As Week 10, Term 3 comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the school executive, teachers, admin and supoort staff for everything they have done this term to support our community through this home learning period. In Term 4, we are very much looking forward to welcoming back Mrs Green after her term of leave.

I would also like to express my sincere thanks to every student, parent, grandparent and carer who has flipped their home and or working life to support home learning during this term. You have all achieved something that you should be proud of and now take some time to rest and recharge the batteries.

Make sure you pack away the learning materials these holidays and make time as a family to engage in fun activities together.

The first day of Term 4 is Tuesday 5th October. Students work will be posted on Google Classrooms on the Monday to allow families to prepare for the week ahead.

As communicated in past newsletters the staggered return to school is currently set as:

Monday 25th October - Kindergarten and Year 1

Monday 1st November - Year 2 and Year 6

Monday 8th November - Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5

The school executive are continuing to develop a rigorous plan to manage the safe return of students in our community. Some of these may include adjusted and staggered start and finish times, specific pick up, drop off and playground locations to comply with the Departments guidelines around minimising mixing of student cohorts.

For the school to be able to safely manage the staggered return set out by the Department, it is important for families to work with the school and follow the school's arrangements that provide specified dates and times for student year levels to return to school. This is crtitical so that we can manage the safety of students, staff and parents.

Prior to these dates, we will provide you with clear communication in regards to all the safety measures and organisation that will be in place to manage the safety of the entire school community.

We appreciate your support and understanding throughout this period.

SPOONVILLE

It s great to see our wooden spoon community growing. Thanks to everyone for adding their spoons.

END OF TERM CELEBRATION VIDEOS

On Friday we will be posting our end of term celebration videos. Thank you to everyone who has uploaded a 5 second dance video or emailed in an image of their favourite art activity or piece of work from this term.

If you haven't uploaded this yet and wish to do so, please do this by tomorrow morning 9am so we can start to edit the video.

• To upload a dance video, please do it here.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MOQ5I5FbOHIBUQfp7RQz6ZLMQesuFEq_?usp=sharing

• Please send any image you would like included to the school email address. artarmon-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

We look forward to sharing them with you at the end of the week.

NAPLAN RESULTS

We have not yet received the student NAPLAN results to send home to families. When we do, we will communicate this information through the SZapp.

TREE REMOVAL

On Friday, both gum trees were removed from the McMillan Playground. Once down, it was clear to see that these trees were at the end of their life span and needed to be removed. The school is looking into adding more trees into the playground to provide shade for students. 

Here is another family friendly art activity from Ms Simms.

Thanks for sending through all the images this week. We wil share some of them on Friday.

Hope you have enjoy this one from Ms Simms.

The Education Department are streaming different activities every day students can participate in. These will be continuing every week throughout the 'learn from home' restrictions.

You can access them here:

https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/learning-from-home/learning-at-home

These sessions are at 10am everyday, however, are recorded and can be viewed when it suits your family.

Get ready for more #EducationLIVE, 10am AEST daily:

• Monday 13 September: Learn a simple illusion taught by Mr Magic himself, Adam Mada.

• Tuesday 14 September: Create a character and travel to another world with actor, Felix Jozeps from Sydney Theatre Company.

• Wednesday 15 September: Discover The Right Way to Rock with children’s author Nat Amoore.

• Thursday 16 September: A very special guest who shall not yet be named.

• Friday 17 September: A cardio dance party presented by Jade from The Healthy Mummy.

And our 'Animal of the Day' is back featuring a special animal guest from Sydney Zoo and Mogo Zoo.

Dear Strings Parents, 

It’s the last week of Term 3 and we hope that the kids are enjoying playing their instruments and having fun in the process. Please remember that it is entirely normal to stumble the first few times when learning a new piece of music and trust in the process.

Just a reminder for all students to complete their ensemble recording task set by Mr Mansukhani by Sunday 19^th September. This recording will form an audio track that features all players from their respective ensembles so the students have a chance to hear themselves playing music together.

We hope this task is successful, so we are able to conduct further recordings.

It has been great to see a high level of participation from Strings and Orchestra students in the online rehearsals and music tutorials. Many thanks to the parents and student. Well done everyone. We hope you and your family are continuing to stay safe.

Here’s this week’s tip regarding sight reading for students to practice.

7. Try new things

Try out a different music piece every day (from a music book you’re using). Or from the internet, surprise your parents with their favourite movie theme.

This week’s joke.

Q: Why was the musician arrested?

A: Because she got in treble

If students would like to send in a music joke, please do to strings.artarmonpandc@gmail.com

Music Camp and Term 3 String event updates

Due to the extended COVID019 lockdown in Sydney, the following events have been cancelled for Term 3:

• Eisteddfod
• Music Camp (refunds have been fully processed)
• Track down studios recording session
• Concourse concert

Correspondence

If you are not receiving emails from the Strings Committee, you need to log into your parent portal and update your contact details immediately. A lot of information goes out via email that is not included in Newsflash.

If you have trouble logging into the parent portal, email your group coordinator or the strings address below.

Please let your strings coordinator know if you have not received an email link to attend ensemble rehearsals for Training Strings, Junior Strings, Concert Strings, Senior Strings via Zoom run by Mr Mansukhani. Please check that these invites are not in your spam/junk/promotions folder.

Payment Reminders

Please ensure payment to tutors.

Please check your email/junk mail for invoice and payment details. Thanks for your understanding.

If you have any questions related to an invoice or payment, email stringstreasurer@gmail.com

Ensemble rehearsals: Currently on ZOOM         

If your child is sick and/or unable to attend a rehearsal, please notify your corresponding Strings Coordinator.

Informative videos to help with string instruments.

If your instrument is out of tune, do not forget to have a look at these informative videos to help with string instruments. These videos will assist with how to tune and take care of the violin. These have been most helpful to ensure the violin is in tune during practice. Please watch with your child. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOP1ht4mHt0bLr-boSTZ9ig/featured

Volunteers needed.

We still need to fill the following volunteer roles to assist with Strings in 2021/2022:

• STRINGS CO-CONVENOR:  Assists Convenor with insurances, instrument purchases, newsflash writeups, replies to email queries, updates MSM portal, event planning, liaises with Strings committee, uniform shop, school, and Mr Mansukhani. Takes over the reins of Convenor for a minimum 2-year term. Requires work in your own home.  Approximately 2 hours a week.

By volunteering you will be making a valuable contribution to the running of the String program and your child(ren) will love to see you get involved. If you are interested in volunteering for one of these roles or would like more information, please email strings.artarmonpandc@gmail.com

Got a question?

If it is about your hired instrument or instrumental tutorial, please contact your tutor at first instance.

Alternatively contact our instrument coordinator or strings coordinator if required. For anything else please contact your Strings Convenor.

Tutorials:

If you have a question regarding your child’s tutorial, please email your Tutor in the first instance. Alternatively, email Jane at tutorband@artarmonpandc.org.au

THANK YOU!

2021 Strings Committee

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 conducted over Term 3 and early Term 4. Although participating in the survey is entirely voluntary, your responses are very much appreciated.

More information about the survey is available at: education.nsw.gov.au/ttfm. To access the survey for our school go to: http://nsw.tellthemfromme.com/bf9pq

The survey is available in 23 languages.

To read the above information in a different language. Please use the links below.

Arabic_newsletter_text_parent_survey.pdf

Chinese_Simplified_newsletter_text_parent_survey.pdf

Chinese_Traditional_newsletter_text_parent_survey.pdf

Korean_newsletter_text_parent_survey.pdf

Russian_newsletter_text_parent_survey.pdf

Tamil_newsletter_text_parent_survey.pdf

Thai_newsletter_text_parent_survey.pdf

Urdu_newsletter_text_parent_survey.pdf