Rozelle Public School Newsletter

Rozelle is a place where Aboriginal children learned, played and celebrated their culture for thousands of years on this beautiful, natural land. As we learn, play and celebrate together on this land, we honour the Wangal people of the Eora nation and pay our respects to elders both past, present and emerging. 

It is hard to believe this week we passed the halfway point of the term. What is even harder to believe is we only have five weeks left before the end of the school year - what a year it has been! This week, staff and students returned to school with new Level 3 settings in place. While this has seen a slight relaxation of some restrictions, for the most part, operations will remain the same for the remainder of this year. 

Our priority is to keep our school open through a combination of layered COVID-safe plans and measures that prioritise student and staff safety. To do this, the following Level 3  guidelines will be in place:

• Students, staff and visitors must not attend school if unwell, even with mild symptoms.
• All staff and adult visitors on the school site must be fully vaccinated and provide proof of vaccination.
• Masks are required indoors for all staff, adult visitors and strongly recommended indoors for primary students. Masks can be removed when eating or exercising.
• All staff and visitors must check in when attending a school site or gathering.  
• Adults should maintain 1.5 metres physical distancing wherever practicable.
• Activities and events should be held outdoors where practical.
• Indoor spaces will be well ventilated and as large as possible for the number of attendees - following square metre guidelines.
• Students should avoid mingling with other class and year groups when moving around the school.
• Students and staff will maintain good hand hygiene and schools will continue with enhanced cleaning, including high touch points.
• Assemblies and presentations are allowed outdoors, with cohorts separated and physical distancing in place. Fully vaccinated visitors (including parents and carers) are only allowed to attend if completing a specific role (such as presenting) and at the invitation of the school.

• Community use is allowed outside of school hours with COVID-safe plans in place – in line with public health requirements.
• Dancing, bands, ensembles and music classes will be allowed within cohorts. However, everyone must wear masks while playing instruments indoors. Other instruments that rely on breath or require a mask to be removed to be played, as well as singing and chanting, are not permitted in Term 4.
• Excursions are allowed outdoors (and indoors where sole use of the premises is available).
• Incursions are allowed indoors and outdoors where cohorts are kept separate.
• Graduations and formals are allowed within cohorts, either on school sites or at external venues – with COVID-safe plans in place and physical distancing adhered to.
• School sports are allowed, including inter-school sports and access to indoor and outdoor pools (from 1 November).
• Transitions and orientations are allowed in a COVID-safe way that minimises mingling between students. Parents and carers on site to support school operations.

• Fully vaccinated parents and carers will be allowed on-site to support curriculum delivery, student wellbeing activities and school operations (for example reading support, canteens and uniform shops). Parents and carers must check in using the school check-in and show proof of vaccination on entry to the school site.

Presentation Day - Years 3 to 6

The school will also be able to have our end of year award assemblies for Years 3-6 students. While we will not be able to have parents attend, plans are underway for the two assemblies to be live streamed. Our Presentation Day assemblies will be held on Friday 10 December. 

Parents Helpers in Classrooms

The school is taking a cautious approach with staff making the decision not to have parent helpers return to classrooms this year. It’s not that we don’t value and appreciate the support parent helpers provide and we certainly look forward to seeing you back in the school in 2022.

Scripture & Ethics

Scripture and Ethics will also not return to Rozelle this year. With only five weeks until the end of the year, the sensible decision was to resume this program in 2022. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all our volunteer Scriptures and Ethics teachers for their work in Semester One. We hope to see you again next year. 

Reading & Numeracy Check-ins

Over the past fortnight, if your child is in Years 3-6, they would have participated in state wide Reading and Numeracy check-ins. These check-in assessments are online and are mapped to the NSW Syllabuses and National Literacy and Numeracy Learning Progressions. Each assessment is designed to be quick and easy to administer, consisting of between 40 to 50 multiple choice questions. The assessments help identify how students are performing in literacy and numeracy. They also help teachers tailor their teaching more specifically to student needs.

It's great news that under Level 3 operations, we will be able to start planning for the all important Year Six farewell. This has always been our priority as the Year Six teachers fully appreciate the importance of this event. A small group of Year Six parents have already begun the preparations for the event which will be held on school premises tentatively on Wednesday 15 December - final details to be confirmed shortly. 

Currently, teachers are finalising student achievement reports for Semester Two. This year, reports have been significantly modified to reflect the extended learning from home period. Reports will be inline with the Department of Education COVID 19 reporting guidelines. This year, they will be sent home on Monday 13 December - the final week of the year. While we would normally plan to send reports home earlier, teachers require as much time as possible to accurately assess and report on every child's progress and achievement.

This Term, our school will be participating in the Partners in Learning parent survey, another part of the Tell Them From Me suite of surveys (student, teacher and parent surveys) on student engagement. The survey asks parents and carers questions about different factors that are known to impact on student wellbeing and engagement.

Running this survey will help our school understand parents and carers perspectives on their child’s experience at school. These include: communication between parents/carers and staff, activities and practices at home and parent/carer views on the school's support of learning and behaviour. This valuable feedback will help our school make practical improvements.

The survey is conducted entirely online on smartphones, ipads, tablets, laptops or computers. The survey will typically take 15 minutes or less to complete and is completely confidential.

The parent survey will be open until 26 November. Although participating in the survey is entirely voluntary, your responses are very much appreciated. More information about the survey is available at: https://education.nsw.gov.au/student-wellbeing/tell-them-from-me

Our school photos have been rescheduled for later this term with the dates set for 30 November and 2 December. This year, there will be class, individual and a Year Six group photo taken. It takes two days to take all class and individual photos. Closer to the date, families will be advised of the specific day their child’s class photo will be taken. Let's hope we can proceed with our 2021 photos as I appreciate these are important keepsakes and memories for families.

SSC Balmain Campus is hosting a virtual information session about our Selective and Enrichment programs for prospective students. This will provide insight into the programs and application process for high potential and gifted students at our campus. Enrichment includes an Academic, Creative and Talented Athletes Program.  

Tuesday 16 November 6pm

Join our Zoom meeting: https://nsweducation.zoom.us/j/69463483268?pwd=QjlIL1BlSDB3elpWSmxxd1krdTR3UT09 

Well done to Grace Grenfell (Year 3 Robinson), Ava Palfreyman (Year 3 Robinson) and Liv Soerensen (Year 5 Karman) whose short films were chosen as finalists in this year's Film By Festival.  Film By promotes the teaching of visual literacy and film making to support outcomes from the NSW English, Creative Arts and PDHPE Syllabuses. Our students were competing against both primary and secondary school students across the Sydney area. We are so pleased to announce that Grace Grenfell whose film 'How To Help Your Parents During Covid' won the 'People's Choice Award' this year. Well done Grace and Leo from Kindy Angelou who starred in the film alongside his big sister. Thank you to everyone at Rozelle Public School who voted. If you didn't get a chance to watch them, here are the films for everyone to enjoy.

How to Help Your Parents by Grace G

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BpY6OgREz32H-S9Kc1Qk-1piVzipLKMQ/view​

My Annoying Cuddly Friend Ya Ya by Ava P

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r_r9nJd2beunsLZUjRcW3tUdU_Vewwez/view

Johny Australia by Liv S

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ansF9ifbczXR8-hDSkHLPHQwGssH5KZY/view

Congratulations to Harley Winn-Wright (Year 3 Irwin) who won a drawing award in the Inner West Children's Book Week 2021 Competition for his Toucan picture. Well done Harley!

Return To School & Classroom Air Quality

The P&C Federation recently held a webinar, featuring a panel of representatives from the NSW Department of Education, who answered questions about the COVID-safe return to school to ensure the safety of students and staff.

The panel included; Ruth Owen, Deputy Secretary, Learning Improvement & Education COVID 19 Taskforce, Murat Dizdar, Deputy Secretary, School Performance - South, Paul Wood, A/Executive Director, Covid Taskforce, Anthony Manning, Chief Executive School Infrastructure, COVID Taskforce, Natalie Walker, P&C Federation President

This webinar covered topics such as: vaccination of school staff and students,

• Ventilation of schools, hygiene and sanitisation
• Concerns with Learning from home
• Contingency plans and preparation for schools closing.

https://www.pandc.org.au/covid-safe-return-to-school-webinar-recording/

We have a number of parents who would like to continue this conversation with regards to RPS and our plans towards classroom ventilation. We will be discussing this further in the next P&C meeting with Mr Braiding next Wednesday 17 November (see below for zoom meeting details), if this is of interest please join us.

RPS Outdoor Air Quality Control Monitor

In 2020, the P&C invested in an outdoor Air Quality Monitoring Unit onsite (see photo) with the main aim to monitor any impact from the tunnel projects currently being built close to the school. This is now operational.

The unit is intended to advise school staff and P&C in the event of very poor or extremely poor air quality. Staff can then take the appropriate action to ensure the health of the children and staff at the school. 

Data collected can also be used to inform parents and carers if both the current and proposed major engineering projects near to the school are potentially having a negative impact on our children’s learning environment.

It is our intention to provide a regular report of the prevailing air quality metrics and notify of any air quality reaches. 

Our monitor collects two types of data:

• The pollutant gases that are the by-products of internal combustion engines (Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Dioxide and Ozone).
• The fine particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) that are produced by heavy industry and back burning but also to a lesser extent motor vehicles.

The data we have collected so far is consistent with what we would expect with a location sited in the middle of a large city and next to a major arterial road. The pollution is worse on weekdays, during the morning “rush hour” in particular. 

On those rare occasions when pollutants spike into the very poor zone during recess or lunch breaks, it is proposed that students with respiratory conditions will be brought inside. The school will continue to monitor the air quality to decide when it is safe for vulnerable students to play outside again. If PM readings spike into the very poor zone then all students will be brought inside for the duration.

You can view air quality data from our unit in real time here:

URL: https://airmet.livesense.com.au/login

Login: rozellepublicschool@pandcaffiliate.org.au

Password: rpsaqm 

If you are an expert in this space and would like to help with analyzing this data or interested in learning more about air quality monitoring at the school, then please get in contact via the P&C at: rozellepublicschool@pandcaffiliate.org.au

2021 FUNDRAISING RPS RECIPE BOOK – PRE ORDER NOW 

We are so excited about our 2021 RPS recipe book which is now at the printers.

We have around 150 recipes from families, school staff and local businesses. One of our favourite recipes is Mr Braiding’s breakfast dish inspired from his travels abroad – you will have to buy a copy to see where he travelled and what dish it is!

There are limited numbers so get in quick. 

From $35 for one copy or $30 for 2 or more.  

A great memento of 2021 and an ideal Christmas present for family. Expected to arrive early December. 

You can now pre-order your copy here:  https://rozelle-school-pc.square.site or via QR code above.

Thank you to our local business sponsors who have all included a recipe; Three Hundred Islands, Robertson-Kirkwood Salon, Darling St Meats, Eat@Robs, Fourth Fish, WillowBrae Cheese, Bertoni, Orange Lotus Café and our Gold Sponsor Made by Lou

New Uniform Orders

If you need to order new uniforms, please order via Flexischools by Thursday 5pm and orders will be available for pick up on Friday from the school office.

The uniform room are needing donations of both second hand uniforms and plain bags to use when they pack orders. Please drop off to the office.

Second Hand Uniform Sale

A second hand uniform sale will take place on Friday 26 November from 2.30pm at the front of the school. Bring your bags and bag a bargain!

Don’t forget to bring in your bottles and cans with the 10c Return & Earn logo.   

NO Crushed cans please  – deposit these at the shed near the front playground. Let’s recycle and earn funds for the school!

Thank you to Jocelyn Robinson for making this happen!  

We have raised over $350 this year already.

Gold Sponsor of the 2021 Recipe Book. For weekly family box meal orders, email Lou on lou@madebylou.com.au  or follow Lou on FaceBook for the weekly box details https://www.facebook.com/madebylousydney/

Thank you to Cindy Kennedy & The Kennedy Team at McGrath Balmain for your support. 

Our Training Band Try-outs will be held in Term 1.
Students going into Year 3 in 2022, as well as any student from Years 4-5, will be able to try out an instrument to learn as part of our 2022 Training Band. Instruments available to learn include;

Flute, Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Trombone, Trumpet and Percussion 

Joining the school band is a rewarding and fun experience but also a considerable commitment both for students in terms of practice, tutor sessions and weekly rehearsals, as well as for parents in regards to financial costs. 

The costs for 2022 are as follows:

• $180 joining fee (non-refundable)
• $60 per term instrument hire fee
• $60 per term band rehearsal fee
• Tutor fees per term specific to the student’s instrument is somewhere between $250 – 350 per term

If you would like further information regarding the band program, please contact Amanda at Amanda.palfreyman@det.nsw.edu.au

More information regarding the 2022 Training Band Try-Outs will be communicated in Term 1.

Rozelle Public School is currently taking enrolments for Kindergarten 2022 from families living within our school catchment area. Detailed information about enrolment procedures and a map of the school catchment area can be found on the school website at https://rozelle-p.schools.nsw.gov.au/ or by phoning the school office on (02) 9810 2347.