Lidcombe Public School Mills Street Phone: 9649 7576 Lidcombe 2141 Fax: 9749 1197

The

Email:lidcombe-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au Website:www.lidcombe-p.schools.nsw.edu.au

“A dynamic innovative school always moving forward”.

Issue 10/2016 30 June 2016

DATES TO REMEMBER

TERM 2 30.06.16 Year 4 & 5 girls visit to Birrong Girls HS

Stage 1 Excursion – Sydney Harbour Bridge and iMax Theatre

1.07.16 Winter PSSA Sport Round 8 **Last day of school for Term 2**

TERM 3

18.07.16 Staff Development Day – Physical Literacy Continuum

19.07.16 Students resume.

1-5.08.16 Education Week (Open Day Tuesday 2 August)

8 – 10.08.16 Stage 3 Berry Camp

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Staff Changes There are a few changes for next term, but be reassured, our teaching programs and activities have still had the seamless consistency they have always had. Mrs. Smith, classroom teacher of 1G, will be taking long service leave for the rest of 2016 (starting the first day of Term 3) and we should see her back again next year. Mrs. Smith is one of those once in a lifetime teachers, whose positive attitude, collaboration and work ethic have been very important to Lidcombe PS, so we will definitely miss her. Taking Mrs. Smith’s place on 1G is Mrs. Colley who had been doing the role of RFF as well as one day a week on 2L. Mrs. Colley will do an amazing job with 1G and will continue from where Mrs. Smith has left off with her trademark industrious nature and enthusiasm. Taking Mrs. Colley’s place on 2L for Friday’s will be Miss Mustafa who is a great young teacher that has already completed several casual days here at our school. Also, Mrs. Gordon will be commencing long service leave as of Monday 18 July (start of Term 3) until Friday

5 August (end of week 3 Term 3) for a period of three (3) weeks. Mrs. Gordon’s first day back will be Monday 8 August. Considering how hard Mrs. Gordon works as a classroom teacher and assistant principal, this was leave I was very happy to approve. For the first three weeks next term, we have arranged for a casual teacher, Miss Janelle Mustafa, to take S2B. Miss Mustafa is a teacher who is keen, enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and has worked as a casual teacher at our school this year. We consider that having Miss Mustafa teach S2B is the best arrangement for the three weeks whilst Mrs. Gordon is on leave. Mr. Windle will relieve as Assistant Principal during the three weeks. Mr. Truong, our general assistant, will also be taking leave for the whole of Term 3 and his place will be taken by Mr. Michael Rush. As always, If you have any concerns please don’t hesitate to contact me on 9649 7576. Thank you once again for your ongoing support of our school.

Work during the holidays

During the holidays, we should have some more trees pruned and looking spectacular before the students arrive back. Also, one of Mr Duffy’s family members has donated a complete kitchen, which we install into the staffroom during the first week of the holidays.

Multicultural Public Speaking Last week, our school was well represented by our Stage winners for Multicultural Public Speaking – Evangelina Fusi, Joohee Han, Malak Zreika and Sophie Edwards. All speakers performed outstandingly well in both the prepared speech and impromptu speech sections, to which we are all very proud of them. Joohee was awarded a highly commended certificate and Sophie was named the winner of the District final for Stage 3. Sophie will now represent our school and district in the Regional Multicultural Public Speaking competition to be held in August (date TBC). It would be remiss of me not to thank our teachers for all the hard work they have put into public speaking to turn what was a weakness back in 2011 into an unbelievable strength in 2016. Well done Evangelina, Joohee, Malak and Sophie !

Half Yearly Interviews Last night, we held the Half Yearly interviews, and it was fantastic to see so many parents brave the cold conditions to see how their child(ren) are going in school. If you were not able to arrange an interview with your child’s teacher, I strongly urge you to make another appointment early next term. We would love to communicate to each parent how well each child is doing here at Lidcombe P.S., but also communicate the weaknesses that your child may have, that could obviously be supported by you at home when homework is being done. Partnerships between teachers and parents is what will get the best out of children, so I am sure you would like a few clues as to how to help your child during homework time. Thank you to all parents for making sure their children weren’t running around the school last night being unsafe, its greatly appreciated. If you did make a time for an interview last night, your report will be arriving home in an A4 envelope today or tomorrow, this includes the Community Languages reports.

Medications at school As a matter of the utmost importance, please do not send your child to school with medication that they have to administer themselves. There are some exceptions (like an asthma puffer), but medications prescribed by a doctor, or headache tablets, or even flu medication cannot be brought to school and then administered by the child themselves. The policy exists that if your child needs to take any sort of medication during the day, either prescribed or preventative that you have bought over a counter, then it must be presented at the office for safe keeping (in its original packaging – so we know what it is), with a note

from you explaining what the medication is for and then administered in the presence of our office first aid officer, Ms Sandy Johnson. That way, everything is done the right way and no-one can get hurt. Thank you in advance for your co-operation in this matter.

Premier’s Spelling Bee This exciting competition will be starting straight away in classrooms as soon as we get back from holidays for Stage 2 and Stage 3 classes. Students will get the lists to look at and study (or at least a link for the lists). In the first four weeks of the term, each class will hold its own spelling bee competition, coming up with two winners. The two winners from each class will then represent their classes in the Stage finals, to be held on Wednesday 17 August (Week 5). The event will take place in the hall and will start after B1 for Stage 3 and after B2 for Stage 2. Thanks to Mrs Black, who is co-ordinating this event. No doubt we will have a lot of students very excited about this event. In the meantime, there is a very cool game spelling game on School AtoZ that might be a good holiday activity for your children. The link is below:- http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/zh/homework-and-study/educational-games/spelling-bee or check out the lists on: https://www.artsunit.nsw.edu.au/speaking-competitions/spelling-bee/premiers-spelling-bee The password is puzzle. Happy spelling !

Retraction In the last newsletter we sent out (Week 8), I mistakenly put in it that the absences for the Semester 1 report will be up to and including Friday 10 June – it was in fact, up to an including Friday 3 June. My apologies.

Premier’s Sporting Challenge The Challenge includes a range of initiatives with one common purpose - to have more students, more active, more of the time! The Premier's Sporting Challenge aims to engage young people in sport and physical activity and encourages them to lead healthy, active lifestyles. Sport plays an important role in developing regular physical activity, provides positive health outcomes and is a fun and healthy way to connect with your local community. We invite students to take up the Challenge - and take the path to a healthier life. Students can strive for the Bronze Award (210 minutes a week or 30 minutes a day), Silver Award (315 minutes a week or 45 minutes a day), Gold Award (420 minutes a week or 60 minutes a day) and Diamond Award (560 minutes a week or 80 minutes a day). Students in Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 only have to colour in a picture to register that they had been physically

active for the day. For our school, we have started to collect how many minutes we have been active for (inside and outside of school) from Week 5 of this term – next week. We hope to replicate the success of last year by attaining a DIAMOND AWARD again. Even the staff will be participating in the staff challenge – we will let you know the details of our end of year event very soon! (More details later). Get out there boys and girls and get active!

Enrolments 2017 Even though we are only half way through 2016, it is time to start thinking about enrolments for 2017, especially Kindergarten. Each year, a number of families approach the school for an “out of area” enrolment for their child to start Kindergarten. I am absolutely committed to ensuring all of our “in area” students and siblings are catered for before considering “out of area” applications. However, I would like to be able to inform “out of area” parents about securing enrolment in the last week of Term 3. If you have a child of school age for Kindergarten 2017, or know someone who does, then please contact the school for the necessary information. The number of “out of area” applications we receive each year continues to confirm the wonderful reputation our school enjoys in the community.

Fabulous work ! End of the term and the amount of work that is being churned out by classrooms and students is absolutely phenomenal!!! More than that, I can’t believe the quality that is coming out from our students, sometimes I have to re-check myself when I see some year 2 work and wonder whether I am in a year 6 classroom or not – unbelievable ! This fortnight the work included: *Aileen Chae S2B – a book she just decided to do at home because she wanted to !!! *Andre El Hassan S3T – zooming along with his times tables work ! *Ali Chatila and Amin Jamaleddine K-6S with their wonderful fractions work. *Yuho Park 1W with some amazing sentences ! *Victoria Park and Jacinta Cai 2L with some scary stories about dinosaurs. *Can Cetin S3N with his excellent model of an 1850’s goldfields setting ! *Finally, pictures from my walk around of Stage 1 projects on Wednesday morning (Jacob, Aliza, Zara, William, Lowell, Stephanie, Ela (who did 3 projects !), Angelin, Efe and Elisha). When I asked the children whether they had fun or not, they all answered that they had fun – isn’t it great that we can learn so much, and still have so much fun doing it !

Outstanding Fees It has come to my attention that some families have not paid fees for their textbooks or PSSA sport at this point in time. I need to remind people that in getting these textbooks or organising buses for PSSA sport, the school makes no money on these items. If we have people who do not pay their fees for these things, the school loses money and that is not very fair to those families that do pay.

I need to, however, qualify that remark with the fact that some families may be doing it tougher than others in this economic climate we are in. If this is the case for you and your family, please see Mr. Lewis as soon as you can to work out a way of paying these overdue fees. If this doesn’t apply to your situation, please pay very soon.

Website & School App We encourage you to keep an eye on our school website www.lidcombe-p.schools.nsw.edu.au and to become involved in our school and work with us in the interests of your child’s education. We have also purchased a “School App”. All you need is an iPhone, iPod Touch, any smartphone android device (eg Samsung) or an iPad, and then download the free “School App” to your device. Having a school app will revolutionise our communications with our community. It will be a notification type service, that will allow you to get updates, reminders and even our school newsletter ! Get into the App store on your phone or device, put into the search engine “Lidcombe Public School”. Our school

logo will come up straight away, so press the button to install. Once it is installed, you will need the username and password to get into the information provided on our school app. User Web Portal, iPhone App and Android App username: community password: lidcombeps We have also launched a Facebook page called “Lidcombe Public School”. Many of you have already liked our page which means of course, you will get all of our messages and updates. If you haven’t liked our page yet, just put into the search engine “Lidcombe Public School” and it should be the first item that comes up, select it and you be on the Facebook page to like it.

Jump Rope for Heart ! Our school is participating in the Heart Foundation Jump Rope for Heart program and we would love your support! The Heart Foundation’s Jump Rope for Heart day is an exciting and non-competitive program which encourages children to become more active through skipping, learning new skills and raising vital funds for heart research and community health programs. Skipping is an excellent way for children to keep fit and healthy. Over Term 3, your child(ren) will be learning a range of fun skipping skills and new tricks. We will emphasise the importance of regular physical activity and the importance of healthy eating for a healthy lifestyle.

Our school has been lucky enough to be chosen for a special trial program this year, where the school gets to keep 50% of all funds raised! I would be interested in the parent community’s and student’s thoughts on what we could spend this money on.

At the end of the program we will be holding a Jump Off, an event to celebrate and culminate the Heart Foundation Jump Rope for Heart program. This will be held on Wednesday 19th of October (Term 4). The Jump Off day is a great opportunity for you to witness how much fun skipping can be, come along and pick up a rope!

More details will come later. Thank you for joining us in the fight against heart disease.

Congratulations Sydney West reps ! Congratulations to Stephanie Mishkarudnaya and Terrence Fusi who both made Sydney West PSSA teams

over the past few weeks. Stephanie will compete for Sydney West PSSA at the State Cross Country Championships at eastern Creek Raceway on Friday 22 July. Terrence will compete for Sydney West PSSA at the State Rugby Union Championships held in Mudgee from Tuesday 23 August to Thursday 25 August. Absolute stars !

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST NEWSLETTER

I would like to have the newsletter emailed to me each fortnight. Name of Child: ____________________ Class: ______________ Name of Parents: ___________________ Email address:-__________________________ Please hand in to Mrs Rush in the office as soon as possible.

NEWSLETTERS ALL NEWSLETTERS are now emailed to parents. Please ensure that email addresses are up to date at the office so that you do not miss out. If you know of a parent who is not receiving the newsletter by email please ask them to contact the office. The newsletter can also be accessed via our school website http://www.lidcombe-p.schools.nsw.edu.au, via the school app or the link on our FB page.

“Safe People, Safe Places” With the holidays approaching it is timely to remind our children and reinforce the ‘Safe People, Safe Places’

messages. Parents are encouraged to teach their children these messages which include:

Make sure your parents or another adult you know knows where you are at all times.

Always walk straight home or to the place you are walking to.

Know where safe places are – a shop, service station, police station, library or school. If you are ever frightened, you should go to one of these places and ask them to call the police.

Learn about safe adults you can look for and talk to if you need help – police officers, teachers at school, adults you know and trust.

Don’t talk to people you don’t know and never get into a car with someone you don’t know. If a car stops on the side of the road and you don’t know the person inside, do not stop.

If you are scared and can use a phone, call 000 and tell them you are scared.

Principal

60 SECONDS WITH MR. LEWIS

This newsletter, Sammy Samson from K Lime is our focus of 60 seconds with Mr. Lewis.

Name: Sammy Samson

Class: K Lime

What games do you play ? Rugby League.

What would you like to be when you grow up ? An All Black Rugby player.

Best piece of advice you have ever received ? Go Broncos !

Favourite thing to do ? Skipping (with a rope).

Favourite school subject ? Reading.

Favourite colour and number ? Green and 5.

An interesting fact about yourself. I play Mortal Combat PS3.

Is there any one thing you can’t do without ? My rugby ball (a Warriors one).

What’s your favourite school moment ? When I won the Kindergarten 70m race

at the Athletics Carnival.

Thanks for spending 60 seconds with Mr. Lewis, Sammy !

SCHOOL TIMES

Students MUST NOT arrive at school before 8:30 am and must leave promptly at 3:00 pm

Parents are reminded that school supervision exists between 8:30 am and 3:00 pm. A Before and After School Care

facility is provided on the school site for parents needing child minding. Contact 9749 2817 after school hours for further

details.

Leaving students unsupervised on school grounds has legal implications for both the school and parents.

Access to the school is only possible via the pedestrian gate near the sandpit (Mills Street) during school hours. All

visitors must report to the school office. Unauthorised persons on school premises are considered to be trespassing and

will be reported to the police.

SMOKING IS PROHIBITED ON SCHOOL PREMISES

STAGE 1 EXCURSION TO HARBOUR BRIDGE AND IMAX

The students from Stage 1 and K-6S had a fantastic day learning about the Harbour Bridge last Thursday.

ELECTION DAY SAUSAGE SIZZLE / CAKE STALL The P & C ran a very successful Sausage Sizzle on the weekend. We raised $2,041 - what a fabulous effort. To Sonia & Camilla Lopes, Raelene & Chloe Harris, Mel Rennie, Bronwyn Persson, the Tiwari family, Janine Duchstein, Gloria Hwang, Melissa Pene, Kelly Livingston, Sandy Johnson, Soejanto family, the Hill family, the Lawrence family, Helen Robinson and anyone I have accidently missed - many thanks for all your help, whether it was helping out on the day, baking cakes, cleaning up or counting money or all of the above - you are all awesome and it couldn't be done without you.