Week 9 Term 1, 2020

PRINCIPALS MESSAGE What an interesting week it has been… Firstly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to our parents, students and school community for supporting the changes and restrictions we have had to put in place to ensure the ongoing safety of our students and school community. Social distancing, personal hygiene and Learning from Home have become important measures to restrict the spreading of the virus and everyone has played their part, for which I thank you! The advice from the NSW Department of Education is very clear that schools will remain open for families who want their children to attend irrespective of their profession or working arrangements. We have now launched our Learning from Home activities through Google classroom. Whilst there has been an unprecedented level of information communicated to families about this new way of learning, I hope you have found it to be helpful and your children will enjoy completing learning tasks in our virtual classrooms. Teachers are available throughout the day to assist with Learning from Home, when they are not providing direct supervision of students in the classroom. It is important to note that the children who are present on school grounds are completing the same learning tasks as children who are Learning from Home. We would suggest that families endeavour to keep as much of a routine at home as possible. This includes set wake up and bed times and making time for breaks throughout the day. Continue to try and make learning fun and if you are not getting through all the work provided, that’s ok. Please keep in contact with your child’s class teacher to let them know how you are getting on.

Thank you to our many families who have passed on their thanks and support for the work that our staff have been doing to make sure our students have continuity of learning. Our students are always at the forefront of everything we do and our staff have appreciated the kind words and support. As a Principal, I am incredibly thankful and proud of all staff and their willingness to embrace this new challenge and adapt to new ways of teaching and learning in a positive way. We truly have a very special school community here at DPS! Each day staff and I will be uploading videos to each classroom to stay connected to the children who are Learning from Home. We welcome your feedback and look forward to working together to support the learning for all students. Stay safe Megan Druitt Principal

Engagement with the Denman community is a priority at DPS and we are proud of the strong relationship that we have had with the Denman News since it’s inception. For the past 12 years Mrs Sue Pickersgill has kept the local community informed of all things DPS in the weekly Denman News. We would like to acknowledge Sue’s dedication to the Denman community and wish her well with her future endeavours.

KINDERGARTEN CLASS NEWS Kindergarten have settled in so well to school and have had a busy start to the year. A big highlight so far has been visiting Healthy Harold in the van. We are very excited to have started reading and practicing all our new skills in reading groups. If Kindergarten parents would like to help us with our reading at school they are welcome to join us on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 10.20 – 10.55am. We are also gaining more confidence with our sounds and have enjoyed making words with the sounds we have learnt so far. In Science, we have been investigating living things and what they need to survive. Our radishes are growing very quickly and we have been sure to water them every day. We are continually improving our knowledge of numbers in Maths and are becoming much more confident with our counting. Our maths rotations are something that we look forward to each day and they are definitely helping us develop our Numeracy skills. In Geography with Mrs Saunders, our focus has been on special places and how to care for them. We have looked at various maps and were very interested to see where we live on an interactive map. We have been working on organisation through the ‘You Can Do It!’ program. Our organisational skills are quickly developing and we are fantastic at preparing for the next activity. I am very proud of the Kindergarten students and the independence they are developing. It is wonderful to see the growth that is already occurring.

My favourite part of

Kindergarten so far is … Pippa - My favourite thing is reading with Mrs Bridge

Colton – I like painting and computers

Bryce - Maths is fun

Ebony – I love everything about school

Chelsea – I love morning fitness

Xander – I like playing with my friends

Aleeya - I like to play with the dress ups