Dudley Public School Newsletter

The students at Dudley Public School are fortunate to have a variety of opportunities presented to them to excel in the classroom and in extracurricular activities. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the teachers who provide these opportunities our students have had many opportunities to succeed and celebrate this term. Some of these celebration stories include:

- Starstruck dance group performing over the weekend

- Zone and Regional representation for Cross Country for many students

- Debating Teams participating in the Premier’s Debating Competition

- Stage 2 Dance Group being accepted into the Newcastle Dance Festival

- Multiple sporting gala days and competitive matches

- Students from K-6 participating in the School Public Speaking Competition

- Leaders speaking at Anzac Day Commemoration

- Walk Safely to School Day involvement of students, staff and families

- Game Changers Team preparing for competition

As you can see, we have many students who we are extremely proud of and wish to congratulate on a such a fine effort in representing the school and themselves with pride. Well done to everyone involved in these projects to enhance the educational opportunities for students.

Next week will see staff and students participate in a range of classroom and whole school activities to acknowledge NAIDOC Week with a focus on this year’s theme: For our Elders. The week of activities will culminate on Friday with a full day of activities including an Acknowledge of country and Smoking Ceremony in the morning, followed by a special assembly with performances from Aboriginal students from Whitebridge High School. Students will then engage in a rotation of activities focussed on arts, language, sport and culture celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander traditions, history and culture.

On Friday 30 June we invite students to come to school wearing clothing in the colours of red, yellow and black with a gold coin donation. This money raised will go to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, A national charity working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander remote Communities across Australia. They are Community-led, responding to requests from remote Communities for culturally relevant books, including early learning board books, resources, and programs to support Communities to create and publish their stories in languages of their choice.

Every year, all schools in Australia participate in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). The NCCD process requires schools to identify information already available in the school about supports provided to students with disability. These relate to legislative requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, in line with the NCCD guidelines (2019).

Information provided about students to the Australian Government for the NCCD includes:

• year of schooling

• category of disability: physical, cognitive, sensory or social/emotional

• level of adjustment provided: support provided within quality differentiated teaching practice, supplementary, substantial or extensive.

This information assists schools to:

• formally recognise the supports and adjustments provided to students with disability in schools

• consider how they can strengthen the support of students with disability in schools

• develop shared practices so that they can review their learning programs in order to improve educational outcomes for students with disability.

The NCCD provides state and federal governments with the information they need to plan more broadly for the support of students with disability.

The NCCD will have no direct impact on your child and your child will not be involved in any testing process. The school will provide data to the Australian Government in such a way that no individual student will be able to be identified – the privacy and confidentiality of all students is ensured. All information is protected by privacy laws

that regulate the collection, storage and disclosure of personal information. To find out more about these matters, please refer to the Australian Government’s Privacy Policy (https://www.education.gov.au/privacy-policy).

Further information about the NCCD can be found on the NCCD Portal (https://www.nccd.edu.au).

If you have any questions about the NCCD, please contact the school.

Our academic reports will be issued at the end of next week. These reports are a summary of learning progress and development of your child and are carefully written by teachers after a thorough process of assessment, analysis and evaluation. The reports summarise learning achievements and areas for development from Semester 1. Our reports will be made available via the Sentral Parent Portal. Please contact the school office if you have difficulty in accessing this platform.

Our attendance data continues to go from strength to strength. Whilst our attendance statistics remain under our strategic target this term, we have exceeded attendance for the same time period in 2022; that is each weeks attendance rate this term has been higher than the same time last year. Many thanks to parents for encouraging regular attendance at school and the importance of not losing school days of learning. Attendance does make a difference. An attendance report will be issued on the last day of this term highlighting your child’s attendance rate for the term. We aim for an attendance rate of over 95% to ensure quality educational and wellbeing outcomes have the maximum potential to be addressed and consolidated for every student.

Our P&C Fundraising Team are well into the process of organising our next big fundraising event: a Readathon. The Readathon will involve all students from K-6 and start in Bookweek next Term (Week 2) and run for 5 weeks before a special assembly to announce the total of funds raised and presentation of prizes. The event will coincide with the Premier’s Reading Challenge. Many thanks to the P&C for this wonderful event. The funds raised will be directed toward a 50/50 project with the school in sourcing a new up-to-date lighting system for our school hall for future events, productions, assemblies, discos and formal presentation performances.

Many thanks again to the students, staff and community for accommodating the disruption to our school throughout this term as we have worked with temporary fencing, scaffolding and a number of contracted trades in the school working on some major assets works and improvements. The roofing project on 6 of our classrooms has now been completed with a final tidy up to happen in the coming weeks. The conversion of our old hall to a new dual classroom has begun and is already looking like a magnificent space to inspire quality teaching and learning. Once this space is complete 4/5M will relocate to the new classroom space with the removal of demountable classroom from the Dudley PS site. Our OOSH have successfully moved into our new hall for operations and we are excited to see this service grow into the future.

Many thanks to our wonderful community once again for a fantastic Term 2. When I reflect on our school event calendar there have been some incredible events and activities that have involved students, staff, families and the wider community. I am very proud to be the principal of our school and would like to take the opportunity to wish all school staff and families a nice winter break. Take the time to reset, recharge and recalibrate ready for an exciting Term 3.

All students return to school on Tuesday 18 July, 2023.

Kind Regards,

Chad Tsakissiris

Principal

We’ve had an amazing and exciting time at Star Struck ‘Ignite’ this year. After many hours of rehearsals and driving back and forth from the Entertainment Centre, being in the actual production was fantastic. The dance group had fun not only on stage but also behind the scenes in the holding area, meeting new friends and seeing all the costumes on display. We loved our costume and had fun dancing with 200 other students on the huge floor at the NEC. Thanks to the mums and dads who drove us everywhere. We will never forget this amazing experience!

Ms Wild

Dance Teacher

Over the past few weeks, students across the school have showcased their impressive public speaking skills. It is truly heartening to see our students flourish in public speaking, as it is a crucial skill that empowers them to express themselves effectively and confidently. 

Last week, selected students from each class participated in Speak Off competitions to determine the two speakers from each stage that will continue to the zone competition in Week 6, Term 3.

The winners from each stage are:

Early Stage 1: Annika and Gabriel

Stage 1: Airlie and Elizabeth

Stage 2: Thomas and Francesca

Stage 3: Lincoln and Mia

The winners will present their speech at the Week 4, Term 3 whole school assembly.

Overdue books

There are currently over 200 overdue books on our library system. Please check anywhere a library book may be hiding at home, in the car, in your school bags and return all books to the library as soon as possible. Students will not borrow again this term to allow me time return and reshelve everything, ready for next term. If there are any special requests for holiday borrowing, please come and see me in the library and I will accommodate this. 

Premier's Reading Challenge

The PRC is well underway, and many students have already completed it! The closing date is August 25th so keep reading and completing your online reading logs. I will complete reading logs for students in kindergarten, year 1 and year 2. 

Book Week

This year's theme is "Read, grow, inspire!". We will celebrate Book Week here at Dudley Public School in week 2 term 3 so get your creative costume designing ideas flowing and start to make your costume!

We will have our usual character parade for each class, if any younger siblings (or parents) want to get involved please feel free to join in the fun!

We will have a book fair in the library and fun activities around the school during that week. 

The P and C are organising a Readathon fundraiser which we will launch during our book week celebrations. This fundraiser will run for 5 weeks and end at the same time as the Premier's Reading Challenge. 

There are lots of  opportunities to enjoy a great read ahead so grab a book and get involved!