A Tradition of Excellence - Grafton

IN THIS WEEK’S NEWSLETTER

*From the Principal

* Library News

* P & C Thankyou

Monday 16-Friday 20 March—Book Fair in library

Friday 27th March - Coin lines for the Cancer Council

Friday 3rd April-Wheelathon

Monday 6th April-P & C AGM in library 6.30pm

Term Calendar - Click Here School Website - Click Here

Grafton Public School A Tradition of Excellence

Locked Bag 9024 Grafton 2460 PHONE: Primary - 66421000 Infants - 66422286 Email: [email protected]

Term 1 Week 8: Wednesday 18th March 2020

Book Fair is still on !

This week a Scholastic Book Fair is in the Library, providing your child with the opportunity to purchase a new book. All sales bring money back to Grafton Public School to provide more resources for your child’s learning. With every purchase of a book, your child receives an entry into the ‘Lucky Draw’. Winners of this draw receive a book prize! Please come and visit and purchase a book for your child. Students can bring money to school and purchase during their lunch time. Payment can be by CASH and EFTPOS (No cash out). Book Fair will be opened before school, second half of lunch and after school for all of week 8. Below are the opening times. Monday 16/3- 8.20-8.40am, 1.20-1:40pm, 2.50-4pm Tuesday 17/3- 8.20-8.40am, 1.20-1:40pm, 2.50-4pm Wednesday 18/3- 8.20-8.40am, 1.20-1:40pm, 2.50-4pm Thursday 19/3- 8.20-8.40am, 1.20-1:40pm, 2.50-4pm Friday 20/3- 8.20-8.40am, 1.20-1:40pm, 2.50-4pm

Library News

Dear Parents and Carers,

Coronavirus (Covid-19) Prevention Measures I would like to take this opportunity to thank our very supportive staff, students, parents and community for adapting to the numerous changes that are occurring within our school and the wider community as we are enforcing increased preventative hygiene measures, social distancing and limiting mass gatherings. As you can imagine, this poses many challenges in a large school setting but we are working closely with our Director, the NSW Department of Education and NSW Health to ensure we are minimising risks wherever possible to keep our students, staff and community safe. From today, this will include additional professional cleaning services on top of the additional cleaning our teachers, SLSOs and admin staff are doing throughout the day in high use areas. Our school prides itself on our special events where we open our school to the community and we are always overwhelmed by the sheer number of visitors every single time. Unfortunately, two of these special events this term have been cancelled, those being the Easter Hat Parade and Grandparents Day, which is my personal favourite. Other cancelled events this term include all PSSA sport, excursions and camps but we still encourage you to pay your deposit for our camps later in the year, as you will receive a full refund if they do not proceed. Another preventative measure most businesses and government departments are making is minimising any unnecessary face to face contact. With this in mind, our staff are holding parent/ teacher meetings over the phone and all meetings with outside agencies are being conducted in this manner as well. If you are unwell, please do not enter the school site, but rather call our office on 66421000 and our lovely administration team will be able to assist you. Whilst we are normally happy for parents to bring cupcakes in for their child’s birthday, at present we also ask that you refrain from bringing any food items to school to be shared. Please also be advised that school banking will not operate for the rest of Term 1. During these difficult times we understand there is a lot of uncertainty for our families. We are all in this together and need to support each other by following preventative strategies. Some families have a vulnerable family member in their household and have decided to self-isolate. If this is a decision you have made, please ensure you contact the office so we can note this as a reason for your child’s absences and provide school work for your child to complete at home. Activity Booklets for Home Today, your child will bring home an activity booklet that isn’t to be completed at this point in time. The purpose of the booklet is to provide your child with educational work to do at home in the event of an unexpected school closure. It includes worksheets plus other suggestions from the NSW Department of Education to support remote learning, set up a home learning environment and additional activities to try around the house. At this point in time, there is no plan to close Grafton Public School and this is just a back up to ensure that your child has work to complete if Government restrictions lead to a school closure in the near future. I would recommend following our school facebook page or regularly checking our School Website (yellow flags) for the latest updates. Book Fair Our Book Fair has still been on this week in the Library as it is a continuous opportunity to purchase books all week and not a single event. If you wish for your child to purchase a book, the Book Fair is open until Friday. A huge thank you to Mrs Penfold for organising the Book Fair. Yours sincerely, Miss Michelle McDonagh Principal

From the Principal

Many thanks to the following sponsors who have helped to make last Friday’s

GPS P and C Trivia Night a success. A great night was had by all in attendance.

Please support them as they have supported us!

The Village Green

GDSC

The Saraton Theatre

IScream

Bendigo Bank

St George Bank

Just Cuts

Southside Pharmacy

Gathering of Worlds

Harvey Norman

Low Pressure Surf Co

Book Warehouse

Newcastle Permanent

Clarence Valley Council

Stihl Shop

BYO Celebrations

Body Shop –Kate Carlton

Bunnings

Country Nails

104.7FM/2GF

Nicole Cameron Photography

Cathy’s Cakes

The Big Banana

Flame Trees Café and Cakery

Grafton Mall Butchery

Big River Pizza

Grafton Jungle Gym and Café

South services Butchery

Westpac

Farmer Lous

Clarence Kitchen Collective

Thankyou for your support

All students have been invoiced for all applicable fees. An invoice has been issued for each student and has been posted home. This invoice will outline to parents the majority of fees applicable for the entire year. We have included school fees, textbooks, and fees for extra curricular activities such as band, choir or dance. Not all fees are applicable to all grades Payment can be made in cash, cheque, by EFTPOS at our Primary office, or online through our Parent Online Payments link on our website. If you wish to pay the invoiced fees one at a time, all at once or make a payment plan of a certain amount each fortnight that is fine. To arrange such a payment plan, please speak to Jo or Miss Karen in the office. We have managed to secure two passes for some FLIP FLY FUN at the Coffs Harbour Adventure Centre during the next school holidays. All families who pay their voluntary school contribution fee before Friday 3rd April will go in to the draw for these great prizes. Major excursions will be invoiced once an attendance list is finalised. As per the information in last week’s newsletter, if you are intending for your child to attend one of these major excursions and wish to start budgeting and paying it off now, this is not a problem and is encouraged. All excursions must be paid in full at least a fortnight prior to departure or the student may not be allowed to attend. If a family is experiencing financial difficulty, it is important that you speak to us early as the above prepaid rule will be strictly adhered to.

School Fees

This year in the newsletter we are regularly including the faces of staff members so that families at home can see who their children are talking about when they come home talking about what happened at school.

Who am I ?

NAME: Brooke Penfold (on right) ROLE: Teacher/Librarian/Junior Dance Co-ordinator INTERESTS/HOBBIES: Reading and Netball FAVOURITE SPORTING TEAM: NSW Swifts FAVOURITE MOVIE: Beaches FAVOURITE FOOD: Fried Rice FAVOURITE HOLIDAY DESTINATION: Fiji WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE BEST THING ABOUT GPS? The staff and the playground

NAME: Bianca Rhodes ROLE: Instructional Leader INTERESTS/HOBBIES: Swimming, cooking FAVOURITE SPORTING TEAM: Under 10 Redman, U11/12 Northside Lightning FAVOURITE MOVIE: The Greatest Showman FAVOURITE FOOD: Curry FAVOURITE HOLIDAY DESTINATION: Yamba WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE BEST THING ABOUT GPS? I love the way everyone, both staff and students, greet you with a smile each morning

HPV Central Every Friday morning, GPS conducts a Bike Bus, being supervised riding of bikes to school. A return home service also operates. The teachers accompanying the children take all reasonable care to ensure the safety of the children. Parents and carers are welcome to join us for the ride. Vital information to get you going: * Bike Bus operates every Friday (weather permitting) If you are new to Bike Bus check out the map below so you know where to meet the gang.

National Ride2SchoolDay last Friday

It was great to see so many wheels at school last Friday. Those of us who travelled on the bike buses had lots of fun, especially Cooper Rumpf who was celebrating his birthday. Special mention to all those students who rode to school by themselves, with friends and/or family members. Great to see!!!

If you would like to set up or have a bike bus in your area, talk to other parents about it to see what level of interest exists. Mr Avery is happy to help you get it going.

GPS HPV program proudly supported by

Each week we will try to acknowledge the children who received awards at their grade assemblies in the previous week. Congratulations to the following students who received awards last week:

Kindergarten Miranda Abrahams, Zoe Boyle, Brayden Carroll, Mason De Jersey, Oscar Hall, Reece Irwin, Asher Jackson, Arya White Year1 Harper Dendle-Palmer, Arliyah Elliott, Henry Hamilton, Vivienne Kelemec, Chloe Nelson, Brianna Outram, Alexander Rose, Hayden Ryder, Bella Stephens, Elliana Summers, Henry Taylor ,Amelia Worrell Year 2 Lily Bartrim, River Jack Benn, Cooper Biggs, Madison Childs, Ariel Clark, Harmony Clarke, Thomas Eggins, Archer Riepon Year 3 Delilah Birch , Kayla Causley, Destiny Dougherty, Kelani Elliott, Joshua Kenny, Paityn Menzies, Naite Ninness, Terralee Rainbow-Davis Year 4 Rhani Abrahams, Charlie Astorga-Gonzalez, Molly Barclay, Ryder Biggs, Matilda Collins, Samantha Gardiner, Connah Gilkinson, Keoni James, Joseph Lloyd, Skyla Marscham, Kobie Morgan, Makybe Sinclair ,Oscar Woods Year 5 Arron Barnes, Talia Causley, Amber Child, Maddison-Jayne Corbett, Samual Hagan, Aleaha Hoggan, Elisabeth Kennedy, William Marshall-Atkinson, Tristan Messer, Tiffany Mills, Nathan Shiels, Elsie Stewart, Chaz Tomlinson, Khoby Tonkin, Kane Tucker Year 6 Jorja Blanch, Jesse Brown, Rion Crouch, Dalton Drummond, Hope Henderson, Tyron Hickling-McGrady, Mason Lawler, Ruby Martin, Tahnee Milne, Abbagayle O'Toole-Finn, Neve Rhodes, Toby Smidt, Holly Swadling, Summer Swarski, Daniel Williams, Chloe Wills

Assembly Award Winners

We are going to regularly include some important information for parents from the Department of Education .

Helpful Information for Parents

If a student misses as little as 8 days in a school term, by the end of primary school they’ll have missed over a year of school. Families are encouraged to travel during school holidays. If travel during school term is necessary, discuss this with your child’s school principal. An Application for Extended Leave may need to be completed. Absences relating to travel will be marked as leave on the roll and therefore contribute to your child’s total absences for the year.

Community Notices

The Lab Grafton is a Technology Club for young people with Asperger’s and High Functioning Autism. It’s a place where they can blend in, be understood and not be judged The Lab Network P: 0419 610 917 W: www.thelab.org.au E: [email protected] or like us on Facebook The Lab Grafton The Lab Grafton would like to acknowledge the Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr and Yaegl peoples, the traditional custodians of the land on which we live and work.