniform shop over many years, or have many years of uniform shopping ahead of you we’d love your input! Please email the team on rozelleuniformshop@gmail.com to be involved.

Thank you to our 2021/2021 sponsor Cindy Kennedy from the McGrath Team Balmain for your financial support of our P&C events. Looking for your dream home? Please have a look at her latest listings. https://www.mcgrath.com.au/agent/245-cindy-kennedy