Presentation Day is an annual event where we formally recognise the achievements of our students. The culmination of the day also heralds in the new group of student leaders of the following year. Presentation Day is on Thursday 9 December.

The Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 Presentation Day will commence at 10.00am 

The Year 3-6 Presentation Day will commence at 12.30pm. 

Sports Coordinators  

Miss Sue Chiddy, Miss Erika Longhitano and Mrs Janeen West 

This year, at North Ryde Public School we continued our focus on improving Reading Comprehension. This year the focus was on building vocabulary and continuing to work on comprehension strategies. Vocabulary plays an important role in reading and it is key to reading comprehension. We cannot understand what we are reading without knowing what most of the words mean. 

This year teachers at North Ryde PS engaged in multiple professional learning sessions on Vocabulary and its role in literacy. As a result, teachers were able to implement the explicit teaching of vocabulary into literacy lessons. One way this was implemented was by introducing Word of the Day/Week. Another focus is to encourage students to be meaning detectives (inferred vocabulary), so that students use the clues in the text as well as what they know to make an inference about new vocabulary. In writing the focus was on transferring the learnt knowledge of Tier 2 words into their writing.

When explicitly teaching Vocabulary, the focus is on Tier two words. 

Tier 1: Most Common Words and easily understood

Tier 2: Uncommon in everyday language, sophisticated words, common in text

Tier 3: Specific to a Key Learning Area 

The focus on vocabulary also aims to foster a curiosity for words that makes learning infectious and inspiring, making students think harder than they have thought possible about words.

Here is an example of just 10 words of focus that students have learnt this year in relation to the focus of the explicit teaching of Vocabulary within Reading:

Kindergarten: weary, chuckle, trusty, shrinking, generous, grumpy, dare, tender, gasp, gushes 

Year 1: briefly, firmly, perfect, improve, groan, announce, sprinkle, sob, devour, calm 

Kindergarten and Year 1 use a scripted program (InitiaLit)for their vocabulary component. 

Year 2: bold, elegant, accomplished, fascinating, doubt, gradual, required, tend, perform, rely. 

Stage 2: effervescent, etiquette, exuberant, tranquil, dollop, enchanted, boondoggle, succulent, flabbergasted, befuddle

Stage 3: churlish, jocular, ostentatious, plucky, tranquil, fastidious, zealous, gluttonous, imperturbable, superficial

Michelle Caruso 

Assistant Principal  

A big ‘Thank You!’ to all parents / carers of Kindergarten and Year 1 students for your continued support this year. 2021 started positively and brought many highlights and of course some challenging times for us all. With your assistance, we were able to continue to connect with and educate your child via zoom and home learning activities during lockdown. We are extremely grateful for your commitment to your child’s learning during this time.  

Each child should be proud of their achievements this year. We look forward to seeing them continue to grow and develop in 2022.  

Wishing you all a happy and safe holiday.  

Marina Mattiuzzo - Assistant Principal 

Year 2 children were in for a surprise on Tuesday morning when they realised their chairs had given up because of how Year 2 were treating them. Fed up with being treated badly by children and teachers alike, the chairs left a letter explaining that they had gone on strike! Year 2 quickly set to work writing letters to the chairs to persuade them to come back! Some wonderful letters were written! 

Michelle Caruso – Assistant Principal

As a conclusion to our persuasive writing unit, Year 2 have written letters to Mr John Alexander. Year 2 wrote passionately about the importance of saving the Great Barrier Reef. Here ia an example.

Stage 2 students have acted as engineers this Term, by creating a parachute (made of various materials) to help Jack escape the giant. The students had a fun time sharing ideas, materials they used, and then dropping their parachute from the balcony. This project is designed to encourage critical thinking and scientific reasoning skills, as well as problem solving and teamwork.

We also learned that sometimes we have to change or alter our model to make it better and be successful. Now we are in the process of discussing and modifying our designs to see if there are ways to improve our creations!

I had heaps of fun and learnt new games and skills. On the first day, I really enjoyed playing hockey on the basketball court. Unfortunately, we didn’t win but I enjoyed it so much. We did get wet quite a bit that day from the activities like the one where you hit the ball from the cone and run while people squirt you. We also ate a sausage sizzle and even got seconds, the apple juice was delicious.  

Day two was incredible because we got the chance to get soaked. We played Japanese blind fold and had to get objects that added up to 21 points while being blindfolded, using teamwork and trust. There was also a memory game where we used our memory and cooperation. We had to try to find pair of matching objects and there was even Powerade. We also played a game where we had to squirt off the opposing teams ping pong balls off from the cone. My team won two out of three rounds from that. We played a sponge game where we had to soak sponges in water and try to knock down the cones using aim and strength. The colour gauntlet was the messiest though, because we were sprayed with water, drizzled with flour, then we had to crawl like a caterpillar then crawl through paint. As you can see I had lots of fun with my team because of you guys. 

By Aleisha- 6C  

It was such an interesting and fun 2 days. We competed in a range of activities, that boosted out skills in both mental and physical attributes. My team, the Axolotls, may have come 10^th, but that doesn’t matter too much, because we tried our best and had an absolute blast! 

The connection and communication between our team was mostly quite strong, but a few times, things around us got loud and we lost each other in the crowd. Other times, some people got a bit left behind, and weren’t really noticed, so we tried our best to make it up to them in later games. 

Some of the activities that really stood out were Bucket Cove, Street Hockey and Japanese Blindfields, not because we were bad or good (even though we did win street hockey) but because they encouraged teamwork, communication, memory and other non-physical strategies. This helped show that you didn’t have to be sporty to do a good job, and just sport skills would get you nowhere. We also had to join forces with other teams for some games, most notably, Power Rope. It was a supersized Tug of War which we came third in, even though a mishap caused us to think we were coming fourth. 

But while it was mostly fun and games, it was definitely a competition, and me and others in our team and the three teams we played against got a little competitive. Maybe too competitive. 

By Charlotte- 6D

Year 5

Year 6

PREMIER’S READING CHALLENGE 

Congratulations to all the students who participated in the Premier’s Reading Challenge this year. All students who entered the Challenge this year have been awarded their certificates. Special recognition goes to the following students who have received their Gold and Platinum certificates. A Gold recipient has participated for 4 years and a Platinum recipient has participated for 7 years. 

Gold PRC students are: 

Monica, Tobias, Harlen, Zoe, Abigail, Marcus, Kacey, Daniel, Hannabelle, Summer, Inesh, Injune, Adam, Claire, Sasmi, Camille, Darius, Xara, David and Sam. 

Platinum PRC students are: 

Leon, Yuna and Charlotte. 

LIBRARY BOOK OVERDUES 

There are still quite a few books, particularly from students in Years 5 and Years 6 which need to be returned to the library. Please return these books as soon as possible. 

To all students have a happy holiday time of reading. 

Mrs P Paull 

Teacher/Librarian 

Well, the new Kindergarten students have been in for orientation, Presentation Day is this week and the Year 6 Farewell next week and then it's a welcome leap into the summer holidays. On behalf of the P&C I would like to sincerely thank the teachers and support staff at the school for all they have done during the year to support the students in their learning, and also recognise the efforts and resilience of students and their families in what has been a changeable and challenging year. We look forward to getting back into the swing of running events and fundraising in 2022 in support of the school. Until then we wish everyone a very merry festive season and a happy New Year. 

P&C Roles 

There are still two P&C roles still to be filled for 2022 - P&C Secretary and Canteen Coordinator. If you would like to be more involved and are interested in one of these roles please contact me by email pcpresident.nrps@gmail.com before the end of term. 

P&C Meeting 

Our final meeting for 2021 will be held on Tuesday 7 December in the staffroom and via Zoom from 7.00pm.  

All NRPS parents and community members are welcome to attend.  This will be the planning meeting for next year where we will discuss fundraising activities and events to be run in 2022. We are always interested in your ideas and looking for volunteers so please come along if you have something to propose or are interested in helping to organise events.  

Zoom details: 
Topic: P&C Planning 

Time: Dec 7, 2021 07:00 PM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney 

 Join Zoom Meeting 

https://nsweducation.zoom.us/j/66278174974?pwd=d2ZsbDJPdnZQcXhFYklHTmxLK01pZz09 

 Meeting ID: 662 7817 4974 

Passcode: 2022 

Child Minding 

During the P&C meeting your child can be cared for by OOSH staff. You don’t need to be regulars to OOSH but you will need to sign them in and out. Just contact OOSH prior to the meeting to make arrangements. 

Noni Przybylski - P&C President 
pcpresident.nrps@gmail.com 
0410 032 585 

Thank you 

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our band students and families for their support and resilience this year. It was a tough year for our students and it was so pleasing to see our band students persist with their online lessons and practice from home. We look forward to another musical year ahead, with hopefully classes resuming face to face. You will be notified in the new year in regards to the lessons and rehearsals plan. 

Instrument hire returns  

An email will be sent to our band families this week by our band liaisons in regards to instrument returns. These will need to be returned on specific days due to covid regulations and year cohorts.  Please look out for this email. 

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a safe and happy new year! 

Laura Pyper  

Band Coordinator  

Can you believe we’ve made it to the last month of the year! We have had a wonderful fortnight here at North Ryde, including a room refresh! We operated out of the hall for a few days to allow our room to be painted, giving it a brand-new look and it was well worth it! With only a couple more weeks left of the term, our Educators have also been organising our fantastic Holiday Program! If you haven’t had the chance to book in yet, please speak to our lovely staff or send us an email! 

Despite the amount of rain, we have received this last fortnight, we have still managed to get outdoors and get active which the children have thoroughly enjoyed! Handball tournaments have become a crowd favourite, and our educators are struggling to beat the competition! On the oval, it’s been every person for themselves with the children enjoying large games of survival tag!  

Indoors we have seen lots of action at the colouring tables! The children have recently shown a big interest in mandala art, and we have been so impressed by the patience and quality of work they have produced! With the holiday season well underway, we have also seen an interest in card making and holiday crafts! This week the children learnt to make paper snowflakes! It was great to see them experimenting to see what shape their snowflake would be!  

Lastly, we would just like to thank our wonderful community for all their support and generosity! We are reaching out this holiday season for Westmead Children's Hospital’s Toy Drive! We want to ensure that all children get to enjoy the holidays, even if they can’t be home. If this is a cause you would be happy to support, please see the attached flyer!  

If you have any feedback, concerns, or questions, please do not hesitate to contact us! 

Stay well and have a lovely fortnight!