Belmore South Public School

NAPLAN is the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy. All students in Years 3 and 5 sit for Reading, Language Conventions, Writing and Numeracy Tests on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 13 to 16 May.At the same time all of the Year 4 and 6 will be completing tests that help their teachers track their progress from year to year.Last year our students performed very well please see the results in the Annual School Report 2007 that will be coming home with your children later in the week.

Our cricketers made it to the quarter finals of the NSW Primary School State Knockout. They had memorable victories over Alexandria Park and Hampden Park before going down to a very fine team from Gymea.Miss Krisenthal and Mr McGuinness have both supported the boys on the way to their success.The boys are looking forward to more Cricket Competitions in Term 4.

We’re back. It’s only taken a term to get back to blogging. So many things happen in a school day, week, term that to have the luxury of blogging is just too much. The thing is  . . . it’s getting back into the habit. Maybe it’s the fact that next Friday May 9, 9 staff will be attending the Will Richardson, Judy O’Connell Seminar. Teachers and students are switching on and into blogging as part of their daily routine. Anyway watch this space as our School Blog gets itself back together.

John and Kath from Invercargill in New Zealand visited our school on Tuesday. John, Principal of St. Therese’s Primary School received a scholarship to research the use of ICT in schools across Australia and NZ. His wife Kath is a teacher at Sacred Heart Primary School.

They are doing some very exiting things with technology in Invercargill and talking to both of John and Kath we learned a lot about visible thinking and developing a curriculum for the 21st Century.

John and Kath gave most of our staff a quick introduction to Kidspiration a program we have just acquired and are about to start using in 2008 to support our thinking routines.

Sitting and talking with both John and Kath gave us new insights and ideas. It would seem fairly certain that we will be in touch with both John and Kath and their schools in the near future.

Thanks for your time John and Kath.

School Captains 

Leith Sawalha                 Boys’ School Captain

Souad Rifi                       Girls’ School Captain 

Ramiz Suwan                 Boys’ School  Vice Captain

Carly Gouvas                 Girls’ School Vice Captain 

Executive  

Nadine Lebde

Natalie Bosjin

Nicholas Dimos

Joseph Nachar

Ranita Nand

Timothy Tran

Momtahina Chowdhury

Mikhaila Simpson 

House Captains 

Aisha Prasad               Newcombe House Captain

Jordan Bell                  Fraser House Captain

Faraan Mirza              Freeman House Captain

Penelope George       Bradman House Captain 

Peer Mediators  

Michael Houdek, Jasmeen Issar, Amy Nunez, Abbas Rizk, Houda Rifae, Samantha Demillo, Sharon Li.

Congratulations to all of you. The school is looking forward to being led by you as excellent role models and organisers.

Leadership

The Year 4 and 5 Leadership Preparation Program has prepared our students for leadership roles in the school. In leadership they work in groups of 20 with 2 teachers. They learn about;

• accepting responsibility for their own behaviour
• leadership muscles and develop an understanding of which muscles are their strengths and where they can improve
• talking in front of an audience.
• the difference between a celebrity and a leader
• how to work in teams
• organise events, and
•  what the expectations of a good leader are.

This preparation has been designed to help those Year 5’s who want to apply for Year 6 Leadership positions for next year and those Year 4’s who need to support them and perhaps stand for leadership roles when they are older.

The positions available are School Captains, Student Executive, House Captains and Peer Mediators.

The process is:

1. Written application addressing criteria. Need to be approved to apply by class teacher and another staff member.

2.     Written applications reviewed by a panel of teachers, student leaders and parents. Those who meet criteria are called to interview.

3.      Interviewed by the same panel that reviewed written applications. Leadership criteria outlined in Leadership Training form the basis for interview.

4.     Year 6 leaders selected by panel

5.     Year 6 leaders for 2008 address student body who then vote for a boy and girl captain and vice captains.

All students who apply for Leadership are offered chance to lead as Peer Mediators.

Mrs Pericles (in the red hat) has been recognised by the NSW DET and Microsoft for her outstanding work with Technology.

Mrs Pericles a self avowed techno moron was recognised on November 13 at a presentation by Virginia Judge MLA in the presence of the Director General of Education Mr Michael Coutts-Trotter and other members of the State Executive Service.

Mrs Pericles has worked closley with her students as they have learned how to best use technology and Web 2.0 tools to communicate with the world. She has also led the teachers at the school to understand how to use these tools to best effect in their classrooms.

Congratulations to a very fine teacher who is rapidly developing a world wide reputation as a leading 21st century educator.

We are all so very proud of you!!!!

The annual school discos were a great success. The K to 2 had a top time before lunch and the Stage 2 and 3’s rocked after lunch until hometime.

The SRC worked hard and organised all aspects of the disco with parent and teacher support and co-operation. All worked together to raise money and had fun along the way.

Special thanks to Sam James who mixed the music and Miss Krisenthal who worked with the students

The cake stall raised $450 which will pay for the DJ at the Year 6 Farewell.

The Disco and the Mufti raised a total of $800 which goes into the SRC bank account to allow them to undertake some more enterprising activities in 2008.

Our students performed exceptionally well at the Regional Athletics Carnival. Hafiz Gami was outstanding winning his age group 100m, 200m and Long Jump.
Hafiz has just competed in the State Athletics Carnival. He is now State Champion in all the above events. Hafiz qualified to compete in the National Championships unfortunately he is unable to compete for family reasons.
Great effort HAFIZ we are all so proud of you.

The students and staff at Belmore South should be congratulated for the best Basic Skills Test results they have achieved in ten years.

The school’s strength is in the area of writing. Year 3 and Year 5 results are at the state mean and above the regional average.

Another notable achievement is the amount of value adding in all Basic Skills Tests. Our Year 5 students results improved above both state and regional average levels.

In Year 5 98% of the students achieved Skill Band 2 or higher in Literacy and Numeracy.