Goulburn North Public School Newsletter

As we head towards the finish line, I would like to give a massive 'Thank you!' to our students, staff and community. We have been through so much this year and yet we successfully made it to the end of the year. 

This year we had an amazing Fireworks night and raised $40, 000 for school programs and resources. We had a massive Covid wave hit the school in Term 2. So many amazing moments with camps, school events and of course our Kindergarten Orientation. Despite the difficulties of teacher shortages and the impact this has had at school, we have remained fully operational throughout the year. 

To our students in Year 6 who are transitioning to High School in 2024, enjoy the holidays. We wish you the very best of luck with this new adventure. Take every opportunity you are handed and enjoy the experiences of meeting new friends and teachers. We look forward to hearing about your learning journey.

To our families leaving the area and moving to new locations, we hope that your new setting is as wonderful as Goulburn was. 

To our families that will return in 2024, we are looking forward to another fun filled adventure in 2024. We have some great plans and look forward to sharing these with you in the new school year. Please enjoy the break and if you are travelling, travel safely.

To our wonderful volunteers that supported our school this year. We thank each and every person that gave up their time to support the learning and wellbeing needs of our students. We hope that you can continue to support our school and students in 2024.

To the super star staff that have worked endlessly to support our students. Thank you for your efforts. Thank you for keeping our students in the centre of your focus. Please rest up over the break and I look forward to another year of great learning at North in 2024.

Our bush tucker garden has now been planted. Wood chip and mulch will be placed around the saplings today.

The Christmas Holidays and some water should be enough time for the plants to take root and begin to take shape. 

A massive thank you to 'Growing Abilities', a local nursery, for sourcing and assisting with the planting of the plants. They will also provide the information on the edible nature of the plants. We will do some taste testing of the plants in the not to distant future, when our plants are growing.

Thank you to the Goulburn AECG for providing some direction and suggestions for this amazing project.

We would also like to thank our P&C and Veolia for supporting this project. This will prove to be a wonderful way for the community to be welcomed when entering our school.

What an amazing resource for our school. 

Our term has now seen quite a few students not adhering to the School Mobile Phone policy. We have now had to impose a ban on several students from bringing their mobile phones to school. 

We ask our community to once again, please discuss the school Phone Policy and guidelines. Please talk about how this applies to their children. 

Please also consider if your child actually requires a mobile phone whilst at school. If phones were not brought to school, these guidelines would not be required. If your child does not need a phone for the trip to and from school, we recommend keeping these devices at home.

Policy and Guidelines are found below.

All members of the school and community are invited to attend.

Thursday 14 December

Our replacement languages strategy is still in place. We are attempting to work with our students to identify more appropriate language that they can use when talking with other members of the school community. We ask that when you receive notification of these languages, can you please support our school by having a conversation with your child on what was said and what they have identified as a better use of language to use.

If the Replacement Sheet comes home and it has been indicated that your child has refused to participate in this strategy, it would be appreciated if you could sit and discuss the purpose of the strategy.

Our ultimate goal is for our school to have students that think about the ways that they are speaking to other members of the school community. That they then make conscious decisions to speak more respectfully to one another.

Through a continued focus and joint tackling of this issue, we will change our school culture for the better. We thank you all for your continued support in this process.

We now have 3 amazing volunteers to assist with Ethics Education in 2024. We still need someone to support with the management of the program and someone to support with Coordination. All training is provided. Please keep in mind that a teacher will be present to support with lessons. If you are in a position to support with this program, please contact the office and we will connect you with the Ethics Australia team. 

2023 has been a busy time at North. We have implemented the new Northern Star Passport system and watched the children move through the levels as their efforts were acknowledged.

The social and emotional learning program "Grow Your Mind" was implemented and we are excited to see how this continues next year. Survey results from the children show that they are really taking the learning from the program on board. Next year our goal is to communicate more about this program with families.

There are many things in the pipeline for 2024. Watch this space!

This information is taken from the ‘Digital Lives of Teens’ report compiled by the eSafety Commissioner (2020).

State of Play

• Teens spent an average of 14.4 hours a week online (boys 15 hours, girls 13.8 hours)
• Teens used an average of four different socia media services
• Top social media services were YouTube (72% of respondents), Instagram (57%) and Facebook (52%). The trend for these services has gone down since 2017. TikTok has had substantial growth in Australia (12% of respondents in 2017 compared to 38% in 2020).

Negative Experiences

• Just over four in 10 teens had at least one negative experience in the six months to September 2020.
• This increased to five in 10 for those aged 14 17
• These negative experiences included being contacted by a stranger (30%), receiving inappropriate content (20%), social exclusion (16%), receiving online abuse (15%) and having things said online to damage a student's reputation (15%)
• Almost one third (30%) said that their negative online experience related to bullying that occurred at school.

Digital lives of Aussie teens | eSafety Commissioner

On Thursday the 30th of November both Ava H and Eli L attended the Goulburn/Crookwell PSSA age champion ceremony held at Wollondilly PUblic School.

Congratulations to both students! You have made Goulburn North Public School proud!

Eli L took out the Under 8/9's age champion in cross country and Ava H took out the senior girls age champion in swimming.

The PSSA committee decided to start some of the sport trials early for 2024.

Billy C attended the Goulburn Crookwell PSSA trial on Monday the November 20th, he was successful in making the Goulburn/Crookwell PSSA basketball team.

On Thursday the 30th of November he travelled to to compete in the Zone trials. 

What fantastic work Billy!

Have an amazing birthday!!!

Presentation Days are our final assemblies for 2023.

Our end of year Presentation Days are being held in Week 9. See below for details on each event.

Additional assemblies for Term 4 will be held on the following date:

• Wednesday 6 December - K-2 Presentation Day commencing at 12.00pm
• Thursday 7 December - 3-6 Presentation Day commencing at 12.00pm.

5/6 Fantabulous have had an amazing year. This group of children have shown such resilience having a teacher and classroom change throughout the year. They have learnt to just go with the flow as change is inevitable.

This year has been a year of making memories. We have had great sing alongs, spontaneous Just Dance sessions and some good old fashioned all round fun!

We took a deep dive into the novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and have some budding inventors. They came up with some great new lolly inventions and constructed the machine that will invent it.

The class also did some great research on all things Australian and presented our visiting Indonesian teachers with amazing projects for them to take home with them.

Happy and safe holidays everyone!!!!

The P&C would like to give a huge thank you to all the wonderful committee members and volunteers involved in this year's fundraisers and events. Without these special people we wouldn't be able to hold events for our students like carnival and event canteens and the Fireworks Night. These events allow us to raise funds for all the extra things the P&C purchase for the school and the students, that aren't budgeted for by the Department Of Education.

Special thanks to this year's Fireworks Night Coordinator Alana Chinnery and her committee.

This year our Family Fun & Fireworks Night raised an outstanding $40,000! We are very excited to announce Julie Gouvas as our 2024 coordinator. Thanks also goes to Emma Davidson who ran a Pie Drive fundraiser and raised $450 for the school.

This year the P&C have invested in many projects to better the school and children's learning environment including:

• $10,000 for Mathletics for the whole school and Reading Eggs for all of K-2 classes.
• $10,000 for iPads for classes and staff teaching support.
• $14,000 for a P&C storage shed for projects and Fireworks Night equipment.
• $3,000 for lighting and power to the storage shed.
• $3,500 for permanent lighting under the Primary COLA.
• $2,000 for permanent lighting at the school front entrance.
• $5,000 for a Bush Tucker Garden joint project with the school and $900 for two new ovens for the canteen.
• $2,500 for a defibrillator.
• $2,500 for the stage 3 camp bus transport.
• $150 for staff appreciation day cupcakes and donuts.
• $10 contribution to each year 6 students jacket.
• $100 contribution for student state level sports achievement.

This year also saw the P&C introduce our new sports house colour shirts, which look very bright and smart every Friday and at carnivals. Thank you to our amazing uniform shop coordinator Ali for her tremendous effort in organising and distributing these new additions to GNPS.

We also had our new canteen manager Sharon join the team. Sharon, along with her wonderful volunteers have enabled us to open the canteen 3 days a week. We would love to keep this going for 2024, but we need more volunteers to allow this to continue. If you have an hour or two that you could give to help out once a week, fortnight, or month please contact Sharon on 0428 259 791 to help us keep the canteen open for our kids.

With every end of year comes the sad time when some of our beloved and dedicated volunteers must leave us and move on to high school with their children and grandchildren. This year we farewell 2 long standing volunteers Wendy Hartnett and Kylie Stone. These ladies have been involved in nearly every fundraiser, canteen, fireworks night and school event we have had each year for their children's and grandchild's school life here at GNPS. We will miss them greatly and the P&C would like to give them both a giant THANK YOU for their support and efforts! We wish them and their families all the best.

On behalf of the P&C I'd like to wish all of our GNPS families, students and staff a very happy and safe holidays. It has been a busy but fun year and I look forward to 2024 with you all!

Kylie Barnes
P&C President