No 6

ELIZABETH DRIVE, SUNBURY 3429

PHONE 9740 8666

www.sunburywestps.vic.edu.au 1st May 2017

Dear Parents, Staff and Children,

Combined Curriculum Day

On Monday 24th April, 240 staff from across all seven Sunbury State Primary Schools came together

for a day of professional learning. Hosted by three schools, teachers and education support staff

had the opportunity to work and learn with others. Focus areas for the professional learning

included Literacy, Numeracy, Positive Psychology, Social Connections and Performance and

Development. It was a very productive day which will serve as a catalyst for future network

initiatives as well as a great opportunity to engage professionally with others in our community.

Cross Country

Well done to all the children in Years 3 - 6 who participated in our House Cross Country on Friday.

All staff and especially Mr Payton, were extremely pleased with the effort shown by all the children

who attended. Some very impressive times were recorded with a number of children moving on to

the district carnival. The winning house for our school was Concorde. The champion boy and girl

were Angel Vujasinovic and Indya Hildebrand. Congratulations to both these children on their

excellent achievement and to all the children for making the most of the day.

Child Safe Standards

Parent helpers are a valued part of our school life. Many of our events and activities would be

unable to take place without the support of our volunteers. As part of our commitment to the Child

Safe Standards however, it is a requirement that all parents helping in any capacity hold a Working

With Children card. These are easily attainable at www.workingwithchildren.vic.gov.au and we just

require a copy for our files once this has been obtained.

Wakakirri

Our Artist In Residence program for 2017 has started. This year, Tony Keeble is once again working

with our students to prepare for our performance in late July. This year, the theme for our

performance is around sustainability, with a futuristic twist. We are looking for interested parents

to come and work with us in the creation of scenery, props and costumes. Please see either Elissa

Campbell or myself if you would like to be part of this team.

NAPLAN

Students in Years 3 and 5 will participate in NAPLAN from the 9th - 11th May. They will undertake

testing in the areas of Writing, Language Conventions, Reading and Numeracy. NAPLAN provides a

snapshot of student performance against national standards, it provides the school with important

information regarding trends in strengths and areas for improvement with regard to teaching and

learning.

Parents will receive their child’s individual report later in the year. It is important to note that the

school does not hold copies of the testing results. Parents often ask for these when children enter

secondary school, so please make sure that these are kept in a safe place when received.

Inga Wilson

Principal

TIMELINE

Term 2

3rd May

District Athletics

4th May

Mother’s Day Stall

9th - 11th May

Naplan -

Gr 3 & 5 students only

9th June

5/6 Winter Sports

12th June

Queen’s Birthday -

students not required

30th June

Last Day of Term 2

2.30pm dismissal

SECONDARY

SCHOOL OPEN

EVENINGS THIS

WEEK

Sunbury Downs

College

Open Night Tuesday

2nd May 6.30pm

Sunbury College

Open Night

Wednesday 3rd

May 7pm

Notices that have gone home….

Term 1 & 2

Interschool Athletics $6.00 due 1st May

P-2 Japanese Incursion $6.50 due 10th May

5/6 Camp Balance $225 (more info to come)

Mother’s Day Morning Tea

Prep CD Cameron Moore & Reuben Valeliano

Prep DA

1/2 B Charlotte Hatcher & Kayla Jones

1/2 S Ben Lorimer & Amber Mink

1/2 T Lara Jollie & Cooper Martin

3/4B Earl Perez & Hayley Hermelin

3/4N

3/4T Michael Jones & Cymorah Vakalahi

5/6 G Travis White & Mithil Chawla

5/6L Erik Cvetanoski, Renee Marroitt & Nate Warren

5/6M Angel Vujasniovic, Cam Hildebrand & Amy Quick

P.E. Teisha Menezes

Music Prep CD

Japanese Julian Cucanic

Art Jayden Adams

All Students of the week will now receive

their ribbon and a certificate with a

description of why they received their

award.

STUDENT OF THE WEEK TERM 1 2017 Monday 1st May

A number of school coloured (red & green) scarves donated by the

Wells Family will be on sale from the office as of this week. Scarves

are $8.00 and proceeds will go towards FSOW Fundraising.

MAY events

Mother’s Day Stall Friday 12th May. Donations are

welcome (must be new and unused).

Mother's Day Breakfast Thursday 11th May 8:30-9:15

in room 10 (Community Room). If you are attending please

return reply slips for catering purposes.

* Mothers Day Stall Friday 12th May. Helpers Needed!!

Please return helper reply slip ASAP (Morning tea provided)

* Silver Coin Scramble May 15th - June 9th.

JUNE Events

Gift Card fundraiser - More information will be sent home

soon.

Next Meeting Friday

FOSW TEAM

Scarves for Sale A number of school coloured (red & green)

scarves donated by the Wells Family will be on

sale from the office as of this week. Scarves

are $8.00 & proceeds will go towards FSOW

Fundraising.

2018 PREP ENROLMENTS

Enrolments for the Year 2018 are now being taken.

Enrolment forms can be collected from the office. If you have already picked up an enrolment form please

return it to the office. A.S.A.P.

When enrolling please provide:

Proof of Age – e.g. Birth Certificate

School Immunisation Certificate

(This can be obtained from the Medicare Website)

Please note: If you know of any potential enrolments, please ask families to

contact the school as soon as possible

2018 Prep Information Sessions

Our Prep information session for Prep students and parents have been locked in

for the following dates in May:

Tuesday 9th May

7.00pm – 8.30pm

Thursday 11th May

2.00pm – 3.15pm

Wednesday 17th May

10.00am – 11.00am

Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge

The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is now open and Sunbury West Primary School is excited to be participating.

The Challenge is open to all Victorian children from birth to Year 10 in recognition of the importance of reading for literacy development. It is not a competition; but a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by 8 September 2017.

Children from Prep to Year 2 are encouraged to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers. Children from Year 3 to Year 10 are challenged to read 15 books.

All children who meet the Challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and can choose to have their name included on the online Honour Roll. If you would like your child‘s name to appear on the Honour Roll, you will need to sign the consent form which has been sent home.

To read the Premier’s letter to parents, view the booklists and for more information about the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge, visit: www.education.vic.gov.au/prc

Please contact the office on

9740 8666 if you would

like to book in to one of our

tours - bookings not

compulsory.

ENVIRONMENT NEWS

Our Environment team has two more fabulous projects starting that will involve all the children in

the school and help to make our school environment more colourful and inviting. Firstly, we are

making our own Sunbury West ‘Artist’s Walk’ which will be an outside gallery of the children’s

artwork. Each grade will be involved in designing their own artwork which will then be painted on

the wall under the Art room windows; you have probably noticed that we have already undercoat-

ed this area in preparation for this.

Secondly, we are painting a ‘Welcome Tree’ in the covered area near the Grade 1 and 2 rooms. The

children will be putting their handprints on this tree and writing a welcome message in a variety of

languages to celebrate the diverse cultures that all our children have in their families. This area

has also been undercoated so you can see where this will be.

We are looking forward to getting all our children involved in our fun school improvement projects

and making them proud to be part of the Sunbury West community. So keep watching these spaces

as our projects progress!

I would like to thank the members of our Environment Team: Daniel Gregory, Sharon Moore and

Laura Taylor for spending time after school sanding and painting these areas in preparation for

the children’s work.

Our Gallipoli Oak Commemoration sign has also been

placed next to our Gallipoli Oak near the office, so

please take your children to have a look at that too.

Now is a good time as we have just had ANZAC Day and it

will mean more to the children.

I was happy to hear that some families have enjoyed

eating our zucchinis and using the herbs from our

veggie gardens. The children love to see our veggies

growing and would love to eat them at home, so help

yourselves.

Dianne Bronchinetti (Environment Leader)

How can I help my child with confidence and to get along with

others? How can I help them be ready to learn at school? Mindfulness may the answer!! Self-awareness and social awareness are two of the key social and emotional learning skills that children should develop.

Some of the benefits of mindfulness training for children include increased self-awareness, social awareness and self-confidence.

Mindfulness has been shown to improve empathy or the ability to understand what another person is thinking or feeling, which improves children’s awareness of others and helps them to build positive relationships.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is about training yourself to pay attention in a specific way. When a person is mindful, they:

focus on the present moment try not to think about anything that went on in the past or that might be coming up in future purposefully concentrate on what’s happening around them try not to be judgemental about anything they notice, or label things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

Some of the benefits of mindfulness for children

There are many benefits of mindfulness training for children, in-cluding:

increased self-awareness, social awareness, and self-confidence increased ability to self-regulate their emotions, especially difficult emotions such

as fear and anger, through breathing and other grounding techniques building resilience by giving children skills to help them to cope better with stress, as well as

engage more fully with themselves and the world.

Mindfulness training has also been shown to reduce the severity of depression, anxiety and ADHD in children. These skills help to manage stress, increase awareness of emotions, improve attention and focus, and can prevent difficulties from getting worse.

Here are four ways to practice mindfulness with your children:

1. Mindful play: Dedicate a window of time each week to mindfully play with your child or children. Turn off all other distractions such as TV, and put your mobile away and on silent. Try to give them your full attention during this time and if your mind wanders off to all the things you should be doing, that’s fine – that’s just what minds do! Use your child as an anchor to come back to every time your mind wanders away.

2. Mindful cooking: Cooking together can be a great way to spend quality time. Help your child notice the colours, smell and taste of the ingredients as you add them to the meal, and the touch of the different items as you cook.

3. Mindful dinnertime: Create a time for your family to appreciate and savour their food at the start of a meal by spending the first few minutes of dinner in silence, just eating and enjoying the food. It’s a surprisingly nice activity to do with the whole family, and done regularly, can become a lovely ritual.

4. Mindful teeth brushing: Getting kids to brush their teeth can be a challenge, so why not make it a challenge, by inviting them to try to do it mindfully with you? Invite them to pay attention to the feel of the brush in their mouth and the sensation and taste of the toothpaste. Ask them three things they noticed that was different about their brushing tonight than from the previous night.

Smiling Mind – helping children and parents develop mindfulness mediation skills

Smiling Mind is a free program that provides resources to support the development of mindfulness and meditation skills. The Smiling Mind website and smartphone app provide information about mindfulness and action-based tools to guide children (starting from seven years) and adults through Mindfulness Meditation practices.

Why not give it a go! From the SWPS Student Engagement & Well-Being Team

Community News

Each week as we receive Community News items we will be adding them to the newsletter as a separate attachment. If you would like to read the community news please click here.

ANZAC DAY SERVICE

On Tuesday the 25th of April, the Junior School Council were proud to represent Sunbury West Primary School in the

ANZAC Day March and service to commemorate those who have served and sacrificed for our country. It was an honour

to participate in this event with other members of our community and it was a special moment to lay a wreath in memory

of those who left our shores but never came home. Thank you to all members of our school community who attended

either the dawn or 10am service to pay their respects.

We also held our annaul ANZAC day service at school on Friday 21st April in the gym.

Cross Country

On Friday the 28th of April the grade 3-6 students went to Clark oval to compete in the House Cross Country. The first race was the 8-9-10 girls with the last race the 12 year old girls. The 8-10 year olds ran 2km and the 11-12 year olds ran 3km. After all the races we walked back to school and got our ribbons. After receiving our ribbons Mr Payton presented the winning house, which was Concorde - Congratulations Concorde! The Champion Boy this year was Angel Vujasinovic and Champion Girl was Indya Hildebrand. Thankyou to all the teachers and parents who came and supported us and the Sunbury Secondary College Sports and Recreation students for helping on the day. It was a great day and everyone did their best and should be proud of themselves. From the Concorde House Captain Team