Annual TNPS Swimming Carnival
Last Thursday February 16th Turramurra North PS held the annual swimming carnival at West Pymble Aquatic Centre. The day was an outstanding success thanks to wonderful student participation and behaviour, an outstanding contribution from parent helpers and thanks to the planning and organisation of staff. Highlights of the day included several new school records.
Kieran P – had an amazing carnival setting four records in one day!
- 12 yrs Boys 50m freestyle heats - 33.60
- 12 yrs Boys 50m freestyle final - 33.10
- 12 yrs Boys 50m butterfly - 39.10
- 12 yrs Boys 100m freestyle 1.15.80
Wow! It certainly was a BIG day out for Kieran. Congratulation on your outstanding achievement!
Jamie F – also was competing in the 12 yrs boys 50m freestyle with Kieran. Although Jamie came came second to Kieran in the final, Jamie also bettered the previous record with a time of 44.40 and is very unlucky to break a record, but not be listed in the record books. Well done Jamie on a tremendous effort!
Keanu W also set a new 50m freestyle record in the 10yrs with a time of 39.04. This betters the previous mark of 39.60. Congratulations Keanu on an outstanding swim!
Sophia A also set a new 50m freestyle record in the 9yrs with a time of 44.66. A wonderful effort Sophia. Well done!
When you break a record, it means that there has never been a child in the history of the school achieve this time. Considering the school is 103 years old in 2017, this is an amazing achievement for Kieran, Keanu, Sophia and also Jamie. Wow! Congratulations; our whole school community is very proud of each of you.
TNPS staff were thrilled with student participation in 2017, both in the pool and out. The house spirit was outstanding and even still at 1.30pm house teams could be heard chanting strongly for team mates in the pool. Again in 2017 it was terrific to see the standard of sportsmanship from children in all age divisions. Student behaviour was also excellent. Well done boys and girls. It really was a great day. Special thanks to all our parent helpers who gave of their time to assist in the smooth running of the day and to our staff and especially Miss Fagan who did an amazing job as carnival organiser.
Meet the Teacher Evening – Tuesday February 28th
Parents are advised that there will be a ‘Meet the Teacher’ evening Tuesday February 28th. A note has gone home about this in recent days.
- 5pm - 5.40pm Early Stage One - KB and KM
- 5.45pm - 6.30pm Stage One - 1M, 1R, 2/1S and 2E
- 6.45pm - 7.30pm Stage Two and Stage Three - 3H, 3M, 4R, 4T, 5F, 5K and 6T
Our Canteen Needs Your Help!!
As you may be aware our school canteen runs as a not for profit service under the TNPS P&C. This service is enjoyed by hundreds of students each week and has delivered a fresh, new and improved healthy menu for our school community in recent times. All of this at affordable prices.
In order for the canteen to continue to operate, we need our families to help. If every family was able to volunteer once per year, we would be able to cover our needs many times over. Please contact the school office if you can spare a half day or a full day Wednesday or Friday, even if it is just once a term. Please phone the office on 91444107 if you can help.
Many schools have gone down the pathway of commercially operated school canteens due to falling numbers of volunteers. This generally means prices go up and the amount of fresh food on sale is replaced by processed goods. At TNPS we have chosen to keep our community run canteen for good reason. If the community of TNPS wants to retain our community run canteen, we will need to see community engagement on in the canteen.
NSW Department of Education – Futures Learning
You may or may not be aware that the NSW Department of Education has established a specific unit to lead the change as schools and school communities move into future focused learning. The unit can be found at the link https://education.nsw.gov.au/futures-learning and provides a wealth of information about:
- The case for change in learning design / delivery
- Flexible learning spaces and
- Student centred learning (project based learning, student led assessment.) This is NSW DoE Policy.
Recently the Futures Unit Director, Mrs Katheen Donohoe visited our school for the showing of the film ‘Most Likely To Succeed’ which showcased the work of High Tech High in San Diego California. Our work at Turramurra North Public School in the areas listed above, is in step with NSW DoE policy. Our school has been approached by the Futures Unit about featuring our school's journey as a model (video) for other schools to follow and learn from on the Futures website. This confirms our work in the redesign of learning and learning spaces is recognised by the NSW DoE as best practice.
You may have heard in the news recently that Sydney will need to house 172,000 new students in NSW Public Schools by 2031. The new NSW Education Minister, Mr Rob Stokes has recently indicated that the NSW DoE will need to build 'a dozen schools each year for the foreseeable future'. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/education-minister-rob-stokes-outlines-plans-for-dozens-of-new-schools/news-story/bf4709794623982d23920d51b092749a
It is worth noting that new build NSW Department of Education schools do have flexible learning spaces. New school builds at
- Anzac Park PS in Cammeray
- Parramatta PS
- Arthur Phillip HS and others already feature and are planned to feature flexible learning spaces.
In 2015 former Education Minister Adrian Piccoli unveiled the ‘classroom of the future’ project in Eveleigh. Read about it here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-06/interactive-classrooms-being-rolled-out-in-nsw/6919252
Traditional classrooms were designed to enable the teacher to deliver content to students from the front of the room. Flexible, more open learning spaces better enable student collaboration and flexibility for different learning styles and approaches and improved differentiation. Not all learners need the same content delivered simultaneously because not all learners are at the same stop on the learning journey.
New 2017 Band and Dance Captains!
Congratulations to Aarav M and Phoebe M who are the Dance Captains and Louis S and Bella G who are the Band Captains for TNPS in 2017. Four outstanding young leaders who will be wonderful role models for our student population. Well done!
MySchool Data – Updated in Early March with 2016 NAPLAN.
Schools were advised this week that MySchool website will be updated with 2016 NAPLAN Data in early March. Presently MySchool website contains data to 2015 only. I have viewed the 2016 MySchool data as it will be viewed on the site. The data shows a very strong performance for our school. A performance that our school community can be proud of.
This performance is directly tied to the outstanding work of our staff in our classrooms K-6, our high quality professional learning initiatives and that our future focused approach is not just preparing students to be collaborative, creative critical thinkers who can solve their own problems, but that rich learning will also support strong standardized test performance. Below is a snapshot of some of the data you will be able to see on MySchool in early March once the 2016 data goes live.
TNPS Y5 NAPLAN Performance 2016: Writing
- TNPS Band 7&8 (top two) performance - up from 31% in 2014 and 24% in 2015 to 48% in 2016. State Y5 Writing performance for Band 7&8 in 2016 is 19%. This puts TNPS writing performance at 2.5 times the state in the top two bands in 2016. An outstanding result - which also shows our school performing better than almost all other 'like' schools in Australia.
- Bottom 3 bands (3,4&5) in 2014 was 28%, 2015 17% and 2016 just 3%. This shows improvement over time. State Y5 Writing performance for the bottom 3 bands in 2016 is 50%;
TNPS Y5 NAPLAN Performance 2016: Reading
- Band 7&8 - up three years running from 66% in 2014 to 67% in 2015 and up again to 82% in 2016. Again, this shows improvement over time. State Y5 Reading performance for Band 7&8 in 2016 is less than half TNPS at 37%.
- Bottom 3 bands (3,4&5) in 2014 stood at 11.4%, in 2015 15% and in 2016 just 3%. State Y5 Reading performance for the bottom 3 bands in 2016 is 38%;
Information for Parents of students requiring Individual Health Care Plans 2017
Individual Health Care Plans are developed in a process involving parents, staff and students to support a student's enrolment in the school setting and provide the opportunity for the development of a shared plan with risks managed in the school setting.
In the next two weeks, members of the school executive will contact parents of students who will require Individual Health Care Plans to commence planning for 2017. This is now an annual process as required by the NSW DoE.
Turramurra North PS P&C Annual General Meeting
Last Wednesday was the first meeting of 2017 for the Turramurra North P&C Association. This first gathering began with the 2017 Annual General Meeting. The purpose of the AGM for the association to elect executive and leaders for the new year. New officers for 2017 were elected. Congratulations to the following P&C Members who have been appointed to the following positions for 2017:
- President - Darren Murphy
- Vice Presidents - Wendy McKasah, Michael Woodrow
- Treasurer - Bree Alami
- Secretary - Karin Van Heerwaarden
- Assistant Treasurer - Fiona Dennis
- Grounds Coordinator – Fiona Ambrosino
- Band Coordinator – Amy Marsden
- NTOOSHC Coordinator - Alex Berthold
- Canteen Coordinator - Karin van Heerwaarden
- Fundraising Coordinator – Wendy McKasah
- Uniform Shop Coordinator - Suzanne Murphy
P. Taylor, Principal 20.02.17