Vardys Voice

March 7	Zone Swimming Carnival
March 12	Sydney West Swimming Carnival
March 13	Kindergarten Teddy Bears Picnic
March 18	School Photo Day 7:30 pm P & C Meeting
March 20	Stage 2 Excursion Rocks Walking Tour
March 21	Harmony Day
March 27	2:20pm K-6 Assembly
March 28	School Photo Day 2 - Year 6 and school leaders

The search for our mascot has officially started. The entry forms were sent home earlier this week and the box in the office, where the entry forms are returned, is filling up with some innovative and creative ideas.

With prizes for our finalists and of course a chance to be the creator of our mascot, there are plenty of good reasons to share your idea.

As mentioned in the last newsletter, the P & C and the school are conducting a mini uniform review. The focus will be on the girl’s long pants, the summer dress and the winter dress.

Following extensive research the Sub-Committee have found some possible options which, in the coming weeks, the community will have a chance to consider.

The P & C Uniform Sub-Committee are meeting this week to finalise the voting process and will take their findings to the next P & C General Meeting before seeking the views of the school community. We look forward to seeing the outcome.

Vardys Road Public School is pleased to announce that EFTPOS facilities are now available in the School Office. These facilities will enable families to easily pay their school accounts including school fees, excursions and other incidentals.  

Families are welcome to come in and make payments using either debit or credit cards. This is a secure and preferred payment system, which is hosted by Westpac and is much safer than sending students to school with cash.

Please note that the EFTPOS facilities are only available for school based activities and are not available for P & C payments such as uniform purchases and bookpacks. These payments must be made directly to the P & C.

We hope the new EFTPOS service will be helpful when making necessary payments for your child’s education.  For your convenience, you can also continue to use our online payments system via the ‘$ Make a Payment’ link located on the school’s website or on the Skoolbag App.

Photo Day is fast approaching and families are busy deciding which photo packs to choose. Families with multiple children can claim a 10% discount if they order three E packs (portrait and group photos).

To benefit from this offer parents and carers will need to use the code “FAM3691”

Many thanks to Julia Child, our Community Ethics Coordinator, as well as Mrs D’Chong and Mrs Sachdev, for organising this year’s Scripture and Ethics classes. The many groups and teachers started last week, with the two programs working shoulder to shoulder to offer both religious and values based education programs for all our children.

A big shout out goes to all of our scripture and ethics teachers who volunteer their time to ensure these programs can continue to grow. Where would we be without you?

We would love to offer an ethics class for Kindergarten, so if there are any parents, carers, aunts, uncles, grandparents or work colleagues you know of who would enjoy the opportunity to volunteer for an hour or so a week, please do encourage them to find out more and apply at https://primaryethics.com.au/volunteer/ethics-teacher/.  All training and teaching materials are provided.  You can also contact our parent coordinator Julia Child on 0416126942 or ethicsatvardysroad@outlook.com to find out more about what's involved.

Thank you to the parents who have been discussing the possibility of filling some of our vacant P & C positions. If you are considering taking up one of these opportunities to play a key role in our school community, please feel free to meet with me to discuss what would be involved.

At this point in time the following positions remain open;

PRESIDENT: this role involves providing guidance and leadership to the P & C, working closely with the school senior executive and chairing general P & C meetings (two times a term) and any meetings of the Executive Committee (generally once a term).

SECRETARY: participating in Executive Committee discussion, sending out agendas and taking minutes for general P & C meetings, keeping the action list up to date.

VICE PRESIDENT – EVENTS: participating in the Executive Committee discussion, providing leadership to the Fundraising and Events Sub-Committee and oversight of events run through the P & C.

More information regarding the Vardys Road P&C and specific positions is available on the   P & C website.  If you are interested in either position please contact me to discuss or register your interest at vrpsppc@outlook.com

The homework review and trial is continuing and the feedback from parents is both positive and informative. The children have definitely been excited with some of the new ideas that are being trialled.

To facilitate this review process, a parent homework forum will be conducted at the next     P & C meeting. Research related to the homework that works best for primary aged students will be discussed and feedback will be sought. This will allow the school to set directions for how homework will look at Vardys Road in the coming years.

This forum replaces the planned parent workshop on reading that was advertised in the online calendar. My apologies to the parents who visited our library yesterday to attend the workshop. This should have been noted on the calendar earlier.

Parents and carers may have noticed recent media attention regarding some disturbing images that are being distributed through online gaming and social media platforms.

Keeping our kids safe online is an ongoing challenge and one that is shared between families and the school. A website that offers tips and tools to help families keep their children safe online can be found at https://www.esafety.gov.au/iparent. It is well worth a look.

Once again we have many children who have had a very successful week. Some of our excelling children include the following:

·       Riley D who was successful in the Zone PSSA Cricket Trial and will now proceed to another higher level selection process

·       Brock B for being selected in the Zone PSSA softball team

·       Abbie L for being chosen as part of the Zone PSSA netball team

·       Amelia B and Alexa B for their selection in the PULSE drama group

·       Cooper M, Lachlan G, Nathan F and Zac H for also being selected in Zone PSSA teams.

Congratulations on taking up the challenge and getting to the other side of the learning pit. Well done!

Year Six had the privilege of visiting Seven Hills High School on 21st February to attend their Smooth Walking Program. Even though there were signs of rain, all students walked to the school showing our Vardys Road values.

Students got to take part in four Stage 4 subjects including Visual Arts, PDHPE, Robotics and Music. Everyone made a tie-dye art design and took part in synchronised and hockey PE activities. We used computer programming to code our robot ‘Edison’ and combined the elements of music to create and keep the beat using different instruments.

Below is Harini’s recount of the day:

The Smooth Walking program at Seven Hills High School was an excellent and fun day which included PDHPE, music, art and robotics. Mrs. Howell from Seven Hills organised the day and ran the robotics lesson. We learnt about coding and where it could be used with robots. To justify this theory, we used ‘Edisons’ to scan a barcode and it made the Edisons locate where it was going on the bordered paper. In the end, we used a program to ‘battle’ or ‘sumo wrestle’ another Edison. Next, my group had Art. This was a fun experience because we used a pretty classic design called ‘tie-dye’. First we pinched the middle of the wet wipe to show you where to tie your first rubber band, the first part of your ‘tie-dye’. You must continue this until you have at least three rubber bands tied to the wet wipe. After adding paint and carefully untying the rubber bands, you have got your mini tie-dye art. Music was equally fun. We explored the art of percussion and how we can make it using everything, including our voices. We also used the instruments and discovered the many beats we could use with it. We all coordinated with each other using a simple phrase, ‘Let’s all play our drum’ and on the word drum we played a short snippet of our instrument. The last thing we did was PDHPE. We played a balloon game, where we had to keep the balloon off the ground with different body parts, followed by a game of foam hockey (just hockey with foam sticks and a foam ball). Overall, this day was well organised and enjoyable for us. I would like to say thank you to Seven Hills High School for hosting this day so well and to Miss Anderson and Mrs Guerrero organising this excursion.

Thank you Year 6 for treating all Seven Hills High School teachers with respect and for representing Vardys Road so well! You received many compliments and made your teachers very proud!

Beck Anderson

Stage 3 Assistant Principal (Relieving)