Wednesday, 6 March 2019 What’s Cookin’? · We wish our Year 5 students a fun filled 3 days of exciting activities and team building experiences at ooba next week. We warmly invite

We value… Respect Responsibility Safety Resilience and Active Learning

BOMBALA PUBLIC SCHOOL

8 Bright St, BOMBALA NSW 2632

T 02 6458 3423 F 02 6458 3376 E [email protected]

Newsletter 6 Wednesday, 6 March 2019

What’s Cookin’?

Yesterday classes across the school enjoyed making yummy pancakes and exploring the traditions behind

Pancake Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday. Making pancakes turned into exciting literacy and maths sessions for all

involved.


From Jo’s Desk...

Dear Parents and Community Members

It is amazing to see how quickly the term is passing by. Our students have already engaged in many exciting learning opportunities both inside and outside the classroom. Please check the updates calendar, our Facebook Page or on School Stream for upcoming events.

Term One is not only busy, it also seems to be the time when we have many school related expenses – camps, photos, excursions, and sporting events. All schools can request voluntary contributions to enhance their educational and sporting programs. Bombala Public School is rather unique in that we do not ask for voluntary contributions. Rather we subsidise performance costs, activity costs and excursions to ensure no student or family suffers any discrimination and ensure that financial assistance is always available. However, we do seek your support this year in purchasing Maths and Handwriting textbooks as these are being used to consolidate explicit classroom teaching. We understand that this is an additional expense and therefore we have subsidised the textbooks to ensure they are affordable for families. Once again, if you are experiencing financial difficulties please contact the office.

Last night the P&C held their 2019 AGM. I would like to congratulate the incoming Executive and wish them a successful year in all aspects of operation and in their continued support of the school and our community. I would like to pay a special thank you to the 2018 Executive – Calli Kidman (President), Leesa Elton (Vice President), Di Green (Treasurer) and Paula Morgan (Secretary) for their hard work, tireless efforts and commitment. Your efforts and support have been greatly appreciated by all. As mentioned in last week’s newsletter a great school depends on the relationships and partnerships that exist between school and home. One of these is the partnership between the school and the P&C. We warmly welcome both new and returning parents and community members to come along to the P&C Meetings, held on the first Tuesday of every month during the school term and take an active role in supporting your children’s learning journey at Bombala Public School. Many hands certainly do make light work for all involved. Please watch for regular updates in the Newsletter, on the School Website and Facebook Page and on School Stream. We wish our Year 5 students a fun filled 3 days of exciting activities and team building experiences at Cooba next week. We warmly invite all families and community members to the whole school assembly this Friday at 12.30 in the High School Canteen. The Year 3 class will be performing. Come and join us to celebrate the achievement of our students.

Until next week

Regards

Jo

Events at a glance -

Fri 8th Mar Assembly 12.30pm

(HS Canteen)

School Swimming Yr 3 -6

Mon 11th Mar - Yr 5 Cooba Excursion

Wed 13th Mar

Wed 13th Mar Regional Swimming

Mon 18th Mar BDPSSA X Country -

Delegate


SRC Easter egg raffle

SRC members are asking for donations of Easter Eggs for a raffle. Each student who donates Ester Eggs will receive 5 FREE raffle tickets.

Head Lice

Please keep checking your children for these pesky critters. There have been more cases reported today. If your child has lice then they are to remain at home until they have been treated. Please check their hair each day after treatment to ensure that any eggs have been removed. Washing hats and bedding can also reduce the chance of reinfection. Treatments can be obtained from the local pharmacy if needed.

Moving into Year 7 in 2020

Last week students in Year 6 received a booklet about Moving into Year 7 in a NSW Government School in 2020. This is the start of your child’s transition from year 6 to year 7. The Expression of Interest Form, locat-ed within this booklet should be returned to Bombala Public School on or before 19th March 2019.

Cooba Excursion

Year 5 will be travelling to the Berridale Sport and Outdoor Centre next Monday 11th March, for the annual Cooba camp. Departure will be at 8.45am Monday morning returning Wednesday at approximately 2.45pm. Payment and note should be returned as soon as possible to school but no later than Friday 8th March.


Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) ...

Clean up Australia Day

On Friday 1st March Bombala PS students got into the spirit of looking after and respecting the local

environment by joining in the Clean Up Australia Day program. Students K-6 cleaned around their school

and wider environs. Thank you to everyone who supported this responsible activity by providing gloves

and bags for the litter collection.

Sand Ticket Winners - acknowledging

students who have demonstrated one

or more of the PBL values.




Classroom Happenings

This week:

Kindergarten

In literacy Kindergarten have had a busy time learning how to work in small rotating groups. Our groups are designed to

build and practice knowledge of sounds as well as reading and writing letters and words.

In maths we practice daily counting forwards and backwards and are beginning to learn about adding numbers and

counting on from numbers other than 1. We have learned about patterns. We made two- and three-patterns using lots

of different items, and drew our own patterns. This is an important concept for building knowledge of the patterns in

numbers. We are learning to write our numbers and gathered information about our class’ favourite colours to make a

graph and answer questions.


Spotlight on Spelling.

Here at Bombala Public school, we strive to teach our students the strategies they need to become successful,

lifelong spellers.

Using a combined approach of;

- phonemic (sounds in words)

- morphemic (parts of words)

- whole-word strategies (visual)

Students will begin to understand the relationship between sounds, the automatic recognition and appearance

of words, word parts and spelling patterns. Students are taught in small steps, using sufficient practice, so that

they comprehend how spelling works and can become proficient writers.

At the beginning of the term, to cater for the VISUAL aspect of our spelling programs, we introduced the Oxford

Wordlist as Sight Words. The Oxford Wordlist identifies the top 500 high-frequency words that children use

today. Although we understand that students retain information at different speeds and levels, we have set sight

word targets to be achieved by the end of each year level and understand that some students will show growth

at different speeds. This allows for a starting point when assessing our students. The 500 words have been

separated into sets of 10 words per list. This makes it easier for assessment and student tracking of mastered

sets.

In conjunction with reading the Oxford Wordlist, students will also focus on the correct spelling of these words

independently. This process will consolidate students’ learning of the sight words and allow for lifelong

recognition of familiar words. This process falls in line with the Department of Education requirements and

aligns with the Australian Curriculum.

Teachers will send home a new list once students have successfully read and written the word sets. This deems

the student is able to demonstrate automaticity when reading and writing the words. It is important students

are reproducing the words automatically as it allows the brain to concentrate on higher-level strategies when

reading and writing.

We encourage parents to listen to your child/ren read and write their sight words each night. An example of a

sight word list can be seen below.


Please note, the lists many look different in appearance for each class (especially in the higher grades), but the

collection point of the words is from the same Oxford 500 word list. We understand that each student is

different in ability and aim to produce individual spelling lists of personalised words that the child can aim to

master.

To incorporate our whole school approach to increase the skills of our students in the area of visual sight

recognition and writing skills, we have set the following targets for our students. We pride ourselves on

offering a differentiated learning curriculum that suits the individual learning needs of our students. We

understand that children learn at different speeds meaning that, classroom teachers will adapt the class

spelling programs to suit the academic capabilities of their individual students no matter what stage/year/

class they are in.

Once students have mastered the Oxford 500 word list, they will continue to be exposed to a wide range of

wordlists that will be sourced from multiple areas, including language concepts, common spelling rules/

patterns, word history/origins (Etymology), classroom themes, topic words from thematic units including

science and history and stage appropriate environment print.

We are committed to providing the students of Bombala Public School with an individualised learning

curriculum that will assist them on their educational journey to become successful lifelong learners.

Bombala Public School

Oxford Wordlist Targets

Kindergarten Set 1-7

Year 1 Set 7 – 20

Year 2 Set 21 – 35

Year 3 Set 35 – 50

Year 4 Revision


Community Notice Board

Documents

Wednesday, 6 March 2019 What’s Cookin’? · We wish our Year 5 students a fun filled 3 days of exciting activities and team building experiences at ooba next week. We warmly invite