Jamberoo Public School Newsletter

Wombarra's Blue Bot Investigation this week: Will the Blue Bot travel the same distance on different materials. 

Students posed questions, made predictions, tested various materials, measured and recorded distances and then presented their results in a creative iMovie.

Jamberoo Public School has an active lunchtime gardening club which meets every Thursday (weather permitting). We are very fortunate to have the support of four community volunteers, Grandma Nell, Elisa, Audrey and Gem (who is great-grandmother to Calhoun, Yr 5 and Con, Kindy). These ladies volunteer their time to help with whatever is going on in the garden. Thank you so much to these ladies for their ongoing support! Our students really enjoy the small group activities when these ladies come to gardening club.

Right now, we have lots of cherry tomatoes which students are enjoying picking. These tomatoes come up on their own every year. We planted zucchinis before the end of last year and those plants are now fruiting. Your child may have brought a zucchini home from the garden. We also have Queensland blue and butternut pumpkins growing right now and we look forward to seeing the pumpkin vines die down and then we will be able to harvest our pumpkins. We will let you know when we are selling them in the office or at assembly.

 I’d like to say a big thank you to Bunnings, who recently donated lots of seedlings and herbs for our garden, as well as five bags of potting mix. It was very gratefully received. We look forward to the rain stopping so we can plant the rest of it!

 During gardening club on Thursdays, Mrs Dowling regularly holds a chook club, which gives students who are not involved in chook roster an opportunity to meet, greet and feed the chickens. Thank you, Mrs Dowling!

 One of the projects we are working on at the moment is for an Eco-Schools grant, where we are adding rainforest plants to the ‘history’ garden in front of Walabi and Birrahlee classrooms. As part of this grant, we are developing our bush tucker plants in the veggie garden as well. This grant also includes professional learning in these areas for staff. We are still attempting to find professional learning on bush tucker plants, if any of you have contacts who could help with that. 

It is time to prepare for the 2021 Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition! For 26 years this competition has been encouraging primary school students to explore ideas of multiculturalism in Australia, as well as giving them a place to practise their public speaking skills and improve their confidence.

Who can enter the competition?

The Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition is open to all NSW government primary schools in Years 3-6. Schools can enter a maximum of two contestants in each of the age divisions, totalling four contestants overall. We will be conducting an in-school competition for all interested participants in Years 3, 4, 5 or 6.

How does the competition run?

Jamberoo PS will conduct their own internal competition to select their 2 representatives for each age division of the competition. We will be conducting our in-school competition in Week 4 of Term 2. All speeches will be prepared and practiced at home for the competition. Please complete the form attached on Operoo by Monday 29 March 2021 should you wish for your child to participate in our in-school competition.

The Arts Unit will advise all contestants of the date and venue of their local final which will be held in the last 4 weeks of Term 2. Local finals will be held at host schools. The winners of local finals will proceed to one of eight regional finals which will be held in the second half of August.  Regional winners will proceed to the state final at the NSW Teachers Federation Conference Centre in Surry Hills, Sydney.

2021 Years 3&4 topics

·         Stronger together

·         We are one and free

·         Racism - no way!

·         The Olympics - bringing people together

·         Australia on TV

·         Language matters

·         Sharing

·         Kids lead the way!

·         Reconciliation

·         Where do I belong?

2021 Years 5&6 topics

·         Stronger together

·         Racism: it's everyone's business

·         January 26

·         Sport - making a difference

·         Media Matters

·         Australia - where to next?

·         It's complicated

·         A safe place to call home

·         Healing

·         Global voices

We are hoping that many of our Stage 2 and Stage 3 students will take up the opportunity to improve their public speaking skills, by being a part of this fabulous competition. A reminder to complete the form on Operoo by Monday 29 March 2021 should you wish for your child to participate in our in-school competition.

If you have any questions about the competition, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Sharon.shanks@det.nsw.edu.au or send me a message on Class Dojo. You can also check the Arts website at artsunit.nsw.edu.au.

Kind regards,

Mrs Sharon Behl-Shanks

(Public Speaking Co-ordinator)

We all know the importance of a cliff-hanger in keeping the reader engaged, however when the levels of achievement (and excitement) are THIS high sometimes a headline spoiler is the only way forward. Yes, we did it!

 The back-story … On Saturday 6th March, twenty enthusiastic dragon-boaters donned the representative cow hats and sky blue singlets for Jamberoo Public School. This innocuous ensemble, consisting of parents, staff, ex-students, family and friends gathered at the Ski-way Park in Oak Flats prepared to give their all in the name of our beloved school. Little did we know just what ‘our all’ was capable of!

Our first race was followed by mixed emotions. Although we had convincingly won the heat, there were rumours of poor timing, a front half stroke rate that was unable to be matched, and a need to pull the team together before disillusioned crew declared mutiny. Fortunately, our unbelievable pace proved enough to rally the team for the second heat.

The sight of multiple crews full of youthful gym junkies entering the water next to us did not see us bat an eyelid. However, when we noticed our arch-rivals, IBM Dragons (and their carbon-fibre paddles), boarding their boat alongside us, our crew’s adrenalin certainly began to flow. Fortunately, we set off at an unmatchable pace, leaving the IMB Dragons no choice but to try to ram their boat into ours, while claiming they were ‘re-directed by the windy weather’. Mrs McGee’s startled cries of warning were barely heard as the determined JPS team glided to another heat victory.

In the name of role-modelling ‘growth mindset’, I will mention the third heat as a disappointment for team JPS, with our results more indicative of battling the elements on open water in lane 4, than the mighty team we had seen earlier in the day. Luckily Mrs McCormack has taught us all the merits of ‘we didn’t win … YET’. Regardless of this heat, our earlier times saw the JPS Dragon-slayers positioned in first place for the finals, taking on our NEW rivals the crew from Swan Athletic gym in Minnamurra Lane.

Our ‘Jamberoo Juniors’ team, consisting mostly of ex-students from Jamberoo PS who have grown up watching their parents and teachers from the wharf, set the bar high. They took out the school team championship. The blue singlets were feeling the crunch. The chants of ‘We love you ‘cause you’re from Jamberoo’ were echoing across the lake, lifting us high and yet adding to the pressure-cooker environment. Could we possibly become the second team in 18 years to have their names scribed on the trophy for a 3rd time?

 The short answer – yes!

 Our fabulous crew, consisting of Jacqui, Lara, Connah, Jo, Emma, Eloise, Toni, Janice, Jess, Sharon, Warwick, Andrew, Chris, Rod, Tom, Callum, Alex, John, Thomas and Luke, won the community final by more than 3 seconds. This capped off a fantastic day filled with the community spirit we at Jamberoo are lucky enough to take for granted. We ran through the community arch with barely a dry eye.

Thanks to the Shellharbour Festival of Sport for their faultless organisation. Stay tuned to see if we can bring the dragon-topped trophy to JPS for a 4th time in 2022.

 Our 2021 School Production is getting ready to dazzle audiences in 2021.

 For those that are new, every second year we invite all interested students in Year 3 – 6 to join us in putting together our school production. We run auditions to decide on acting roles, or you might like to dance/ sing in the musical group or you might like to join the production team (who make our props, help with ticketing, promotions, costuming, lighting, moving the set, selling refreshments etc). We will start rehearsals in the first week of Term 2,  culminating in a matinee and 2 evening performances at the end of Term 3.

 Auditions for our potential thespians will be taking place in Week 10 (the week beginning Mon 29th March). Mrs Behl-Shanks will have a meeting early next week with more information about the play, scripts for those that would like to try out and sign-up sheets for our singers/dancers and props team.

 So have a think about whether you might like to be a part of the fun and come along to our Production Information Meeting next week.