Narrabri West Public School

Narrabri West votes - 2021 school leaders election!

Our Year 5 students have been given the opportunity (in a secret ballot) to nominate students who they think would be suitable candidates for captain or prefects. The boys and girls who received the most nominations were invited to stand for election. This process allows those children who their peers believe are best suited to these important positions to have the opportunity to be elected.

Candidates nominated for election are -

Girls: Elsie Campbell, Ruby Clayton, Pip Collins, Hayley Gordon, Lilly Hennessy, Ava Smith, Allira Tibbett, Lily Todd and Maya Watson

Boys: Edward Bennett, Cooper Dansey, Lucas Griffiths, Liam Nott, Douglas Parker, Cruz Ryan, Hunter Smith, James Stewart and Josh Woodhouse.

All students in Years 2-6 vote, as do all staff members. All votes are equal and the students elected are the four boys and four girls with the most votes. The two with the highest number of votes are elected captains. A simple and fair process, so good luck everyone.

Elections will be held on Thursday 26th November via a School Zoom assembly where all candidates will be able to speak about their personal qualities to the rest of the school. Results will be announced on Tuesday 1st December. No matter the result, we know that Narrabri West will have outstanding school leaders yet again in 2021.

We are now entering the 6th week of Term 4 and the year is disappearing quickly with school life starting to get very hectic. There are lots of great things to look forward to as we enter the busiest time of the year. We only have 21 days of school remaining this year!

We are preparing to farewell our Year 6 students who will soon embark on the next stage of their learning journey, as they prepare for Year 7 in 2021. They are eagerly awaiting their upcoming orientation visit to Narrabri High School on Wednesday 2nd December.

Thank you to all parents for your continuing support for our school. These next few weeks will be extremely busy, but as always will be lots of fun and certainly exciting!

The children are working hard to finish their years’ work. The teachers are finalising their assessments and are finishing writing student reports. There are exciting things happening each day. Coming up in December:

• Presentation Day (Thursday 10th).
• Platinum Badge Presentation  (Monday 14th) - 
•  … and our end of term celebration and last day of school (Wednesday 16th).

We will all definitely need a well-earned rest after all of these activities!

While the school year finishes for students on Wednesday 16th December, our staff will be in attendance until Friday 18th. These will be two very busy and highly valuable days of planning and professional learning.

We are now finalising planning for our 2020 class structure. We have some very exciting plans in place for next year and look forward to being able to work with all students in a wonderful learning environment.

One of the things we need to know is the number of students we can expect to have returning to our school next year.

Parents are asked to help in a number of ways. Firstly, if you know that you will be moving or enrolling in another school next year, it would assist us if you could advise the school as soon as possible.

JSP Sport Development has teamed up with NSW Rugby and Stage 3 classes are participating in a 5 week ‘Get into Rugby’ program. The students are having lots of fun developing new skills and getting fit with Toby Knight, Jake Parker and Ellie Hatton.

The 2020 National NAIDOC Week theme has been developed to shine a focus on the length of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander occupation of Australia.

The NAIDOC theme seeks to get teachers, students and community to explore and learn about, and appreciate the wealth and breadth of Indigenous Nations, languages and knowledges of this continent.

Narrabri West Public School has acknowledged, recognised and celebrated NAIDOC week across all stages.

We began the week with a whole school Zoombly (Zoom Assembly) where Sienna Earle acknowledged Country in the traditional Gamilaroi language. The captains and prefects took time to reflect on what NAIDOC week meant to them and shared this with the whole school. Over Zoom we were able to have a flag raising ceremony to accentuate the theme for 2020, Always Was, Always Will Be.

Each class had access to a differentiated multi-modal PowerPoint which covered some activities from naidoc.org.au. All students were highly engaged when playing a traditional Indigenous game. To celebrate NAIDOC week, Narrabri West Public School put together a video highlighting the myriad of activities. 

Our whole school participated in a Remembrance Day ceremony with Mrs Smith performing the Last Post and a wreath was laid on behalf of all Narrabri West students. 

Our Beach Party will be held in a COVID safe way and students will participate in stage groups.

Students can pull out their favourite board shorts, grab their zinc and get ready for our fast-approaching Beach Party on Tuesday 15th December! We will have a sports afternoon of fun water based games at school - so we all need to wear our swimmers to school, (with beach type clothes of course), have a big hat, plenty of sunscreen and sandals or thongs (yes thongs will be allowed for just this one day!). The day will also assist the Year 6 fundraising efforts as we are requesting a gold coin donation.

Most importantly, everyone will need to be prepared to get wet!

This year attendance at our Beach Party is again through invitation only and students will have to earn their invitation through appropriate behaviour. We hope (and expect) that all students receive one.

Currently there is $9,017.00 owed to the school in unpaid invoices for textbooks, school fees and music fees. The invoices for textbooks are for amounts already paid out by the school for resources, which have been provided to the students to enhance their educational opportunities and are ones not covered by government funding. Please make arrangements for payment as soon as possible. Just imagine what this money could be used for at Narrabri West to benefit your children.

Music fees are not voluntary and are compulsory. They MUST be paid before the end of the year. Students returning to Narrabri West next year who have not paid these will not be eligible to participate in the Band and Drum group until they are paid. 

Thank you to everyone who completed the online ‘Tell Them From Me’ surveys. When the results from the surveys are available they will be published in our Annual School Report which will be available in early 2021.

As usual at this time of year, we take a number of measures to ensure your children remain as cool as possible and healthy at school in the hot weather. These include:

• Sandals – children may wear covered sandals to school if they wish,    but definitely NOT thongs or slip on shoes.
• Water bottles – please ensure all children come to school with a full water bottle, (or even more than one) e.g. one could be frozen which could then be used later in the day.
• School fridge – remember we have the large school fridge available to store lunches in so they are nice and cold at lunch time.
• Sport/PE – we will closely monitor the weather and also our sport and PE plans to ensure children are not outside in the heat of the day, or we will make other arrangements if it is too hot to be outside.
• Hats – as always we will enforce our ‘no hat no play’ policy for the safety of the children.
• Afternoon activities – we find in really hot weather that the children, especially our younger ones, often struggle in the afternoon session as fatigue and the heat start to take their toll. With this in mind,  teachers will carefully select afternoon activities that take the weather conditions and how the children are coping into account.

Applications for placement in Year 7 in selective high schools in 2021 opened on 13 October 2020 and will close on 16 November 2020. Parents must apply by the due date.

Parents apply through the High Performing Students Team website. https://education.nsw.gov.au/public-schools/selective-high-schools-and-opportunity-classes/year-7/application-process  This online application link is available from this website from 13 October 2020 until 16 November 2020.

Those families with outstanding school contributions (and compulsory Pre School fees) received an invoice at the start of the term. We hope you take the opportunity to forward this payment to the school as soon as possible.

Our school contributions are only:

·       $30 for the 1st child

·       $25 for the 2nd child; and

·       $20 for every other child in the family.

At Narrabri West we use these contributions solely for the purpose of purchasing items that will directly benefit your children. This year ALL school fees are being used to purchase laptop computers. Please assist your child’s education by forwarding payment as soon as possible. 

A friendly reminder to please provide a reason for your child’s absence the day of their absence or upon their return.

The easiest method for explaining absences is to use the Skoolbag app by selecting eForms then submit an absentee form.

Skoolbag replaces paper/pen and can be easily accessed at any time. If you haven’t already downloaded the app, search for the free Skoolbag app in the Apple App or Google Play Store.

Thank you to everyone who sends in Skoolbag notifications or emails informing us of your child/ren’s absences as they occur. 

If your child is sick for 3 consecutive days, you are required to provide the school with a medical certificate. 

If your child is absent due to Covid19 testing, you are required to produce a Negative result certificate upon return to school.

Parents/carers are required by law to provide an explanation to the school to say why their child was absent from school. A note of explanation should contain:

1.     Date that the note was written

2.     Child’s name

3.     Days/dates the child was absent from school

4.     The reason the child was absent

5.     The signature of the child’s parent/carer

Or complete the online absence note on our Skoolbag app.

If you notify the school of an absence on one day, we cannot assume the same reason for being absent on consecutive days.

If more than one child from the same family has been absent, a separate note for each child should be written.

A note should be brought to school or a Skoolbag notification update, on the first day the student returns to school after an absence. If not, we are required to investigate all unexplained absences (where a child has been absent and no explanation has been received) within two days.

Notifying the school of absences through the Skoolbag app, by phone, email or note are all acceptable and appreciate.

Students who are being picked up at the end of the school day are supervised on the back oval near the hall and we ask that all parents collect their children from this area.

Due to health guidelines and restrictions parents are not permitted on the school ground without the permission of the Principal. Please call the office before entering the school grounds.

Please notify your child’s teacher if your child has permission to walk home.