Welcome back to Term 2! Welcome to our new families that have joined Stockton Public School this term.
I trust that everyone had a restful holiday break. Everyone has settled smoothly back into school life. The weather is glorious - we are certainly enjoying the warm sunshine in the middle of the day.
ANZAC DAY SERVICE
Last Wednesday I had the privilege of attending the 65th Annual Newcastle and Hunter Combined Schools ANZAC Commemorative Event at the Civic Theatre with our six school leaders. It was centred on the celebration and acknowledgement of local man, Alfred Clive Carpenter OAM ED. It was lovely to be able to take students out of the school again for the first time in a long time. Our school leaders were the perfect representatives of our school.
At our school ANZAC Day service, we commemorated all those who serve and have served in the Australian armed forces. In particular, we paid respect to all those who gave their life or were injured in the service of their country. We sincerely thank all the teachers who organised the service, our student leaders who ran the service and the entire school for being so respectful during the service.
On Sunday, Zali, as one of our school captains and I represented Stockton Public School at the local ANZAC Day service held at Stockton RSL. It was a very moving tribute to service men and women and recognised the sacrifices made. Lest We Forget.
Thank you to all of the local business and community members who donated to Stockton Public School. We are in the process of purchasing books for our library on their behalf.
PLAYGROUND – I SPY GARDEN
Our I Spy garden is finally open and ready for the students to play on! We are so excited to have the fencing down. The staff decided that as everyone was over excited about playing in the new area, we would roster the students to use the playground. K-2 were allowed exclusive access last week and students in Year 3-6 this week. Watching how the students use the space, has been very interesting. So that everyone is safe, we will be continuing the week about roster to play in the I Spy garden. This also means that the staff are considering how the rest of the space will be used. We are discussing play areas and making some considerations. It is exciting to see students using all of the playground now that they can move between the traditional primary and infants playground. I have recently purchased a giant snakes and ladders game and a connect 4 game for the playground. Now that restrictions have eased and we can access more equipment the checkers will return to the painted board outside the library. Whilst we are very fortunate to have so much playground and grass area, a real bonus for our school, sometimes that means the students have too much free run space and this can cause behaviour and friendship problems on the playground. We are looking for new ways to use our playground and additions for our playground so that the students are engaged positively in play and social interactions. Watch this space!
MOTHER’S DAY BREAKFAST
On Friday 7 May we will be hosting a Mother’s Day breakfast. This is to celebrate the special people in our students' lives who care, love, support and look after our them. Please join us for a bacon and egg roll under the COLA from 8am. The choir will be singing. There may be a coffee van to purchase a coffee/tea, although this is proving a little tricky to find one available. If not, there will be coffee/tea available to purchase at the canteen. Please RSVP with numbers attending by this Friday 30 April so that we can organise the catering for the event. We look forward to seeing you here!
ENROLMENTS 2022
We are currently taking enrolments for Preschool and Kindergarten for 2022. Families who reside within our ‘Enrolment Zone’ may apply for enrolment K-6 at any time. Our boundary map and street names are on our school website. Please be aware if a non-local child is enrolled at Stockton Public School, parents need to understand siblings will only be enrolled if enrolment capacity allows at the time of an enrolment application. If this is a future kindergarten enrolment, this may not be able to be determined until September for the beginning of the following year. If your family’s current residential address is in the current intake zone, and you move outside the school’s intake zone, younger siblings cannot be offered enrolment unless there are spaces available for non-locals. Parents need to be aware of these policy implications. If you need to discuss this matter further please do not hesitate to contact me.
VISITORS ON THE SCHOOL GROUNDS
It is imperative that staff know who is on the school grounds at all times. The two main reasons for this are for child protection and for emergency procedures so we know who we need to take with us.
I ask that –
- if you are dropping off an item for your child our office ladies will take the item and pass it onto your child at their earliest convenience.
- if you are visiting the school grounds once school has started, after 9am, and before school finishes at 3pm that you come to the front office first and foremost.
- if your child is arriving late to school, please walk them to the front office for a late slip. Your child will take himself/herself to class from there with the late slip. If need be, the ladies will walk with them.
- if you are collecting your child from school early, please call the office earlier in the day and the ladies will organise with the class teacher for your child to be waiting for you in the waiting room. If not, please come to the front office and one of the ladies will collect your child from the classroom.
- if you are working in our school canteen or a class volunteer, I also ask that you sign in at the front office at the beginning of your shift where you will receive a yellow lanyard and sign out at the end of your shift, and hand back the lanyard. This clearly identifies you as a known person on our site.
These procedures ensure the safety of all of our students and staff.
If you notice someone on our school grounds without a lanyard, that is not staff or a student, please notify staff as soon as possible.
Please note our office ladies are still happy to take payments and uniform purchases over the phone.
We are very grateful for the wonderful work our lovely office ladies do each and every day. They really do go above and beyond!
COOLER WEATHER
Now that the cooler weather has arrived, students are wearing winter uniform to school. I have included the uniform policy in this newsletter for your attention. One of the noticeable things about Stockton Public School is how great we are at wearing our school uniform. When I look across the playground it is so nice to see a sea of light blue and navy shirts, jumpers, skorts and shorts. Please remember the winter uniform is navy jumpers. The front office sell hoodies and jackets with the school crest. Students can also wear plain navy jumpers or jackets. Please refrain from wearing other jumpers with logos such as the soccer team or the netball team. I am confident that no child wears their school jumper to the football game, so the reverse is also the expectation. Please ensure that your child's name is on every jumper. Students need jumpers in the morning and sometimes by the afternoon. The middle of the day is warm at the moment, and often students take jumpers/jackets off. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible to find jumpers and jackets that do not have student names in them. Classrooms can have up to 30 students in them, which means jumpers often get mixed up. A name written on the tag, or a name tag stitched into the jumper can help the item to be returned to the rightful owner. This also helps with lost property. Thank you for your cooperation in keeping our standard of school uniform as one of the best I have ever seen.
CASUAL TEACHERS
At Stockton Public School, we try to use a small group of consistent and familiar casual teachers. These casual teachers replace our staff when they are on leave. Leave could be long service leave, illness, professional development courses, or off class and in school organising and supporting school events and plans. We are very grateful for the casual teachers that support Stockton Public School and continue with the class teaching and learning program.
At times, unfortunately we are unable to find casual teachers. We have found that the demand outweighs the number of casuals available some days. On these infrequent days, a class may need to be split between other classes in our school. This is not our preference and we have usually exhausted all of our avenues to secure a teacher if this is the case. We understand that this is disruptive and are very mindful of the impact that it has to student learning of the split class but also the class where extra students are sent. Please be reassured that if your child’s class is split, they are provided with work from another class teacher on the same stage to complete independently. We do try to minimise this but we have found over the past couple of years that at times this is unavoidable.
Ms Jodie Holt
Principal
