Caves Beach Public School Newsletter

Welcome to Term 2 Week 4 2026!

Choralfest Congratulations!

Congratulations to our incredible school choir and Mrs Nebauer for an outstanding win at this year's Choralfest! The choir’s dedication, talent, and teamwork truly shone through, earning them well-deserved recognition. We are proud of their achievement and the wonderful spirit they bring to our school community. Well done, choir! Keep singing loud and proud!

Mother’s Day Breakfast

P&C treated our school community to an amazing Mother’s Day breakfast, filled with warmth, delicious food, and heartfelt appreciation for all the mums and carers. The event was beautifully organised for the students by the P&C, with wonderful support from school staff who helped make the morning memorable. Thank you to everyone involved for celebrating the special women in our lives and creating a joyful occasion for all!

Pick up and Drop off Zone Etiquette

A friendly reminder to all families, specifically, about drop off zone etiquette: Please ensure you keep the area moving to allow smooth and safe access for everyone. Stay in your vehicle and drive to the furthermost point available before stopping to allow your child to exit the car on the kerbside of the road. Use the designated zone only for quick drop offs. This area is not to be used as a long-term parking spot. Your cooperation helps keep our students safe and makes the process efficient for all. Thank you for your continued support!

Week 4

• Tuesday 12th May - Matter of Seconds

Week 5

• Tuesday 19th May - PSSA Girls Soccer Rounds 1-3
• Wednesday 20th May - PSSA Boys Soccer Rounds 1 & 3
• Wednesday 20th May - Waste Warriors - Infants 
• Thursday 21st May - Touch Footy Gala Day

Week 6

• Tuesday 26th May - School Photos

5/6P had a wonderful time helping KP, KF and K/1B write special Mother’s Day notes today. 

It was lovely to see our older students supporting the younger classes with their writing while helping them create thoughtful messages for their mums and special people in their life. A fantastic example of kindness, teamwork and leadership across our school! 

Congratulations to the following Gold Award recipients:

        Archer C - 3L

        Lakyn P - 3L

        Oliver H - 3L

        Stevie L - 3L

        Imogen D-S - 4M

Congratulations to the following Merit Award recipients:

Week 2

Congratulations to the following GYM Award recipients:

Congratulations to the following Merit Award recipients:

Week 3

Congratulations to the following GYM Award recipients:

Week 3

Parent Survey

In Term 2, we are inviting parents and carers to participate in the NSW Public Schools Parent Survey. The survey gives you the opportunity to share your experience at our school, including communication, inclusion, wellbeing and how your child’s learning is supported.

Hearing directly from our parents and carers will help us understand what’s working well and where improvements can be made. Participation in the survey is optional, your responses are anonymous, and it takes around 10 to 15 minutes to complete. You can access at the survey at https://surveyme.education.nsw.gov.au/sc/fHqIWVCsg4suBij6-C8JxA2

Further information about the NPSS Parent Survey is available at https://education.nsw.gov.au/npss.

Last week, students from Mrs. Chensee’s writing groups enjoyed an exciting school incursion with Tom Baldwin, a Newcastle-based author. They developed their creative writing skills, focusing on crafting suspense and action scenes. The hands-on experience was invaluable in inspiring and enhancing their writing skills.

What is Phonological Awareness? 

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken language. It includes skills such as recognising rhymes, breaking words into syllables, identifying beginning sounds, and eventually hearing and manipulating individual sounds in words (phonemic awareness).  

It is an important early building block for learning to read! 

Why is it important for reading? 

Children need to be able to hear and understand the sound structure of words before they can map those sounds to letters and spell or read them. Strong phonological awareness helps children decode new words, improves spelling, and supports reading fluency. Without it, reading can become reliant on guessing rather than sounding out. 

How can you develop it at home? 

Phonological awareness can be developed through short, fun, everyday activities such as: 

• Playing rhyming games (e.g. “What rhymes with cat?”)  

• Clapping syllables in names or words  

• Finding words that start with the same sound (e.g. “sun, sand, sock”)  

• Breaking simple words into sounds (e.g. /m/ /a/ /t/)  

• Blending sounds together to make words (“What word is /c/ /a/ /t/?”)  

How can you help your child? 

Keep activities light, playful and brief — a few minutes is enough. Praise effort and curiosity rather than correctness. If your child finds it tricky, model the sounds for them and do it together. Most importantly, make it part of everyday talk and play rather than something that feels like formal ‘work’. 

Congratulations to our outstanding students who represented the school at the NSW State Swimming Championships. They competed with determination, resilience and great sportsmanship, and we are incredibly proud of the way they performed and represented our school.

A special congratulations to Neave for her exceptional achievements. She claimed Gold in the 50m Backstroke and was named Hunter Region Female Swimmer of the Meet. On top of this, she has once again qualified for the National Swimming Championships later this year! This is a massive achievement and a true reflection of her ongoing dedication and hard work.

Our team took to the court for Round 1 and Round 2, delivering a great morning of closely contested games. The girls came away with a 13–10 win in the first match, followed by a 9–11 result in the second.

What stood out most was the teamwork, effort and determination shown across both games. The way the team supported each other and worked together on court was outstanding.

The team also looked fantastic in our new sports shirts, generously donated by our school P&C. It’ll be great to see a range of our sporting teams now able to wear the black and gold polos with pride.

A big thank you to Ellie, one of our former CBPS students, for umpiring both games this morning, your support is greatly appreciated. 

Band

Band rehearsals are going very smoothly and it is exciting to hear the progress being made by both groups. Junior Band will preparing this term to perform at Celebration Assembly in week 11, it will be lovely to showcase this group after all their hard work. 

Seesaw invites have been sent via email to all junior band families, please let me know if you would like another email address added to your account. There will be more regular posts to seesaw and photos added over this term. Please keep these photos for your own use. Senior band families should all be connected from last year. 

Mrs Scott

Week 4

Junior band 8:15am – 8:55am - Tuesday and Thursday

Senior band 8am – 8:55am - Wednesday and Friday 

Week 5 

Junior band 8:15am – 8:55am - Tuesday and Thursday

Senior band 8am – 8:55am - Wednesday and Friday 

Please send a black display folder with current band music to rehearsals each week.

Tutor Lessons:

Lance Verdon- clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone & percussion - Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday  

Rachael Sebastian- keyboard -  Tuesday

Isabella O'Brien - flute and bass guitar - Tuesday 

Fees:

Fees will be collected through the school office for all band members. These will be allocated to your School Bytes account in the next few weeks and include the whole year fee and instrument hire, if applicable. 

These fees can be paid off termly @ $60 per term or in full at any stage of the year. Instrument hire fees are due term 1 to secure the instrument for your child. Instrument hire fee is non- refundable.

Band fee - $60 per student per term.

Instrument Hire fee - $100 per year, due term 1

Reeds:

Reeds are available for purchase with cash only to Mrs Scott or Lance at band rehearsal:

Clarinet - Rico - $3.50 (Beginner students) 

Clarinet - Vandoren - $4.50 (Intermediate - advanced Students) 

Saxophone - $4.50 

Bass Clarinet - $7.50

Students will be supplied with a reed when one is broken so they can continue to participate in rehearsals and lessons.  A slip will be sent home with your child with the cost displayed and payment is expected within the same week.  Happy  music making! 

📣 Where to Find Us & Stay Connected

📧 Email: cavesbeachpublicschool@pcaffiliate.onmicrosoft.com

🌐 Website: Caves Parent

📱 Facebook: Caves Beach Public School P&C

🛍️ Buy, Swap & Sell Group: Caves Beach Public School P&C Buy, Swap and Sell

Together, we’re creating special memories and opportunities for our kids. 🏫✨

Caves Beach Public School P&C

Working together for our kids 💛 

🍣 Sushi is back in the canteen this week: Order today for Friday 🎉

👉 Pre-order by Tuesday at 8:45am this week via the QKR app.👉 If you’re ordering anything else for Friday, be sure to add it when placing your sushi order.

👉 Please note: We must meet a minimum order amount each week. If we don’t reach it, we are unable to place a sushi order!

🍱 This term sushi will be on the menu spasmodically. Sales at the end of last term were not meeting the minimum order so we will spread it out every few weeks this term. 

✨An audiri note will go out the weeks it is available.  

Thank you all, Madonna @ Seaside Bites 🏖️

👋 Seeking canteen volunteers  

If you are free and keen to help please email me below.

We are also looking for more volunteers on Thursdays and Fridays. 

You can help by volunteering once a month on the roster or casually when you’re available. Shifts are 9:00am–12:00pm, everything is easy to learn—we’ll show you what to do 😊

Please spread the word and encourage friends to get involved. The kids love seeing you at school, and it’s a great way to be part of the community 💙

Contact email: cavescanteen@gmail.com

Volunteer Roster for this fortnight:

Thanks so much for your support!

Madonna at  Seaside Bites🏖️