Berala News

I hope you and your child/children have settled into our final term of 2022. I want to provide you with an update on our COVID-smart settings, particularly with the latest change to isolation requirements and what this will mean for our school. Please review the following information and don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have further questions.

On 30 September, National Cabinet announced that from Friday 14 October 2022, people who test positive to COVID-19 do not need to isolate. In line with this announcement, the NSW Department of Education have worked with NSW Health to support all schools to adapt to this change while continuing to prioritise student and staff wellbeing by minimising the risk of COVID-19 transmissions.

Students and staff should continue to stay home when sick

It is expected that when isolation requirements end on Friday 14 October, those currently in isolation will be advised by NSW Health that they may exit isolation. For our students and staff who have tested positive this does not mean they should attend school on Friday.

Students, staff and visitors should only attend school when they are symptom free. We strongly encourage all students, staff and visitors to follow the guidance issued by NSW Health. We will continue to send home students or staff displaying symptoms.

Anyone who believes they have been exposed to COVID-19 is strongly recommended to monitor for symptoms and test if they have any concerns, as well as wear a mask. We will continue to support our families to use rapid antigen tests (RATs) if symptomatic or if you believe you have been exposed to COVID-19. RAT testing may help identify the infection early and is important if you are in contact with people at greater risk of serious illness if exposed to COVID-19.

We are continuing our COVID-smart measures

Our school will continue to operate with our baseline COVID-smart measures in place throughout Term 4 to minimise transmission and keep our school open. This includes a combination of layered safety measures such as maintaining hygiene and cleaning practices, using rapid antigen testing (RAT) when experiencing symptoms, maximising natural ventilation, strongly encouraged vaccinations and strongly encouraging mask-wearing particularly when indoors and/or physical distancing is not possible.

Reporting requirements from 14 October

Please continue to notify your school if your child tests positive to COVID-19 as we will continue to notify the school community of any known positive cases to prioritise student and staff safety and wellbeing.

Non-COVID-19 Vaccinations reminder from NSW Health

Due to the ongoing pandemic and stay-at-home orders that were in place over the previous two years, NSW Health have noted that some children and young people have missed out on the non-COVID school-based vaccination programs that they would have taken part in. The department would like to remind parents and carers to make sure that all of their child’s vaccinations are up-to-date, including other non-COVID vaccinations. If you are unsure about whether your child has missed any vaccinations, speak to your GP or go to NSW Health’s Immunisation requirements in primary and secondary schools.

Parents and carers who have children with persistent or ongoing symptoms of COVID-19 are encouraged to have these assessed by their local health care professional. These symptoms may be related to other illnesses that require treatment and management by a doctor.

For more information on vaccinations refer to Vaccination requirements for school sites or the Australian Governments COVID-19 vaccines.

On behalf of our school, I want to thank you again for your ongoing support in helping to keep our students, staff and community safe. I’d like to wish all our students and their families a great start to Term 4.

Dear parents and carers,

As we near the end of the year, I want to thank you for your ongoing support and notify you of a date change for the last day of Term 4 classes.

Students will now finish school on Friday 16 December 2022. There will be no classes on Monday 19 December.

This is due to an additional School Development Day announced for staff across NSW public schools. School Development Days allow our staff to participate in professional learning that was put on hold due to COVID-19 staffing pressures and plan ahead for 2023 to ensure we meet the needs of our students.

With this change, we ask that you arrange alternative care for your child on Monday 19 December. Should you have any issues with care arrangements, our school has care facilities available through Camp Australia. Camp Australia's Vacation Care Program will now start from Monday 19 December. If you are interested in utilising this program, booking will open around Week 5 or 6 this term. If you have further questions regarding vacation care, please contact Camp Australia directly.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the school.

Kind regards,

Brad Lanham

Apology

My sincerest apology, there was an error late last term and it came to my attention this week that the Week 9 newsletter did not reach inboxes. I apologise for the gap in communication that this may have caused.

2023 Enrolments

We are now taking enrolment applications for 2023 for Kindergarten. If you know of any families with children ready to start Kindergarten next year please let them know to make contact with our school office or alternatively they can apply online.

If you would like support with the process, please complete a form here and the office will reach out and support you through the process.

NAPLAN

NAPLAN is moving to Term 1. In 2023, NAPLAN will be held from Wednesday 15 March to Monday 27 March for our 2023 Year 3 and Year 5 students. If you have any questions regarding NAPLAN, please ask at the front office.

Father's Day Stall

Thank you to our P&C and volunteers that made our Father's Day stall a great success. We hope all the fathers of BPS had a wonderful day!

Check-in Assessments

Years 3-5 students will be participating in Department of Education Check-in Assessments. These assessments are online and students will complete this in their class groups. These are ongoing assessments for each year. The Check-in assessments are designed to provide teachers with formative assessments that can give an indication of how students are performing and what to plan for future learning tasks. The Check-in assessment includes a reading assessment and a numeracy assessment. Each assessment consists of 40-50 multiple choice questions completed within approximately 50 minutes.

Uniform

It is important that all students wear the correct school uniform to school each day. If any family is experiencing financial difficulty with purchasing uniforms speak to the front office, a deputy principal or myself. Please make sure that all uniform items are clearly labelled with your child’s name and class.

Second-hand uniform donations

From time to time, students have accidents at school and we need to supply them a clean uniform. To do this we require second-hand uniform donations from our community. If you have old uniforms that are still usable, please feel free to donate them at our front office.

Selective High School Applications 2024

Applications are now open online from 18 October 2022 for entry into Year 7 at a Selective High School in 2024. More details have been given to Year 5 students. Further information for parents and carers can be obtained online:

https://education.nsw.gov.au/public-schools/selective-high-schools-and-opportunity-classes/year-7/information-for-applicants

The Selective High School Placement Test is expected to be held on 4 May 2023.

Lower Playground

Due to the recent rain and unforeseen circumstances, the lower playground work has taken much longer than expected to be completed. We look forward to opening this space for our students.

Assistant Principal Curriculum and Instruction

This year two new executive staff (Assistant Principal Curriculum and Instruction - APCI) were appointed at Berala PS - Ms Rhonda Thomson and Ms Winny Tang. This newly dedicated leadership role for every school is focused on improving student literacy and numeracy. This role involves working in collaboration with the school's executive team and working shoulder to shoulder with teachers with a focus on enhancing the quality of literacy and numeracy instruction across the curriculum. Assistant Principals, Curriculum and Instruction also develop and strengthen their own and other’s expertise in evidence-informed literacy and numeracy practice by actively leading and engaging in high-quality targeted professional learning.

Carnivale

Unfortunately due to the ride company Jubilee Entertainment cancelling, we have had to postpone our Carnivale until Friday 9 December 2022.

More information regarding this event will be shared in the near future.

World Teachers' Day - Australia

On Friday 28 October World Teachers’ Day is celebrated across Australia. I am sure the community joins me in wishing all our teaching staff a very happy World Teachers’ Day. We are extremely lucky to have dedicated and enthusiastic teachers at our school and they are so happy to have had a full year at school with your children.

Brad Lanham

Principal

We will be holding a “Bandanna Day” in Week 3 on Friday 28 October 2022, to raise money for “Canteen” which is a charity organisation that helps young people impacted by cancer get access to programs, counselling and peer support.

We will be selling a variety of bandannas on Thursday 27 October 2022, at recess and at lunch in two locations. School leaders will be selling these outside the office on the middle concrete for Years 3-6 and under the K-2 COLA area for Years K-2. If there are any bandannas left over, they will be on sale before school on the Friday morning on the middle concrete.

Bandannas will cost $5.00 each.

Regular attendance at school is essential for students in reaching their potential. When students miss a day of school, this is a day of missed learning. At Berala PS, we are focused on ensuring student attendance is a priority. We, as a school, in partnership with parents, are responsible for promoting regular attendance at school.

We understand that children get sick from time-to-time or family matters arise and students need to have time away from school. Parents are required to explain the absences of their children from school promptly. An explanation must be provided to the school within 7 days of the first day of any period of absence. Explanation of absences can be sent:

• using the School App (instructions later in this newsletter);
• writing a note to the teacher when they return to school, or
• phoning the office
• reply to the automated text message.

Parents will be contacted if an explanation has not been received or if the child is absent for 2 days or more. Absences of 3 days or more require a doctor’s certificate.

Starting this term, Berala introduced a text message system, where you will receive a text message each time your child is absent from school without an explanation.

School starts at 9:00am and it is important students are at school on time so they do not miss any important information early in the morning and can start learning as soon as they step into the classroom.

We are aiming to have every child to have as close to 100% attendance as possible. We thank you for your support.

Welcome to Term 4! In these first few weeks, Years 3, 4 and 5 have been completing reading and numeracy check-in assessments.

Guided by our Berala PS Strategic Improvement Plan, the teachers continue to participate in ongoing professional learning focused on enhancing reading instruction and developing collaborative programming processes. Teachers have actively reviewed strategies to teach vocabulary, phonics and spelling. They have sort rich texts to immerse students in meaningful experiences that enthuse interest in print and increase comprehension capabilities.

The reading focus this year has also included developing students' phonological and phonemic awareness skills. Phonemic awareness is a strong predictor of reading success. It is the ability to focus on and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Phonemic awareness skills are essential as they build a strong foundation for spelling and word recognition. Phonemic awareness has been embedded in literacy instruction across Kindergarten to Year 2.

To support your child's phonemic awareness skills, here are some short and fun activities you can do at home:

• Challenge your child to think of as many words which start with the same beginning sound. E.g. /s/ or /th/
• Make up silly sentences with words that begin with the same sound, such as "Nobody was nice to Nancy's neighbour".
• Play simple rhyming or blending games with your child, such as taking turns coming up with words that rhyme (go – no) or blending simple words (/d/, /o/, /g/ = dog).
• Read books with rhymes. Teach your child rhymes, short poems, and songs.
• Practice the alphabet by pointing out letters wherever you see them, by reading alphabet books, by dancing alphabet dances or by singing alphabet songs.
  

Ms Winny Tang, Ms Rhonda Thomson, Ms Robyn White, Ms Katherine McMaster

Curriculum Team

Please take some time to download and view the next edition of The South Western Sydney Local Health District's Healthy Family Bulletin.

Berala Public School is participating in the Tell Them From Me survey. Every year we ask parents to complete this survey. This helps the school better understand parents’ views about children’s learning, our school and our community. Currently the parent survey is open for parents to complete. The survey is anonymous and confidential. You may wish to skip any questions you do not wish to answer.

We are asking parents to complete the survey by Friday 11 November so we can ensure we are catering for the communities needs in 2023.

To complete the survey, please click this link or scan the QR code below.

We wanted to congratulate two former students for their recent sporting success! Congrats to Api and Cassey for reaching the NRL and WNRL grand finals!

Also, a big congratulations to Adam of 6R and Aiden of 3/4C for winning the Primary Schools Public Speaking Chullora Network finals!

Last term, Kindergarten were learning about living things and explored where the food we eat comes from. They had the opportunity to visit Golden Ridge Animal Farm and participate in hands-on learning experiences. The activities included handling of baby chicks, ducklings, and rabbits, walking around the farm, feeding lambs, and milking a cow.

On Tuesday 20 September, our First Nations students celebrated their learning and cultural heritage with their family and classroom teacher. Students were given the opportunity to make traditional lemon myrtle pancakes using Aunty Carol's recipe and eat them for afternoon tea. They engaged in a Yarn with a Teacher to celebrate fabulous learning over the past semester. This successful initiative helps acknowledge, support and celebrate our First Nations students at Berala Public School

Berala Public School has engaged the services of both an Aboriginal artist and dancer to work with our students to have an immersive experience that will bring to life local Aboriginal culture, art and dance for our students. The students collaborated with an Aboriginal artist to create a range of artistic Aboriginal designs and also worked on an Aboriginal dance that they hope to present early next year.

Berala Public School invited Senior Constable and Youth Officer, Philip Tambasco from Auburn Police Station to speak with all 3-6 students about the importance of cyber safety. He spoke about safe and responsible use of online information, keeping your personal information such as passwords secure and reporting any concerns to a trusted adult. The students enjoyed the presentation, and we will continue to work with our local police youth liaison officer to support our school and students on these important matters.

Our gardening club have been working away and have produced some of the most delicious looking spinach I have ever seen! Not only that, but they have taken it home and put it to great use. Check out some of the delicious foods that were put together by our gardening club. Charlie and Ayoub made smoothies, Ahmad’s grandma made selek (rice and mince meat stuffing) and Shaza made a spinach and egg sandwich. Keep up the great work!

A huge congratulations to Adam for winning the Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition 2022 South Western Sydney Regional Final! Adam did an outstanding job presenting his speech on 'Everyday Racism' and his impromptu speech on the topic 'Telling Lies'. Adam will now represent Berala Public School at the state final on Friday 18 November in the Eugene Goossens Hall of the ABC Centre. We congratulate Adam on this outstanding achievement and wish him the best of luck in the state finals!

Congratulations to all the students who participated in the Spotlight Drama Festival. Due to camp they were unable to present live but they still managed a pre-recording of their performance and it was very well received by the audience on the night.

TERM 4

24 October

* Gymnastics

28 October

* Gala Day

* Gymnastics

* Bandanna Day

31 October

* Gymnastics

2 November

* Parent Forum - Tech Tools (Hall @ 9:00am)

3 November

* Interrelate - Year 5

* Kindergarten Transition - Day 1

4 November

* Gymnastics

7 November

* Gymnastics

10 November

* Interrelate - Year 5

* Kindergarten Transition - Day 2

11 November

* Gymnastics

* Gala Day

14 November

* Gymnastics

16 November

* Kid vs Wild excursion (Year 6)

17 November

* Interrelate - Year 5

* Kindergarten Transition - Day 3

18 November

* Gymnastics

Year 2 recently had their excursion to Schoolhouse Museum. The students had a fantastic day of learning and experiencing what it was like being in classrooms from the olden days.

Dear parents and carers,

Reflecting on the challenges of the last few years, the NSW Department of Education is in the process of reviewing and evaluating what school success looks like now and in the future. It’s enhancing ways to support student success and wellbeing as part of ongoing school reform. The goal is to support our schools in a way that is more responsive to their needs and priorities.

To inform this work, the department is inviting parents and carers to share their perspectives on what the school and the department could do to improve the schooling experience. By participating, parents and carers will inform the department what is working well, what needs to be improved, and will be involved in shaping new and innovative initiatives.

If you would like to be part of the discussion, there are face-to-face and online forums being held in weeks 5, 6 and 7 of Term 4 (7 – 25 November). You can register your interest and find more information at Have your say on what school success looks like, including the locations and timing of sessions.

Thank you for supporting the work in NSW public schools.

Do you have our School App? If not, please download it as this is one of the most important communication channels that we have between home and school. Please see the details below on how to download the app.

Did you know that you could also send your absent notes via the app? This will save you heaps of time and is easy to do!

Email: berala-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au
Website: berala-p.schools.nsw.gov.au
Location: 216 Harrow Road, Berala NSW, Australia
Phone: 02 9649 7146
Facebook: facebook.com/BeralaPublicSchool

All students (K-6) are able to order lunches in the morning before class starts, and buy items for recess and lunch over the counter. Please see the canteen menu below.