Cnr Gillieston & Ryan RoadsGillieston Heights NSW 2321Subscribe:Subscribe: https://gilliestonps.schoolzineplus.com/subscribe

Email:Email: gillieston-p.school@det.nsw.edu.auPhone:Phone: 02 4932 7542

Fax:Fax: 02 4932 5950

29 November 201729 November 2017

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Our school has recently been recognised asan exemplary school as we achieved 100%score for our implementation of our PositiveBehaviour for Learning systems. Leadersfrom the Department of Education visitedour school, interviewing staff and students,making observations of our signage in andoutside of classrooms as well as the

interactions with students around the school. CongratulationsMrs Bennett and the Positive Behaviour for Learning Team for ajob well done!

Our school also received fantastic praise for our Going toGillieston Program. The children enjoyed attending for twohours each week, learning songs, playing games and getting toknow our school. Some of these comments can be seen on ourschool's webpage. Well done to Mrs Cummings and the GoingTo Gillo Team.

We also had a visit from the relieving Director of PublicEducation with our Regional Asset Manager who inspected ourschool grounds, buildings and some of our school processes.In particular, they were observing the wellbeing and safety ofour students leaving the school in the afternoon, given that ourroads and footpaths need some improvements. Again, we werecongratulated on the way we have our home time routines thathelp teachers know who children are going home with but alsosupport road and bus safety. "Best home time routine I've seenthat addresses the specific needs to the school environment."

We had a very successful SRC Disco and CommunityConsultation meeting last Thursday evening. Thank you to allthe parents who contributed to the next three-year plan for ourschool. This plan will be published on our website when fullycompleted and approved.

Karen JohansonPrincipal

FANTAILS

Students from ES1 have been learning about people andplaces. The Fantails have been reading and drawing maps. Thisis a map is from the story of Tom Tom and his indigenouscommunity.

Thank you Healthy Harold for visiting us. We thoroughly enjoyedvisiting the van and learning about healthy lifestyles. Haroldshowed us how we feel better by eating well, exercising, gettingenough sleep and keeping clean.

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GUPPIES

Brush my teeth every night, eat healthy food each day, getlots of sleep. These are some of the things the Guppies havedecided to do after their visit to Healthy Harold. We learnt aboutthe importance of sleep, exercise, everyday foods and keepingclean. Of course the most exciting part was when the lightswent down! It was an enjoyable afternoon.

BLUETANGS

In Science, we have been learning about animals, insects andtheir habitats. Last Friday we were learning about snails. Wewere investigating their habitat, diet and lifestyle. Thankyou tothe families who brought along these little garden critters for ourlesson.

This week in Science we were investigating and exploring thefascinating world of ants. Here are some ant jokes -

What is the world's biggest ant? An eleph – ant

What ant is even bigger than that? A Gi-ant

What do you call a 100 year old ant? Ant – ique!!!

CLOWNFISH

Like the Bluetangs, we have been learning a lot about theanimals found around our school. We have completed bothscientific diagrams, with labels and explanations, and we've

done a snail drawing activity and listed some interesting factsthat we have learned.

On Green Day we learnt A LOT about our impact on theenvironment. For example, it can take the average 1 litre plasticbottle up to 450 years to break down...and then it is just brokeninto tiny particles of plastic that birds and other creatures canmistake for food. We are committed to make our world a betterplace for future generations. We made some posters showingways we can help to fix the problems.

SHARKS

Spontaneous learning is our favourite! We were lucky enoughto watch part of the process of a caterpillar building its cocoon,as it did so on a tree in our playground.

Meeting Healthy Harold was also "pretty awesome" as theSharks will tell you. He taught our year 3's about cyber safetyand our year 4's all about medicines.

Another visit from some superstar little readers put a smileon our face. While they may have been smaller than us, theirconfidence was bigger than our classroom! As festive season ison it's way, we have decided to get in the spirit early and weknow that giving is just as important as receiving at Christmastime. To repay our little readers, the Sharks have been writingand illustrating their own children's books which we will besharing with Kindergarten this week.

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BARRAMUNDI

The Barramundi have been having fun in class while still workinghard to learn new skills. We visited Healthy Harold and learntsome interesting facts about cybersafety and medicines. Wealso created our own writing goal for Literacy. During writing weare completing some independent work using strategies thatwill help us achieve our goal and improve our writing!

We have been revising some maths skills. We played a gameof rob the nest which involved adding and subtracting and evenskip counted while we exercised. The class loved doing mathswhile exercising, it made it more fun!

HAMMERHEADS/ANGELFISH

The Hammerheads and angelfish have joined forces again andbecome the Angelheads.........We have been busy doing aproblem based learning unit where we aim to learn abouthealthy food options, budgeting, online shopping, proceduralwriting, cooking, and advertising skills. All this work willculminate in week nine where each group has formed a smallshop in which they will sell a healthy snack to all the studentsat Gillieston PS. Here are a couple of our students starting toorganise their shopping list for their test cook next week. Keepwatching this space for updates.

THE GARDEN GURUS

We had a wonderful time sharing our knowledge about theenvironment, and helping to organise our fundraiser on GreenDay. We raised a total of just over $180 on the day, and wewill be using this to install some wicking beds in our garden, forfaster, more efficient growth. Here are some photos from theseed planting event.

We are hoping that we can find some families to help care forthe chickens, look after the worms, and water the garden overthe school holidays. If you think you may be able to help, pleaseleave a message at the office for Mrs Heath, or see if you cancatch her in the morning or afternoon at school over the nextcouple of weeks.

Early in the new year we will have a number of specialty jobswe will need some assistance with, such as installing our birdnetting. If you, or someone you know, has some handy skills,we would love if you could put us in touch with them. Moreinformation will be sent out about this in Term 1, 2018. Otherthan that, everyone is welcome to step in and pull out a weed(or 50) anytime at all. We look forward to more familyinvolvement next year!

PRESENTATION EVENING

Our annual Presentation Evening will again be held at MaitlandCity Bowling Club at Rutherford. All parents/carers and childrenare invited. Students are expected to wear their full schooluniform, unless they are performing on the night (they wear theircostumes). This event is on Thursday 14 December, with thedoors opening at 6pm.

RECORDER AND CHOIR TO SETTLERS

Our recorder and choir groups will be visiting Settlers RidgeRetirement Village next Wednesday 6th December. Pleasereturn permission notes as soon as possible.

The children will be walking accompanied by Mrs Tuyl and MrsJohanson.

YEAR 6 FAREWELL DINNER

Our Year 6 students and their parents will be celebrating theirGraduation with a Farewell Dinner at Maitland Park BowlingClub on Thursday 7th December 2017, 6pm – 8pm. Pleaseensure that you have ordered your meal, spare notes areavailable at the school office if required.

SCRIPTURE CHRISTMAS CONCERT

Each year our Scripture (SRE) Teachers celebrate the end ofyear with a Christmas Performance. All students who havebeen attending Scripture are invited to attend and enjoy. This ison Thursday 7th December.

WRITTEN REPORTS

End of year written reports are planned to go home to familieson Friday 8th December. Teachers have been busy preparingthese reports over the last few weeks and are keen to becontacted if there is anything that you would like moreinformation about. Please contact your child's classroomteacher and make an appointment.

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CLASS PARTIES

All classes will be having their parties on Thursday 14thDecember. Each class will send home a separate note abouthow they will be organising this. Some classes get togetherwith other classes, some like to party alone. Some classes willorder in food and ask for money, others may ask for food to bebrought in to share. Please look for this note.

CHRISTMAS CARD DELIVERIES

BOOK CLUB

Orders close Wednesday 29 November 2017

Don’t forget to download the App or go online to order!

Our School is using Scholastic's LOOP System for all BookClub orders.

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