Good afternoon Artarmon community and welcome to Week 6 Term 1

To all our Year 5 parents and carers out there I wanted to start this week's newsletter with confirmation your children have arrived at camp, are having an amazing time and will not come home as clean or fresh as when you dropped them off this morning.

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our amazing staff who have volunteered time away from their families to provide this experience for our students, knowing the opportunities it provides.

A huge thank you to our P&C and all the families that came along to our online P&C meeting last week. It was great to see over 100 of you online and to be able to share what is happening within our school and our volunteers' projects. It is really helping to build connections within our community so that we can provide the best quality education for our students.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

It has been wonderful to interact with our community and having them come into the classrooms for the meet the teacher nights a couple of weeks ago. The feedback from families was so positive and I thank you for your engagement and connection with your child's classroom teacher and learning environment.

Further down in this weeks Newsflash, you are able to download the PDF slides used in the whole grade presentations.

Class Parents: Thank you to all those parents who volunteered to be a class parent for 2024. We were inundated with responses and ran through the process to lock people in for this year. Over the next few weeks, you will be contacted by your class parent to share your contact information for important class communications.

K-2 Easter Hat Parade:

We have locked in a date for you to add to your family calendars to hopefully join in the fun of an Easter Hat parade for our K-2 families this year.
If you are able to join us on the day, please add Thursday 28th March at 9:30am to your diary!

Post Easter - Band Breakfast

We have moved the Easter Band Breakfast to the last week of term to allow our students to be best prepared for our morning showcase.

The morning performance will now be on Thursday 11th April.

A huge thank you to our parent volunteers for organising this morning. More information about how the morning will run will come home from the P&C band committees.

HAPPY P&C DAY!

The first Wednesday in March (today) is officially know as P&C Recognition day.

As mentioned above, it was so wonderful to see over 100 members of our community at our last P&C meeting and then to showcase how our community came together to support each other with last Friday's Fathering Project 'Pizza and Paper Planes' event.

We are currently building an article for the next newsletter with more images, but I wanted to share with you today a sneek peak and to thank our parents and community for volunteering their time to provide this opportunity for our school.

We are so very lucky to be in a school with a supportive and collaborative P&C that always puts our students first. If you have not yet had an opportunity to connect with our P&C, please do and I look forward to seeing you at our next face to face meeting.

TRAFFIC SAFETY 

I can not stress enough the importance of our families and communities prioritising safety and role modelling the correct behaviour for our students in order to keep them safe when travelling to and from school.

Drop Off and Pick Ups - Please take advantage of the kiss and drop zones created by the council in consultation with the school and P&C to keep our children safe.

Stopping and dropping off at the back of the school on Barton Rd, either in the school driveway or double parked, is not safe. Please ensure you take extra time and teach your children how to walk into school safely from one of our kiss and ride zones.

TRAIN SAFETY

If your child is a train traveller, please remind them of the correct way to enter and exit the train safely, taking into consideration the public. I spoke with all students at this week's assembly as there have been a few reports from the public about behaviour and safety whilst travelling.

IMPORTANT DATES FOR YOUR CALENDAR

All our school events and calendar reminders are located in the School Bytes calendar. These can be accessed through the portal or via the School Bytes app.

Please make sure you have accessed this to know what events are coming up at school.

CLEAN UP AUSTRALIA DAY

A huge thank you to our Green Team for their work on sustainability and a focus on Clean Up Australia Day this year.

Our Green Team members have been promoting and reminding classes of Nude Food Tuesdays and the importance of reducing the rubbish in our school and community.

Did You Know –

In your RESOURCE tab in your Schoolbytes Parent Portal, you can find information relating to the Canteen, the Uniform Shop, the Band and lots more.

This is also the place to find last year's School Reports.

On Monday, the 4th of March, we, the student leaders of 2024 at Artarmon Public School took part in the Young Leaders Convention. The prestigious event was held at the grand International Convention Centre of Sydney. Over 5000 future leaders from primary schools across NSW, were present at the convention, and each one of us got a chance to gain new perspectives and meet new people. Over the course of the event, we listened to five speakers, who shared their personal growth story and journey to success. The Young Leaders Excursion was a great learning experience and it inspired all of us to cherish our mistakes and dream big.

The first speaker we met was Anastasia Woolmer, the Australian Memory Champion. Known for her incredible memory and intellect, she talked to us about her journey full of unexpected hardships and how intense hard work earned her title.

A brief hip hop dance break with the Dance Curriculum team gave us a chance to digest all the invaluable information we had learnt.

Next, we listened to Eva Amores and Matt Cosgrove, the co-creators of a popular book series named ‘The Worst Week Ever’. They focused on the value of perseverance, the reason the duo thrived through the pandemic. This is when they created their comedic masterpiece.

The next speaker was Stephen O’Keefe, a retired cricketer who played for the Sydney Sixers. He emphasised the importance of sacrificing and loving what you do for a living. His speech inspired me to appreciate my hobbies while still keeping my focus on the main goals of life.

The final speaker was Bryson Klein, a renowned Australian Ninja Warrior who discussed the importance of failure. In his words, “The difference between a master and a novice is that the master has failed more times than a novice has even tried.” Bryson’s speech taught me to cherish my mishaps and get back up again.

In a nutshell, the Young Leaders Excursion was an exhilarating event that we learnt many valuable things from. By listening to all the inspirational speeches, the APS student leader’s confidence and knowledge has grown. The Young Leaders Convention was a wonderful experience and is sure to inspire future leaders for generations to come.

Written by Jeevika Bulsari

Congratulations to our class-elected SRC Representatives for the first semester of 2024. They will be working closely with Ms Smith and Ms Wickens to develop leadership skills and support the students, as well as the school community.

Families of students in Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 are welcome to watch the Parade.

Thursday 28th of March at 9:30 am, McMillan Playground.

We hope to see you there!

K-2 students are invited to design and create their Easter hats at home.  Hats are to be brought to classrooms on Wednesday 27th of March.

Here are a range of templates that you may like to print and use.  However, feel free to design your hat.

Click here to download Easter Hat Parade 1

Click here to download Easter Hat Parade 2

Click here to download Easter Hat Parade 3

Meet the Teacher Grade Presentation Evening.  Click below to download the information.

Click here to download the Kindergarten Meet the Teacher Presentation

Click here to download the Year 1 Meet the Teacher Presentation

Click here to download the Year 2 Meet the Teacher Presentation

Click here to download the Year 3 Meet the Teacher Presentation

Click here to download the Year 4 Meet the Teacher Presentation

Click here to download the Year 5 Meet the Teacher Presentation

Click here to download the Year 5OC Meet the Teacher Presentation

Click here to download the Year 6 Meet the Teacher Presentation

Click here to download the Year 6OC Meet the Teacher Presentaiton