Guildford West Public School
NEWSLETTER - 2022, Term 3, Week 10
Principal News
Dear Parents and Carers,
It has been lovely to return last week after 9 weeks away from Guildford West as I recovered from back surgery. I have spent lots of time visiting the classrooms and seeing all the amazing learning that has happened over the past term.
On Tuesday last week, we held a full day incursion run by Koomurri where student learnt about Aboriginal culture and history. The day started with a Welcome smoking ceremony where the whole school gathered at the oval and enjoyed a traditional Aboriginal dance. Throughout the day, student participated in boomerang throwing workshops, Aboriginal dance, painting and learnt about Aboriginal artefacts. At the end of the day, the whole school joined together to perform the dance they learnt during the day.
As we prepare to begin the holidays, I encourage you to take the opportunity to spend some quality time together as a family and recharge before a busy Term 4.
Ms Weston
Principal
Support Unit News
Cooking
S Paterson have enjoyed learning new cooking skills and cooking delicious food in the kitchen. We have learnt how to harvest vegetables from our school garden and use the eggs that our chickens lay to include in our recipes. We have loved making fresh and healthy food, and our favourite part is when we eat what we have made!
Literacy
Students have been keen participants during our writing sessions in S Paterson. We have been exploring a range of sea animals and investigating where they live and how they move. Students have enjoyed identifying and labeling the different parts of sea animals and sharing their ideas with their peers and teachers.
Kindergarten News
This term we have really focused on improving our writing in Kindergarten - look what fantastic and competent writers we became! During our writing lessons we also learnt how to follow the steps of the learning intention and success criteria to understand what we are learning and how we can improve in our learning. We focused on writing descriptions this term where we wrote about native Australian animals, Aboriginal culture, our favourite places and places we would like to visit. It is very exciting to see our students improve in their writing and get ready for Year 1.
Stage 1 News
This term has been a very busy and exciting time for Stage 1. One of our key focuses has been to deepen our understanding of persuasive texts and build our confidence in presenting a speech.
Stage 1 began their journey with teachers showing them how to write an opinion and give strong reasons, to then working as a team to write a persuasive speech and now ending the term with the challenge of writing their own speech and sharing it with the class. Our students have shown so much determination and resilience this term!
Another exciting experience this term has been the introduction of Scope IT. Year 1 students have had an amazing time working with computers and learning about coding every Friday. This weekly activity has led to students becoming more confident in using digital technology, identifying how to select and move items on a screen. This is a skill which they will continue to build on in Year 2.
Stage 2 News
Mushroom Harvesting
This term we have been tending to mushrooms in Stage 2. These mushrooms have been left in our storerooms where it’s dark and cool, the perfect conditions for our fungi to grow. At first we were a bit worried since we couldn’t see anything change over the first two weeks. However, slowly but surely we started to see the little white heads of the mushrooms poke through the soil. Some of the classes have harvested the mushrooms, taken the mushrooms home, eaten the mushrooms or donate them to our school Kitchen for Mrs. B to use in our cooking classes.
Koomurri Incursion
During Week 9, we had the pleasure of participating in the Koomurri Incursion. This incursion taught us more about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. We started off the day with a smoking ceremony before moving in rotations to go to different activities. The activities included art, an informative session about weapons and artefacts, dancing, and boomerang throwing. We had an amazing day and were grateful for the knowledge that the Aunties, Uncles and Elders passed onto us about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history.
Chicken Watch
At the beginning of Term 3, Ms Clarke in K-2 had the honor of looking after some chicken eggs which hatched to become adorable chicks. Over the term, a couple of the Stage 2 classes have had the opportunity to look after the new chicks and our beloved older chickens. We had the responsibility of feeding them, providing them with water, and checking for new eggs. We were lucky enough to collect quite a few eggs.
Gardening
One area which we have grown interested in over this year is gardening. This term we started planting different herbs and vegetables to expand our garden. We loved putting gloves on and placing the little seeds into the mini greenhouses. We have been monitoring their growth and they have already started sprouting! We can’t wait to plant them into the bigger vegetable patches and see them grow.
Stage 3 News
Sustainability – Plastics Incursion
This term, we have been learning about sustainability and plastic pollution. Students explored and developed a deeper understanding about how pollution affects our environment and what sustainable practices we can employ. We learnt about activists like Greta Thunberg and Solli Raphael and watched their speeches that they presented to the world. In Week 6, students had a plastics incursion in which students learnt about different types of plastics and the disadvantages they hold. Students explored different recyclable materials and how to recycle them properly. The excursion was a great addition to their learning.
Stage 3 Speeches
The last few weeks, Stage 3 have been working hard on their class speeches. Students were given the topic of ‘global issues’ and learnt new skills to apply when composing and presenting a great speech. Students have been dedicated and diligent when working on their speeches and in Week 9 presented in front of their class. Some topics included poverty, war, education, pollution and sustainability.
Stage 3 teachers have been very proud to see the students putting in their best effort and we commend all students for their courage in standing up in front of the classroom to present.
Well done! .
Art Club and CAPA News
We have had a wonderful term full of creativity and wonder! Students from Guildford West Public School, including the Art Club, participated in the annual Zart Art Student Art Competition 2022. The theme this year was ‘My Environment’, and students created artwork based on their interpretation of the theme and what the environment means and looks like to them.
There were three shortlisted finalists from our school who received art prize hampers worth over $100 of art supplies to continue encouraging their creativity. These include Ray Zhu from S Alcott, Pranita Kalluri from S Alcott and Anthony Semaan from S1 Mawson. Congratulations to these students and all those that participated!
As a result of the school's participation in the competition, Zart Art are kindly offering the Guildford West Public School community a discount on art supplies on their website. To simply purchase supplies online please go to the website https://www.zartart.com.au/catalogue/zart and enter the promo code GUILDFORD20 with any online purchase. This discount is exclusive to the Guildford West Public School community and valid until the end of Term 4.
Tell Them From Me
Our school is 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 is open and will be available until 28 October 2022. 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/gwps2022
The survey is available in 23 languages.
Guildford West Public School
Email: guildfordw-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au
Website: www.guildfordw-p.schools.nsw.edu.au
Location: 23-51 Palmer Street, Guildford West NSW, Australia
Phone: (02) 9632-9942
Facebook: guildfordwestps