Principal: Jenny Lewis
Cowra-Carcoar Road, Cowra NSW 2794 63422172 0458 422 000 @ holmwood-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au www.holmwood-p.schools.nsw.edu.au Term 4 Week 4 – Week Ending 4th November 2016
Students of the Week!
Principal’s Update
Congratulations to our Week 3 Students of the Week!
Dear Parents and Caregivers, I am pleased to announce that Mrs Kris Pagett has been appointed as Principal of Holmwood Public School following an incentive transfer, and will commence duties in Term 1 2017. Mrs Pagett is a highly experienced small school Principal and is currently working at Gravesend Public School. As I will be taking up my new position at Cowra Public School in Week 6 of Term 4 (14th November), Mrs Kim Smith will be Relieving Principal from Week 6 to Week 10 of Term 4. I met with Mrs Smith this morning to discuss first and foremost the Kindergarten class. Mrs Smith is a highly experienced Kindergarten teacher and will continue to run the teaching program that has already been established in the Kinder class until the end of the year. Mrs Smith also had the opportunity to meet staff and students and had a tour of the school. She will meet with the P&C Executive tomorrow briefly before our STEM “Chicken Run” Grand opening. Both Kris and Kim are delighted to take on the opportunity to work in our wonderful school and are very excited about meeting the students, staff and families. As this will be my last HPS Newsletter I would like to take this opportunity to say an enormous and heartfelt thank you to the students, staff and families for making my time at HPS such an exciting and rewarding experience. I have loved driving through the front gates every day and feel privileged to have taught in such a wonderful school. No doubt I will see you around and about in Cowra and look forward to catching up with the HPS kids at the CPS bus stop each morning! I wish you all a happy and successful end to 2016 – thank you again, for everything!! Kind Regards, Jenny Lewis Principal
Anabelle Newell (Kinder), Micah Murphy (Stage 1),
Brittney Worth (Stage 2) and Christian Petty (Stage 3)
Merit Awards were presented to; Kindergarten – Ruby Light Stage 1 – Makayla Toohey Stage 2 – Charli Light Stage 3 – William Skinner Library – Addison Skinner, Layla Hood, Annaliese Cameron
Congratulations to all students! Citizenship Award Week 3 – Leetisha Nestor Leetisha was chosen as the Week 3 Citizenship Award winner by Mrs Lewis. Leetisha is in Year 4 and was awarded the Citizenship Award for assisting several of the new Kinder transition students in the playground and making them feel welcome in their new school! Congratulations Leetisha!
Whole School Excursion: Borambola
6 Sleeps to go!! Our Whole School Excursion is ALMOST HERE!! NEXT WEEK - 9th, 10th and 11th of November!! Just a reminder that ALL students will need to be packed and ready to go from 7:15am on WEDNESDAY MORNING with departure time 7:30am SHARP. Please refer to the notes handed out with last week’s Newsletter on what to pack, etc.
will occur at around 12:45pm, with a lunch to follow for all invited guests. In keeping with the theme of “Chicken Run”, guests will be cooked a delicious chicken burger by our Canteen Manager Sam (thanks, Sam!). Students must have PRE-ORDERED a chicken burger from the canteen menu – these were due on Wednesday. Please note this will be the only item available on Friday for lunch, recess will be as normal.
WE ARE ALL SO EXCITED!! NOTE – If you are able to pack your child’s clothing in a soft sided bag, it would be appreciated as it is much easier to pack under the bus. If you don’t have a soft sided bag, that’s fine we can fit hard cases in another vehicle. If you have any questions please contact our Excursion Coordinator; Mrs Fiona Skene at school.
Bandana Day The HPS Student Council organised a fabulous Canteen/MUFTI day last week to support National Bandana Day - CanTeen's largest fundraiser assisting kids with cancer. Thank you to all students, staff and families who donated baked goods and supported this worthy cause by purchasing cool bandanas and buying lots of yummy treats for morning tea! We raised in excess of $90.00 which is a tremendous effort from our small school!
School Swimming Scheme – Weeks 6 & 7 In weeks 6 and 7 of this Term our school will be participating in the Annual School Swimming Scheme. This Scheme is targeted at those students who are developing water confidence, beginning swimming skills and who are not yet able to swim 50m unaided. As a small school, however we are fortunate to be able to offer swimming to all students, with the more capable students working through their Lifesaving levels. Thanks to a VERY GENEROUS donation from the P&C, there will be NO BUS COSTS for students again this year. The P&C will cover all Bus fees for ALL Students! This means that for students with Season Tickets, there will be NO COST this year for swimming. For all other students, the cost is now $20 ($2 pool entry per day for 10 days). We thank the P&C again for their kind donation towards our Swimming School. Please sign the permission note (previously sent home) and return to school with payment by Tuesday 8th November.
Cowra High School Transition Visits
This term’s Student Council pictured with the delicious morning tea spread!
HPS Chicken Coop GRAND Opening!! TOMORROW we will be holding the GRAND OPENING of our HPS Chicken Coop! Invitations have been sent out to Department of Education personnel, P&C Executive members, parent helpers and industry professionals who have assisted Stage 3 and Ms Edgerton with the project. Our invited guests will arrive at 12:30pm and be shown a multimedia presentation by Stage 3 students. Following this, the official ribbon cutting and opening
Cowra High School Year 6 to Year 7 Transition visits will be held on Thursdays from 2:15pm-3:15pm this term during Weeks 5, 7 and 9. A full transition day will be held on the 18th November and a Year 6 and Year 7 social will also be held on the 1st December. A parent information evening for all parents of Year 6 students heading up to CHS next year will be held in the school Library on the 21st November from 6-7pm. A note advising parents of these dates has been sent home for those students involved.
STEM 3D Printing and Coding Workshops Some of our Stage 3 kids had an AMAZING time on Tuesday and Wednesday at the 3D Printing and Coding Workshops held at Cowra PS. Thank you to Phoebe Cowdery and the Corridor Project for organising such a fantastic opportunity for Cowra kids! All the teachers also enjoyed brushing up on their
Technology skills at the Teacher’s Session on Tuesday afternoon!
out more. The online application form is available on this web page. The Selective High School Placement Test will be held on 9th March 2017
Calendar Term 4 Week 5 Tues 8th Nov
Wed 9th Nov
Akiko, Lara, Lilly, Harry and Lily pictured with some of the amazing 3D printed objects!
Thurs 10th Nov Fri 11th Nov
KINDER Transition Class-9:30-12:00pm. Healthy Ears Presentation for K-2 plus Kinder Transition – 9:30-10:15am School Swimming Scheme payment due SCHOOL EXCURSION – BORAMBOLA SPORT AND RECREATION CENTRE SCHOOL EXCURSION – BORAMBOLA SPORT AND RECREATION CENTRE SCHOOL EXCURSION – BORAMBOLA SPORT AND RECREATION CENTRE
Term 4 Week 6 Mon 14th Nov
Tues 15th Nov
Wed 16th Nov Thurs 17th Nov Fri 18th Nov
Briana, Katelyn and Annaliese enjoyed the Coding Session!
SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm Mrs Smith – WHS Meeting (Mrs Kiely – Kinder) SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm KINDER Transition Class - 9:3012:00pm. SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm Cowra High School All Day Transition – Year 6 to 7 – 9am -3pm SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm
Term 4 Week 7 st
Mon 21 Nov
Tues 22nd Nov
rd
Wed 23 Nov th
Thurs 24 Nov th
Fri 25 Nov
Will and Hamish concentrating hard on their Coding skills at Wednesday’s workshop!
Selective High Schools Applications for students entering Year 7 in 2018 Applications for Year 7 placement in 2018 opened on 11th October 2016 and will close on 14th November 2016. Parents need to download the application information at https://schoolsequella.det.nsw.edu.au/file/eafa8804 -3a28-4730-9fc0-0ee49dd90f83/1/SHS-applicationinformation.pdf and go to the links on the right to find
SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm Cowra High Transition 6/7 Parent Meeting – 6-7pm – CHS Library SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm KINDER Transition Class - 9:3012:00pm. SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm Cowra high Transition Visit 2-3pm SCHOOL SWIMMING – 1:45-2:45pm Scripture
Kind Regards, Jenny Lewis Principal
Kinder Class News Pyramids, camels, papyrus and mummies!! Can you guess where Kinder and Stage 1 went last Thursday on their "Around the World" journey?? That's right...EGYPT!! Our cooking activity was making an Egyptian breakfast dish called "Shakshouka"!! Onion, tomatoes and eggs served on rice crackers - the verdict? DELICIOUS!!! We also investigated the ancient pyramids, “oohed” and “aahhed” in fascination about the
process of mummification and had a go at making our own Pharaoh’s Sarcophagus! Today’s destination was ITALY!! Pizzas, Gondolas and the Leaning Tower of Pisa!! We are having an amazing time on our trip around the world!
Stage 1 Class News This week in the Stage 1 classroom we have continued working on a range of spelling tasks. This week we have created Acrostic poems using a list word, dictionary meanings and found rhyming words, all strategies to practice and perfect our spelling. The students continued their work on expositions. Stage1 are developing an understanding on the purpose and structure of this particular text type. They are becoming very persuasive in their writing. Our Grammar focus for week 4 was sentence writing. As a whole class, we determined a sentence must start with a capital letter, include a full stop (or other punctuation mark), a subject, a verb and it must makes sense. We can often hear when a sentence does not make sense and a word does not fit.
Lilly about to CRACK an egg into our delicious Shakshouka dish last week! Maths this week in Kinder was a bit of a mixed bag – we focused on three different topics Mass, Area and Whole Numbers! A big welcome back to Rachel Newell who came in to assist with Reading Groups on Wednesday morning – we missed you Rachel!!
Mathematics in week 4 was a mixed up bag. On Monday, we looked at Multiplication and the different strategies that can be employed to solve multiplication problems. Stage 1 also looked at some tricks with 10 times tables and 11 times tables. On Tuesday, Stage 1 combined with Kindergarten and Mrs Kiely and worked on area using informal measurement (squares). Wednesday, we focused on division and sharing. Again, we examined varying strategies which can be used. On Wednesday afternoon, Kindergarten came for a visit and together the children worked on a new STEM project. The problem to be solved was ‘How can we safely get a lot of eggs from the chicken coop to the kitchen?” The students designed and created a range of ‘carriers’. The students critiqued each teams design to enable us to select the most effective. Today we took a quick trip to Italy. Whilst there we took a Gondola ride in Venice, did a lot of sightseeing and enjoyed some pizza. We had a fabulous trip. Excursion next week so there will homework!! Fino a tocca settimana.
be no
Until next week… Mrs Amylee Knight Stage 1 Class Teacher Pictured above is Chelsea, Ruby and Anabelle with Ruby’s bunny “Fatso”! Fatso came to visit us at school on Wednesday as part of Ruby’s news! (Thanks to Ruby’s mum Nadine for bringing him in – he was very popular!!) Kind Regards, Mrs Jenny Lewis Kindergarten Class Teacher
Stage 2 Class News I keep asking myself – where has Term 4 gone?! It certainly is flying by very quickly with a hive of activity in and out of the classroom. Thank you to Ms Edgerton and Mrs Kiely for taking my class,
ensuring my program is running along smoothly, whilst I have been attending some very important professional development. We are all absolutely loving reading our class novel “The One and Only Ivan”, we are learning so much about Silverback Gorillas and I have a feeling that at the end of this wonderful book everyone is going to have a different perspective on gorillas and have a bit of a ‘soft spot’ for them! We love the similes and new vocabulary we are coming across and learning whilst reading and are enjoying completing our picture vocabulary charts. We still have lots of activities to get through! This week in Maths we have been focusing on measurement and measuring area and perimeter – which are always a fun hands-on concept to learn. Learning about square cm, square metres, square km and hectares has been a focus. Last week division was our focus which everyone really enjoyed and had mastered the concept by the end.
We were very thrilled yesterday when Charli’s pets, ‘Fatso’ the rabbit and ‘Yogi’ the guinea pig came to visit our class for the day! They are soooo cute and adorable! Thanks Charli (and Nadine!) for allowing this to happen and sharing your gorgeous pets with us.. Excursion week next week – can’t wait!! And I know the students are very, very excited also!
Mrs Fiona Skene Stage 2 Class Teacher Stage 3 Class News
Last Friday I gave the students a STEM challenge – Can you save Fred? In pairs they were given a gummy worm, 4 paper clips, a lifesaver and a plastic cup. I then read a story about why Fred needed saving and how he had ended up in this predicament. They were given the challenge - Without touching Fred, the cup, or the life preserver, can you and your partner save FRED using only the four paper clips provided? What would you do? It was wonderful to see the problem solving, co-operation and communication taking place during this activity. Jake and Jaydan were very pleased with themselves when they were the first to finish!
What an amazing opportunity ten students in Stage 3 had this week, along with 70 other students from Cowra to attend a 3D Printing Workshop and a Scratch Coding Workshop at Cowra Public School. The presenters were from Sydney base companies called Modfab for 3D Printing and Coderangers for the Coding, The experience enabled students to have a taste of the new technology that is available that endorses STEM based career opportunities. It was hosted by the Cowra-Cabonne Science Hub at Cowra Public School. We would to thank Phoebe Cowdery for organising Holmwood PS students to be invited to this event. The students that attended were thrilled to have the opportunity and are now very excited to share with their peers some of the skills they have learnt. The students will have the opportunity to peer-teach their classmates in using “Scratch Coding during the latter half of this term after the school excursion. Over the last week the Stage 2 class have joined with the Stage 3 students to complete English and Maths Sessions over three days. During this time both classes engaged in collaborative and critical thinking skills in STEM challenges. Groups were evenly formed and the challenges were set. The first challenge was
to build a bridge and the second challenge this week was to use the same materials to construct a freestanding tower. This proved to be quite a challenge, and so over the next week we will be joining together to problem solve, refine our skills and construct towers that don’t fall down. I am looking forward to watching the problem-solving skills evolve. We are all getting excited for our grand opening of the ‘Chicken Run’ STEM project this Friday. Students Photo Story’s will be presented and reflective writing pieces will be read. I am so proud of each and every student’s efforts throughout the entire STEM project. All the extra learning that has been incorporated in the classroom has made the project such a worthwhile event. WELL DONE TO ALL STUDENTS FROM K-6 on your fantastic effort in STEM for the whole year! Enjoy the weekend! Ms Heidi Edgerton Stage 3 Teacher
News from Mrs Kiely Last Thursday the Student Council held a brilliant Bandana Day! They once again appreciated the generous and supportive response of HPS families which resulted in it being such a successful event. The school children and staff looked vibrant in the Mufti Colours and the colourful Bandanas and we all enjoyed feasting on the delicious Canteen foods. The funds raised go to the “CANTEENTeenagers with Cancer “Foundation to assist with those in need. HPS has been very fortunate to have the expertise of a Professional Basketball Coach, Mr Grant Cole, from “Rock the Rim” Bathurst, come to our school. “Coach” has been coming to school each Thursday from weeks 1-4 to teach all K-6 students new and advanced Basketball skills. He is also running a Basketball Clinic/Comp each Tuesday at West Cowra PCYC. These valuable ball/coordination/movement skills are transferable to all sports and promote fitness for life! So this week concludes our Clinic and we are very grateful for this wonderful Program and hope that Coach can return next year to teach us some more skilful tactics. Thank you for your continued support. Mrs Deirdre Kiely RFF/Library Teacher
P&C NEWS Thank you to those parents who turned up for Monday night’s meeting. The P&C brainstormed ideas relating to a number of questions about our school including; 1. What makes Holmwood Public School special? 2. What programs do we want to maintain? 3. How can we make HPS even better? These will form the basis of a presentation the P&C will be putting together to welcome our new school Principal Mrs Kris Pagett in 2017. CANTEEN HELPER VACANCY Samantha Boatwood has been running our Canteen for the past few years and is ready for a well-deserved break! If any mum, dad, grandpa or nan would like to volunteer to run our School Canteen, we would be very grateful! Currently Canteen operates every Wednesday and Friday, but this is negotiable. If you would like more information or wish to put your hand up to help, please contact the school on 63422172. There will be no Canteen in Week 5 due to the Excursion. Samantha will be advising us of her last day shortly and we will ensure parents are aware of this via the school Newsletter. On behalf of the students, staff and families I would like to thank Samantha for the amazing effort she has put in, week in, week out in keeping the Canteen going for our kids!! THANK YOU SAM!! Michelle Whitty P&C Secretary