Wahroonga Public School’s Newsletter THE BUSH TELEGRAPH Thursday 9 August 2012 Term 3, Week 4 Inside this Issue PRINCIPAL‘S PROSE ____3 BOOK WEEK/ BOOK FAIR We are having a Book Fair next Thursday, 16 August 2012. Parents, Chess News grandparents and friends are invited to choose a book to donate to the ____4 library. Books are priced from $10 to $40. Drop into the library anytime on Deputy Principal News that day. ____8 This year’s Book Week will be a low key affair with the teachers Library News & Choir News concentrating on the School Concerts. However, we are having an author and an illustrator work with the students during the Book Week period. ____9 We have been promoting the Children’s Book Council Short Listed books. ICT News CHOIR AT SYDNEY TOWN HALL ____10 A highlight of our Education Week activities was the senior choir’s WPS Writing Wall participation in the massed choral works at the ArtsNorth performance at ____11 the Sydney Town Hall last Thursday. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. The evening was a showcase of the musical talent of public P & C News & Canteen News schools in Northern Sydney. Having the event in such a beautiful hall was ____12 justified by the high standard of the presentation. Thanks to Mrs Piper for Banking News preparing the choir, Mrs Voysey and Mrs Moxham for assisting on the evening, Mrs Flynn, Miss Miller and Mrs Gilchrist who attended the event. ____13 Band News CHESS SEASON Congratulations to our School Chess Teams on their season. Our A team ____14 won their division and our B team came third in their division. This is a Uniform Shop News wonderful effort. Mr Jones, our volunteer Chess Coach, has written a report for our newsletter on page 3. EVENTS FOR NEXT WEEK Tuesday 14 August I want to thank Evan Jones for another year as our Chess Coach. Evan is a Years 3‐6 ICAS Mathematics wonderful person for volunteering twice a week for this. He coaches on Tuesdays, organises transport, afternoon tea, adjudicates and does the Thursday 16 August paperwork for the Friday afternoon matches. Mrs Flynn assists on Yr 3‐6 Assembly (5M & KD Item), Tuesdays for the coaching sessions. His children have long since left the 8:45am ‐ 5:00 pm Book Fair school but he has stayed on for many years in this role. If you are interested in assisting Evan please let me know. Monday 20 August Book Week Yrs 3‐6 Workshops SCHOOL CONCERT Most parents have returned their initial application for School Concert Wednesday 22‐24 August tickets. We will be getting back to you soon with the outcome of the Years 5 & 6 Aussie Bush Camp application and with any tickets that will be available for the matinee performances. Tuesday 28 August Book Week K‐2 Workshops P&C MEETING The P&C meeting is on tonight at 7:00 PM in the staffroom. Everyone is Wednesday 29 August welcome. Mrs Carlos is coming to the meeting for the first 15 minutes to Zone Athletics Narrabeen talk about the NSW Teachers Federation’s position on the NSW Government’s program Local Schools Local Decisions. 1 PARENT INFORMATION MEETINGS I am presenting a parent information session on “Knowledge & Learning” at 6:00 PM this evening in the School Library if you want to come along. The P&C meeting will be held directly after this meeting at 7:00 PM in the staffroom. Mrs Carlos will be presenting a talk for parents on computer education on Thursday 20 September 2012 at 10:15 AM and again at 6:00 PM. These talks will be held in ICT 1 (Block V), which is Mrs Carlos’ room. In Term 4, there will be information meetings on mathematics education. ATHLETICS CARNIVAL Today the Athletics Carnival is on and I will write more about this next week. Good luck to all our competitors. LANGUAGE CLASSES ON THURSDAY AFTER SCHOOL A private operator of after school language instruction is interested in offering a class or classes on Thursdays depending on demand. They might offer French, Italian, Spanish or German depending on your response. Attached to this e‐mail is a letter from the company seeking expressions of interest. Another operator runs Chinese language classes on Thursdays and these are going well. PAUSE, PROMT AND PRAISE Pause, Prompt & Praise is a simple technique that, used well, will support your child to practise his/her reading and to develop more reading confidence. The principle of Pausing – then Prompting – and then Praising is very useful to remember and apply anytime your child is reading aloud to you. Teachers and trained tutors often use a more structured version of this principle but the following tips can help you to try it out when reading with your child at home. The 3Ps technique is best used when your child is reading and ‘gets stuck’ on words that they can’t read or are new to them. When your child encounters words that are difficult for them to read, the 3Ps technique will allow him/her the opportunity to have another go, self‐correct, or if needed, find out (be told) what the problem word is. Two important things to remember from the outset when using Pause, Prompt & Praise • The goal of reading is to understand (make sense of) what is read, so always keep this in mind when you are prompting and praising your child. • Try to ensure that you are relaxed, interested and supportive, which in turn will help your child feel OK when they make mistakes or just can’t work out a word and need to be told what it is. At home this technique will work best when your child is reading a text that is well matched to their reading level, which is where your child can easily read most of the words in the text and only falters on occasional words. Before reading, make sure that you are both comfortable and can clearly see the text your child is reading. Pause Once your child starts reading aloud, carefully follow the text as they read. If your child comes to a word they don’t know try not to jump in straight away and supply the correct word. Wait and give your child time to work out the word. In the first instance ‘pausing’ creates an opportunity for your child to try and self‐correct or work out the word for him/herself. Prompt If your child successfully supplies the word they have stumbled over it’s a good idea to suggest that he/she goes back to the beginning of the sentence and re‐reads the whole sentence again (to recap meaning) before reading on. If your child has not independently worked out the problem word, at this point you may intervene and prompt them with some quick, low‐key suggestions about what they could do. Say things like: – Try reading on for a sentence or two, miss out the difficult word and see if that helps you to work it out what it is. – Look at the sound the word begins with, use that clue and think about what might make sense here. Look at the pictures and see if they give you a clue to what the word might be. – Go back to the beginning of the sentence, re‐read it and have another go at working it out. If prompts like these are not working, this is the point at which you simply tell your child the correct word. Try not to spend too much time prompting as your child will find it difficult to maintain the overall meaning of what they are reading. 2 Praise This is the easiest part of the process for any parent because it’s something that comes naturally. Praise your child’s reading efforts and successes whenever you think it is appropriate during the reading process. As well as praising their effort it is often good to tell them why. For example you might say: – Well done, I thought it was brilliant the way that you went back, re‐read the sentence from the beginning and worked out that word you were having trouble with. – That was great reading tonight, you worked out some pretty tricky ones for yourself. Well done. John Benton Principal [email protected] CHESS NEWS This year Wahroonga Public School entered two teams in the NSW Junior Chess League interschool competition, which ran for nine weeks during Term 2 and 3. Both teams had an enjoyable and successful season. Team A finished the season with an excellent record of seven wins, one bye and one narrow loss, scoring 31.5 out of a possible 36 points to win their division, 4.5 points clear of the second placed team. The squad of Tomas T, Ethan H, Nithin M, Sophie S and Thomas H proved to be extremely well‐balanced, with every player winning the vast majority of their matches, as evidenced by the team scoring five 4‐0 walk‐over wins. Team B finished the season with an impressive record of five wins, three losses, and one bye, to score 24.5 points out of a possible 36, which placed them third in their division, 5.5 points behind the division winners. Of the squad of Mi‐ cah Z, June S, Lukas H, Oscar B, Hamish M, Sean N and Craig H, only June and Oscar had interschool experience at the season’s start, so the result far exceeded our expectations.