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Newsletter

Green Valley Islamic College

Iss

264 Wilson Road Green Valley NSW 2168 Ph: (02) 8783 9188

www.gvic.nsw.edu.au Fax: (02) 87839187

Email: admin@gvic.nsw.edu.au

Assalaam Alaikum WRWB Welcome to Term Two.

CAR PARK CHANGES As you are aware, the front Wilson Road car park was under construction in Term One. This has now been completed. There are new “No Stopping” signs along Wilson Road and also on Coronation Drive, so I urge you to follow traffic rules to avoid receiving an infringement. Also, please follow the instructions from staff who are supervising at all times. NAPLAN NAPLAN was held this week from 15 May to 17 May. We wish all students in Years three, five, seven, and nine the very best. RAMADAN Insha Allah, Ramadan school hours will commence from Wednesday 16 May, 2018. School will finish earlier at 2:30pm. During this month, please be prompt when picking your children up in the afternoon. RAMADAN KAREEM TO YOU ALL.

Payment of School Fees Schools fees for Term Two are as follows: Primary - $350 Junior Secondary - $400 Senior Secondary - $535 School fees for Term Two are due by Friday, 18 May and we appreciate prompt payment of school fees. School fees can be paid by

cash, EFT (in person or over the phone) and BPAY. A letter was sent on Tuesday with your outstanding fees for this term. A fee statement will be sent to you shortly and this will include all your charges for the term. If you have any queries please contact the Accounts Department by phone. Payments for Excursions and Subscriptions As you are aware the school has been adding excursion and subscription charges to your family fee account. Please note that excursion and incursion charges for your child/ren for this term have been added to the family account. Email Addresses Recently the school has been communicating via emails. It is important that, you receive these emails. If for some reason you have not received these emails please contact The School Office.

Congratulations to Omar Dib (11) and Aeeshah Mohammed (12) who have been selected to represent ISD (rep) in the Soccer Championships. This is a huge achievement for our school as they are the first student representatives within the ISD Association.

GVIC

Respect

Ownership

Caring

Knowledge

Safety

School Term Dates

Term 1

Tuesday 30th January –

Friday 13th April

Term 2

Tuesday 1st May –

Friday 6th July

Term 3

Tuesday 24th July –

Friday 28th September

Term 4

Monday 15th October –

Wednesday 12th

December

ISSUE 3, 2018 Thursday 17 May 2018

ACTING PRINCIPAL’S

MESSAGE

SECONDARY PDHPE / SPORTS

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Welcome back to an exciting and fruitful start to a new school term. However, this term will be very busy for everyone, as the Half-Yearly Examination is approaching. In order to improve reading and writing in Years seven to ten, the English Department has initiated “Renaissance Accelerated Reader’’, a software program. Please encourage your children to read and utilize the books in the school library effectively as the program works in conjunction with the books in the school library. The Half-Yearly Examinations for Years seven to ten will be conducted in Weeks Five and Six. The English Department would like to request that parents be actively involved in their children’s learning and studying at home, as this will help facilitate and ensure students develop critical key English skills, such as Reading, Writing and Speaking skills. Overall, the English Department would like the students at Green Valley Islamic College to strive for excellence in English!

ANZAC DAY On the 25 April, every year Australians remember the sacrifice of those who had died in all wars. The Australian and New Zealand actions during the campaign left us all a powerful legacy through the creation of the “Anzac legend”. This has become an important part in shaping the identity of Australia. At Green Valley Islamic College a commemoration ceremony was organised by the Year ten History Students with Haider Alaraji as an excellent host. The guest, Mr Kevin Watts spoke about his experiences at Vietnam War. Numa Abdul diligently explained the significance of Anzac Day. We paid tribute to Mr Watts, a war veteran who was a regular guest at Green Valley Islamic College and was laid to rest this January.

Year 10 Geography Excursion

As part of their Assessment Task, students of Year ten travelled to Wanda Beach to take part in an investigative study of a coastal environment and understand how human activities contribute to the degradation of coastal areas. Through their fieldwork and data collected on this excursion, students were able to create research action plans which analysed how coastal areas could be managed in a sustainable manner.

SECONDARY HSIE

SECONDARY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

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SRC Student of the Week: Term 2 Week One- Irtaza Arif for initiating the Islamic and Cultural Society and presenting an amazing Isra Wal Miraj Program. Week Two- Halima Aiyaz for her philanthropic effort in collecting over $700 for the SRC Water Well Project. Isra Wal Miraj An informative presentation was organised by the Islamic and Cultural Committee of Green Valley Islamic College, under the leadership of Ertaza Arif, to illustrate the significance of the miraculous Night Journey of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the gift of the five daily prayers.

Ramadan Launch The Ramadan Launch on 11 May, hosted by Areeba Talpur, was a success.

Harmony Day High school Harmony Day was celebrated in an exuberant manner with displays, foods and activities at twenty stalls representing twenty countries. The aim of ‘Everyone Belongs’ was truly demonstrated at this event when everyone worked side by side to create an interactive environment for students and teachers to participate. Students visited each stall and experienced the ‘feel’ of that particular country through tasting the food on display, learning to write their names in different languages, taking part in games and seeking in-depth knowledge of the different cultures that make Australia multicultural.

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Assalamu Alaikum

The Interschools Spelling Bee Contest

The Green Valley Islamic College Primary sector is pleased to inform the parents that our students will be participating in Interschools Spelling Bee Contest on the 26 June 2018, competing with two other schools. This will be the first competition of such a nature hosted by our school and we are looking forward to having the support of the parents. Our students have already had an internal Spelling Bee Contest in Week Ten of Term One where the words were not disclosed prior to the event, in order to challenge the students. Wider reading such as reading a range of materials, including recipes, timetables, letters, magazines and exposure to fiction and non-fiction books will help students to develop extensive vocabulary. The photos of the winners of the Internal Spelling Bee Contest is shown below, (from left) are Rowaida Hamed 1G, Ammar Rasul 2R, Sumaira Ashifdar 3B, Sheikh Zyan Rahaman 4G, Amir Khan 5B and Sanan Waseem 6B.

Ramadan Awareness Session

Primary students welcomed Ramadan and participated in a special assembly in the hall organised by Ms El Kassir and supported by Ms Sabril and Mr Ziyaad on Thursday 10 May 2018. The hall was well decorated with symbolic pictures, words and motifs. The performance was highly informative as it involved speeches, Zaky’s video on Ramadan and presentations by KB and 4R students. Students were provided with Quran reading bookmarks and Ramadan activity tracking timetables that will motivate them for the blessed month. The Primary Department would like to take this opportunity to wish the Green Valley Islamic College Community Ramadan Mubarak!

Walk Safely to School Day

The Primary students participated in this annual event on Friday, 11 May 2018, by taking a supervised walk along a familiar route, followed by having a healthy breakfast at school. A special note had been sent out to parents to seek permission and to update teachers about any allergies. Only students with written permission were allowed to have a shared breakfast at

DEPUTY PRINCIPAL’S (PRIMARY)

MESSAGE

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school. Parents were encouraged to participate in this event and promote this learning activity.

2019 Kindergarten Enrolment

Parents seeking enrolment for their children in 2019 are requested to contact the school office for enrolment forms. Please inform friends and family about the enrolments being open. The completed forms need to be submitted ASAP as limited places are available and enrolment will close by Wednesday of Week Ten, Term Two (4th July, 2018). Students will be interviewed on Saturday, 3rd August, 2018. Further details will be sent through letters posted to parents, early Term Three. Newly enrolled siblings of our current students will also be expected to have certain requirements such as school readiness including basic Literacy/ Numeracy and social skills for safety around other students. Currently the school has three streams of kindergarten classes and each class is supported by a full time teacher aide. Each classroom is fully equipped with interactive smart board, class set of ipads, classroom computers and access to a modern library served by a full time library assistant. Primary students also have a fully qualified Sports teacher and access to a well-equipped hall for Sports.

Half- Yearly Exams

Primary Assessments are scheduled for Week Six (Monday 4 – Friday 8 June). Parents are requested to

note that moving the examinations to any earlier or later date during the term would have affected content coverage or completion of Term Two teaching programs (learning experiences). Please ensure that children are punctual with 100% attendance during this period, unless it is a medical emergency. Assessment timetables and details regarding content coverage in each subject were submitted to parents by Week Two.

Parents are encouraged to support their child/ren by ensuring that they use the revision booklet to re-visit key concepts. Additionally, students from Years Three - Six will benefit from revision of lesson notes and work samples. This will help them to develop life-long study skills.

Parent-Teacher interviews will be held on Thursday 5th July, 2018. Please contact the school office if further clarification is required.

Excursions/ Incursions

Parents are requested to mark the following dates on their calendar as students will participate in excursions/ incursions on these selected days. Teachers are always involved in searching for motivating and engaging learning activities and excursions are examples of that. Excursions provide exciting pathways for learning that are not confined to the boundaries of the classroom. Please share your child’s enthusiasm and support the school by allowing your child to be punctual and actively involved on the day of the excursion. The details are as follows:

Grade Excursion

Date

Venue Focus

Year 3

19/06/18

Science Planetarium

Wollongong

Science - Enhance the study of Planets

Study on “Space”

Kindergarten

21/06/18

City Farm Science – Needs and Wants of Living Things

Year 6

21/06/18

Cumberland State Forest

Geography - Sustainability and Global Footprints

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Year 2 27/06/18

Mt Annan Science - Pivotal role of Water in the Ecosystem

Year 1 29/06/18

Taronga Zoo Science - Living and Non Living Things

Additional learning tasks apart from homework

Students need to be encouraged to regularly engage in additional activities apart from homework. All students will benefit from reading fiction and non-fiction books daily to build their fluency, vocabulary and knowledge. Parents are requested to provide incentives for their child/ren to access programs such as Mathletics, Literacy Pro (Lexile) and Bug Club to develop their Literacy/ Numeracy skills. While most of the students are doing the allocated tasks, those who challenge themselves to engage in additional activities are motivated and encouraged to do more through recognition as ‘Student of the Week’ in the K-6 school assemblies. The class that shows outstanding participation in the learning activities is rewarded with the assembly trophy.

ICAS Assessments

ICAS is an examination that is set and marked externally hence parents are requested to encourage students to participate, in particular Year Six students because the GAT examination is set by the same organisation/provider.

Parents of Years Three – Six are reminded that ICAS dates for 2018 are as follows:

Spelling 13th June

Writing 14th June

English 31st July

Maths 14th August

Primary Ramadan Charity Projects

The generosity of parents and students has enabled the primary sector to establish the following two charity projects to support the children around the world through a donation of $2704.00 collected during 2017

Ramadan. Insha Allah we would like to annually continue supporting our sponsored student, Aamer and help other countries such as the Water Well Projects. We appreciate your kind gesture of support and look forward to continuing these projects in the future. The Ramadan collection will continue this year therefore we humbly request for your continued support.

Ramadan Kareem,

Mr Shamsher Ali Acting Principal