Banksmeadow News

I hope you have all managed to stay dry last week during the deluge. The cooler days are a welcome relief.

This week we welcome Miss Stone to the staff as the replacement for Mrs Fahey. Miss Stone is a very familiar face at Banksmeadow and we know she be a great asset to our team.

This week Mrs Bragg and Mr Murphy will begin a series of professional learning session that looks at implementation of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) projects. They will see STEM in action and collaborate with and learn from other schools. We are looking forward to sharing in the knowledge and expertise they will gain.

Congratulations to all our Zone Carnival Swimmers. A fantastic effort, we are very proud of your efforts and the pride you displayed as representatives of Banksmeadow. Thank you Mr Murphy and Mrs Hayden for your organisation and to the parents on the day that were a great help organising and managing the team.

Week two of our behaviours -

The School Banking Program is available at this school.

School Banking is a fun, interactive and engaging way for young Australians to learn about money and develop good savings habits. Children who deposit money into their Youthsaver account through School Banking earn Dollarmites tokens, which they can save up and redeem for exciting rewards.

The rewards available during 2017 are:

Cyber Handball, Colour Change Markers, 3D Chalk Set, Tablet Case, Smiley Emoji Keyring, Volt Handball, Pencil + Tech Case, Epic Earphones

School Banking is also a great fundraiser for our school. Our school receives $5 when a student makes their first ever School Banking deposit and 5% on every deposit made through the school (to a maximum of $10 per individual deposit).

Getting involved in School Banking is easy!

All you need to get involved in the School Banking program is a Commonwealth Bank Youthsaver account. You can open an account for your child in one of two ways:

1. Online - Visit commbank.com.au/schoolbanking and click on the link to open a Youthsaver account.

2. In branch - Visit a Commonwealth Bank branch with identification for yourself and your child, like a driver’s licence and birth certificate.

If your child has an existing Commonwealth Bank Youthsaver account they can start banking straight away. They just need to bring their deposit in every week on School Banking day using their Dollarmites deposit wallet.

If you would like to know more about School Banking, visit commbank.com.au/schoolbanking

Congratulations to the following students who have qualified for the representative teams listed below. A wonderful achievement! We wish you all the best at your upcoming carnivals.

ESPSSA Rugby League

Caleb May

Cooper Floyd

Ky Ludlow

Rory Maxwell

Brock Cullen

Costa Manesis

ESPSSA/SCPSSA Soccer

Monte Hughes

ESPSSA/SCPSSA AFL

Caleb May

Our school chess club will be starting again next Friday at lunch time. All students who have an interest in learning to play the game are invited to join Miss Marwood in the library for social games of chess. Students will be taught how to play the game in a fun and challenging environment.

For students who know how to play chess and are interested in competition, the NSW Junior Chess League competition will be running again this year. Miss Marwood is currently looking for expressions of interest from students who would like to join a weekly team and parents who would be willing to help get teams to the schools where they will be playing. There will also be a rotating team where students who want to play, but are not able to play every week, can take turns playing competition matches. Matches will be held between competing schools on a Friday afternoons and the venues will alternate between home and away. Please have expressions of interest into the office by the 17th March.

Year 6 students have already received an expression of interest form for Year 7. Forms should be returned to school no later then 10th March. All Year 6 students must complete this form, regardless of which high school they are hoping to attend. Please see Mr Murphy if you have any concerns or problems when completing the form. It is very important that forms are returned as early as possible, so that information can be added by the school before they are submitted to high schools.

This term, students in Years 4-6 at our school, like many others in the state, will participate in a Department of Education initiative: the Tell Them From Me student feedback survey. The survey aims to help improve student learning outcomes, and measures factors that are known to affect academic achievement and other student outcomes. The focus of the NSW-wide survey is on student wellbeing, engagement and effective teaching practices.

More information about the survey is available at: http://surveys.cese.nsw.gov.au/information-for-parents

The survey is a great opportunity for our students to provide our school with valuable and quick feedback on what they think about school life, how engaged they are with school and the different ways that teachers interact with them. Results from this survey will be used to help improve how we do things at school.

The survey is confidential and school staff will not be able to identify individual students from their responses. The survey is conducted online and will typically take less than 30 minutes to complete. It will be administered during school hours between 14 March and 8 April. Participating in the survey is entirely voluntary.

A consent form is being sent home with students. If you do not want your child or children to participate, please return the consent form to school by Monday 13 March. A list of FAQs and copies of the consent form, including translated consent forms, are available from the website above.

Several students at our school are highly ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS and other nut products, eg peanut butter, Nutella, etc. If these students come in contact with these foods they may have an anaphylactic reaction, which may be life threatening.

Our school has developed a number of strategies to help provide a safe and supportive environment for students at risk of an anaphylactic reaction, including seeking community support.

For the safety and welfare of all our students, we request that parents do not send peanut butter, Nutella or whole nuts to school in children's lunches. Thank you for your support in protecting our students.

There are some changes to ordering books from Bookclub. Starting from this order, books need to be ordered directly from Scholastic Book Club.

Books are ordered through scholastic LOOP. You will find this information on the back of your Book Club order form.

The office will no longer be taking orders or payment of any kind for Book Club. If orders are handed in at school they will be returned.

When orders through LOOP have been processed, the books will be sent to school and distributed to children.

The school's senior dance group are busily preparing for their audition video for the dance festival at the Seymour Centre in Term Two. The group will be filming in a fortnight. The Junior dance group will not be auditioning for this festival so we are going to give them a break today and next Monday so that we can concentrate on the Seniors. We will make up the two lessons they will miss when they are getting closer to their performance at Souths Juniors in August. So, no dance for Juniors this week or next week.

Senior dancers need to get some black clothes ready for the filming in 2 weeks time. Leotards, leggings and t-shirts are all suitable.

A reminder that dance fees are due at the end of next week. The lesson cost and costume fees are due so that we can start purchasing the material in the next few weeks. The school office has invoiced parents with dancers with the details.

Have a wonderful week!

Fiona Dixon

Principal