Drummoyne Public School

Hats off to teachers

Australia will celebrate the teaching profession on World Teachers’ Day next Friday, 27 October 2023. Let’s celebrate Australia’s teachers for their skilled work in educating, inspiring and supporting our students.  Hats off to teachers this World Teachers’ Day! 

Our staff will celebrate by getting together at lunchtime with a catered lunch funded by the school P&C. Our thanks to the P&C for their ongoing support of our staff. We are very fortunate at Drummoyne PS to have amazing and dedicated teachers working alongside our students. My thanks to them for everything they do to create respectful, responsible and resilient students.

Kindergarten Orientation

I would like to thank all of our 2024 kindergarten parents for joining us on Thursday night to begin the transition to school journey for our youngest ones. Meeting in the school library, we hosted over 70 parents and carers and discussed various issues around school readiness, curriculum and support programs. 

The next phase of transition will be our Kindergarten orientation morning, on Wednesday 25 October, followed by the pre-schooler afternoon visits the week after. We look forward to having them join us!

Thank you to Assistant Principal Gaby Walsh for organising the transition to school program for us.

A reminder to please complete our Drummoyne Public School Parent Survey (utilising the Tell Them From Me “Partners in Learning” survey).

The survey is conducted entirely online on smartphones, ipads, tablets, laptops or computers. The survey will typically take 20 minutes to complete and is completely confidential. Although participating in the survey is entirely voluntary, your responses are very much appreciated.

Recently students from 5/6O looked at the work of the ceramic sculptor and ocean advocate, Courtney Mattison, to create their coral pieces reflecting the wonder and fragility of coral reefs.

Belinda Richmond

STEAM teacher

Respect Awards - Rawson says congratulations to:

• Bronte Frith - KW
• Celia Paul - KW
• Maya Sofi - KW
• Stanislas Verven - KW
• Maddie Barnett - KY
• Henrietta Croft - KY
• Harry Delis - KY
• Annabel Kennedy - KY
• Diana Chenani - 1J
• Selena Yafi - 1J
• Katy Elliott - 2D
• Hayden Mcpherson - 2D
• Miles Abu-Shaheen - 2M
• Oliver Mills - 2O
• Ruby Quach - 2O
• Leo Zagarella - 2O

Responsibility Awards - Monty says congratulations to:

• Marlow Clancy-Low - KB
• Levi Cox - KW
• Audrey Jones - KW
• Gilroy Smith - KW
• Patrick Ryan - 1A
• Emili Kikkas - 1J
• Luis Orgad - 2M

Resilience Awards - Brett says congratulations to:

• Cody Kelso - KB
• Parker Forbes - KW
• Edward Roberts - KW
• Connor Espitalier-Noel - KY
• Kira Cordaro - 1P
• Maxwell Knox - 2D
• Harvey Estrella - 2M

Mr Ackerman says congratulations to:

• Oliver Mills - 2O - Respect
• Harvey Estrella - 2M - Responsibility
• Leo Zagarella - 2O - Responsibility
• Damon Togias - 2D - Resilience

During our professional learning meeting this week, staff were engaging in the Learn phase of the reading comprehension instruction cycle of professional learning. This was centred around exploring key concepts and progression of learning in this area.

Now more than ever, young people must strive for meaning when viewing, reading, and hearing information, in order to make discerning judgements about what they are reading (Creely and Lyons 2022). 

This requires in-depth engagement of complex print and multimodal texts, rather than surface level skimming to meet short term goals (Comber and Nixon 2011 as cited in Gehling 2022).

Striving for the meaning in texts is an essential process of an informed and critical thinker, during and beyond school. It is relevant in every subject area and is a lifelong skill that continues to be acquired. 

As such teacher’s need to think carefully and work collaboratively when considering their instructional decision making across the curriculum. This involves breaking down the components of reading comprehension into subskills. Teachers are encouraged to take the opportunities in their professional learning to see the active mental process of reading modelled, team taught and then observed in order to highlight the connection and integration of information (Hennessey 2021).

Reading comprehension is a complex process that utilises a range of subskills and critical processes. As such, we must understand written language, which requires written and spoken language skills, background knowledge and the ability to adapt our behaviour to suit the purpose of the reading situation (Castles et al. 2018).

Reading comprehension is language driven, therefore having a sound understanding of the link between oral language and reading comprehension is essential, as both skills are dependent on each other for reading success (Snow et al. 2006)

One of the activities involved staff unpacked the different processes involved when students engage in reading comprehension. We can understand that comprehension is not a one-way process as strategic readers need to re-read and move backwards and forwards to put pieces of information together to critically comprehend. 

As educators, we need to understand which processes are vulnerable as this will impact other processes. If this is the case for a student, they will need support for comprehension as a product to succeed.

Beck Cantlay

Assistant Principal Curriculum & Instruction 

This Thursday, 26th October, students can wear colourful, patterned, zany and crazy socks to school! Please remember to bring a gold coin donation for our chosen charity, Bear Cottage, and help support sick children in need.

Thank you! 

The SRC

Request for donations of candy

A spooktacular evening awaits!! The annual Halloween on Renwick Street will be bigger and better than ever this year, and we need your help to make it a success!! With our fabulous Renwick Street residents and business community coming together to sponsor the event and raise money for the 'Touched by Olivia's The Living Room Project', there will be a DJ, entertainment for the children, a BBQ, and of course lots of trick or treaters filling up their candy buckets!! 

Over the next week, please help the residents of Renwick Street by donating a bag or 2 of wrapped candy. Simply bring the candy into school and place it into the Halloween tubs provided. With a wave of the wand these donations will find their way to Renwick street & magically land back into your awaiting buckets on Hallows Eve! 

Filming of Channel 7's Sunrise program

In case you're too excited and can't wait until hallow's eve, why not get up early & join us on Renwick street for the Filming of Channel 7's Sunrise program!! Sunrise will be filming from Renwick street on Tuesday 31 October from 5.30am - 8.30am, somewhere between Lyons Road & Day street and we need lots of spooky characters for different segments to appear live in front of channel 7 reporter Sam Mac. Jump out of bed & test run your Hallows Eve Costume & pop by between these hours to be a smiling member of the community excited for the event ahead. A great way to kick off the evening's festivities!! 

After School, dust off your hat, and pick up your broom, and listen out for a spooky tune. Trick-or-treat your way down to Renwick street, you never know who you might meet! On your way stop at Quizzic Alley at 191 Victoria Road, there'll be magical fun & Sherbet Bombs to start off your journey and fill up your buckets!

All the ghoulish and ghostly horror kicks off on 31 October from 4.30pm – 7.30pm. Be there, if you dare!

If you need a seat & a beverage and somewhere to rest your weary feet after the event, The Oxford Hotel* will be catering for everyone with FREE Kids meals with every full priced adult's meal. There will also be some best dressed Halloween prizes to be won!

Thank you to the City of Canada Bay for their continued event support, Rotary Club Club of Drummoyne, Warrick Williams Drummoyne & all the other Gold Silver & Bronze sponsors that have supported the residents on Renwick Street to help this event come to life, without you we would not have been able to execute.

Please note that the Stage 2 Choir practice next Wednesday 25 October has been cancelled. Choir will recommence the following week on 1 November.

Amanda Champion 

As part of our geography program this term, Stage 3 students walked to  Drummoyne Bay to undertake a field study of the Parramatta River. Students observed how the area is used and noted impacts. They assessed and recorded the plants and animals in the habitat, conducted a rubbish audit, tested water samples and examined management strategies that are being used to help maintain the area.

Jacqui Hill

Classroom teacher

Congratulations to the following four students who competed this week at the Iron Cove Network Schools Performance South Public Speaking Competition network final.

Eloise Bockos - Early Stage 1

Ryan Elalingam - Stage 1

Isaac Navendra - Stage 2

Olive Bockos - Stage 3

Well done students. We are proud of you!

Maria Arruzza

Public speaking co-ordinator

School travel Opal cards can be used for free travel to and from school. Depending on where you live and where you are travelling to, you may be eligible to receive a free school Opal card. Applications for next year open at the start of Term 4 this year.

You can apply for free school travel for different modes of transport including train, bus, ferry and light rail using the online form.

You only need to apply:

• if applying for a school travel pass for the first time.
• if requesting an extra pass due to parents living separately.

The student must:

• be a resident of NSW, or an overseas student eligible for free government education.
• be aged 4 years 6 months or older. Pre-school children are not eligible.
• live a minimum distance from your school. The minimum distance varies according to the year or grade the student is enrolled in that calendar year.

Please click on the link for more details:

transportnsw.info/tickets-opal/ticket-eligibility-concessions/school-student-travel

DPS offers Scholastic Book Club for you to purchase books for your children whilst also supporting the library. Some 20% of your order goes back to the school library in Scholastic rewards, which is spent on new library books and classroom resources.

There are 8 issues a year (two per term). Your child will bring home the catalogues each term. Parents can order and pay online for their child’s Book Club purchase via LOOP (Linked Online Ordering Payment).

Please click on the link below for detailed instructions.

The closing date for issue #7 is Thursday 26 October.

Orientation for kindergarten 2024 students commenced this week and continues on Wednesday 25 October with our morning session. If your child turns 5 before 31 July 2024 they are eligible to start Kindergarten next year. Please complete your child's application as soon as possible, attaching a copy of their passport or birth certificate, proof of your home address (ie latest electricity bill, rates notice or lease etc) and their immunisation statement from Medicare. Any additional OT or speech therapy reports, additional needs and the like should also be included.

Please submit your enrolments online at :  

Second Hand uniform sale

Thank you to our wonderful volunteers; Tania, Corinne, Tish, Rika, Aviva & Emilie. The second hand uniform sale last Friday made $600, which the P&C can now put towards new learning resources for DPS students.

The next second hand sale will be in week 3 of term 1, 2024.    

Many thanks from the P&C to the amazing volunteers who helped with the BBQ on Saturday, namely: Ron Orgad, Nikki Adams, Damion Keasey, Wade Weirman, Sunalie Silva, Chris E.Noel, Tish Ainley, Alex Ulrich, Patrick Hayden, Simon Gibbs, Anum Imran, Brendan O'Brien, Angela Farrell, Kendal Mackay and Ellena Wens.

The LED Flashlight Rechargeable Strobe Torch with strap (Product) purchased for the recent Father’s Day stall is defective in that it is unable to handle charging currents higher than 1A.  

This means that if the USB cable is used in common third-party fast chargers, or high power chargers, there is a risk that the USB cable could overheat and catch fire.

If your child purchased an LED Flashlight Rechargeable Strobe Torch, please return the charging cable to the office in a sealed envelope marked with your child's name on it.

To replace the returned product, Moon & Back will provide suitable replacement USB cables to our school in the next 21 days and we will send home the new replacements for customers who return the defective USB cables. 

The uniform shop is open for face to face sales on Wednesday afternoons from 3.00pm - 3.30pm.

Please order school uniforms online. The P&C will process orders and the school office staff will distribute them.

 Please use our school Registration ID: 2572963 to create an account if you don’t already have one for canteen orders.

Dear Parents/Carers,

Thank you to wonderful parent volunteers and student helpers this week.

We hope everyone had a nice break and we are looking forward to a great term 4.

Volunteers are needed next week

Please look ahead and book in to the roster. Our main days which require help are Monday, Thursday and Friday. Each of these days are especially busy from 9:30am - 10:30am and 10:30am - 12 midday. Friday being our super busy day! 

To volunteer:

• Login to your school24 account
• Click onto VOLUNTEER
• Follow the prompts

Your help is most appreciated!

Kind regards,

Canteen and P&C Committee

New WhatApp group

To book Gowrie NSW - enrolment forms can be found on the Gowrie website:

https://www.gowriensw.com.au/out-of-hours-care/drummoyne-and-stmarks

Contact Rekkha for more information on 0436 616 744.

With Google Translation integration, you can access our newsletter in ANY language. Simply scroll to the bottom of the newsletter preview to give it a try.