7 September 2017

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Well it’s certainly been a quiet week at school this week with our Year 5 & 6 students away at Canberra and the snow. The snow looks amazing and they are certainly having an amazing time. The stage 3 camp is always a highlight of your primary school years and I think this trip will be a memorable one for everyone. Thank you to Mr Guzman for his organisation of the 3-day camp and to the teachers who accompanied the students Mrs O’Grady, Miss Phillips, Mr Dylan, Mr Chapman and Miss Julian.

Band Information night

Last Monday night our Band conductors Gergely and Ben explained how to join the school band program. Our junior band played a few pieces and there seems to be great interest from our year 2 students. The band program is open to all students from year 2 onwards so please feel free to complete an application form available at the front office and hand in by Friday 8 September. All welcome. Enquires about the program can be made to Ms Stacey or Miss Phillips.

Thanks John Logan our Band president for assisting with last week’s solo nights and our information night. Please support our Band cake stall this Sunday 10 September at Bunnings.

Choir performance at the Opera House

Our school choir will be performing as part of a combined choral concert tonight at the opera House. This is the choir’s major performance for the year and we wish them all the best. Our choir led by Mrs Lucey and Ms Mason (and previously Mrs McManus) have had a wonderful year and we wish to acknowledge their commitment. Last week we all enjoyed their performance at the Father’s day breakfast. The Australian Girl’s choir will be auditioning interested girls for their combined choir at school on Wednesday 13 September at 10.30am. Interested girls should obtain and expression of interest form from Mrs Lucey this week.

Fathers’ Day breakfast

Thank you to Penny Dixon and her team of helpers for another successful fathers’ day breakfast. It was lovely to have a visit from our dads last Friday and children enjoyed sharing a bacon and egg roll with the fathers then showing them around the school. Thank you to Ian Hills who gave up his Fathers’ day privileges to cook all the rolls and his team of mums who assisted in the kitchen. All funds raised on the day will go towards purchasing some new playground resources for our students and create some more interesting playground spaces and equipment for our students to use during the construction of the new school.

SASS week - “Not all heroes wear capes!”

This week is a time to thank and recognise all our non-teaching and support staff. SASS (School Administration and Support Staff) is the staff that often works behind the scenes in schools to support teachers, parents and students. Our office staff Pam, Luise, Annabel and Ann, thank you for answering phones and enquiries, attending to sick children, assisting students when they are hurt or lost, collecting money, organising notes and buses and much more. Our teachers’ aides Pete, Mary, Tom, Jayne and Steph, thank you for assisting teachers and students in and out of the classroom, Grant our GA (General Assistant) thank you for repairing and maintaining our school resources, making deliveries and looking after the grounds and buildings. Jackie our library volunteer, thank you for your thorough organisation of our archives and library resources. Please take some time to thank our SASS staff this week.

Kindergarten - Community garden

Last Friday our Kindergarten students attended the Manly Vale community garden. After walking down to the garden the students enjoyed planting and weeding our community garden and learning about our local plants.

NAPLAN online

During week 10 of this term our year 3 & 5 students will participate in a school readiness test for NAPLAN. Results from this test will not be available as this is a trial for the school so we can test our technology and wireless connections in preparations for next year’s online NAPLAN tests. It is important that all students practice their touch-typing skills and have a go at the online practice tests available on the link below. As of 2018 all NAPLAN testing will be done online and all students will need to be able to competently use a laptop or iPads in order to complete the tests. Please experiment with the practice papers available from the link below.

Zone Athletics

Last week 40 of our athletes competed in the Zone Athletics carnival at Narrabeen. Mr Dylan and Mrs Humphreys praised the efforts of all our competitors with special mention of Sarah Hills and Mathew Evans both came 3rd in the high jump and Lucy Scholtens who came 3rd in the 100 metres and 2nd in the long jump and will be our sole representative in the Regional athletics carnival to compete at Homebush. Congratulations to all the competitors who went to the Zone carnival on their incredible sportsmanship and excellent behaviour. Good luck Lucy at Regionals!

Kindergarten Orientation - next Monday

Monday 11 September from 9.30am – 11.00am we will have our first Kindergarten orientation session. By now all enrolment forms should be into the office and our new Kindergarten students for 2018 will go into our Kindergarten rooms whilst their parents come to the hall for a talk from the P&C, uniform shop and be entertained by our Kindergarten public speaking winners. We look forward to meeting all our new students for next year. At this stage it looks as though we will be receiving another demountable to accommodate the growth in the school.

Life Education Van

Next week we will have a visit from the Life education Van and Healthy Harold. All classes K-6 will visit the van for healthy lifestyle lessons. The van will be positioned in our front playground. Please make sure you have returned your notes and $10 entry fee before next week. A parent information session is scheduled for Wednesday 13 September at 10.00am.

P&C meeting - Tuesday 12 September 7.00pm

Next Tuesday night we will have our P&C meeting. A short summary of our NAPLAN performance and an outline of strategic directions will be given to parents with a report on money spent from the P&C for 2017 on the HOT (Higher Order Thinking) team and their initiatives. Please feel free to come along to the staff room next Tuesday.

Construction begins!

Lahey constructions have now taken over the site and put up hoarding to separate the school from the building site. The white hoarding will eventually be covered with our student’s artwork. The car park is only to be accessed by teachers, neighbours and parents requiring the disabled parking spot during school hours. Please refrain from parking in the car park at all times.

Lahey constructions are currently following the environmental management plan and putting up possum boxes and marking our vegetation islands and areas for preservation. Selective clearing will take place over the next few weeks to provide vehicle access to the site. Thank you to our local Ann Collins and our local Bush care group for collecting samples of flora to be kept at Manly Dam for preservation.

Updates on the building process can be found by following the link below:

Tina Lee - Principal

Dates for Your Diary

Art Gallery

On Monday 4 September, Year 1 & 2 students visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales as a culmination to our term 3 CAPA program. Students engaged in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) activities on the day. Students were inspired to create scenic artworks while visiting the Botanical Gardens. We are had a lot of fun on this beautiful day.

Stage 1 Teachers

Sport

The Sydney North Water Polo trials will be held in Term 4 Week 1. Any Year 5 or 6 students who is a strong swimmer and has played in a Water Polo team and would like to attend the trials please see Mrs Ward to show expression of interest.

Melinda Ward

PSSA Soccer Grand Finals

National History Challenge

Recently nine of our students have completed their National History Challenge that Manly Vale Public School took part in for the first time.

‘Making a better world?’ was this year's theme of the competition. Students developed a presentation and wrote an essay on selected historical event or person and explained how this event links to the theme. Students were expected to supply a bibliography to their essays. Mrs Poole assisted students during their research phase, and Mrs Banham helped them with essay writing. However, most of their work has been done at home and the GATS committee would like to acknowledge parents and their support for their children.

Thomas’s fascination and his extensive knowledge of ancient Spartans showed in his creative presentation and a comprehensive essay.

Lydia and Sophia collaborated on the impact of Sophie Germain on the field of mathematics and aspirations of a young woman in XIX century France.

Xavier and Zak researched the Black Plague era and its impact on our world now and then.

Sarah explored the courage and righteousness of Nelson Mandela and his fight for freedom and abolishment of Apartheid.

Morgan and Joseph researched the history of Sorry Day and Stolen Generations and used it as opportunity to demonstrate how well meant decisions at the time caused pain to many families and how an apology helps to build a bridge of reconciliation.

Will researched the Roman Empire times and discovered it was a unique time of peace and prosperity called Pax Romana.

Our students' interests in the history of Australia, the world and significant people is quite remarkable. Many of those students attempted writing a historical essay for the first time. They analysed, critically evaluated relevant historical facts and attempted to decide whether their historical heroes left our world a better or worse place.

The GATS committee wishes our budding historians all the best in the competition.

Mrs Banham - GATS Committee HOT Team

Tournament of Minds 2017 singing out...

I would like to congratulate both teams that prepared for their challenge presentation on Sunday 27 August. Their performances were not only engaging, entertaining and enjoyable but also creative. They worked hard on costumes, scripts, acting, and solving the challenge. I am proud to see how much their collaborative skills have improved during these six weeks. Collaboration involves delegating tasks, being responsible for completing them on time, solving many unexpected problems demonstrating resilience and sense of humour, effectively communicating with one another and rehearsing the final piece. These skills will surely help them become successful lifelong learners.

The TOM teams proudly performed their pieces at the school assembly and demonstrated an infectious team spirit and camaraderie. Many students were approaching me inquiring about Tournament of Minds auditions for next year!

I would like to thank parents for supporting their children on this journey. After school practice helps our teams to prepare but of course, for parents, it means disrupted timetables. I appreciate your help and flexibility throughout this experience.

Here is how some of the TOM team members reflected on this experience:

I loved my experience in TOM club. It taught me how to look at things in a new way, and now I love Thursdays. The big finals that we were waiting for were pretty fun. I liked being in a group with other kids of similar ages! I made lots of new friends and really hope to get into TOM club next year. Mia Year 4

At Tournament of Minds, I learned to work together and to make a script and a lottery machine. I liked performing in front of judges and I liked making things. I enjoyed solving problems on Fridays (TOM club). Josh Year 4

I enjoyed doing TOM club this year. I loved working in the team and I liked the people that I got to work with. The thing I liked best was how well we worked together in a team. I loved performing the final product because it felt right and to see all this hard, hard work coming to such a fantastic ending. I also really enjoyed the actual challenge we were doing because it put our minds to work and the entire time I felt we were putting our whole efforts into making it sound and look good. Zara Year 4

Tournament of Minds was a great experience from the way that everyone worked together to the way we presented. I enjoyed working with my team and it turned out to be a learning and fun time. I am pleased with the final presentation because I love acting and since we worked hard I hoped it would turn out well and fortunately it did! I hope to get into Tournament of Minds next year! Mackenzie Year 3

Mrs Banham

Library News

Premier's Reading Challenge

The PRC 2107 has closed. Congratulations to the 138 students who completed the Premier's Reading challenge 2017. Your certificates will be arriving in term 4.

Book Week – Escape to Everywhere!

Manly Vale celebrated the theme for Book Week with great enthusiasm. Students and teachers dressed as favourite book characters and enjoyed a whole school assembly, where library monitors performed a poem called “I opened a book ...” by Julia Donaldson and classes paraded their wonderful costumes. The day finished with buddy groups sharing favourite books with each other during DEAR time.

Author visits

During Book Week kindergarten through to year two were entertained by the author Frances Watts and illustrator David Legge, they shared a reading of one of their books about Captain Crabclaw and his Pirate Zoo finishing off with a rollicking rendition of a pirate song. Children learned about the growth of a story idea through the processes of plot and illustration development to the finished product, a wonderful book.

Well-known local author Andrew Daddo ran three very entertaining workshop style sessions with years 3 - 6. The children were spellbound with his stories about family and reflections on his own childhood. His energy and ability to build and resolve a what if ... style of story development, gave the children a wonderful insight into how they too can create a story using a few simple techniques.

Happy Reading
Annette Murphy-Haste – Teacher Librarian
Glynis Poole – Teacher Librarian

Scholastic Book Club

Book Club orders are due back at school by Monday 11 September 2017. No late orders accepted.

Manly Vale OSHC Centre

M: 0430 369 288 E: mvoshc@primaryoshcare.com.au

Dear Families,

Our Vacation Care program is now available through the Primary OSHCare website, under the Manly Vale tab, we have some very exciting days planned, such as rock climbing at Brookvale Rock House, and Detective Day. All bookings for Vacation Care will need to be made online through the MyFamily Lounge app, please let us know if you need help with this process.

Next week is National Child Protection Week, we are incorporating this into our daily programs to ensure children understand their right to feel safe, and that they have people they can talk to if they feel unsafe.

Dance and Karate for our Health and Wellbeing program ended this week, the children all enjoyed it and will be showing off their new skills! We will soon be asking for suggestions for our next Health and Wellbeing activities, and all feedback is encouraged.

We hope to see you very soon! - From the Manly Vale OSHC Team.

Canteen

Canteen Volunteers Roster Term 3, 2017

Community Notices

HONK! – an ugly duckling – of a musical

An odd-looking duck in the midst of an identity crisis finds himself on an adventure of self-discovery – with awesome music, hilarious characters and a blizzard thrown in for good measure! Proudly presented by Stage Artz, 23-30 September 2017, Glen St Theatre. Bookings: 9975 1455 or glenstreet.com.au

Parliament of NSW Family Fun Day

Friday 6 October 2017, 10.00am-3.00pm. All are welcome to come in and experience Parliament through a range of free family-friendly fun and educational activities at Australia’s oldest Parliament; Children’s trail, guessing competition, arts & crafts, tour of the Chambers, role plays and roving historical characters….ghosts of our Colonial past.

Northern Beaches Council Vacation Care Program Spring 2017

Brochures available from the school office or download from council’s website:

School holiday performance at Barangaroo

Parents looking for activities during the October school holidays will love Sand Song, an uplifting Aboriginal dance and theatre performance, for children aged 5-12.

Manly West Public School Carnival

Narraweena Public School Fete

Sydney Coastrek 2018

Registrations now open for Sydney Coastrek 2018. Get your team together to walk the coast between Manly or Kirribilli or Bondi Beach in our 30km or 60km team trekking challenge on Friday 16 March 2018. Money raised goes to The Fred Hollows Foundation. More information visit the link below:

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