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Principal: Mr Greg Turnbull Relieving Deputy Principal: Mrs Belinda Gibbs

Term 1 Week 6 2018

Dear Families,

Just a couple of reminders for everyone in our community to ensure the safety of all our students and staff. Firstly, we are asking all parents and carers to collect your children from the designated class pick up points outside the building. It is extremely disruptive to teachers and students to have people inside the building in front of classrooms. Of course in wet weather children are collected from inside the building. Secondly, we would like to remind all parents and carers that if you need to see children during the school day, you must come to the office and sign in as a visitor and collect a visitor tag before proceeding to classrooms. If you are not wearing a visitor tag you will be asked to return to the office before speaking with children. This is simply to ensure we know who is on the school site at all times to ensure the safety of all of our students. I have been really lucky to work with all of our staff through a new professional development called ‘Spirals of Inquiry’ over the last two weeks and have really enjoyed talking about all of our students and the fantastic learning experiences they are being provided with inside our classrooms.

Kind Regards Greg Turnbull Principal

Blairmount App Blairmount has its own Smartphone App. The App is available to download from both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. The App will be used to further enhance the communication between the home and school and will add to what we already do with our school webpage, Facebook page and Twitter account.

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Like us on Facebook To keep up to date with everything that goes on at our school please visit and like us at our official Blairmount Facebook page, it can be found at www.facebook.com/blairmountps

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Compulsory School Attendance Under the Education Act (1990) all children from six years to 17 years of age are legally required to attend school every day. Recent changes to attendance requirements place obligations on schools to more closely monitor attendance and to take appropriate action if students are either not attending or are absent for reasons not justified by the school.

At Blairmount Public School, we value good attendance from all students. Regular attendance is important because it helps your child:

• Maximise their learning opportunities. • Develop the skills needed to access the

world of work and other opportunities. • To learn the importance of punctuality. • Maintain healthy social relationships with

their friends. • Develop a good working relationship with

their teachers Unfortunately, habits of non-attendance tend to develop quickly and it is concerning, that if a child misses just 8 days a term, they would miss more than one year of school by the end of primary school which then presents problems as they begin high school. The law requires that if your child is absent from school, you must inform the school as soon as possible and provide a legitimate reason for your child’s absence. This can be done by

• Sending a note on your child’s return to school.

• Contacting through email /fax. • Visiting the school.

Parents / Caregivers should note that schools are required to record absences that are unexplained or unjustified and may also be required to report these to various welfare agencies, who may choose to follow this up with parents. Your child’s education is important. Please contact the school if there are problems in getting your children to school or if there are concerns you have about them at school. A positive partnership between home and school in this area is of great value to the school but most importantly to the success and quality of your child’s education.

School Photographs School Photo Day is on Tuesday 27th March 2018. All children need to bring their completed envelopes to school on photo day as teachers and office staff are not able to hold onto money before this day.

For parents wishing to pay after photo day they can go to the website

www.theschoolphotographer.com.au

and select the “Click here for Online Payments” button, they will then be asked to enter details to make a payment online.

OR

Parents can call The School Photographer office on 9674 9824 and they will take credit card payments over the phone. (Please note: there is a processing fee of $5.00 for phone payments)

OR

Parents can post a money order to The School Photographer at the address along with their order envelope. Cheques are no longer accepted due to a change in bank policy.

The School Photographer Unit 20, 14-16 Stanton Road Seven Hills NSW 2147 Phone: (02) 9674 9824 Fax: (02) 8602 5399

School Banking A reminder that school banking occurs each Friday. Students are to leave their bank books at the office before school on a Friday morning

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SMS Absence Notifications

Blairmount are currently using an SMS message service to advise Parents/Carers of their child’s absence from school. This gives you the opportunity to respond with an explanation for your child’s absence, which will be recorded in our system.

Parents must provide an explanation for absences to the school within 7 days from the first day of any period of absence. Where an explanation has not been received within the 7-day timeframe, the school will record the absence as unjustified on the student’s record.

Please make sure that the school has current, up to date phone numbers so that you can receive these important messages. If you do not respond to the SMS you will need to provide a written letter to your child’s teacher to explain their absence.

Year 5 & 6 Camp

This year, Stage 3 will be attending The Great Aussie Bush Camp at Tea Gardens for a 2 night stay. The total cost of the excursion is $300.00 per student. There are limited places available to attend & attendance will be secured on a first-in, first-served basis. In order to book your child’s attendance to the camp, a non-refundable deposit of $50.00 is required by the 4th May 2018 unless spots are filled earlier. Please note that we are happy to accept smaller payments over the time if that helps with paying the camp off.

School Pickup

Please understand that school hours are from 9:00am to 3:00pm. It is extremely important that your child is at school on time every morning as this sets them up for a great day of learning & they are not missing out on catching up with their friends. If your child is late in the morning they need to present to the front office to receive a late slip & be entered into the system. After 9:00am parents will not be allowed to walk their child to class as this can become disruptive to the learning of other students.

The school gates will be closed at 9:30am each morning & reopened for pick up at 2:45pm Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & 2:55pm on Tuesdays. We ask that parents wait patiently outside the school in the afternoon until the gates are opened. Once the gates are opened please do not wait in the corridor near your child’s classroom. This is still class time & becomes very disruptive for the students. We appreciate your assistance

New School Uniforms The new uniforms look fantastic, what a great way to start the year! Just a reminder that the shirt and shorts are still on sale as a set for the heavily discounted price of $25. The deal will definitely finish at the end of the term. From term 2 the price will be;

• Shirt $20 and • Shorts $15

Schools hats are also available for $15. Please see the front office to purchase uniforms. Coles Sports in Schools Our school is taking part in the Coles School for Sport this year and would like all students to try and collect as many tokens as possible. The more we collect the more sports equipment we will be able to purchase for our school. There are two token boxes which are situated at either end of the school. One is at reception and the other on the stairs near the kindergarten classrooms. Thank you for all the support and let’s get collecting. Kind Regards, Mrs Kerry Mattar Blairmount Swimming Time Trials

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Mr Turnbull, Mrs Gibbs and Mrs Brennan accompanied 12 students to Bradbury pools on Monday 26th February to see if they met qualifying times for the Zone swimming carnival. All students tried their best and swam well.

Congratulations to Destiney T, Elena W and Abbey-Leigh S who met the qualifying times and will now represent our school at the zone swimming carnival on Thursday 8th March.

We wish the girls the very best of luck.

Harmony Day – Save the Date

Harmony Day is one of our school’s biggest celebrations of the year. This year Harmony Day will be on Tuesday 10th April. Notes and further information will be coming home shortly. Students and families are encouraged to think of an outfit they may wear on the day to represent a culture and food they may like to bring to share at the food festival.

We hope as many of our parents and community members as possible can join us to help celebrate Harmony Day. Student Health Care Plans

• Anaphylaxis (ASCIA) plans need to be updated every 12 months by the parent carer

• Asthma plans from GP need to be updated every 12 months, if a child needs Ventolin it needs to be supplied and labelled with student name and include the asthma care plan from GP.

• Epipens and medication need to be supplied if needed and renewed once expired

• Any change to a student’s health condition then parent needs to advise the office staff

• It is the parents’ responsibility to ensure the ASCIA and asthma plans are kept up to date in line with DEC policy.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs Haddock at school

1/2L Pickups

Just a small change to our pick routine. Parents of students from 1/2L are now requested to collect students from the classroom NOT under the COLA. Thanks for your understanding with this change. Mrs LaSala

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