The Link

I am delighted to announce that following. rigorous merit selection process,  Mrs Angie Taylor has been appointed as our new Assistant Principal.

Mrs Taylor comes to us with extensive experience in the role, having worked for many years as an Assistant Principal, and also as a relieving Deputy Principal at Boronia Park Public School. She has also spent time in State Office running programs to develop teacher capacity.

Mrs Taylor will be coordinating our Learning Support Team, supervising pre-school and co-leading our school improvement plan. 

We are fortunate that she has been allowed to enter on duty at RPS as soon as her appointment was confirmed by our HR department. Her first day with us will be this Thursday, March 2.

I am happy to advise that in Term 1, RPS are participating in the Safeguarding Kids Together Program, which is a specialised support service provided by the NSW Department of Education. 

The Safeguarding Kids Together Team provides on-the-ground specialist advice, support and programs to assist schools to address students’ high risk-taking behaviour.

SKT helps to:

• Build inclusive and resilient school environments.
• Identify students who may be vulnerable and provide appropriate supports.
• Manage and respond to emergency incidents

In December 2022, the SKT  team met with our teachers to review and evaluate the effectiveness of a number of our programs and processes for supporting students, including areas of  behaviour management, learning support and attendance.

This term, they are working with members of the school executive to improve and strengthen our processes, build staff capacity and confidence to mitigate students' risk taking behaviour.

Part of this process is to hear from our students about their experiences and perceptions of school life.  Small focus groups of  students will participate in facilitated discussions regarding school life with the team on Thursday March 9.

Permission notes for the students involved will be sent home this week. 

The School Dental Van will be here from March 13 - 17. The service provides free dental check ups for all our students P-6.  To access the service, permission forms MUST be returned no later than Friday March 3

Our popular Hip Hop Dance program has returned. 3-6 students will participate in a Hip Hop dance lesson each Tuesday, commencing this week. 

Thank you to those members of the community who pointed out that we had arranged our Harmony Day celebrations for the first day of Ramadan, which would have meant many of our students could not have particiipated in the multicultural feast. 

I do apologise for this oversight, and I am glad we were notified and able to rectify it in time for the event.

This year's Harmony Week dress up day and multicultural feast will be held on Monday, 20 March.  Our Arablic Drumming workshop will be held on Thursday, March 23. 

Our Special Religious Education program (SRE) commences this Friday, March 3. K-2 Scripture will take place 2:00-2:30, and 3-6 Scripture 2:30-3:00pm.

This year's SRE groups are:

• Islam
• Anglican
• Catholic

Primary Ethics have not been able to find a facilitator for their SRE program and have advised that the program will not be provided this year. Students who previously enrolled in Ethics will attend our Non-scripture group, supervised by teaching staff.

If you have any questions or concerns about the SRE programs, please contact Mrs Townsend, our Scripture Coordinator. Mrs Townsend works Monday - Wednesday.

it has come to my attention, that during February, some staff and volunteers were subjected to separate incidents of aggressive behaviour and verbal abuse by members of our parent  and carer community. 

In all workplaces people have the right to feel respected. Unacceptable and offensive behaviour has no place in our school communities.

I encourage  all our staff, parents and carers  to view the School Communty Charter which outlines the responsibilities of parents, carers and school staff to ensure our learning environments are collaborative, supportive and cohesive.

March 13-15: Primary Dental Program

March 15-27: NAPLAN test window

March 20: Harmony Day - Multicultural Feast

March 23: Harmony Week Arabic Drumming Workshop

April 6: Last Day of Term 1

For more events, please see our 2023 school calendar available for viewing on the Skoolbag App. This calendar is regularly updated as events are confirmed.

On Friday 24th of February, 20 students from Years 2-6, Miss Doyle and Mr Hajjaj, and a few of the parents, attended the Rydalmere Public School Swimming Carnival held at Merrylands Swimming Centre. We had arrived at school by 8am, checked if everyone was ready to go and boarded the bus at 8:25AM and arrived at Merrylands Swim Centre via James Ruse Drive, the m4 and Burnett St. The kids were excited on the bus ride and from there on it, the excitement continued for the entire day!

We were the first school to arrive as our swimming carnival was shared with Yates Ave Public School and Rydalmere East Public School. Thank you to both these schools for sharing this special day with us, particularly Yates Ave Public School's staff for their wonderful organisation with holding the event, including organising the marshalling area, time keeping, announcement and of course the atmosphere and excitement that they brought. It was wonderful to watch all of the races, including the other schools' races. 

The weather was glorious all day, despite changes in the clouds and short summer rainfalls. Not long after that carnival began we were surprised by the rainfall but it was impressive to see the Rydalmere PS students and teachers working as a team to set up the portable gazebo safely in the rain. It was actually a lot of fun! 

The events began with freestyle, breast stroke, back stroke then butterfly. There were many different races and the participation rates were high and all the students did their best and made Rydalmere PS proud. Students were competitive but they all got along very well and everyone was happy the whole day. Throughout these events the students were hanging out with each other or cheering their peers in their races. All the students were well behaved which is wonderful to see and is great for our school.

Some highlights of the day didn't occur until later in the day. It was amazing to see quite a few of our senior students, particularly the girls, participating in the 200m Individual Medley (50m Butterfly, 50m Backstroke, 50m Breaststroke and 50m Freestyle) and all of them finishing despite some of them having doubts on whether or not they can do it. Nobody gave up!  It was also awesome to see that we were able to enter some relay teams.

Congratulations to all our competitors. 

Mr Hajjaj

Congratulations to the following students who qualified for the Zone Carnival which took place today (Wednesday March 9).

Year 2: Noah and Harry

Year 4: Sophie and Daniel

Year 5: Olivia, William, Izabella and Jude

Year 6:  Mitchell, Razvan, Aadhyah, Aliyah and Jed

Official results will be published in our next newsletter. 

A special thank you to Mrs Green, who organised both carnivals. This was an enormous job with a tight deadline that had her working around the clock. 

I would also like to thank school parents, Mrs Davey and Mrs Evans for sharing some photographs of the school swimming carnival. These are posted in the gallery below.

Ms Campbell

Students in K-2 have had a wonderful start to Term 1, settling into their classes and getting to know their teachers and classmates.

K Daisy have been learning about sorting objects into different categories such as size and colour in their maths lessons.. 1/2 Sunflower read the book 'Under the Southern Cross' by Frane Lessac and recreated the text using places that meant something to them, exploring their new knowledge of prepositional phrases. 1/2 Violet  enjoyed working on their handwriting skills, and met their new teacher, Mrs Scalley. 

Well done to all our K-2 students!

Mrs James and Mrs Townsend, 

Assistant Principals K-2

We would like to invite you to our first P&C meeting for 2023, it will be held via zoom on Monday 6 March at 7.00 pm. Details will follow via our Skool Bag app.

Thank you.

Mary Thompson

Rydalmere P&C president

Lauren has volunteered to run our school uniform shop in her own time, she is doing an amazing job in ensuring that all orders are filled out to be sent home with your child.

Thank you, Lauren, for all your hard work.

Second hand uniforms:

We are always looking for donations of second hand uniforms. These uniforms are always kept at a low-price affordable price to help families.

Thank you.

Please note that the parents that run the canteen and uniform shop are volunteers who give up their time to help our school so please be respectful to these people.

ANY RUDE BEHAVIOUR to these volunteers will not be tolerated and they have been instructed not to serve you.

Please be kind.

Thank you.

Mary thompson

Rydalmere P&C president

We would like to welcome back our wonderful community member, Gina to canteen.

Gina has volunteered her time to run our school canteen 3 days a week, more information will come through via our Skool bag app.

If you would like to order recess and lunch for your school, please download the canteen app OKR and follow the instructions.

NO CASH WILL BE ACCEPTED and ORDERS NEED to be done before 8:55am on the day canteen is open.

Thank you.

International Women's Day - 7 March 2023

Hub invites you to help celebrate International Women’s Day on Tuesday 7th of March.

Where: Hub Room - Purple building from 10 am.

Please join us in celebrating this day with the community,

Adult English Classes

We worked on your feedback regarding our English class, and we will be introducing 3 hours of Conversational English class instead of two different levels starting from March 6th.  

The One Box Fresh Food Relief Program

Hub is partnering with “The One Box” for the first time to provide food bags for families in need of assistance who have registered through our school.

Hub Weekly programs at a glance: 

Mondays	9:30 am to 11:00 am	Conversational English class (Walk  in)  Special Harmony Day English class - 20 March
Wednesdays	9:00 am to 9:30 am or 2:30 pm to 3:00 pm	One box Collection (Only for registered participants)
	9:30 am to 11:30 am	Playgroup with SDN children services (Few spots left)
	10:45 am to 11:30 am or 11:30 am to 12:15 pm	Adult Swimming program (Full)
Fridays	9:30 am to 10:30 am	Dance Fitness with Sophie (Just walk in)
	10:30 am to 12:30 pm	Taster to Jewellery making by TAFE (Few spots left)

For those who I haven’t yet met, I am Seetha, Community Hub Liaison Officer here at Rydalmere Public School.

My workdays are Mondays to Wednesdays and Fridays.

Our Community Hub serves as a gateway to connect families with each other, with the school and with local community services. It provides a  place to meet other parents, connect and grow friendships. It holds weekly or one-off activities that allow people from all backgrounds to participate.

Everyone is welcome at the hub.  

Just drop in for a coffee and chat or join activities.

I am looking forward to meeting you.

Feel free to contact me at 0448331588 or seetha.srinivasan@det.nsw.edu.au to know more about the hub and how you can get involved.