2022 School Captains

On Wednesday morning I had the privilege of introducing our new school captains for 2022. The school captains for 2022 are:

All of the nominees did a great job of stepping outside their comfort zone to present a speech highlighting why they would make a great school captain. This was followed by voting in classes which were tallied and then checked on Monday and Tuesday. We are incredibly proud of all of the nominees but offer sincere congratulations to the four students elected. They will formally receive their badges and take up their new role on Presentation Day this Wednesday.

Presentation Day Assemblies

On Wednesday, we are hosting our stage-based Presentation Day assemblies to acknowledge many of our students’ achievements throughout 2021. This is a year where all students are deserving of acknowledgement for their efforts and perseverance.

We apologise that these are not able to be attended by families. A presentation day assembly doesn’t feel quite the same ‘streamed’ on zoom, however we must respect and adhere to the guidelines in schools designed to keep our students safe. We thank you for understanding this, but emphasise that this is not our preferred way to host presentation day.

You will find the Zoom link for the stage-based assemblies further on in today’s newsletter. It is the same link for all 4 assemblies to avoid confusion. Please feel free to join us for as many of the assemblies as you’d like but note the times they are each on. Our major end of year awards will be presented as part of the Stage 3 assembly. I hope you can join us as we celebrate the students’ successes.

Art Installation

The ‘What is this’? question I posed to the students during the online lockdown assembly has finally been answered this week. In essence this is an ‘art installation’ created by our part-time General Assistant (GA) – Nic Connell. There are two key messages we wanted to convey through this installation:

1)  Students are central to everything we do at Lambton Public School

2)  We love learning and that it is something that continues throughout life.

Obviously, not all art installations are to everyone’s taste, but we hope it causes people to think and reflect about school and learning as they pass by our school each day.

What do you think? We would be interested to know.

Teacher’s Federation Strike 

As I shared on Skoolbag last Wednesday, the NSW Teachers Federation has called upon its members to strike and stop work for 24 hours on Tuesday 7 December. The strike is in relation to teachers’ pay, conditions and staff shortages.

Since a significant number of our teachers are stopping to work to participate, regular lessons will be unable to proceed on this day. We will be ‘operational’ but only with minimal supervision. Minimal supervision will be provided by the small group of teachers who are not stopping work for the strike. If you are able to arrange alternate care for your children on this day, please do so, however we will be open for those families who do not have alternate care available. Please note: the canteen will be open just in case any student who needs to attend on that day can order some lunch if required.

If you would like to read more about the reasons behind the Teachers’ Federation strike,  the attached PDF may provide more information. We appreciate your patience and understanding as this industrial action takes place.

 Only 10 school days to go! Have a great week

David Holland

Congratulations to our Students of the Week for Week 9 of Term 4:

Schedule for stage cohort presentations:

• Early Stage 1: 9.30am
• Stage 1: 10.30am
• Stage 2: 11.30am
• Stage 3: 1.30pm 

Each presentation will run for approximately 20 minutes with stage 3 running for a little longer due to major awards.

All parents of students receiving an award have been notified via email.

The above timeslots are to fit in with our stage breaks and student bubbles. Each presentation will be live streamed as they were last year via the one link below: 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://nsweducation.zoom.us/j/68907892874?pwd=U01DUGNaL1U5VnRiUHl4aDlHYTNTUT09

Meeting ID: 689 0789 2874

Passcode: 681833

All award recipients will enjoy a special morning tea with Mr Holland and their teachers immediately following their award assembly.

Thank you and we look forward to these special events for our students.

Mrs Gillard - Presentation Day Coordinator 

The students’ Semester 2 reports are in the process of being finalised and we hope to be distributing them to parents towards the end of next week. Any families that require an additional copy due to shared care arrangements, should contact our school office  via email Lambton-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au to request this. Once received, if you have any questions about your child’s end of year report, please contact their class teacher in the first instance. 

Dear Families,

LakeMacNewy OSHC (formally Elermore Vale OSHC) is excited to be chosen to deliver OSHC services at Lambton Public School in 2022. We will operate Before, After School & Vacation Care and start at 6.30am. 

We ask that families help us commence the enrolment process by emailing your name, your children’s names & your phone number to lambton@lakemacnewyoosh.com.au. In the first week of December, we will start sending out enrolment packs and entering enrolment onto the Child Care Subsidy software, ready to commence on Day 1, Term 1, 2022.

We look forward to meeting you all

It’s been an extremely successful debating season this year. We, the Lambton Public School Year 6 debating team (Lambton Legends), started off with face-to-face debates.

As COVID restrictions were put in place, debating moved onto Zoom. We won all of our debates prior to lockdown, when debating was put on hold for 3 months. When we returned to school full time, we found out the exciting news that we had qualified for State, the highest level in the competition. We argued a range of topics, from ‘Only good role models should be allowed on professional sports team’, to ‘The last hour of each school day should be dedicated to art and creativity’. We mostly drew affirmative, but we did have a couple of negative debates. Our last debate was against Darcy Road Public School, who ended our winning streak with the topic, ‘Teachers should receive a bonus if they get a good rating from their students’. We did our best and came top 16 in the state, which we were very proud of. We also received some really great feedback from the adjudicators, including that we were the best team they had seen in the last three years, which was really good to hear.

Thank you to Mrs Webb for organising our debates and supporting us through this tough season, and to Miss Bassett for helping out with the coin tosses.

1st speaker- Emily Cook

2nd speaker- Meg Sillar

3rd speaker- Ethan Lewis

4th speakers- Ashley Weeks and HyoMin Yang (alternating)

Interested in being part of our School Band in 2022.... Stay tuned!! More information will be available at the beginning of Term 1 2022

Well done to our band members in 2021 for their hard work and perseverance.  No doubt everyone is excited by the prospect of  a new year and a chance to return to face to face rehearsals at school.  Lunches have been very quiet without our band rehearsals.

Let’s hope 2022 allows for a smooth uninterrupted year with lots of opportunity for performances. 

The students and teachers have been really enjoying receiving Christmas Cards this week with lots of big smiles when a card is received. The Christmas Card mailbox will continue to be out next week as well, so don’t worry if your child hasn’t had the chance to participate yet. Please remember to put the receiver’s name and class on the front of the envelope to help the ‘Christmas elves’ with their delivery.

Please note, some classes are now participating in several Christmas themed activities due to the time of year.  These are not religious based activities such as scripture lessons for students who opt-in to do those lessons.  These activities are quite often curriculum related.  At other times of the year, curriculum activities are also often themed, eg, Anzac Day, NAIDOC Week, Harmony Day etc. This is another example of that practice. Please contact your child's teacher if you do not wish for your child to engage in Christmas-themed activities.

We are always in need of more 2nd hand uniforms to assist families through this transitional period. If you have uniforms that still have life in them or your child is leaving the school (eg Year 6) we would sincerely appreciate donations of these items. Students are encouraged to bring these items to the school office.