Vardys Voice

It is that time of year again for parents and carers to participate in the all-important parent teacher interviews.

The online booking system is open and is filling fast.

Of course, this is not the only opportunity to discuss your child’s progress with their teacher. It is the perfect opportunity though, to work in partnership with your child’s teacher to support your child’s education.

Over the past few weeks the school has been trialling different formats of homework. The teachers have participated in professional learning looking at the research that underpins quality home based tasks.

For homework to be successful it needs to include independent work that is linked to the classroom, with clear expectations, an identified purpose and include active learning activities. Homework should not take too much time to complete, should involve task oriented, review type activities and be supported with timely feedback.

On Monday night at the P & C meeting, the school held a homework forum where we sought feedback on the strengths and weaknesses related to the maths homework that is being trialled this term. If you were unable to attend the homework forum you have not missed out on your chance to provide some valuable feedback. The link to an online homework survey can be found below. This feedback is essential for the school to make the necessary improvements to our homework procedures.

As mentioned in previous newsletters, the school is mindful of very limited parking adjacent to the school grounds. However, to ensure the safety of the children and to ensure our many staff have a place to park, parents are reminded to only use the large staff car park before 8:00am and after 3:30pm. This will minimise the traffic in and out of the gate while our children are using the Vardys Road footpath.

The smaller staff carpark adjacent to the administration building is closed early each afternoon, making it unsuitable for parent parking.

In May this year, students in Years 3 and 5 at Vardy’s Road will be completing their NAPLAN assessments online.

Vardys Road Public School trialed NAPLAN online last year and found it to be very successful. The students were engaged, navigated the platform quite easily and completed the assessments well. The school’s technical infrastructure was more than capable of handling the work load and the results were returned to the school within a very tight timeframe. Most importantly the purpose of NAPLAN, to assess the literacy and numeracy skills your child is already learning in school, was achieved in a very efficient, user friendly manner.

In coming weeks, the Years 3 and 5 students will be participating in a practice session with the aim of retesting the school’s computer network and to re-introduce the students to the online platform. The practice will involve a quick 45 minute activity which will combine numeracy and literacy questions into the same online task.

You can withdraw your child from the NAPLAN tests in May. Your child may be exempt from NAPLAN tests if your child has significant disabilities or has a language background other than English, has recently arrived from overseas and has been attending school for less than a year. Please contact your class teacher if you would like to explore the option of withdrawing your child from the NAPLAN assessments.

The International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) have taken place annually in schools throughout Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, the Pacific region and South Africa for the last 30 years. ICAS provides students with a very challenging test that allows them to gain a measure of their own achievement in an external testing situation. It provides teachers, parents and students with comprehensive reporting of results in the areas of English, Mathematics, Science and Writing.

Due to the challenging nature of these assessments, the ICAS competitions will be offered to students in Years 3-6, who have been identified by their teacher, as students who would benefit from these challenging competitions.

Of course parents are often the ones in the best position to identify the giftedness of their child. Parents of children who have not been nominated by their teacher, will be welcome to nominate their child for the ICAS competitions following a discussion with their teacher.

More information will be sent home soon.

We received over 200 entries into the Vardys Road mascot competition. The executive teachers are now busily trying to find the top 20. They are looking for mascot suggestions that represent our school values, of being safe, respectful and proud as well as ideas that symbolise our school aspirations of ensuring that every child is challenged, supported and engaged. We certainly have lots of great ideas. The top 20 entries will then be taken to the Positive Behaviour For Learning team who will attempt to find 6 finalists.

The last step in the process is to then put it to a vote, where every child will complete a voting form to find the winner of our mascot competition.

I cannot wait to see the winning entry that will then be sent to a graphic artist for digitalising to ensure our new mascot will present well in upcoming signage and correspondence. Good luck kids!

To ensure that students who need to take medication at school always receive the correct medicine and the correct dosage, their parents will be asked to supply the medication in the original packaging. The packaging will need to be labelled with the child’s name and the appropriate instructions. This new procedure, which is in line with departmental policy, will start in a few weeks to give parents time to source the necessary packaging and instructions.

Congratulations to Bailey H for his huge fundraising effort in this year’s World’s Greatest Shave. Bailey has already raised a significant amount of money for this very important charity.

A big congratulations is also extended to our swimming champions at the Zone and Regional  swimming carnivals. Three students, James E, Evan J and Iris C, have progressed to the State carnival.

A huge achievement by Mia N also deserves acknowledgement. Mia has been selected for the Sydney West Zone Cricket Team. Well done Mia.

I am delighted that this term our school, like many other public schools in the State, will participate in a Department of Education initiative: the Tell Them From Me student feedback survey. The survey measures factors that are known to affect academic achievement and other student outcomes. The focus of the NSW-wide survey is on student wellbeing, engagement and effective teaching practices.

More information about the survey is available at: http://surveys.cese.nsw.gov.au

The survey is a great opportunity for our students to provide us with valuable and quick feedback on what they think about school life, how engaged they are with school and the different ways that teachers interact with them. More than 6,300 schools in Australia and around the world have used Tell Them From Me to survey 5.4 million students. Capturing the voices of our students will help improve how we do things at our school.

I want to assure you that the survey is confidential. The survey is conducted online and will typically take less than 30 minutes to complete. It will be administered during school hours between 11 March and 12 April. Participating in the survey is entirely voluntary.

A consent form and FAQs for parents/carers about the survey is being sent home with students on Monday. If you do not want your child or children to participate, please return the form to school by 1st April. Copies of the form and FAQs are available from: http://surveys.cese.nsw.gov.au/information-for-parents.

The consent form and FAQs are available in 23 languages.

On Thursday 7th March 25 students represented Vardys Road Public School at the combined Seven Hills/Wentworthville Swimming Carnival.

It was great to see so many enthusiastic students along with their families who were there to provide support. Many of our students clocked new PB’s and several students made finals in the 50m Freestyle. Overall Vardys Road Public School finished in 3rd Place. Well done everyone!

I would like to especially congratulate the following students who have qualified for the Sydney West Swimming Carnival (Regional) to be held on Tuesday 12th March at Homebush: Eviey, Aiden, Iris, James, Abbey, Lachlan, Lynn, Evan, Skarla and Marcus.

Mr Matthew McDonald

• Welcome our new president
• Help at the end of term sausage sizzle
• Easter Bunny