• Principal's message
• Students of the Week
• Reconciliation Yarn tomorrow 8:00 am
• Changes to K-2 Eating Area
• Athletics  Carnival information
• K - 6  Dance Program starts soon
• Enrol now for Kindergarten 2024
  

K-2 Eating Area

Just over four years ago, when I first arrived at Lambton, the executive team and I made a decision to move the K-2 eating area from the asphalt mini-cola to the top cola to address a problem we were having with students being out of bounds and moving between playgrounds without teacher supervision. Associated with this change was the fact that students were required to select which playground they wanted to play in, move to that playground to play, and they weren’t allowed to change areas midway through a break. These strategies worked very well to resolve the problems we were experiencing, and they allowed good supervision at all times, however we had to live with K-2 not having tables and chairs to sit at while eating.

Last term, we relaxed the rule about not moving between playgrounds as a trial to see if the problems of the past still existed. We are delighted to say that they didn’t; students have been moving sensibly between playgrounds and not often getting caught out of sight or out of bounds. As a result, we feel that it no longer makes sense to have the K-2 students eating area under the top cola.

Therefore, from tomorrow onwards, K-2 students will return to eating at the tables and chairs under the asphalt min-cola. To facilitate this change, we have changed the orientation of the tables in this area and added 5 new tables to provide extra seating. There are a number of additional advantages to moving K-2 back to the mini-cola including freeing up more space under the top cola for handball and giving K-2 students more time to eat (without losing time walking from their classrooms to the top cola). Like all changes, we will monitor this for 2 weeks to ensure everything is going smoothly but we hope it makes a big difference to the wellbeing outcomes of our students during breaks.

Congratulations to the ‘students of the week’ for Week 6, Term 2:

• Assembly led by 4/5S – 2:00 pm

Friday

• Hunter PSSA Cross Country Carnival

• Final payment date - Athletics Carnival (whole school)
• Final payment date - K - 6 Dance Program 

• Back to School Vouchers are able to be redeemed for this excursion.
• Students without permission and/or payment by the due date and no arrangements have been made will be unable to attend the Athletics Carnival.
• Payment and Permission can be given using the link within the email previously sent from School Bytes.  To ensure emails are always received, please add noreply@mail.schoolbytes.education to your safe senders list with your email provider. 

Our Aboriginal Education Team extend to all families, especially those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background, an invitation to attend our first community gathering of the year. We will be discussing how to make Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories more visible in our school.

We truly value your contribution and look forward to seeing you! Coffee, tea and light refreshments will be available.

When:     Tuesday 6 June 2023

Where:     LPS School Library

Time:        8:00 am

Our annual athletics carnival for 2023 will be held next Wednesday 14 June at The Hunter Sports Centre, Glendale. The carnival is for all students from Kindergarten to Year 6.

• Year 3 – 6 carnival will run from 9:30 am – 2:15 pm
• Kindergarten - Year 2 students will arrive at the centre at approx. 10:10 am and return to school at 1:00 pm.

Permission and payment for students to participate in the carnival is $15.00 which includes bus travel and entry to the venue and due by Friday 9 June

If your child is in Year 2 this year and turns 8 in 2023, they can choose to participate in the 8 Year 100m age race. Please ensure you add this to their permission note. Once they complete their race, they will join the rest of the students in Year 2 to continue stage-based activities. 

Students must wear their sports uniform, hat, sunscreen and running shoes (no spikes allowed). Students are encouraged to wear sports house colours and bring along signs etc to support their house.

Families are welcome to join us on the day. Please see below schedule of events for the day. 

In preparation for our special performance night 'Lambton Live' on 11 September, we are providing all students with dance lessons supported by teachers from CC Choreography to supplement our Creative and Performing Arts curriculum.  All classes from Kindergarten to Year 6 will participate in a 10-week dance program consisting of weekly, 30-minute dance lessons supported by teachers from  CC Choreography who have a wealth of experience working with school children and provide a variety of fun and energetic routines and dance activities.

During these lessons students will learn dance movements and work with the dance and classroom teachers to create their class performance for our upcoming whole-school performance night.  These lessons will commence in Week 9 of this term and run through until Week 8 of next term leading up to the performance night, 'Lambton Live'.

The cost for this 10-week program is $30.00 per student which equates to $3.00 per week, which represents excellent value for money. However, we do understand that even at that price, this program is an added expense for families. With this in mind, we will be subsidising the cost for all families with more than 2 students attending school. 

The opportunity for our students to experience the performing arts, gaining experience on a stage and hopefully having a lot of fun in the process is something that we have wanted to do for a very long time, however COVID put our plans on hold for 2 years. Whilst any school activity that has a cost can be hard for some families, our hope is that you will see great value in an event like this. 

Permission and payment for this dance program is due Friday 16 June . If you have any questions or concerns about the program or wish to discuss financial assistance to allow your children to participate, please feel free to contact us through the school office. We will do our best to support those that need it, so that all students may participate.

Just a friendly reminder to all parents and carers that when your child is away from school you are required under the Education Act to provide an explanation for the absence. 

Parents and carers can choose to:

• Complete the absentee form found within the Resources tab on the Audiri app
• Reply to the SMS you will receive from school around 10:00 am if your child is absent from school.  
• Provide a handwritten note to the classroom teacher
• Send an email to the school lambton-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au 

If an explanation of absence has not been received, letters are sent home twice per week to give parents and carers a further opportunity to provide an explanation. Please complete this slip and return to school and we will amend your child’s attendance accordingly.  If the school has not received an explanation after 3 days, the school may contact you to discuss the absence. 

Audiri Absentee form - All of the communication features previously available in the Skoolbag app such as absentee form, change of details, make an appointment etc are still available in the Audiri app and can be found by clicking on the Resources tab in the bottom right hand corner. 

As the school continues to be notified of Covid-19 cases, we continue to remind all families of the following advice:

·       students and staff should not attend school if they are showing any symptoms of COVID-19 or other respiratory illnesses. These include fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, runny nose, loss of smell/taste, muscle/joint pains, diarrhoea, nausea/vomiting, extreme tiredness, unexplained chest pain or conjunctivitis (eye infection).

• If symptoms occur at any time, your child should not attend school and is encouraged to undertake a rapid antigen test (RAT).
•  If your child tests positive, they should not attend school while displaying any symptoms and please notify the school.

Parents are encouraged to register any positive test on the Service NSW website or Service NSW app so that you can be linked to important health care support and advice.