Dundurrabin Public School Newsletter Term 3, Week 4, 2023

Principal's Message

A sensational week last week as we celebrated Public Education across NSW. A visit from the Taronga Zoomobile had us all mesmerised by the reptiles on display- a special treat to share with our friends from Hernani PS. Thank you to Mr McQueen from Cascade Environmental Centre for organising this visit. The celebrations continued with a special NAIDOC themed lunch prepared by Katherine and our students on Friday. The salt-bush and pepper crocodile with dippy mayo and kangaroo sausage rolls were delicious. Thank you, Katherine and Mrs Sangster, for sourcing traditional ingredients for us to taste.

We know that some of our families have been sick, and that's ok. We want to hear from parents about how we can help your child come to school every day where sickness is not the reason.  Please click on the link below to let us know if we can help. It's only one question.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd6PEbWDjLn8jTqg6NfKs_BnIPF5PpvEK-2K0NpqXHUhDrb1w/viewform?usp=sf_link

We are pleased to have 100% of families booked in for our parent teacher interviews this week. Our teachers love connecting with families to share student learning gains and goals.

See you through the week!

Leah Keough

Every Day Counts

Reporting Feedback Survey

At the end of Term 2 we sent home the student reports. We were so proud of the growth our kids have made. We love your feedback and have created a 3 question quick survey to find out if we can do better. The link below has also been emailed to all families. It should only take about 2 minutes to complete.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeE7iGIRwcplIbaZXezV48HBR3lZXU3iwscEaeVgE7gF3TLBQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

What's on for Term 3

• Monday 7, Wednesday 9 & Thursday 1o August-Parent/Teacher Interviews-3.15pm to 4.15pm
• Wednesday 9 August - Preschoolers Afternoon - 1.30pm to 3.15pm
• Thursday 10 August - Kindergarten Transition - 1.30pm to 3.15pm
• Friday 18 August - Placemaking with Fire to Flourish- 9.30am to 10.30am
• Monday 21 August to Friday 25 August - Yr 5 & 6 Sydney Excursion
• Thursday 24 August - Kindergarten Transition - 1.30pm to 3.15pm
• Tuesday 29 August - Book Week Parade - 9.15am
• Monday 4 September - P&C Meeting - 4pm
• Wednesday 6 September - Preschoolers Afternoon - 1.30pm to 3.15pm
• Thursday 7 September - Kindergarten Transition - 11.20am to 3.15pm
• Tuesday 19 September - School Photos
• Thursday 21 September - Kindergarten Transition - 11.20am to 3.15pm
• Thursday 21 September - Term 3 Assembly & Adults 'v' Students Sport - 2pm

Consent Notes to be Returned

• Placemaking Consent Note - By Wednesday 9th August 
• $2.00 NAIDOC Day Bus Cost - if your child has not already paid 

Fortnightly Awards

Term 3 - Week 2

K - 2 Class

Kai Chambeyron for enthusiasm and focus when decoding words.

3-4 Class

Jaxon Bennett for effort and achievement in maths.

5-6 Class

Lucy Tyler for impressive engagement in science when learning about plant and animal adaptations.

Mid North Coast Athletics Carnival

Congratulations to Quill Pankhurst who has qualified for the next level of competition at the Mid North Coast Athletics Carnival for 200m age race and long jump.

The MNC Athletics will be held at the Coffs Harbour C.Ex International Sports Stadium on Monday 14 August. Good luck!

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden News

Week 2 

This week we continued to add interesting ideas to our unique garden designs. We harvested eggs, herbs, parsnips and silverbeet.

Thank you to Black Mountain Nursery for donating various seedlings for our Kitchen Garden Program and to Chris our wonderful GA for delivering them to us.

In the kitchen we made vegetarian bolognese sauce, to go on top of spaghetti with cheese. We added beetroot and were amazed by the colour transformation! We also baked a parsnip and orange spiced cake for dessert with icing and sweet honey parsnip chips to go on top.

Cooking Award: Congratulations to Lucy Tyler for excellent work and cleaning up in the kitchen.

Week 3 

Last week we planted a tangelo and 2 olive trees as part of Schools Tree Day. Clarence Valley Council generously supported this event by donating $100 towards the tree purchase. We harvested eggs (yes, they are still laying) and shallots from the garden as well as utilising a whole variety of First Nation spices and flavourings that we bought online. 

In the kitchen, as a special NAIDOC theme lunch, we cooked saltbush and pepper Crocodile with native desert lime and native blood lime mayonnaise, Kangaroo sausage rolls with native bush tomato sauce, pumpkin damper baked in paperbark with saltbush butter, wombok salad, strawberry gum panna cotta with orange and wattle seed shortbread (in the shape of gum leaves!) and a lemon myrtle tea.

Cooking Award: Congratulations to Sunny Baff for amazing gum-leaf biscuit skills!

STEM - Science, Tecnology, Engineering and Maths

Look at our bridge building adventures. We've been using strawbees to construct bridges using triangular shapes. Did you know that triangles are the strongest shape? It's because any weight placed on them is evenly distributed between the three sides. Tri-iffic!

Daily Reviews in Maths

Daily reviews have landed! A new addition to our daily maths learning where we spend 15-20 minutes recalling, reciting and applying mathematics skills to reinforce the building blocks of core topics. 

Gumbaynggirr Language Learning

K-6 continue their Gumbaynggirr language learning this term with Lesley each Wednesday. 

Kindergarten Transition Program

We welcomed Beth and Lachie to our first Kindergarten transition day. They had fun joining in with K-2's afternoon routines. Our next transition day is this Thursday, 10 August form 1.30pm to 3.15pm.

Taronga Zoomobile Visit

Last Monday afternoon the Zoomobile came to our school and so did Hernani School. The Zoomobile goes around Australia and teaches schools about the animals that they bring with them.     

The first animal was a leaf insect. The leaves on her back looked sort of spiky and she hung on to a branch the whole time.

The second animal was a blue tongue lizard. She was really cool. One of the girls said that they have blue tongues so that their tongues don’t get sunburnt.

The third animal was a shingle back lizard. They have these weird things on their tail that look like their head so that predators don’t know which is the head. They can then get attacked on the tail and not the head.

The final animal was a little different. This animal was the tortoise. Did you know that a tortoise's spine is attached to its shell and they can't take it off and that tortoises can’t swim- they only live on land?

In my opinion the Zoomoblie was great and I recommend that they come back to our school soon.

Lucy Tyler

Preschool Afternoons

Term 3 Preschoolers afternoons will be this Wednesday 9 August and Wednesday 6 September from 1.30pm to 3.15pm. Bring along a packed lunch/snack to join in with lunch and play with our students. Then there will be educational activities that help develop gross and fine motor skills as well as art and craft. All preschool children aged 1-5 welcome.

Placemaking Workshop

On Friday 18th August, from 9.30am to 10.30am, students will be participating in a Placemaking workshop here at Dundurrabin Public School. At the workshop students will have lots of fun working with maps and models to figure out how to improve some of the public spaces here in Dundurrabin, Hernani and the Blicks area. The activities at the school will be centered around input from the children of our community.

This activity adds to our core education outcomes (HSIE), looking at how our public spaces and places better connect and cater for a community’s needs into the future.  

The placemaking workshops are hands-on and tactile. Students will be engaged in visualising their community spaces through a range of activities. The workshops will be facilitated by Monash University Master of Architecture and Urban Planning and Design students, along with supervising placemaking research team.   

A consent has been sent home with your child/ren today. Please return your signed consent note to Dundurrabin Public School by Wednesday 9th August.

Year 5 & 6 Sydney Excursion

Our major combined Dorrigo PS and Dundurrabin PS Stage 3 (Yr 5-6) excursion is only two weeks away. Students will be visiting Sydney departing Urunga on Monday 21 August and returning to Urunga on Friday 25 August 2023.

Travel to Sydney will be by train from Urunga. Accommodation will be at YHA The Rocks and a night camping on Cockatoo Island. 

Full payment for this excursion is $550.00 and must be finalised by next Thursday 17 August. Payments can be made online via the Dundurrabin Public School website, cash or cheques made payable to Dundurrabin Public School. Or if you wish to use your student flood funding money, please let Melissa know.

Three Way Parent / Teacher / Student Interviews

We will be holding our Parent / Teacher / Students meetings starting today, Monday 7 August to Thursday 10 August. We are looking forward to meeting with each learner and their parents/carers. Meetings usually only take 15 minutes. 

Book Week Parade

We will be celebrating Book Week in August on Tuesday 29  August. The theme for this year is "Read, Grow, Inspire". Children can come dressed as any book character or something that matches the theme for this year. Parents are welcome to watch the parade under the COLA starting at 9.15am. Followed by Mrs Sangster reading a book to us all from this years shortlisted books.

School Information

2023 Learning Contributions 

Learning Contribution fees for 2023 remain the same - $30.00 for the costs of student items provided by our school and $40.00 towards SAKG program which has ongoing costs each week, such as cooking ingredients, seeds and seedlings. Families can use their child/ren's flood funding to pay the SAKG subject fees only, if you chose. Please let Melissa know if this is what you wish to do. Thank you to the families that have already let us know.

P&C News and Community News

P&C Meeting

Upcoming Community Events