13 February 2020

Newsletter Articles

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

WELCOME BACK!

Welcome to the 2020 school year at Harrington Street. I hope you all had a very restful and relaxing summer holiday. I look forward to an exciting and rewarding year, aiming to make it enjoyable and challenging for your child’s education.

A special welcome to our new students and their families, particularly our OC, Kindergarten and Preschool students. We are fortunate to be able to welcome back the vast majority of our staff from 2019 and continue the strong focus on learning that is central to education at Harrington Street. We are “Enriching Lives Through Learning”.

A BIG THANK YOU TO NEW FAMILIES!

Before I welcome everyone, I want to thank the wonderful parents who have had children starting kindergarten this year and those parents who have students in Years 1 – 6 who are new to our school, for your patience with us while checking your details for a second time.

ALL parents were patient, polite and respectful to our very hard-working office staff. Our wonderful office staff have had to recheck data for all our students as part of our enrolment process. Our office is busy, one could say hectic, but all tasks are done with a smile.

We are so lucky to have such wonderful office staff at this school. A big thank you to them all for a great start to the school year!

VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS

As from the beginning of 2020 there will be no voluntary contributions collected by Harrington Street Public School. The support provided by the P&C is wonderful and in the last 2 years has supported us with the development of the Secret Garden behind the library and the new Technology Room that is ready for use in 2020. Parents have greatly supported the P&C projects, which means we no longer need to collect voluntary contributions.

PARENT MEETINGS

I look forward to seeing you at the P&C meeting on Wednesday, February 19 at 9am in the Community Room where we will discuss school staffing, school programs, wellbeing at HSPS and our new directions for 2020.

Coffee and a Chat will be at 2pm Monday March 2 in the Community room with a focus on Best Start results.

COMMUNITY LANGUAGE

This year as part of our language program students who are not in Khmer, Vietnamese and Chinese classes will continue to have the opportunity to study Japanese. This focus is to help prepare students for high school where they will have to study a language.

STAFF

There have been a few staff changes this year. This year in the Deputy Principal roles, Mrs Wajzer will be supervising Kindergarten to Year 2 and Mrs Dennaoui will be supervising Years 3 to 6.

The Assistant Principals stage roles are:

Mrs Smith and Mrs Gideon Preschool and Early Stage One — Kindergarten
Mrs Angus Stage One — Years 1 and 2
Miss Koodrin Stage Two — Years 3 and 4
Miss Mulligan Stage Three— Years 5 and 6
Mrs Gullo – Support Unit

We also have a team focussed on strengthening English and Mathematics across the school. Our 2 Instructional Leaders are Mrs Kiely P-2 and Mrs Tao 3-6. They are being supported by a new team in our school; Curriculum Mentors. This team is Mrs Rajsombath (Preschool and Early stage 1), Mrs Hird (Stage 1), Miss Angelis (Stage 2) and Mrs Mazzetti (Stage 3).

OUR SCHOOL DAY

This is our timetable outlined below. Children have their lunch first up and then an afternoon recess. Classes have two, two-hour teaching sessions in the day. Please note the different bell times on Fridays in Terms 2 and 3. Each day, children are given a 10-minute eating time before they go out to play at lunchtime. This eating time is supervised by class teachers.

CANTEEN

Please order lunches by 9:15 at the latest as there is a short time frame to prepare lunches by 11:00. Parents, please make sure you tell your children if they have a lunch order as sometimes they don’t collect their lunches. It is very important that you use their current class name. Please don’t send $100 or $50 notes to school with students to order their lunches.

UNIFORM

Thank you to all the parents for ensuring that your child/children returned to school in full uniform. Everyone looks very smart in our great looking uniform right down to shiny black leather shoes. Just a reminder the school shirt is a polo shirt with a collar, not a T-shirt. This is the look that we wish to promote throughout the year which tells our community that students respect our school, its leaders and that Harrington Street PS is the best.

In 2020 we are committed to improving our uniform standards and we need your help! Our uniform code requires students to wear black shoes for the week (with sport shoes being worn only on sports days). On other days students should wear black shoes. Some black sport shoes will have a little colour trim and that is ok BUT coloured sport shoes are not uniform.

COMMUNICATION

There are a number of ways to stay up to date about the events at Harrington Street. One is the Schoolzine App which many of our parents are already familiar with. Another is our Facebook site which will be regularly updated with changes at school and upcoming events. Our website also is a great source of information and will display examples of the learning that is being undertaken in the classrooms.

Finally, we are pleased to remind you that we will continue to produce our eNewsletter with Schoolzine. This enables us to communicate with the school community across multiple languages. It promotes and enhances our engagement with parents, students and the wider community. We believe you will find the eNewsletter highly engaging, as it will provide us with more efficient and effective means of connecting with you.

MAKE ONLINE PAYMENTS

Don’t forget it is possible for parents to make online payments to the school for amounts owing for students, via a secure payment page hosted by Westpac.

Payments can be made using either a Visa or MasterCard credit or debit card and can be made via computer, tablet or mobile phone. The payment page will be accessed from the front page of the school’s website.

POP Payments – online via school website home page on:

Note: When paying please include signed permission note for all payments. (No need to wait at the counter).

PREFECT & HOUSE CAPTAIN INDUCTION CEREMONY

Mr. Massard
Principal

DEPUTY PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

WELCOME BACK

WELCOME BACK TO Harrington St PS FOR 2020. The school year has started smoothly and with a very positive feel. I have visited a number of classrooms over the past two weeks and our children are already settled and engaged in their new classes- including our Preschool and Kindergarten cohorts. I’d like to welcome both our current and new families to Harrington St PS for 2020.

HARRI PLAYGROUND TOKENS

This year at Harrington Public School we will continue with our Harri Playground Tokens for our students across K-6. Harri Playground tokens will be given to students by teachers on duty who are displaying our school expectations of being a safe, respectful learner and for displaying positive behaviour and our school values.

Every fortnight at Friday morning assembly, 5 lucky students who have been given a token will be drawn from our barrel to receive a prize

SCHOOL VALUES

The nine core values at HSPS and we focus on 1 core value each week across the school. Values are displayed in classrooms across the school with lessons taught to reinforce student understanding of these important values. Our nine values are:

INTEGRITY    EXCELLENCE    RESPECT    RESPONSIBILITY   COOPERATION
PARTICIPATION    CARE    FAIRNESS   DEMOCRACY

GOAL FOR 2020 – ATTENDANCE

This year at Harrington St PS we are having a big focus on the importance of school attendance. We know that students who attend regularly have a better chance to achieve their potential and increase their post school options. Our goal is to have ALL students attending school more than 95% of the time. Letters will be sent to families when attendance levels drop and we will ensure we can support you as best as we can. This will be a reminder to keep parents informed of their child’s attendance and the highlight the importance of regular school attendance. If your family has a specific need or requires support, please contact Mrs Wajzer of myself for assistance. We want to work together to get the best possible outcomes for your child.

Mrs. Dennaoui
Deputy Principal

SCHOOL PHOTOS 2020

LIBRARY NEWS

COMMUNITY NEWS

Dear Parents/ Caregivers,

A warm welcome to everyone, I hope you had a lovely break with friends and family. In particular, a special welcome to all our new families to HSPS. I’m positive that your child’s learning journey at will be a challenging, exciting and memorable one.

We have a beautiful, generous and extremely supportive community at HSPS. I hope you can join us for the first Parents & Community (P&C) Forum of the year on next Wednesday 19th February at 9am. This gives you a chance to mingle with the school executive team, members of our Parents & Citizens Association, as well as other parents and carers, and to ask any questions that you may have about our school.

If you have other commitments and not able to attend the forums (on in Weeks 4 and 8 of every term), there’s still many ways you can contribute and be involved in your child’s school and learning. You can also volunteer your time at P&C events throughout the year. Please come and see me at the office for more details. Thank you in advance for your support.

Mrs. Tran
Community Liaison Officer (CLO)

UPCOMING COMMUNITY EVENTS

EVENT: Parents and Community (P&C) Forum
DATE: Wednesday 19th February 2020 (Week 4)
TIME: 9.00am
NOTE: Parents and carers are invited to join us for the first P&C Forum of the year.

EVENT: Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters (HIPPY) Workshop
DATE: Wednesday 26th February 2020 (Week 5)
PLACE: Hall
TIME: 9.00am – 9.45am
NOTE: A note will be sent home shortly.

EVENT: Coffee & Chat
DATE: Monday 2nd March 2020 (Week 6)
PLACE: Community Room
TIME: 2.00pm – 2.45pm
NOTE: This is a special edition of Coffee & Chat. Mrs. Smith, Assistant Principal, will be talking about the Kindergarten Best Start Assessment report.

EVENT: ‘Circle of Security’ Parenting Program
DATE: Every Tuesday for 5 weeks commencing 3rd March 2020 (Weeks 6 – 10 inclusive)
PLACE: Community Room
TIME: 12.30pm – 2.30pm
NOTE: Notes have been distributed to parents Preschool – Year 2 parents. This program has limited places and registrations are required on a first come first served basis.

PLAYGROUP @ HSPS

Happy Hippo playgroup started again this week. Welcome to all our children, old and new. We loved seeing so many happy faces!

Miss Alma & Miss Misa

BREAKFAST CLUB

SCHOOL BANKING PROGRAM

YOSEIKAN-RYU KARATE

REMINDERS FROM THE OFFICE

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER

HARRI

Be Safe
Be Respectful
Be a Learner