Dear Parents, 

The other members of the Auburn North staff and I hope you enjoyed a very happy two weeks with your children. To those families who celebrated Easter, we hope it proved to be a very special time of celebrations for you, your extended families, and your friends. 

Our new term has begun exceptionally well. Effective teaching and learning resumed as soon as students returned to school last week and as I visited classrooms last week and this week I have seen and heard: 

• Happy sounds and happy teachers and students. 

• Trusting, friendly, and respectful relationships and respectful communication. 

• Attractive and stimulating learning environments. 

• High-quality, explicit, and engaging teaching. 

• Teachers using their delightful personalities, abilities, and skills to motivate and inspire students. 

• Engaged students who love learning and who are always wanting to do their very best. 

• Successful, proud learners. 

This term is going to be so exciting and so successful for all members of the Auburn North FAMILY. 

WHAT TYPES OF ADULTS DO WE WANT OUR STUDENTS TO BECOME? 

Of course, you and our school’s staff want our students to develop outstanding literacy and numeracy knowledge and skills, outstanding technology skills, and outstanding 21st century skills such as critical and creative thinking, collaboration, and communication skills. However, the other members of the Auburn North staff and I don’t believe this knowledge and these skills alone will assist our students grow up to become successful, well-rounded, happy adults. 

We believe our students also need to be well-behaved, well-mannered, and polite young people who live and breathe our school values of respect, kindness, honesty, friendship, fairness, and responsibility. WE hope you agree with our view. 

In my 45 years of being a teacher and principal in dozens of schools, I can say our Auburn North students over the past 26 years, including this year, have been the best-behaved, most well-mannered, polite, respectful, kind, honest, friendly, fair, and responsible students I have ever had the great pleasure of knowing.  

You must be so proud of your children who are going to grow up to be outstanding Australian citizens who will contribute to the development of an even better Australia for all its citizens. 

I hope you are also very proud of yourselves. We know that the quality of a child and an adult are the direct result of the way they have been raised by their parents. 

CONGRATULATIONS Auburn North PARENTS.   

OUR 2025 MOTHER'S DAY STALL 

Our 2025 Mother’s Day stall was a huge success. All the gifts were sold and all students who brought money to school were able to purchase a gift. 

I would like to thank the people who worked so hard to make the stall so successful.  

The people were: 

• Ms Nes Apaydin 

• Ms Lara Clingan 

• Ms Vanessa Smith

• Mrs Dilek Acar 
• Mrs Hanadi Fayad
• Mrs Amal Mohamad

‘K-6 CROSS COUNTRY CARNIVAL and FAMILY PICNIC DAY PROGRAM’  

This week’s ’K-6 Cross Country Carnival and Family Picnic Day Program’ was a fabulous success. Please find below a report about the day that was written by Ms Ng and Mrs Luk, who did an outstanding job coordinating this memorable 2025 program, and some photos from the day.

A video of the program will be available on our website by the end of this month.  

ANPS Cross Country Carnival 2025

The annual Auburn North Public School Cross Country Carnival was held on the school oval on Monday, 5^th of May. The whole school took part in what was another very successful carnival!

The weather on the day was beautiful and the course was a treat for runners as it winded around the picturesque oval with students from K-2 enjoying tabloid activities along their run.

Participation was outstanding, with all 648 students running the course, showcasing their perseverance and Auburn North spirit. There was a very positive and joyful atmosphere, with students spread out on tarps cheering their housemates on.

The winning houses for the carnival were Boronia for K-2 and Waratah for 3-6. They demonstrated exceptional cheering and delivered fantastic running results.

The top six students from each age group in 3-6 represented Auburn North at the Zone Cross Country carnival today.

Thank you to the House Captains who helped organise the chants, posters and running course and to the amazing staff for all pitching in and contributing.

A very special thank you to all teachers and  all parents and family members in attendance for encouraging and helping teachers promote physical activity and wellbeing at Auburn North.

5W enjoyed a wonderful start to the year. During term one, we celebrated many special events, including Harmony Day, Three Way Conferences, Meet the Teacher, and Colourful Clothes Day. This term, we are looking forward to running in the cross country, our debating program, and finding out if any Auburn North students were winners or shortlisted in the What Matters writing competition.

Literacy

In spelling, we learnt to apply morphology and etymology  to our understanding of words and how to spell them. In reading, we read and discussed a new high-quality picture book every week. Students particularly enjoyed reading 'The Stone Lion', 'Shumann the Shoeman', and 'Tornado'. In writing, we worked on narratives and expositions, building on skills that we have learned throughout our time at Auburn North. This term, we will be enjoying quality, differentiated reading and writing lessons in classrooms.

We recently began our work on the 'What Matters' writing competition. This is a competition where students have the opportunity to write in whatever text type or form they like, and choose a topic that matters to them. Many of our students are planning on submitting their writing to the competition, which is run by the University of Western Sydney. This could be our year to have an Auburn North winner!

Numeracy

In numeracy, we have focused on a number of important skills. We have learned to use the multiplication algorithm to multiply three-digit numbers by a one digit multiplier. We have also been playing multiplication games in the classroom to improve our automatic number facts. Additionally, we have been having mindful maths time to practice our multiplication skills at our own individual pace. Students have also learned about fractions. We have learned to place fractions on a number line, and to identify which fractions are smaller or larger. We had a lot of fun learning about 3D objects, and created 3D objects based on their nets.

KLAs

On top of all that amazing literacy and numeracy work, we have also been enjoying our key learning areas! In history, we have been investigating the history of settlement in Australia. We have learnt about convicts and their daily lives, as well as the impact of settlement on the land and First Nations people. One of 5W's favourite subjects last term was science. 5W enjoyed learning about natural disasters and why they occur. We learned how a cyclone is created, and all about tectonic plates and how they influence earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes.

5W is looking forward to Term Two and all the wonderful learning that will take place.

2M Class Report 

 2M has had a fabulous time learning and has had many memorable moments so far this year. One of our favourite days in Term 1, was the Harmony Day celebrations, because the students could wear an outfit representing their culture.

 Literacy

In Term 1, literacy involved students writing information reports about jungle animals and countries from around the world. In Term 2, we will continue to visit different countries using our passports to travel, and researching information about their delicious cuisines and famous landmarks. We have learnt how to research and structure an information report using headings, sub-headings and topic sentences. Each week, students publish their work using their best handwriting hoping to be one of the students selected to display their work on the ‘Wow Wall’.

Students continue to develop their phonics knowledge through engaging phonics lessons which are helping them to thrive when reading. Students have also really enjoyed engaging in shared reading lessons each week where they read a high-quality text and answer comprehension questions together as a class. 2M enjoys playing ‘Grammar Rules’ to build our grammatical knowledge.

Maths

Maths is always fun, whether learning in the 2M classroom or in maths groups. We have been learning skills to help us with addition and subtraction such as bonds of 10, doubles, near doubles, equivalent number sentences and counting on and back. All of these skills are helping to create a toolbox of strategies that students can use. The 2M students would love to show you how to use these strategies, so please ask them!

In Term 2, 2M will add to their toolbox by learning how to use the jump strategy for addition and subtraction. Maths groups are always an exciting day as the 2M students love the challenges that teachers create for them. 2M are very excited for the rest of Year 2 and to continue learning new strategies in maths.

Other Key Learning Areas

In science, 2M students have been discovering the features of living things, their environment and how they change and reproduce. They have been challenged with designing and creating a greenhouse that will grow a plant.

In History, we have been learning about local history by exploring, recognising and appreciating the history of Auburn North Public School as well as how schools in the past operated compared to how school is now.

Students have enjoyed developing their visual art skills by creating a variety of artworks related to our writing focus in literacy.

I have really enjoyed the excellent results our students have produced with their hard work and determination so far this year. I am excited to continue this learning with many more engaging learning experiences to come.

Mrs McBriarty