CELEBRATING STUDENTS

I am thrilled to highlight one of our Year 4 students, Ike Chang, who recently returned from the USA after competing in the World VEX competition. This event challenges students to build and engineer robots according to specific specifications, followed by competitions against other teams in various games.

The VEX Robotics program aims to develop STEM skills, including critical and creative thinking, teamwork, and communication, while inspiring the next generation of innovators.

Over the past year, Ike and his team have achieved remarkable success, winning at the Regional, State, and National championships to qualify for the World Championships. This is an outstanding accomplishment, and we believe Ike will undoubtedly be one of our future innovators. Congratulations, Ike! We are incredibly proud of you!

Recently, our tennis champions, Emma Cao and Talia Yang represented Sydney North at the State Championships and emerged victorious!

Congratulations to Emma Cao, who has been selected from the Sydney North Tennis team to join the NSW team at the National championships later this year.

This is a fantastic achievement for both girls, with a special mention to Emma for her selection to represent our wonderful State.

AMAZING WRITING

Thank you to 4DG for inviting me up to share their amazing writing this week. It always puts a smile on my face to see our wonderful students so proud of their effort and continuous improvement.

SRC KINDNESS PROJECT

I am excited to announce the launch of the SRC's latest initiative: Artarmon Public School's very own Podcast show.

This student-led project is powered by our exceptional student leaders. In the article below, you can read about their upcoming event, a KIND-Raiser, aimed at raising funds for their Kindness mural scheduled for later this year.

You can listen to the first two episodes of Season One of our Kindness Project Podcasts, available for download on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify!

• Spotify: Listen here
• Apple Podcasts: Listen here

ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING CHANGES

Teachers are currently preparing Semester One school reports, which will be available in your School Bytes Portal in Week 9, in time for parent-teacher interviews in Week 10.

I will share more details about some changes to our reports at the upcoming P&C meeting next week, but I wanted to inform you here as well.

The Department of Education has updated its Reporting to Parents policy for the Key Learning Areas of Science & Technology, HSIE, Creative Arts, and PD/H/PE. Under the new policy, teacher comments are not mandatory for these subjects. Students will still be assessed on an A-E scale (Outstanding - Limited) and on an effort level of 1-5. To support our community and parent understanding of what is happening in classrooms, our reports will include statements of learning related to the content covered and learning opportunities provided. These statements will be consistent across each grade level, rather than individualised.

This semester, our 3-6 reports will follow the same format as last year's K-2 reports, where English and Maths will include a list of assessed learning areas linked to the syllabus, along with clear checkboxes for teachers to indicate results for each area.

The comments in these sections will be more concise, highlighting students' strengths and areas for further development.

PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

When: 30 June - 1 July 2025

Parent Teacher Interview bookings open Friday 6th June at 12pm.

Step by step instructions on how to book an interview with your child’s teacher will be sent out soon.

Please see class schedule below to plan and save the date.

ARRIVING EARLY TO SCHOOL

We have started to notice a few students in the playground unsupervised before school supervision has started.

Please remember students are not allowed to arrive at school or be on the premises unsupervised before 8:25am. Staff are on duty in the playgrounds from 8:25am and this is put in place to manage student safety. Thank you for your understanding and support in this area.

STUDENT INVOICES

Last week, Term 2 invoices were published in your School Bytes Portal and you should have also received an email notification with a PDF outlining associated activities and costs.

On your Term 2 invoice you may have noticed the $50 P&C Voluntary Contribution. This money is going towards upgrading our technology including laptops, iPads and interactive screens in classrooms to help provide the best possible opportunity for our students to engage and transform the learning experience. We are also using this money to create a technology Maker space to support students critical and creative thinking skills. Some of this money has already been spent on some Mac Book Airs and podcast microphones to help build our student led podcast channel.  

Thank you to those who have already paid this invoice as this allows us to ensure that we can provide a wide range of experiences that enhance our students' education and personal development. 

As always, if you or your family have any difficulties meeting the costs of curriculum programs, please contact me to discuss in the strictest confidence. In previous years, some parents have arranged payments by instalments to ease the burden.  A reminder invoice email will be sent in the coming weeks.

THANK YOU AGAIN TO OUR P&C AND WONDERFUL VOLUNTEERS.

I know we made a separate post last week to thank our amazing Fundraising team and tribe of volunteers for their efforts at the start of this term with the Election BBQ and the Mothers Day breakfast.

I just wanted to add more of a gallery here to show just how special the events were and the community spirit that was there and thriving.

ELECTION BBQ

MOTHER'S DAY BREAKFAST

Recently, Year 5 was involved in a program to help students build an understanding of the importance  of our native pollinators, bees in particular, who are a huge asset to our environment. Bees are an enormous part of our immeasurable environment, as without bees a wide range of our flowers and plants would wither away easily and not be able to reproduce. Bees also contribute an immense amount of our everyday foods. Bees also keep our environment nutritious and thriving.

During the program we did an experiment to find some local animals around the Kindy Cola and we found way more than we expected. After the experiment, we decided to plant some native flowers and plants that attract many of our native bees and pollinators. Such as the Mountain Devil, the Lemon Honey Myrtle, Fuchsia and the Clustered Darrinia. These plants and flowers promote much more biodiversity in our playgrounds and school. It's important to invite a variation of pollinators and different creatures to our school in order to build a vivid and healthy world around us. In the future, if we stick to this program, this will not only be a school to learn but a beautiful environment for all.

How can we help our native pollinators? We can help them by planting the many plants and flowers that our pollinators are attracted to! These include the flowers that were suggested above. We learned so much about the B&B Highway Program and just how important these unique creatures really are, and Artarmon says a big thanks for their help. I hope that this passage encourages you to think more deeply about our environment and that your choices matter so make sure the decisions you make are appropriate.

To encourage more biodiversity or if you want to find out more information you can go to their website:

B&B Highway- PlantingSeeds

From Elaine and Nora.

Year 5 have been busy helping our local environment by planting special bee boxes around the school to support the native Blue Banded Bees. These important pollinators play a vital role in our ecosystem and we’re excited to provide them with a safe place to call home. If you spot any buzzing about or nesting in the boxes, there’s no need to worry, Blue Banded Bees are not aggressive. It’s best to admire them from a distance and let them ‘bee’. 

SRC Kind-Raiser - Week 6

Hopefully your SRC representative has passed on information about the Kind-Raiser happening on Tuesday 3rd June, Week 6.  

• Purpose of Kind-raiser: Promote kindness throughout the school (along with our Podcast) 

When: Tuesday 3rd June (more details to come out closer to the date)

What is happening? 

• Aerial photo of entire school, in the formation of the word “Kind” on the oval
• Stages in different colours for each letter
• Colours: “letter…”
  • Kindy: wear Red 
  • Stage 1 (Year 1 / 2): wear Blue 
  • Stage 2 (Year 3 / 4): wear Yellow 
  • Stage 3 (Year 5 / 6): wear Green 

What is the Gold coin for?

• Students are asked to bring a gold coin donation for the kindness wall/mural (another SRC initiative) 

Year Two students engaged in a Raw Art incursion on Friday in Week 2. Three expert art teachers visited our classrooms at different times and shared their knowledge and skills with us. We used a range of tools and techniques to mould clay into beautiful and unique bird artworks. Every finished piece looked different and reflected the true colours of many native birds. Well done for your excellent creations Year 2! 

On 16 May, our school attended another heat of the Sydney Academy of Chess Interschool Competition. We won the school competition, and were awarded four of the five trophies for individual performance: Winston Bai (1st), Oliver Shao (3rd), Justin Chau (4th) and Ethan Richards (5th). We can now take 10 players to the semi-final which will be held in Term 3.

As we move into Term 2 and the colder months, it is now time to start to transition into the schools Winter uniform.

Please continue to take pride in our school uniform and ensure our children are wearing this everyday, including black shoes when not a sports day. 

If you would like to order any uniforms on-line, these will be delivered to your child's classroom through the office.

httpss:/wwwwsustainableschoolshoppcomm.auartarmonppss

Please also check jumpers and clothes are clearly labelled with your child's name.

The interschool PSSA Gala day has been postponed to FRIDAY 6th JUNE.

The School Photographer will be at Artarmon next week, taking individual and class photos!

• Monday 26^th May Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2
• Thursday 29^th May Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6

All students will be photographed in their class and individually. We encourage online payment at www.theschoolphotographer.com.au either before photo days or up to 30 days afterwards. 

Cash payments (exact money only please) can be sent to school with your child on their allocated day.

Sibling photo envelopes and spare envelopes (for new students or to replace those that have been lost) are available from the school office.

Sibling photos take place at lunchtime on these days. We ask that older students meet their younger sibling/s outside the hall near the yellow umbrellas.

Please send your child to school on their allocated day in their full winter uniform, including black shoes. Girls have the option to wear pants or their tunic.  We ask that students do not wear their coloured sport shirts.

The following groups will also be photographed over the two days-

• Student Leaders (Captains and Prefects) 

• Sports House and Vice Captains 

• Year 2 Choir 

• Kameraigal Choir (Years 3-6) 

• The whole Year 6 group 

• Orchestra 

• Concert Band 

• Senior Band  

• Junior Band 

• Jazz Band 

• Senior Strings 

• Concert Strings 

• Junior Strings 
• Guitar 

 Details about the purchase of these photos will come at a later time.  

The first P&C meeting for the term will be held online via 'Teams' next Wednesday 28th at 7pm

Please add this to your calendars and log in to hear the latest updates