Dubbo South Public School Respect, Care, Cooperation & Responsibility

From Sharon’s Desk Congratulations to our swimmers who participated at the Dubbo District Carnival held last Thursday evening. Records were broken again by Addison Rufus, Matilda Medlin and our girls relay team. Addison was also awarded senior girls champion and Jacob Lynch was awarded junior boys champion. Well done to our team now heading off to the Western

Swimming Carnival on Friday 13th March. Mind the Learning Gap: Regular attendance at school means more opportunities to develop learning and positive relationships with teachers and friends. Students who attend school regularly have greater opportunities to develop social and emotional skills as well as form positive relationships. Absences from school disrupt a students learning and friendships, wellbeing and belonging which can begin a downward cycle towards compounding disengagement. Gaps in knowledge and skills can be difficult to catch up. Students learning outcomes cannot be successfully achieved or shifted if they don’t attend school. Students need to be at school every day unless sick. Haircuts, birthdays etc are not excuses for not attending. Holidays are also not acceptable leave. Any planned holidays must be applied for before you take children out of school. School students do have access to 11 weeks of school holidays every year. Lets work together on this for improvements for all of our students. Novel Coronavirus CCOVID-19. The updated advice from the NSW government for parents and staff is “Any student or staff member who has been in, or transferred through mainland China or Iran is excluded from work, school or child care for 14 days from the date they left China or Iran. Any confirmed case of COVID-19 will be excluded until they are medically cleared to return.” Consistent with our current guidelines, staff and students unwell with respiratory illness should remain at home until symptoms resolve. It is important that although there is nothing been reported from our school, it is important to practise good hygiene to reduce any risks of acquiring and spreading any respiratory infections. Please remind your children to wash hands at all times at home, after going to the toilet and during the school day. I appreciate your support with this. It is always good to be aware, especially going into the cold and flu season.

School Religious Education (SRE) At Dubbo South, SRE is delivered across the week at different times—each class receives a block of 30 minutes for SRE across Kindergarten to Year 6. As part of the enrolment process, parents and carers are given a SRE participation letter to complete and return. After the initial enrolment form, notification of changes to a child’s SRE enrolment should be provided in writing. During the time that SRE classes are being held, students not attending will be located in a separate area and will participate in meaningful activities based around values education. The booklets are provided by the Ministers Fraternity of Dubbo and are non-denominational. SRE lessons are carried out by representatives from the following religions: Catholic, Uniting, Presbyterian, Seventh Day Adventist. For further information please refer to our school website or DOE website under Religion Ethics. Parent Conferences will be held from Monday 16th March in students classrooms. Please get online and book your times. If you need an alternative time to those that are offered please contact your child’s teacher to organise another time during the week. It is a great time to learn how your child has settled in and for you to raise any concerns or ask questions about their learning etc. The link for parents conference booking is www.schoolinterviews.com.au and the code is a2q3d. Our monthly P&C meeting is to be held tomorrow night at 6pm in the Shed. It was advertised as an AGM however, due to new auditors needing to be appointed the AGM will be held at another time. This will be advertised in an upcoming newsletter. I hope to see lots of new faces tomorrow night. The School PEAT (Parent Education Action Team) will be meeting this Wednesday at the Pear Tree Cafe and will be looking at ways to engage community within the school. Come along and meet other parents and get involved. A great way to interact with parents and staff. See you there! Sharon Murray Principal.

Email: dubbosouth-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au Website: www.dubbosouth-p.schools.nsw.edu.au

Term 1 Week 6 3rd March 2020

Our Book Fair is starting this week.

How does a Book Fair work? Scholastic deliver large cases of books to the school. Each case opens out to display books, novelty items and posters. All items are for sale at the fair. Purchases may be made using cash or card. Payments can be made online – you need to record the receipt number and bring it in for our records. If an item is super popular it may be able to be re ordered. The school can choose resources from the fair as commission. The fair will run from Tuesday 4th through to Thursday 12th March 2020. Opening times are subject to change. Mrs Little and Mrs Buttrey have classes and meetings to work around. Children can view and purchase books at lunch. Scheduled opening times, last purchases will be at 9.10 to allow time to set up up for classes. Please contact us if you have a question. Thank you for your support. Sue Buttrey Teacher Librarian

ICaN Both Stage 2 and 3 ICaN groups had a productive Week 5, going on their first excursion for 2020. The stage 2 boys spent last Wednesday at the nursery learning about native plants and their traditional uses, got their hands dirty potting up some eucalypts and finished the afternoon by making emu callers. Stage 3 boys spent Thursday at the nursery continuing their project work from 2019. The boys had their work cut out for them laying bricks and concreting, as well as preparing their area for planting. Both our groups are now working towards their next excursions which are in Week 7.

Backflip Against Bullying This Bullying Prevention Acrobatic Show will be subsidised by our wonderful P&C to ensure all students Kinder to Year 6 attend. For a cost of $2 for each student (normally $6.50) children will be engaged in awe inspiring tricks and flips that depict different forms of bullying and conversations to assist in prevention. The aim is to empower victims and bystanders to take action against bullying and victimising. Featured items: Empowering the bystander Identifying bullying situations Exit strategies for the victims Deliberate social exclusion The consequence of retaliation whole school

action Please pay your $2 to your class teacher by Friday 20th (also National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence). As this is such a generous subsidy it is expected that all students attend.

When: 24th March Where: School Hall

Cost: $2 to your class teacher by Friday 20th March.

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week 1 Tues 3rd

Wed 4th

Thurs 5th

Fri 6th

before school 8.45-9.10

closed open open open

lunch closed open open open

after school 3.25 – 4.15

open closed open open

week 2 Mon 9th

Tues 10th

Wed 11th

Thurs 12th

before school 8.45-9.10

closed closed open open

lunch open open open open

after school 3.25 – 4.15

closed open open open

Teaching and Learning Tales Mr Luke Davis 5/6D Mr Davis has an adventuring spirit. It is his love of travel and interest in people that put him on a winding road that brought him to Dubbo South Public School. He was born in England and lived in Sydney since he was 9-years-old. When he left high school his interest in human behaviour led him to cross the great dividing ranges and study psychology at the University of New England in Armidale. But towards the end of his psychology course he realised it was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. “I was a swimming coach at the time and I really enjoyed teaching adults and children how to swim,” he said. “I loved interacting with the children. The energy they brought to challenges really put a smile on my face.” Mr Davis headed back to Sydney and studied a Graduate Diploma of Education at the University of Macquarie. As a qualified teacher Mr Davis ventured abroad back to his Mother Country and taught Year 1 at Bookham, near Leatherhead, for 6 months in 2018. Mr Davis returned to Australia and landed at Dubbo West Public School at the end of 2019 and commenced at Dubbo South Public School this year. “I couldn’t be more grateful to be in Dubbo and at this school,” he said. “I really enjoy being part of a community and country people are the best.” Whilst it has been a bit of a winding journey to get here, Mr Davis is ready to learn all he can to help his students learn. “Education is the most important social transformer. Public Education offers everyone the opportunity to access a great education in NSW and I am happy to be part of that system.” During Mr Davis’ Year 6 Mathematics lesson it is clear that he is offering learning to engage and support all. Students start with ‘Number of the Day.’ They are given 8 minutes to work with the 4 digit number 2034. Students work individually to put the number in words, subtract 5, add 20, round to the nearest 10, find the next odd number, complete number patterns, determine it is a prime or composite number, times it by 100 and divide it by 5. Mr Davis moves about the

classroom and quietly helps students as they tackle these numeracy hurdles and responds swiftly to requests for extension questions. Upon sharing and clarifying the correct answers, students are assembled into groups and asked to move between 3 different learning stations to test their application of skills. “At Station 3 students are asked to construct number pyramids with numbers that equal a predetermined total. It is a good way to improve mental arithmetic in a visual format.” “I like to remind all students we are all learning every day, myself included, and that’s a good thing.” Student voices: Katie Parker, 11 years old - “I enjoy the group activities we do to learn. They are more interactive than worksheets.” Cooper Giddings, 11 years old - “I like that Mr Davis is sporty and has taught us long division.” Liam Ireland, 11 years old - “Mr Davis gives us hard equations like multiplication which tests our brains.” Damon Anderson, 12 years old - “Mr Davis has taught me column addition in a way that I can remember it.”

“Addison Rufus, 12 years old - “He makes it easy to understand how to do tricky things.”

Canteen Roster

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Wednesday 4th March Angela Shappard

Thursday 5th March Trinette Louys

Friday 6th March Sangeeta Choudhury

Monday 9th March Volunteer Required

Tuesday 10th March Volunteer Required

Growth Mindset Students at Dubbo South are learning about the word effort and how this relates to a positive growth mindset. There has been lots of discussion around “effort” and how it is beneficial to put a lot of effort into something. Discussion topics include: Applying effort to the things that you believe in Continuing to put in an effort even when things get hard. How do you feel when you have achieved something? Maybe parents could continue this positive talk at home with their children to encourage effort and persistence.

Harmony Day Picnic Lunch At Dubbo South Public School, we have been learning about the importance of Harmony Day and celebrating diversity! You are invited to bring traditional food to share with your child or a simple lunch. All students are welcome to dress in traditional clothing from your culture that is appropriate for school or in an item of orange clothing to display respect towards the Harmony Day ideology. If you have special clothing, your child may wish to bring it in to share with their class instead. Please note that dress up costumes i.e. Princess, superhero, football outfits are not to be worn. Please do not bring food with nuts as we have students with severe allergies.

Date: Friday 20th March, 2020 Time: 12:45pm – 1:35pm Venue: Your child’s playground area Please note the change of date!

Kinder News Information Booklets All Kindergarten students will receive an information booklet published by the NSW Department of Education explaining the importance of promoting and developing children’s early literacy and numeracy skills. This is a fabulous resource with lots of practical ideas that can easily be incorporated into the home setting. We encourage everyone to read this booklet and think about how you could use the ideas to support early learning with your child. Clean Up Australia Day On Friday the 28th of February, all Kindergarten students took part in helping to clean up our playground as part of Clean up Australia Day. The students did a fabulous job sorting out rubbish from recycling and all felt very proud of their efforts after they had finished. Home Reading A big congratulations to all of those students who did their home reading every night last week! Remember to bring your bag and book back to school every day so that it can be changed for you.

Congratulations to the following students on their achievements: Merit: Zachary Finlay, Kavindya Wijesinghe Credit: Malleck Riley, Rosie Medlin, Milana Boh, Skye Cowper Distinction: Pesala Wickramasingha

Boys AFL On Friday 28th February, the Dubbo South Public School AFL team participated in the Paul Kelly Cup, Gala Day at the Riverbank Ovals. 18 boys from across Stage 3 all tried their hand at a game that was fairly new to all. The boys won their first game against MAGS (3.3.21 – 2.1.13). Carter Richards, Cam Healy and Nate Ross all slotted a goal each. Game 2 witnessed DSPS pip Wellington P.S in a tight game. Carter Richards, Kobie Couley and Kobi Auld managed to secure a six pointer each. Orana Heights P.S were successful at beating our team by only 2 points – it was an amazing game to watch, played with great sportsmanship. Cooper Giddings and Andy Powyer snagged one a piece. The last game before the semi–finals boosted moral for DSPS beating St. Johns Swans by 72 points. After lunch, we took on St Mary’s in the Pool A semi-final. The game went down to the wire, unfortunately our boys were unsuccessful at bringing home the win and were knocked out of the competition. Cam Healy was voted a very well deserved ‘Player’s Player’ by his team. Congratulations boys, an amazing effort.

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Attendance Percentages to date Kinder- 94.7% Year 1- 93.3% Year 2- 94.7% Year 3- 94.5% Year 4- 91.5% Year 5- 93.7% Year 6- 92%

Please remember to send in notes of explanation for all school absences to your child's teacher. Absence notes can also be

emailed using the school app (free to download on iPhone and Android devices)

Crazy Hair Day The SRC will be running a crazy hair day in support of one of our students who will be brave and shave. Students can come with their hair in any style they choose. The crazier the better.

Date: Friday 13th March, 2020 Time: Shaving will take place at a short assembly in

the hall 1.45pm Cost: Gold coin donation

All funds raised will be donated to the Cancer Council.