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“Friendship and Learning”

The Newsletter of Vacy Public School Tuesday 28 July 2015 786 Gresford Road, Vacy 2421 Ph: 0249388153

Respect, everyone & everything

www.vacy-p.schools.nsw.edu.au

Principal: Mr Graeme Oke

From The Principal

Congratulations to our junior dance group who followed up the seniors with an

outstanding performance at the Hunter Dance Festival last Thursday. Miss Corrigan and

Ms Graham received many complimentary remarks from audience members about the

great dance by our ‘cheeky monkeys’.

Our next P & C meeting will be held tonight Tuesday 28 July starting at 7:00 pm in the

staffroom. All welcome.

This week is Education Week and to celebrate, we invite parents and community to join

us for a Special Education Week assembly under the COLA from 2:15 pm on Thursday,

30 July. Our senior and junior dance groups will perform their dances from the Hunter

Dance Festival and our choir will showcase two songs that they have been learning. We

look forward to seeing you there.

Our new PBL reward badges have arrived and will be

presented to our Bronze and Silver recipients. They

look terrific and the platypus symbol was designed by

our very own Natalie Parker to whom we are most

grateful. Students will be able to accumulate the

badges to proudly wear on their school uniform.

Everyone is invited and welcome to attend the

combined Dungog Community of Schools Education Week Ceremony being held from

4:00 to 6:00 pm this Thursday 30 July at Dungog High School. Please come along and

join together with our neighbouring schools to celebrate the achievements of our

schools. Our senior dance group will be performing at the ceremony and this year will see

the launch of a combined choir.

This year, we are celebrating Bookweek from 3 to 7 August to coincide with the Tony

Bones performance of one of the shortlisted books, ‘The Stone Lion’. As we have done in

previous years, we have the shortlisted books for this year’s Children’s Book Council of

Australia awards on display in the office foyer and invite families to choose a favourite

book to donate to our Library. We have appreciated the generous support for our Library

over many years and if your family would like to donate one of the shortlisted books

please let Mrs Bettinzoli, our school Admin Manager, know which title you would like to

donate.

This year we will also have a Book Fair in the Library with titles gathered from

McDonald’s Bookstore in Maitland. Parents can select books to purchase either following

the Tony Bones performance in the morning, at lunchtime or following the book

character parade that will be held at 2:00pm on the day (Thursday 6 August) of the Tony

Bones performance. The theme for this year’s Bookweek is “Books Light Up Our World”

and children can dress up as their favourite character from a book and share the title of a

book that has ‘lit up their world’.

Regards,

Graeme

Be safe

Co-operate

Play fairly

Think before you do

Email: vacy-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

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Dates to Remember Canteen News I read an article yesterday which talked about the pressures of

doing a shift in the school tuckshop. It spoke of 700 hungry

students, baking muffins from scratch and adding up totals or

working out the change in front of mathematical whizzes from

year 3! We are so lucky here in our canteen that being a small

school we have just over 100 smiling faces to cater for, our muffins

are baked from scratch and frozen in advance thanks to the

beautiful Sian and our mathematical whizzes from all years will tell

you the amount of change needed as if it were an important math

exam leaving us volunteers feeling like we are rewarding the

student for their great maths skills with their purchase! It made

me thankful for our little school, the happy smiling faces of the

students and of course the friendly volunteers who help teach

maths to students! Have a great week .

Thank you to Amy, Sian, Kelly and Karen for their time in the

canteen last week.

Emma Maslen

0411 342 935

July

Thursday 30 Education Week Assembly @ Vacy School 2.15pm All welcome!

Combined Dungog Community of Schools Education Week Ceremony @ Dungog High from 4pm

Friday 31 Zone Athletics at Woodberry

August

Monday 3 Ghan Beat My Drum Performance

Tuesday 4 2016 Kinders to visit Vacy School

Thursday 6 Tony Bones Performance - dress up as your favourite book character

Book Fair

Tuesday 11 2016 Kinders to visit Vacy School

ICAS Maths

Tuesday 18 2016 Kinders to visit Vacy School

ZOO SNOOZ excursion

Wednesday 19 ZOO SNOOZ excursion

Friday 21 K-2 Reptile Park excursion

Thursday 30 July Cassie Allison and Kristen Street

Monday 3 August Fiona Wysel and Carrie Butler

Kinder Sam Maslen

1/2 Eva Doyle

2/3 Isabella Grainger

3/4 Mikayla Preston

5/6 Zac Rocco

STUDENT OF THE WEEK AWARDS

CLASS AWARDS

Kinder Sonny Thorne for being organised and ready to learn.

Year 1 Harry Uren for fantastic writing.

Year 2 Darcy Richardson for settled work habits.

Year 3 Cooper Rocco for well considered contributions to class discussion.

Year 4 Connor Fernance for a persistent approach to spelling.

Year 5 Annabelle Pereira for being a valuable member of our class.

Year 6 Shay Deacon for sensible work habits.

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Zone Athletics Carnival Just a reminder that the Zone Athletics Carnival for 2015 will be held this Friday (31st July) at Woodberry Oval commencing at 8:30 am and that it is your responsibility to transport your son or daughter to the venue to compete in their event/s. Miss Corrigan will be attending the event but will no doubt be given a job to do. I have therefore organised for a few parents to manage the team on the day. The Vacy team are expected to sit together on the day and a note must be provided to Miss Corrigan if you would like your child to travel home with any other parent. Programs will be on sale at the carnival and a menu for the canteen will be given to all of the competitors today. Miss Corrigan will have the Vacy School sports shirts and shorts and will distribute them to the students on the day of the competition. Congratulations to all of our Vacy School Zone competitors. Have fun and do your best. Karen Fonti

Premiers Spelling Bee This year the students in Years 3-6 are invited to compete in the Premiers Spelling Bee Competition. The school competition will take place on Thursday 27 August commencing at 2pm. The winners will then proceed to the finals that are scheduled to take place at Tenambit School on Wednesday 9 September. Junior and senior word lists are available on the school's website if you would like to have a look and practise some of the words that the students will be tested on in the competition. Karen Fonti

Office Closure Please note that the office will be closed between 12:30 and 1:00 pm on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as Mrs Bettinzoli

is the only admin officer on duty on those days. The 30 minute closure allows Mrs Bettinzoli to have a lunch break. Any phone

calls made to the office during this time will be recorded and returned as soon as possible. For any urgent matters, please ring

the bell on the office counter.

Junior Dance Group Junior dance group rocked the stage last Thursday night at Hunter Dance Festival! They brought a great amount of energy and fun to the stage as they performed their piece "Witch Doctor" to an excited audience. Even though it was a long day of waiting with anticipation to perform, the children behaved beautifully all day and enjoyed every moment on stage.

Well done on another great performance! Thank you to Ms Graham and her daughter Sam who helped out on the day. Your assistance is very much appreciated!

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Monday 3 August, 2015

If you have not already paid please pay ASAP cost is $4 per child.

One man’s musical, cultural & physical journey from Ghana to Australia.

Ghana Beat My Drum incorporates audience participation, singing, dancing and drumming to leave audiences feeling

exhilarated and inspired as well as enlightened in the ways and culture of Africa and more particularly, Ghana.

Jonas shows students where Ghana is in Africa and briefly compares the land of this childhood, to both the war torn country

that he fled and to the vibrant developing Ghana of today. His hometown of Winneba (Windy Bay), is well known for the

Winneba Aboakyer Festival, a festival of hunting, feasting, dressing up, lots of singing, dancing and of course the Grande

parade to end the festival for another year. Jonas also tells traditional stories incorporating wild African animals, that were

told to him as a child about friendships, loyalty and honesty. He talks about his classroom under the shade of a large tree to

escape the equatorial sun and how their blackboard was attached to the tree. Jonas also take time to explain, in simple terms,

why he left Ghana and why he now thinks of Australia as his home. While there are lots of fascinating facts and stories, Ghana

Beat My Drum is predominantly a music show, incorporating guitar, numerous drums, xylophone and many unusual

percussion instruments most of which students get to play. Add to all this Jonas’s wide smile and infectious laugh and what

you get is a truly memorable, lively and uplifting, feel good show.

Kindergarten Enrolment for 2016

Vacy Public School is now taking enrolments for 2016. If you have a child or know of a child who will turn 5 years old before

31st July 2016 and wishes to enrol in Kindergarten please contact the school and collect an enrolment form. Informal visits

will be held in Term 3 and orientation in Term 4.

Check the dates on the calendar in this newsletter for pre-school visits to the school.

Woolworths Earn and Learn Promotion The Woolworths Earn and Learn promotion has begun. If you buy your groceries at Woolworths please collect as many stickers as you can and drop them into school. In previous years we have been able to redeem these stickers for a range of sports equipment and robotics resources for our school. A great way to translate the money we spend on groceries into resources to support your child's learning.

Why volunteer in the school canteen? Schools and community organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to find volunteers to help out. With many parents working or busy looking after children there is a real shortage of volunteers in school canteens.

Volunteering in your child’s school canteen has a whole range of benefits to you, your child and the school community:

You may be able to have some input into what food is sold in the canteen.

It gives you an opportunity to meet other parents at the school and gives you

another social outlet.

You can support your child in their food choices at the canteen.

Your child is able to see you at the canteen.

You are supporting the school to be able to provide a food service for the

students.

Our school is in need of a more volunteers for the canteen so if you are interested

please contact our Canteen Supervisor.