Address: Mary Street, NORTHMEAD, 2152 Phone: 9639 8448

Email: thehills-s.school@det.nsw.edu.au Website: www.thehills-s.school.nsw.edu.au

Principal’s Message: Hello parents and carers and welcome to the Term 4 Week 6 Newsletter. New Students We’ve been busy inducting new students to The Hills School and are expecting to see 13 families join us in the New Year. Most of our new students will be starting in Kindergarten. Staff have been busy meeting the families and working with the students as we seek to make their transition to The Hills School a great success. We are very much looking forward to the learning journey ahead and welcoming them to The Hills School family. Staff Professional Learning – Classes 2021 Over the last few weeks our teachers and support staff have combined to discuss class placements for 2021. At The Hills School we have approximately 113 students aged between 4 and 18 years. Each student is different, has different likes and dislikes, different ways of learning and different daily challenges. Our classes usually have 6-7 students in each room with a teacher and learning support officer. When considering a class placement, we look very carefully at an individual, their learning program and what conditions will best suit that person to be the best they can be. We care very deeply about getting it right, but we also accept that sometimes things change, children change and so do the students and staff we have in our school. Towards the end of the term we will aim to have established the classes in full, their room number and the teaching and support staff that will be working with the students. We will seek to inform parents of the expected room allocation for 2021 in approximately Week 9. If you have any questions about this process, please give me a call. Mark Gosbell R/Principal

Monday NOVEMBER 23

P&C MEETING 7pm

Tuesday NOVEMBER 24

CELEBRATION OF LEARNING

Wednesday DECEMBER 9

GRADUATION CEREMONY

Wednesday DECEMBER 16

LAST DAY OF TERM 4

(STUDENTS)

Friday JANUARY 29

2021

FIRST DAY OF TERM 1 2021 (STUDENTS)

Newsletter No.11

20 November 2020

THE HILLS SCHOOL

mailto:thehills-s.school@det.nsw.edu.auhttp://www.thehills-s.school.nsw.edu.au/https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjw7tfL5LLgAhXTXCsKHUy_ACUQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https://www.macmillan.org.uk/yourmacnews/archives/summer2015/events/dates-for-your-diary.aspx&psig=AOvVaw0nCIcGPvC7NSuX1NpdFqSI&ust=1549943709696280

Room 5 Brittany Clark (Teacher) Renee Watt (SLSO) Term 4 has come around very quickly! Room 5 enjoyed the Book Week 2020 celebrations participating in the parade, feeding, and petting the farm animals who came to visit. The class met a cow, piglet, chicks and lots of goats! We have been practising our art skills, painting an Australian landmark, Uluru and engaging in guided drawing.

Room 6 Belinda Hurley (Teacher) Tony McInnes & Matt Aguirre (SLSOs) This term Room 6 have begun to go out on community walks and visit local playgrounds. Aayan and Sahan love to go on the swing while Stephen, Krishnan and Connor enjoy using the equipment and Michael enjoys the sandpit and open spaces. We have continued to develop our living skills by sitting together at the table in the classroom, sharing some of our favourite foods such as pizza and hot chips. It has been a pleasure to work with the students in Room 6 and I wish them all the best for 2021.

Room 7 Fae Wong (Teacher) Katelyn Matthews (SLSO) The students in Room 7 have engaged in a variety of activities this term, including fine motor skills, craft, shape and colour sorting and puzzles during desk work time. We especially enjoyed exploring indigenous culture during NAIDOC Week. We had great fun celebrating Viola’s 13th birthday and George’s 17th birthday this term.

Room 14 Kate Brown (Teacher) Louise van Kruyssen (SLSO) Room 14 have had a beautiful term. We especially loved Book Week where we spent a lot of time looking at some wonderful books and stories, as well as seeing some animals. As a class, we dressed up, did some acting and dancing. We hope you enjoy exploring new places in your reading adventures!

Room 15 Dean Triffitt (Teacher) Liz Langdon & Renee Pieri (SLSOs) Room 15 and 16 have been learning about NAIDOC Week and what it represents. We have enjoyed listening and dramatising Aboriginal stories, making traditional rain sticks, observing beautiful Aboriginal artwork and dancing to local music. We also created poppies for Remembrance Day, where we painted them red and hung them in the classroom.

Room 16 Jess Meyer (Teacher) Melissa O’Brien & Janelle Poole (SLSOs) Room 16, along with Room 15, have returned from school holidays refreshed and we have been learning about different celebrations for History. These include Book Week, Day of the Dead, Halloween, Melbourne Cup and Christmas. We have been celebrating these occasions through dressing up, watching movies and videos, eating foods from different cultures, making and breaking piñatas and creating our own racing fun. We have very much enjoyed ourselves with this topic and look forward to learning more about our family history and personal celebrations over the rest of the year.

Disclaimer: Advertisements published by The Hills School are provided for information only and their inclusion in no way constitutes an endorsement of the product or service by The Hills School. Links to information on websites are for your convenience only and are not an endorsement or recommendation of those sites. Please note we do not guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any information on these external websites.

In October, we held our P&C meeting solely via a Zoom video conferencing call. The Department of Education recently announced a relaxing of rules relating to gatherings held on school grounds. P&C meetings are able to be held onsite with a maximum of 20 people in attendance. We have set up a Zoom account which will allow us to have a video conference of the meeting occurring as well. This will be available at every meeting for families who are unable to leave home. The link for November’s meeting is:

https://au01web.zoom.us/j/62347193347?pwd=YjBBRUxyR1F4WDkzc2E4eTZqLzBvQT09

The meetings are held generally on the fourth Monday of the month from 7pm. All you need is a computer or device connected to the internet and the meeting link. The link will be made available about a week before the meeting through a note sent home and also on Flexischools. We are also available via email (thehillsschoolssp@pandcaffiliate.org.au) if anyone can’t locate this link and we can email it to you. If anyone in our community does not have access to this technology and finds it daunting to use, please contact the office and leave your contact details. We can arrange for you to attend with another P&C member.

On joining the meeting, we just ask that you please enable your device’s camera so we can identify who you are. The camera does not need to remain on for the rest of the meeting. We hope to see more families joining us for these meetings.

P&C News

John Scotting Monique Fenech Justine Stamatakis President Treasurer Secretary

Happy Birthday wishes go out to the

following students from all your friends at

The Hills School:

https://au01web.zoom.us/j/62347193347?pwd=YjBBRUxyR1F4WDkzc2E4eTZqLzBvQT09https://au01web.zoom.us/j/62347193347?pwd=YjBBRUxyR1F4WDkzc2E4eTZqLzBvQT09mailto:thehillsschoolssp@pandcaffiliate.org.au