Dear Parents,

It has been wonderful to have our students and staff return to school this term.

The learning from home time was challenging for everyone. However, I would like to thank and congratulate the following people on the outstanding way in which they responded to every challenge:

• Our Students
• Our Executive Leaders
• Our Classroom Teachers and Specialist Support Teachers
• Our Administration staff (ie our office team)
• Our Parents

I was immensely proud to be a member of the Auburn North FAMILY during this year’s learning from home time because of the way all members of our family (students, staff, and parents) worked together so harmoniously as ONE UNITED TEAM to ensure our students continued to be supported emotionally and continued to learn effectively.

All Auburn North teachers informed me that their students were very excited to return to school and were eager to continue their learning in their classrooms with their teachers and classmates.

For many reasons, Term 4 is the most important term of the year because students have the opportunity to:

• Achieve their end-of-year literacy and numeracy learning targets.
• Show their teachers that they are ready to be promoted to a higher grade in 2022 and succeed in that higher grade.
• Receive their best-ever School Reports.
• Be selected to receive a Gold Badge and enjoy its reward.
• Achieve Principal’s Moring Tea level and enjoy morning tea with their teachers.

This term I know each one of our students will continue to behave beautifully, will continue to live and breathe our school values, and will continue to try their very best with everything they do at school.

Every fortnight during Term 3, nine other NSW primary and secondary principals and I had the privilege of participating in zoom meetings with Ms Sarah Mitchell MP, the NSW Minister of Education.

Each fortnight, the Minister was very interested in developing a deep understanding of how schools were continuing to engage students in their learning. Each fortnight I explained to the Minister and the other principals some of the excellent programs, practices, and strategies Auburn North leaders and teachers used to engage and motivate students during Term 3 and the first weeks of this term.

Please find below just some of the information I shared with the Minister:

1. Teams of teachers used technology to engage in regular collaborative planning sessions where they developed weekly learning grids that were supported by videos of Auburn North teachers teaching explicit key concepts and skills in literacy and numeracy. These videos also assisted parents develop the knowledge, skills, abilities, and confidence to support their children’s learning.
2. Teachers used online tools such as seesaw and google classroom to facilitate daily communication between students, teachers, and parents. This provided flexible access to quality teaching and learning, and enabled students to share their learning with teachers who then provided them with high-quality feedback.
3. Teachers and students communicated with one another during weekly zoom sessions.
4. We implemented a check-in assessment week strategy where teachers assessed each student’s reading, writing and mathematics knowledge and skills using formative assessment tasks.

This information then assisted our leaders and teachers develop a deep understanding of the extent to which each student had developed specific literacy and numeracy skills taught during Term 3, assisted leaders and teachers evaluate the effectiveness of our Term 3, learning from home programs, practices, and strategies, and enabled them to develop high quality Term 4 programs and practices to meet the needs and interests of all students.

OUR SCHOOL’S RESPONSE to COVID THIS TERM

I would like to congratulate all Auburn North staff and in particular our school executive team on the way in which they responded to a positive COVID case being identified in our school this term.

The executive team of Mrs Southgate, Mrs Clift, Mrs Acar, Mrs Tukuafu, Ms Mirzai, Ms Wallace, Mrs McIntyre, and Mrs Bou-Rizk:

• Followed all processes required by NSW Health and the Department to ensure that all staff and families who needed to be notified, were notified as soon as possible.
• Followed the directions provided by NSW Health and the Department throughout the contact tracing process and provided the information they requested so they could determine casual and close contacts.

Mr John Kennedy, Director Educational Leadership for the Auburn Principal’s Network, acknowledged the excellence of the COVID response by the Auburn North executive team, by asking the executive team to present the process it followed during a virtual Auburn Principal’s Network Meeting last Thursday. The presentation was greatly appreciated by all principals.

CLASS REPORTS – KE, 1N, 4C

Attached to this email you will find excellent class reports that have been written by the students in KE, 1N, and 4C. I would like to thank the students in these classes and their teachers Mrs Eris, Mrs Mancia, Mrs Nalbantoglu, and Ms Meier.

Mark Harris

Principal

What a delight it has been to see our wonderful KE students reunited with their friends and teachers! After a term of home learning, students are now back into routine and engaging in literacy and numeracy activities in the classroom.

I have been super amazed with the amount of effort and dedication which the KE students have shown towards writing independently. The students have been writing about different animals and prompts, while receiving verbal feedback to improve and extend their ideas.

In numeracy, KE students have been focusing on identifying patterns in our environment as well as creating their own patterns by using different materials. We have also been engaging in rotational numeracy activities to develop and further increase our number awareness.

We have some artists emerging from KE! Have a look at our stormy weather and cherry blossom artworks which we painted and created all by ourselves! Well done to all the KE students for their dedication and hard work this Term!

1N have had a great transition back to school! Students have really enjoyed engaging in development play in the morning whilst they wait for all of their peers to arrive. During development play students have been displaying great social skills by interacting with one another, sharing and turn taking. We have also been engaging in some great speaking and listening games during this time.

Numeracy

During maths lessons 1N have been learning to find the halves of numbers. Students used counters to share an amount into two groups before finding and recording the half. It was great to see students make connections to their own experiences when working with halves, for example many students shared how they used halves to share items fairly between siblings.

Literacy

1N are continuing to write informative texts about Australian animals. Students are including features such as headings, sub-headings, adjectives, compound sentences and questions in their writing. Have a look at some of our paragraphs below!

After spending all of term 3 learning from home, the students (and teacher) of 4C were eager to see their friends and get back to face-to-face learning!

One of the 4C’s favourite things to do is read. Students especially love reading Roald Dahl books! Each morning when students arrive at school, they spend around 15 minutes reading silently. This increases students’ love for reading and is a wonderful and relaxing way to start the day!

4C have also been learning to write persuasive texts. We explored the structural features of persuasive texts before beginning to compose and publish our expositions. 4C have explored a number of topics such as ‘All children should own a pet’ and ‘Zoos are no place for animals’.

4C have started engaging in a new area of CAPA. This term we are focusing on drama. We have completed a number of improvisation activities. Here is a picture of some students engaging in an activity called ‘group objects’ where they made a washing machine using their bodies.

On Fridays, 4C participate in a sports lesson. The students have been asking to basketball, so we headed to the basketball courts and practised some dribbling, throwing, catching, and shooting skills. Once we have mastered the skills, we will engage in a basketball game.

It has been a busy yet fun-filled week in 4C!

We are now accepting enrolments for Kindergarten 2021.

If your child turns 5 before the 31st July 2022, please request an enrolment form at the school office. 

If you know any neighbours, friends or relatives who do not have any children at Auburn North Public School but they have a child who should start Kindergarten next year at Auburn North, please pass on this information to them. Our office hours are 8:30am – 3:00pm during school days.

This year one of the goals at ANPS is to become more sustainable. One way we are doing this is through improving our waste management practices. Students are now disposing of rubbish at school in 3 different bins - landfill (red), recycling (yellow) and organics (green). Our red landfill bins contain a lot of single-use plastic items that could be reduced by sending food in reusable containers.

Can you make a swap with one or more items in your child's lunch box to reduce waste?

• Swap plastic wrap for reusable containers.
• Swap plastic cultery for reusable cutlery.
• Swap zip-lock bags for reusable containers.