Dear Parents,

On behalf of all members of the Auburn North staff I would like to welcome our students and parents back to Auburn North, including our new students in Year 1 to Year 6 and their families. I would especially like to welcome our 2021 Kindergarten students and their families into our school learning community or, as we like to call it, the Auburn North FAMILY. 

I would like to thank all of you for ensuring your children began their new school year well-rested, immaculately dressed in their school uniforms, and excited about the new school year ahead.

Despite the challenges presented by COVID-19 in 2020, I believe last year was our school’s most successful year in the 22 years I have been the very proud principal of Auburn North. It was our most successful year in terms of our:

• Leadership
• Teaching
• Teacher Professional Development
• Student Learning
• Parent Engagement
• School Cohesiveness and Unity

Our school achieved excellent outcomes in each of these areas last year because of the way in which all members of our multi-award-winning ‘Auburn North School Learning Community’ worked together tirelessly and in perfect harmony during each of the four terms.

While 2020 was very successful, we have planned for 2021 to be even more successful for our students, our staff, our parents, and our school.

We have always had excellent school leaders, classroom teachers, and school administration staff (our wonderful office team) however, this year we have assembled the most outstanding team of leaders, teachers, and administration staff I have ever seen assembled in any one school during my 40 years in education.

Our students are so fortunate to have such loving, supportive parents and such dynamic adults at school to inspire them to become the very brightest and happiest young people they can become.

** WHAT A YEAR IT IS GOING TO BE!! **

FORTNIGHTLY NEWSLETTERS 

Our 2021 newsletters will go home with students every second week on a Friday. I would like to thank Ms Gerdes, Mr Salempour, and Mrs Serhan, who will work together to ensure newsletters go home fortnightly with students and that they are published in two different languages to ensure that you are well-informed about YOUR school. 

Newsletters are also available online through the Schoolzine App and website. Please click on the link below to subscribe to our digital newsletter.

Schoolzine: https://auburnnps.schoolzineplus.com/subscribe

There is also information on how to download the SZapp in this link and attachment with the newsletter.

The online version of the newsletter allows for users to translate the information into more than one hundred different languages. It also allows you to see all the wonderful photos in full colour and they can be enlarged on the device on which you are viewing the newsletter.

TEMPORARY CLASSES

While our Year 1 – Year 6 students began learning as soon as they entered their classrooms last Friday and our new Kindergarten students this Wednesday, please understand that their classes in weeks one, two and three are only temporary classes. As a result of new Y1–Y6 students enrolling in our school this year and because some of our 2020 students moved to different suburbs during the holidays, our total student enrolment number is significantly different to our anticipated figure.

All NSW public schools were required to submit their actual 2021 enrolment figures to the NSW Department of Education (DoE) next Monday. We will then wait for the DoE to inform our school and all NSW primary schools how many classes they are entitled to form.

We expect that changes will be necessary. If we don’t make changes some classes in some grades will have far more students than other classes in the same grade. This would not be fair.

Final changes will take place next week (week 3) or in week 4 and parents whose children move from one class to another class will be informed of the change.

 

STAFF INFORMATION

We welcome Ms West, Ms Davies, Mrs Rasuli, and Mrs Harrouk back to Auburn North. We have missed them.

We would like to welcome a number of new classroom teachers to the Auburn North Family. They are:

• Ms Mao
• Ms Wilkins
• Ms Wang
• Ms Finlayson
• Ms Eris

We also welcome the following new members of staff:

• Mr Ocampo – EAL/D Education Leader – Auburn Network
• Mrs Graham – part-time school counsellor along with Ms Elias.
• Ms Ashfaq – part-time school administrator

SCHOOL LEADERSHIP TEAM

The members of our 2021 school leadership team are:

• Mr Harris (Principal)
• Mrs Clift (Deputy Principal and Facilitator Year 4)
• Mrs Southgate (Deputy Principal)
• Mrs Tukuafu (Assistant Principal and Relieving Deputy Principal)
• Ms Acar (Business Manager)
• Mrs Abouraad (Relieving School Administrative Manager)
• Ms Ms Goicoechea (Relieving Deputy Principal, K-2 Instructional Leader and Facilitator Kindergarten)
• Ms Mirzai (Deputy Principal, K-2 Instructional Leader and Facilitator Years 1 and 2)
• Mrs Strong (Assistant Principal and Facilitator Year 3)
• Ms Wallace (Deputy Principal, K-6 Instructional Leader and Facilitator Years 5 and 6)
• Mrs Picken (Kindy Leader)
• Ms Woodward (Year 1 Leaders)
• Ms Lynch (Year 2 Leader)
• Ms Whittaker (Year 3 Leader)
• Ms Bou-Rizk (Year 4 Leader)
• Ms Harvey-Latham and Ms Rahimy (Year 5 Leaders)
• Ms Edwards and Ms Hamm (Year 6 Leaders)

Auburn North Success at Lego Robotics Competition

Each year Auburn North is fortunate to compete in the First Lego League (FLL) robotics competition. With support and resources from Macquarie University, students in years 5 and 6 form teams and develop their problem-solving, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and communication skills while showing perseverance and determination to complete the required tasks.

In Term 4, 2020 12 stage 3 students worked in two teams, the 'RePlayers' and the 'Probots', and completed the four components of the FLL competition including:

• Robot missions, where the robot must be programmed to autonomously navigate around and through obstacles made of Lego, collecting points for each mission completed.
• Robot design, where students are judged on the design and functionality of their robot.
• The innovation project, where students need to identify and solve a problem related to the theme for the year. Last years theme was 'Replay'.
• Core values, where students are judged on how well they work as a team and demonstrate discovery, innovation, impact, inclusion, teamwork and fun.

Due to COVID, the event was held remotely and the robot missions were recorded. Students presented their innovation projects, robot designs and demonstrated the core values via a Zoom session with the judges.

Both teams were successful, with The Probots receiving the ‘Engineering Excellence Award’. This award is given to the team with ‘an efficiently designed robot, an innovative project solution that effectively addresses the season challenge, and great core values evident in all they do’.

The RePlayers received the ‘Champions Award’ this year, the highest honour in the FLL regional competition. The Champions award ‘embodies the FLL challenge experience, by fully embracing the core values while achieving excellence and innovation in robot design, robot performance and the innovation project’. The RePlayers also had the opportunity to participate in the next round at the State competition.

The RePlayers were invited to attend the NSW State East competition where they competed against 40 other schools and robotics groups. The students had pre-recorded their robot mission attempts and then confidently participated in the Zoom session where they shared their innovation project, demonstrated core values and discussed their robots design.

Congratulations to all the students who participated in this program.

We would like to thank Ms Gerdes for coordinating this exciting and very successful program.

As you see above, our great success was featured in an edition of the 'Auburn Review' newspaper in January.

Mr M. Harris

Principal

 

It is really important that the office has your families most up-to-date details. This includes your home address, email address, phone numbers and emergency contact details. Please contact the office by email if any of your details have changed.

School email: auburnnth-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Providing your children with a healthy, nutritious lunch will ensure their bodies and brains are fueled for a day of learning. Find out more by following this link: https://www.healthylunchboxweek.org.au/

Over 70% of our families have chosen to use our Schoolzine app since it's introduction in 2019. This means that these families are receiving a digital copy of the newsletter in full colour, notifications are received instantly to their phone and all notifications and newsletters can be translated into over 100 languages. The calendar is also up-to-date with the latest events happening in the school. Using the Schoolzine app helps the school to save paper by sending out fewer paper notes and newsletters.

If you would like to use our Schoolzine app, follow this link: https://auburnnps.schoolzineplus.com/szapp