Artarmon Public School eNewsletter

Welcome back to school and happy 2024 to our entire Artarmon School Community!

How wonderful it was last week to stand at the front gate each morning and see everyone come back to the school with smiles on their faces. I am sure I also saw a few parents skip down the street after drop off singing a happy tune as well.

I would like to acknowledge our teaching and non-teaching staff for everything they have done to make the start of a new school year so positive and seamless. There is a significant amount of work that happens behind the scenes to have a successful start to the year and yet again, our staff have excelled to create the best learning environment possible for everyone.

A few pics from the week with students getting straight back into school life, building relationships and developing a classroom culture fit for learning.

Below are a few things for you to remember for the start of the year.

Finalising classes - Students are currently in their 2024 class, however, we are still finalising some new enrolments, and hope to have this completed soon. An email and SZ notification will be published soon with finalised information.
Afternoon pick up - Please remember to always ensure your child knows where to meet you or how they are to get home each afternoon. Below are the arrangements for grades.
- Year 1 - Students lined up on McMillan playground - To be collected by parent or guardian
- Year 2 - Students lined up under yellow umbrellas between the hall and canteen
- - To be collected by parent or guardian
- Years 3-6 - Dismissed by teachers from classrooms - Families please communicate clearly with your child where they will meet you or how they are to get home safely.
- Picking up siblings - It is so wonderful to see our older students showing responsibility and supporting their younger siblings in the morning and afternoon. As parents, please remember to ensure the meeting points for your children are clear, and if they are ever not sure, please come to the office for support.
Fortnightly Newsletter - Our school newsletter will be published on Wednesdays each fortnight. Notification when published will be sent out through the SZapp.
Online permission notes through School Bytes - You will start to see online permissions come through via email and accessible in your School Bytes portal. Please action these as soon as you are able and contact the school if you have any questions.

ATTENDANCE MATTERS

I can not stress enough the importance of getting to school on time. Please remember that supervision is available in the playground from 8:25am before the morning bell rings at 8:55am.

As a family, please make sure you plan and ensure your child is at school every day on time to ensure they are here and ready to learn. The impact of lateness as you can see below is detrimental to your child.

CONTACTING THE SCHOOL

ABSENTEE NOTE: Please use the School Bytes app or portal to submit the reason for absence.
CONTACTING THE CLASSROOM TEACHER: Please use the school email address - artarmon-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au and it will be forwarded on.

WELCOME TO OUR NEW STAFF

In 2024, I would like to introduce two new staff members who will be teaching one of our classes.

Ms Humphries and Ms Hewitson

Ms Humphries will be relieving as an Assistant Principal on Year 2 and Ms Hewitson is a new permanent staff member assigned to Artarmon and will be teaching Year 1 this year

They have loved the start of their time here and are very much looking forward to joining our team and school community.

Please make them feel welcome when you see them in our playground.

INTRODUCING OUR STUDENT LEADERS FOR 2024!

It has been wonderful this week to spend some time with our elected 2024 student leaders and know how excited and proud they are to represent our school. I also want to take this time to acknowledge the outstanding young role models in our school who were unsuccessful in gaining an elected position through our leadership processes last year. These children nominated themselves, spoke confidently in front of their peers and were so mature in congratulating their friends, knowing that they too have a huge role to play as senior members and role models in our school.

Congratulations to our elected student leaders for 2024.

Captains: Sidra Aleem Uddin and Arighna Mishra

Prefects: Chloe Zheng, Nicole Collins, Jeevika Bulsari, Zoe Ru, Song Gan Chen and Aiden Jin

WELCOME KINDERGARTEN

Yesterday we welcomed 110 Kindergarten students into Artarmon and they had such a great day., A huge shout out to our Kindergarten team who put a significant amount of work into ensuring our students had the best start to schooling.

Welcome to all our Kindergarten families and if you are new to the school or this is your first child starting the journey, we hope you have enjoyed the start of the year as much as your children.

Can't wait to see our Year 6 class of 2030 graduate!

MEET THE TEACHER SESSIONS

This year we will be continuing to use a Meet the Teacher Parent Evening instead of our early year getting to know you interviews.

The evenings will take place over Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd of February 2024 between 5-7pm.

Kindergarten and OC Information Nights will run on Monday 26th February.

Wednesday 21st February- Grades 1, 2, 4

Thursday 22nd February- Grades 3, 5, 6

How the evenings will run

Each grade will be a 45 minute session broken up into a 20 minute classroom session in your child’s 2024 classroom and a 20 minute grade session in the hall. There will be 5 minutes in between for parents to move from one venue to the other.

We understand that parents may have children in multiple grades. We’ve tried to stagger the sessions so that parents can attend multiple but this may not always be possible for every family situation.

As space is limited in classrooms it is suggested that children stay at home.

ROAD SAFETY - KEEPING OUR STUDENTS SAFE

Already over the past week, I have witnessed unsafe behaviour from parents when picking up and dropping off their child at school. Please remember that as parents, we are role models and it is our responsibility to ensure we do everything we can to teach our children safe behaviour and keep them safe when around roads and traffic.

Here are some simple rules to follow:

Drive slowly at all times in a school zone.
Follow all traffic / road signs.
Do not park and leave your car in a kiss and drop zone
Use the pedestrian crossing and or traffic light crossing when coming to and from school
Do not walk your child across Abbott Rd in front of cars and buses.

BUILDING UPDATE

Thomson Oval

As communicated, the Thomson Oval is currently out of action for at least 6 months. We will continue to communicate about its progress when we receive updates from the council.

Please see the below image from the council for safe passage around the oval to and from school. These posters are also located on the work site fences.

School Apps

It's essential to keep up to date with the latest news and information from school.

If you haven't already, you'll need to download the two school apps - SZapp and School Bytes. Both can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

School Bytes

Real-time push notifications
Secure payments for fees and excursions
Ability to give consent, sign forms and respond to attendance alerts
View the school calendar and news

SZapp

Newsletter
Contact Us form
Forms, documents & links
Daily announcements

STAFFING IN SCHOOLS

Staffing in schools is based off the number of students enrolled across all grades K-6. Depending on the number of students per grade, schools are required to create and form the number of classes within their staffing allocation.

This year we have had to create two composite classes to fit within our staffing allocation. Due to this, we wanted to provide the community with some additional information.

Composite Classes – Information for parents

What if my child is in a composite class?

Various studies into class structures have concluded that there is no difference in the academic performance of students attributed to single year vs composite class structures. Research does show far more important factors that influence student performance include the quality of teaching and teacher/student relationships.

At Artarmon Public School we tend to have composite classes primarily dictated by the variability in grade enrolments. Staffing is calculated on the TOTAL number of enrolments in the school, not the number of students in a particular year. School’s will regularly need to from composite classes because of the number of students per grade. In many schools composite classes are the preferred model because they support a stage based view of learning rather than an age based approach. When we focus on the age or class year group some students will find their work too hard and some too easy.

No class, whether composite or not, should be viewed as a "single year class" due the wide disparity in age, physical development, cognitive development and social development that naturally occurs in each grade level. Every class then is a composite class filled with students with different learning needs, rates of learning, interests and strengths at different points in terms of their progress and achievement depending on what they are learning.

Is a composite class an ‘A’ class?

No. 'Streaming' students (i.e. forming classes by perceived ability) is not supported by the research. Nor would we create a composite class consisting of advanced younger students and place them with older students needing remediation. These practices are outdated and not supported by the research and can have a negative impact on student engagement and academic achievement.

How does the teacher cater for different year groups in the same class?

The curriculum is based on stages of learning from Kindergarten to year 10. Each stage builds on the next stage. These stages cover 2 years of primary school. Curriculum content is organised around key concepts and skills within these stages.

Kindergarten covers the Early Stage 1 Curriculum

Year 1 and 2 cover the Stage 1 Curriculum

Year 3 and 4 cover the Stage 2 Curriculum

Year 5 and 6 cover the Stage 3 Curriculum

The content in a Stage composite such as a Year 1/2 or Year 5/6 , follows the curriculum of the respective Stage.

In every single classroom, teachers cater for different instructional needs in the key learning areas by using assessment of their students and addressing their level of learning. Assessments help students, teachers and parents to better understand where the student is now and the next steps in learning. This process assists all students to be challenged and supported in their learning regardless of their year group or stage of learning. This process is called the teaching and learning cycle. The below diagram demonstrates the cycle visually.

How will being placed in a composite impact on my child?

Research, shows there is no discernible difference between composite and 'straight' year group classes in terms of academic performance because every class is a composite class.

In our experience most parents who express concerns about their child being placed in a composite class at the beginning of the year are happy for their child to be placed in a similar class in the following year. Some children take longer to settle in any class but this can be due to factors other than being placed in a composite class.