14 October 2021

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

We are all looking forward to welcoming our Kindergarten and year 1 students back next week. It has been a long time since we have seen our students and the teachers are really looking forward to reuniting with their classes. Please use the weekend to prepare your children for the return to school. Reassuring conversations and reminiscing on all of the great things that happen at school will be a start. Below is a guide to support parents transitioning children back to school.

Remote learning will still operate for Years 2-6 next week and packs will be available Monday morning. There will be only a skeleton staff at school for these grades next week and it is preferred that you keep children in these grades at home for one more week.

Entry and Exit to School

Week 4 will see the return of all students to school and there will be strict guidelines in place regarding activities that can be done at school and exit and entry times and gates for the differing cohorts to use. These guidelines were emailed out earlier this week.

1. Main gate: K-2 students (Kindergarten exits will vary - see below for details)
2. Office gate: Visitors and late and early arrivals
3. Basketball Gate from carpark: All Years 3-6 students

There will be a slight staggering of timeslots to enter and exit the school to limit the intermingling of student cohorts.

Kindergarten: 8.50am entry and 2.50pm exit (KM, KCH exit through main gate/ KO, KR to exit through office gate)

Year 1: 8.40am entry and 3.00pm exit
Years 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6: 8.40am entry – 3.00pm exit

Hygiene and Cross Ventilation

Please be assured that cross ventilation and good hygiene practices will be in every classroom. Our new school was designed for cross ventilation and air conditioning will be limited and only be used with the windows open. All staff have been vaccinated and will be wearing masks throughout the day. Please do not send your child to school with any cold or flu like symptoms as they will be immediately separated from the rest of the students and you will be called to take them home.

Canteen

The canteen will only be open for lunch orders at this stage. A limited menu will be available on Flexischools. Opening times:

Week 3 - Thursday 21 October and Friday 22 October - lunch orders only
Week 4 - Monday to Friday - lunch orders only.

Uniform Shop

The uniform shop will be open for online orders. Please order through the link below and they will be available for pick up from the office. Wendie usually comes in on a Thursday to fill the orders and leaves them in the office for a Friday pick up.

MVPS Uniform Shop

Laptops - Return Week 4

All laptops need to be returned to the front office preferably on Monday 25 October or Tuesday 26 October (week 4). Alcohol wipes only can be used to clean the keyboards so there will be additional administration staff here in week 4 to clean and check laptops and return them to classrooms. Prompt return of these devices will be much appreciated as they will be required for students’ lessons at school now.

Congratulations Alex Scott 6R and Soraya Shalav 5T - Operation Art Finalists!

Two of our Stage 3 talented artists have had their artworks selected for display as part of the “Operation Art” exhibition. We as a school would like to congratulate and acknowledge these incredible students on this achievement. Both students will eventually receive their artwork back to display at home but can order additional copies if required. Well done Soraya and Alex!

P & C Meeting - Tuesday 26 October

We are having one of our last P & C meeting on Tuesday 26 October at 7.00pm on Zoom, with the hope to have a face-to-face AGM later on in Term 4. We will be farewelling James Fewtrell (President) and Tony Sherlock (Treasurer) at the end of the year and will need to have some new parents take on these roles. Please try and attend this meeting to see how the P & C operates and meet all of the wonderful parents who support the school and assist with communication via the Class Coordinator program, operate and run the school canteen and uniform shop and support a fulltime Band program at the school. We really need more parents involved in our P & C if these activities and small businesses are to operate. Please consider standing for a role on the P & C next year or at least attending the meetings to assist with school operations.

Please email Karen Murgatroyd (secretary) on manlyvaleprimaryschoolpc@gmail.com for the zoom link to this meeting.

P&C Position Descriptions – Vacancies coming up for 2022

President Role: (Currently James Fewtrell - vacant at the end of 2021)

The President chairs all general and executive committee meetings of the association. The role of the President includes providing leadership acting as a spokesperson for the association reporting to P&C meetings about the activities of the P&C exercising some supervision of the functions of other office bearers ensuring adequate and efficient communication exists between the members of the association and the members of the school board encouraging parents to participate.

Specific:

• Ensuring good communications with the School
• Responding correspondence email and letter, as required
• Resolving issues through P&C Executives participation
• Providing guidance and P&C Exec support to P&C Sub-committees and P&C representatives,
• Expected Level of Effort: 10 Hours / month

Vice President Role (vacant – 2 positions)

The role includes presiding as chair at meetings where the President is absent being familiar with the operation of the P&C becoming acquainted with the duties of President having a working understanding of meeting rules and procedure undertaking tasks to reduce the burden of the President.

Specific:

• Vice President 1: Overseeing P&C Sub-committees work by selectively attending subcommittee meetings and then assisting the P&C meetings accordingly.
• Vice President 2: Overseeing P&C Representative’s work in School Committees by selectively attending School committees and then assisting the P&C meetings accordingly.

Secretary: (Currently Karen Murtgatroyd)

• prepare and circulate P&C meeting agendas
• record and circulate minutes from P&C meetings
• maintain contact lists for P&C position holders
• maintain an actions list from meetings

The demands of this position can fluctuate but on average requires a minimum commitment of 10 hours per month.

Treasurer: (Currently Tony Sherlock- vacant at the end of 2021)

• Receipt and care of all P&C monies.
• Payment of authorised bills from P&C funds
• Bookkeeping of P&C accounts.
• Organising insurance for the P&C
• Reporting to P&C members on a regular basis the receipts and payments handled.
• Preparing a Financial Statement of Income and Expenditure and a Balance Sheet for the audit of the P&C books. The demands of the role vary throughout the year.
• In the first half of the year the hours needed are minimal, but at least 10 hours a month is needed in the second half of the year.

Tina Lee – Principal

Dates for your Diary

Attention Year 5 2021

Applications for Selective High Schools entry in 2023 will open online on 19 October 2021 and close on 17 November 2021.

The placement test will be held on 10 March 2022.

Mrs Blackband will inform you about the application process in more detail in next week's newsletter and also via a note home with your child.

Manly Vale Public School SEE

Primary Ethics is proud to offer an alternative while ethics classes cannot be run in schools. For Term 4, we have prepared a brand-new series of Bites!

Bites! are our specially designed bite-sized lessons for students to chew over at home and practise their skills in close listening and ethical reasoning, based on material from our Department-approved curriculum.

Each week we will post a new ethical dilemma to our Bites! web page. Here is the link:

Bites for the K-2 age group are designed for students to tackle individually, assisted by an adult. Bites for Years 3-6 are designed for students to work on individually or with a family group. An adult learning supervisor may like to take part by helping to read the stories and questions and guiding students to think for themselves about the dilemma we pose. (Each Bite will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.)

The Primary Ethics team

Canteen News

Canteen Operation for weeks 3 & 4

The canteen will only be making up lunch orders all via Flexischools and with a very limited menu. There will be no NO recess offered.

WEEK 3 - the canteen will only be open Thursday 21 October and Friday 22 October.
WEEK 4 - the canteen will be open every day.

As soon as we are allowed to have volunteers helping again we will hopefully be able to open up completely and offer our full service.

At present there will be no over the counter sales.

BIRTHDAY ICE TREATS:

Quelch sticks and canteen mini ice blocks will be available via Flexischools for birthday orders.

We are so looking forward to opening up again.

Kind regards
Robyn, Kerry and Becky – Canteen Managers

School Information