TE RM 2, WEEK 2 Wilberforce Public School May 7 2020

NEWSLETTER Macquarie Road, Wilberforce NSW 2756 Phone: 4575 1424 Fax: 4575 1096

Email: wilberforc-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au Webpage: www.wilberforc-p.schools.nsw.edu.au

• 11 May – Phase 1 Returning to school begins

• 8 June – Public Holiday

• 3 July – Last day of Term 2 for Students

IMPORTANT DATES PRINCIPAL’S REPORT Welcome back to Term 2. I trust you and your family had a safe, relaxing and enjoyable break together. I would like to give a massive thank you to the school staff for the work that has been undertaken in preparing for learning programs this term. The quality of the work and the ambition of teachers to ensure students continue learning has been exceptional. Thank you also to parents for the work you have been doing in undertaking learning at home and for your support of the school. The engagement of students has been, and will always be a collaborative team effort between the school and home, and this has been evident throughout the current situation. From Monday, we will enter Phase 1 with students attending 1 day a week. Detailed below is a range of information to assist you.

Students attend on the days below as per their surname.

Monday A - D Tuesday E - J Wednesday K - R Thursday S – Z Friday – Students will be learning from home as per Department of Education model.

For more detail on the Department of Education proposed model for the managed return to school, please see the outline attached to the newsletter correspondence.

Teacher Availability and Devices at Night

We will endeavour to continue supporting student learning in the online environment, however, due to the increased face-to-face teaching load online

support may vary, particularly with regards to response times. Online packs will be ready to collect from today. Due to current circumstances teachers are also working extended hours and will be posting items to Google Classrooms at various times during the day, even possibly late into the evening. For this reason, we strongly suggest (and it is recommended by experts) that students do not have their devices in their bedrooms while going to sleep as the notifications can disturb their sleep.

Starting Times

Student start times will also be staggered to allow for more social distancing measures. Students in Years 3-6 will start school at 9:20am and finish at 3:20pm. Students in K-2 will start school at the regular time, 9:30am and complete school at 3:30pm. If your child’s older sibling walks home with a K-2 student, they will need to wait and be supervised in the cola area to collect their sibling.

Drop Off & Pick Up

Students are to be dropped off at Macquarie Road or George Road, and we request that parents do not come onto school grounds. In the afternoons we request you discuss with your children a designated meeting place outside the school grounds and practise social distancing. Please do not gather outside the school gates. Castlereagh Road gate will remain closed until further notice.

Reading Challenge

Any student who completed the reading challenge in the holidays should bring their Grid to me next week to receive their prize. Discussions with your child about what has been read or their learning is crucial to their ongoing success. Please, even when normal operations resume, ask your child every day what they have learnt. This needs to be more than just an explanation about what they did. Students should explain the concept they learnt not the activity they completed. If your child can clearly converse with you about their learning this indicates a sound understanding and knowledge of that content, skill or information.

New Home (Remote) Module of Work

A new module of work will be available for pick up from the school hall from today (Thursday 7th May). Further practical resources and guides to help students learning from home are available at the department’s learning from home hub https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/learning-from-home.

Hygiene and Social Distancing Practices

This term we will continue to implement effective hygiene practices:

• Clean your hands with soap and water and an alcohol-based hand sanitiser. • Sneeze or cough into your elbow or a tissue. • Stay home if you are sick. • The school has a non-contact thermometer. If your child presents to sick bay their temperature will be

measured and sick students’ parents will be contacted immediately. The parents of any students showing symptoms of a cold or flu will be contacted and it is expected that the child will be picked up from school immediately.

• Lunch time sporting equipment changed every day. • Extra cleaning of touch surfaces is occurring throughout the day. • The playground equipment will remain closed.

In addition to these practices we will be implementing the following social distancing practices:

• If bringing your child to school please say your ‘good byes’ at the school gate. • In the afternoon at the end of the school day please practice social distancing and do not congregate. • The number of students in each classroom will follow department advice. • Students will be spread out at lunchtime and recess eating. • Staggered starting times as follows: Years 3-6 will start school at 9:20am and finish at 3:20pm.

K-2 will start school at the regular time, 9:30am and complete school at 3:30pm.

Student Resources and Loaned Equipment

Students are requested to bring loaned equipment (e.g. iPad or Laptop) and any items taken home such as stationery or books to school on their designated day.

Winter Uniform

Thank you for your support by ensuring your child/ren wear their Wilberforce uniform each day they are at school. The students wearing their school hat and black shoes, along with other items of the uniform look fantastic. It would be appreciated if all students could wear their winter uniform as of the beginning of this term. If you are waiting on uniform orders or the weather is warm, summer uniform may still be worn.

Opportunity Class 2021 Postponed

The placement process for opportunity class entry in 2021, including the Opportunity Class Placement Test, will be delayed until later in the year. As a result, applications will not open on 28 April 2020 as previously advised. This delay is in response to the social distancing measures that are currently in place to help slow the spread of COVID-19 throughout the community.

The opportunity class placement will still go ahead in 2020 however, the process for that, including the timeline, will look a little different this year.

The department will continue to work closely with NSW Health to ensure people have access to the latest advice on how to keep staff, students and the community safe. Revised dates for applications, tests and process changes (including any changes to school assessment scores) will be announced as soon as they are confirmed.

Please monitor the department’s website via https://education.nsw.gov.au/public-schools/selective-high-schools-and-opportunity-classes/year-5 to remain up to date with information relating to opportunity classes.

ANZAC Day

We had a different ANZAC Day service this year, with our Prefect Body hosting the ceremony on line. I would like to commend our student leaders for the adaptability in adjusting to this format. Our local community also showed their respect by laying wreaths on the driveways and holding private vigils on ANZAC morning. Thanks to Mr Anthoney for his support in bringing the online presentation together and to Mrs Rodwell for taking the photos of the Wilberforce Community.

School Development Days

The staff were involved in a number of worthwhile on-line learning modules on the School Development Days and shared how different stages have been providing learning.

Attendance and Marking of the Roll

Parents and carers are encouraged to send their child to school on the allocated time or day/s for that student grouping. If a parent or carer deem there are personal circumstances preventing their child/children attending school on their allocated day/time, this is to be discussed with Mr Wilkins.

If you are keeping your child at home due to an underlying health condition, please advise the school to ensure the student is able to continue learning from home. Students who are participating in learning from at home or school will be marked as being present at school.

Students are not expected to participate in learning if they are unwell and as such will marked as being on sick leave pending advice from parents or carers that the student is unwell.

Students who are not at school and unable to be contacted by the school to determine their whereabouts will be followed up using normal processes and marked as on unapproved leave. All students are expected to complete online learning if they do not attend school. Students who complete minimal work, are often contacted by teachers. If very little online work is completed the student will be marked as absent for that day.

ZOOM

If you have not returned your child’s ZOOM note, please email it to the school as soon as possible. When students participate in ZOOM we ask the following:

• Turn up on time. • Be polite and courteous to teachers and fellow students. • Should not have a mobile phone present or notifications switched on. • Students must abide by Acceptable Use of Google Classrooms and Information & Communications

Technology policy which were distributed in Week 8 Term 1. • Students are dressed appropriately i.e. no pyjamas when they logon and do not ZOOM from their bed. • Respect others and their contributions to the class. • Contribute to and engage with the lesson.

John Hattie - The Effect of Missed Schooling

This article, written by John Hattie, Professor of Education and Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia discusses the effects of missed schooling and some key messages.

Visible Learning Effect Sizes When Schools Are Closed: What Matters and What Does Not

With the prospect of schools being out for a while, I will review some of the Visible Learning influences that may help understand what really matters and what does not matter as much.

First, does it matter that students are not in the physical place called school?

There is a body of research on the effects of losing school time, but we need to start by distinguishing between effects from school holidays and school closures. Holidays are for recharging the batteries for students and teachers. If your system is moving to holidays, do not worry about schooling: Let the teachers and students recharge their batteries doing other activities.

The effects from school holiday are very small on students, and there is little reason to believe that the length of the school year has much effect at all. Note that the so-called vacation effect (-.02), summer school length effect (.08), the summer school effect (.19), and the effect of modifying school calendars (.08) are low.

There is no meta-analysis of the effect of the length of the school year, but there are traditional reviews, and the effect is tiny. From the PISA results, Australia has one of the longest school days and school years across all countries, and the USA is close behind. If we take out one term/semester of 10 weeks, those countries still have more in-school time compared to Finland, Estonia, Korea, and Sweden, which all outscore Australia and the USA on PISA.

There is data on the effect of teacher strikes and lengthy shut outs—and again the message is that the effects are very low, especially for students below middle school, but they increase after middle school, especially in math.

Let’s recall the effects of the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011, which severely disrupted access to schools. There was a rush to online learning with a cry for special dispensations for upper high school examinations. As advisor to the Qualifications Authority that oversaw these exams, I argued we should not give special dispensation. I based this on strike research, which showed no effects at this upper school level, with positive effects in some cases. Sure enough, the performance of Christchurch students went up, and as schools resumed, the scores settled back down. Why? Because teachers tailored learning more to what students could NOT do, whereas often school is about what teachers think students need, even if students can already do the tasks.

So, the messages are:

● Do not panic if our kids miss 10 or so weeks ● If your system has school holidays, then have a holiday from schooling ● Worry more about subjects in which parents have the least skill and about subjects and tasks where parents make kids skill and drill and lose the thrill (especially math) ● Make sure to provide opportunities to learn what students do not know and do not engage them in busy work ● It is not the time in class, but what we do in the time we have, that matters

Graham Wilkins

Principal

NEWS, NOTES AND HAPPENINGS

Sound Waves

Week 2 Term 2

Graphemes: Graphemes: Extra Focus Concepts:

h; j g ge dge who’s; budget, suggest, soldier

herd/heard, whose/who’s, whole/hole, hear/here,

Contractions: he’s, he’d, he’ll, who’s, here’s, hasn’t, haven’t

Week 3 Term 2

Graphemes: Graphemes: Extra Focus Concepts:

ai ay a_e a ay

Patterns: ake, ate, ace, ane, ain, ail, aid

straight, eighty neighbour, they

reign, sleigh, campaign, bouquet, rendezvous, café/ crêpe, fiancée

Focus Concepts: Adding ing, Adding ion, Adding y or ly, Correct word usage/

Vocabulary: Homophones: wait/weight, brayed/braid, paced/paste,

STAGE NEWS

Early Stage 1

Welcome back to Term 2! This term we are developing our reading skills by thinking about the story, recognising sight words and blending phonemes in words. We will become more independent in Writing by brainstorming adjectives and editing our work. In Mathematics, we will learn about place value, odd and even numbers, and adding complete tens. Our Science unit this term focuses on how objects move and the forces that impact on movement, such as, gravity and friction. In History, we will be learning about the Aboriginal dreamtime. Our fundamental movement skills for Term 2 are ‘jump’ and ‘catch’. We will continue to expand our fine-motor skills in a variety of fantasy inspired artworks, and our acting skills will be harnessed in an engaging Drama unit on “Toys”. We are looking forward to another exciting term of learning!

Stage 1

Well done to Stage 1 students who have certainly shown that they are flexible and resilient learners in Terms 1 and 2. Sincere thanks goes to parents and other family members who have been helping to ensure that online learning is happening at home. We appreciate your work and support.

The learning program in writing has commenced with revision of simple sentences, and we have now moved on to compound sentences. In future weeks, the students will be writing information reports. Comprehension skills, including prediction, are a focus in reading.

TEN lessons have commenced with counting money. Other Mathematics topics to be covered this term include 2D space, data and chance, number patterns and fractions.

‘The Water Cycle’ is the first science topic for Term 2. The students will be investigating water as a precious resource and how to preserve it by using water wisely inside and outside the home. The geography topic is ‘People and Places’. The unit begins with an investigation of where we live. In personal development, the students will be exploring feelings, communication skills and the promotion of wellbeing. Music activities include making rhythms using body percussion.

We look forward to a productive Term 2, whether learning is occurring at school or at home, and to a future time when we will see our classes again.

Weekly Focuses:

Considerate:

I keep my classroom and school neat and tidy.

Curious:

I ask questions.

Stage 2

Welcome back to Term 2. Students have been busy completing work in all the different formats and have adjusted to learning very effectively. Please encourage students to post questions in Google Classrooms if they do not understand an aspect of their learning and chat to them about their learning goals. Below is an outline of the learning program for this term.

Soundwaves will continue the regular scope and sequence. This week the students focus on 'H' as in house and 'J' as in jellyfish. Next week the students focus on 'ai' as in snail.

Writing: Information writing. This unit starts with explicit teaching the skills of informative text with the aim of students researching and writing their own informative text on a topic of their choice by the end of term.

Comprehension skills: Students will be starting the Cars and Stars program this term.

TEN: The focus will begin with the Jump Strategy followed by the compensation strategy and content maths including, graphing and ratios.

History: Tales of the First Fleet – Students will be looking at life in the early years of colonisation and the effects of this on Indigenous Australians.

Science: Earth's relationship between the Sun and Moon

PDHPE: Why should we be physically active?

Creative Arts: Colour and Line

Stage 3

Welcome back to school/ learning from home for Term 2.

We are trying to keep on track with our online learning by following the regular curriculum work that we would be doing in the classroom. Last term was very challenging for us all to adapt to a new way of learning…but we got there.

A big thank you to all the students, parents and Stage 3 teachers for such a wonderful effort in continuing to make education a priority during these unprecedented times.

Last term lots of activities took place, including art, online and many students successfully uploaded their work. Here are a few samples of their efforts.

Stage 3 cont.

This Term, we will be studying Government in History. The students will learn about Australian democracy and citizenship, including the status and rights of Aboriginal people and/or Torres Strait Islanders, migrants, women and children. In Science, we will be studying our Solar System. The students will learn to identify that Earth is part of a system of planets orbiting around a star (the Sun), as well as investigate the role of light energy in how we observe the Sun, Moon and planets and compare the key features of the planets of our solar system. Online activities have already commenced in these subjects, but more hands-on lessons will be happening for our one day a week returns. Unfortunately, our excursion to the city has had to be cancelled, as was our excursion to Mt Tomah because of the bushfire damage. Let’s hope we have better luck with some excursions later on this year!

In English, the students will be focussing on writing information reports, in both reading and writing lessons; learning how to identify key words, write topic sentences with supporting detail, as well as summarise main points. From this they will be able to continue to improve and refine their research skills and write their findings in their own words across other KLA’s such as History and Geography. The students will also be learning about figurative language and continuing with novel studies.

Maths lessons will be a mix of in class instruction (starting with class returns), maths activity cards and online tasks, including I Know It Maths. We would like all the students to attempt all the online activities to consolidate their mathematical skills.

We look forward to seeing all our students again, on their return to school day, and we thank you all for your support and assistance with your children’s online learning.

LEARNING ONLINE

P&C NEWS

Thank you to the Bew family for taking the left-over Easter eggs that were donated for the school raffle which unfortunately was cancelled. Hawkesbury Helping Hands who are doing a lot to help local families in hardship at this difficult time were very grateful. Thank you from