Errol Street News #53

Message from Sally

Blokes' Breakfast

I enjoyed another wonderful Bring a Bloke to Breakfast last Friday, welcoming many more 'new blokes' to this annual event and wishing them Happy Fathers' Day.

The Parents & Friends Committee pulled together an amazing feat of catering and comradery.  Congratulations to the committee and volunteer parents, carers, staff and to our community and business supporters. You will enjoy a full report and reflection of this event from the parents later in this newsletter.

School Review

This coming Wednesday 6 September at 6pm in the Lower Flex is the Parent Forum for School Review. As a valued member of our school community, we would like to collect your feedback. Parents who attend will be shown a short presentation with reference to our 2014 Goals and then be asked to complete a parent survey focussed on the strengths and areas for improvement at North Melbourne Primary School.

Our school review is at the beginning of Term 4. School peer reviews provide an independent analysis of a school’s performance against the goals and targets in their strategic plan. The formal review also evaluates the school’s strengths and the impact of its improvement efforts.The peer review draws on the expertise and experience of professionals to support schools to evaluate their performance outcomes and practice, and to plan for improved student outcomes. It involves a panel comprising an independent reviewer, school principal, the SEIL, School Council president (or nominee) and at least two challenge partners.

Farewell Kathy Mitten

On the last day of this term we farewell our longstanding librarian, Kathy Mitten. At 1pm on Friday 22 September we will host a special whole school assembly to say thank you and good bye.

Sally

Sally Karlovic, Principal

From the Classroom

Year 3 - Our Parent and Community Skills Database

Year 3 have had two fantastic incursions this term, both of which were made possible via the Parent and Community Skills Database.

Our students are focusing on the concept of 'consciousness' this term, with the learning objective being ‘to better understand the world we live in, both locally and globally, whilst also developing our skills in empathy, respect and acceptance.’

When reviewing the database, we noticed that a parent had listed expertise in ‘Refugee Policy and Humanitarianism’, and another in ‘Gender equality, rights of the child and the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’.

Firstly, Ann Sheehan, (mother of Ivy in Year 2) came to speak to our students about the Rights of the Child, explaining what this means and encouraging them to become active in their local community. In order to connect with our Year 3 cohort, she highlighted the importance of their ‘right to education, play and cultural activities’, as well as their ‘right to be heard’, doing so by encouraging the student to write letters to the local council regarding a new play area in the North Melbourne vicinity.

Secondly, we contacted Louise Olliff (Amina’s mum, Year 1) who works as a Senior Advisor for the Refugee Council of Australia. Whilst she couldn't come in directly, she assisted us in booking their school incursion program (and even offered to donate towards payment as she feels so passionately about this being addressed in schools - we of course thanked her but politely declined). The Refugee Council's program is tailored to the Australian Curriculum and to the class age group. There is a coordinator and a guest speaker who speaks of his or her journey, and ample time for questions was provided. The presentation was wonderfully run and extremely insightful, the students were so engaged and relished the opportunity to ask our guest speaker Arif questions.

Should you be interested in reading more about the program, the brochure is listed on the following website:
https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/our-work/schools-program/

Student reflections

On Tuesday 29th August, Arif came to speak to us. He was a refugee from Afghanistan and he talk to us about about escaping to Pakistan and then how he had to leave there too when a bomb went off. He travelled in a small cramped boat to Malaysia, but even they didn't let him stay because Indonesia didn't have a proper refugee council so he come to Australia. When he got here, he was sent to a Detention Centre for 6 months in isolation. His story made me feel lucky that I live in a big house with lots of food and water. We should be thankful for what we have. By Rohan.

My favourite bit of Arif's story was when he told us what he took with him, the countries he went to, and what transport he took. Arif was only five years old when he left Afghanistan to go to Pakistan for six years before he had to leave again because it was not safe. His story made me feel very lucky and sorry for refugees. By Toby.

It made me feel sad for whoever is a refugee. It was interesting to hear about the transport he took, he said he was scared out in the ocean, there were 52 of them on one boat! He was also afraid when another country took over his country and he had to flee again and again. By Matthew.

Should you have missed the opportunity to list your own skills, passions, interests or expertise, please do contact your child’s classroom teacher and we’ll add you the list!

Year 4 Biology

By Grace, Year 4A

In Biology, Year 4 is learning about the study of life such as decomposers, consumers, producers, environment, biodiversity, ecosystems, food chains and lots more. We are growing plants and mushrooms and have pet stick insects. We used to have baby chicks but they went back to the farm. Our stick are called Shimmy and Scorpio but Scorpio sadly passed away.

Year 2 Mindful Mathematicians

Can you make an array to represent ‘groups of’? In the Hive during Numeracy we have been learning abut arrays. See following some photos of the students busy at work making arrays to solve multiplication problems using 'equal groups' and 'groups of'. Ask you child what they have learnt so far. You could also practice drawing and making arrays to represent 'equal groups' and 'groups of' at home.

School News

Tournament of Minds

Review by Carlota & Melinda - who had a glorious time!

The Tournament of Minds team competed on Sunday the 27th of August at La Trobe University in Bundoora. They were judged on teamwork, collaboration and creativity. They had two challenges, a spontaneous challenge that was given on the spot and a challenge that they worked on for six weeks. The six-week challenge had different options that were Language Literature, Social Science (which they chose), Science Technology and Engineering Mathematics.

The spontaneous challenge was to merge two different countries and merge five traditional icons and create a new flag. They chose Fiji and Iceland and the new paradise was named Tropicice. The national anthem was called The Jewel of the Pacific. Tropicice's traditional dish was named Avoxtyvark Stew that meant shark in Fijian and fruit in Icelandic. The traditional outfit was named Flower sulu. The public holiday was called Independence Day which was May the fourth which represented the day the two countries officially combined.

The team had an amazing experience and they are hoping to apply next year!

Year 2 Science Workshop

We need your rubbish!

If you have:
- large scale cardboard boxes
- postal cardboard tubes
- cling wrap or foil tubes (with any excess foil removed)
- clear soda bottles (with the labels removed)

We would greatly appreciate your help in collecting these items.
Please bring your materials to the Hive.

Library News

Book Week

For the full expose of Book Week please go to Errol Street News #52.

School Council

website link

Next Meeting

School Council will next meet on 20th September 2017 6pm.

Parents & Friends Committee

Wrap up from the 2017 'Blokes BBQ'

Report by Katrien, Megan and Georgette, Parents and Friends Committee

What a morning it was at NMPS on Friday 1st of September!

There was a huge turn out of 'blokes' and their kids for breakfast on the the glorious first day of Spring - dads, granddads, uncles, neighbours, carers. In all, the breakfast was a great success, thanks to our wonderful community.

Feeding approximately 1,000 people before school is huge job, but with so many volunteers it didn't feel like hard work. Thank you everyone who came and helped, you were amazing!

Thanks to everyone who helped, including Brent, Ori, alex and David on the BBQ. Sarah, Kayo, Mandy, Christine, Julia, Laura, Gen and Jed, the feeders and money handlers. And Leonie and David for setting up and packing afterwards. We appreciate you giving your time and effort - you did a truly amazing job.

A very special thanks goes to Grace Kim, who with her trusted food processor, chopped 10kg of onions. And let's not forget the teachers who helped out, Paul let us in at 6am, Tyson and Tali for organising the Best Dad Joke competition with the kids - everyone was highly entertained and Viv and Matt for selling raffle tickets. Thanks so much!

We received great support from the following local businesses:

• Baker's Delight on Errol Street
• Ferguson Plarre on Errol Street
• IGA on Flemington Road

Also the wonderful traders at the Queen Victoria Market:

• Jenkins Quality Meats
• Pavilion select produce
• La Deli
• The Apple Corner
• The Onion and Potato man in B-shed

Please thank them next time you shop with them. Without their generous donations and discounts we couldn't keep prices low and make a great profit. Overall, we raised over $4,000. This money will go to the fantastic Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program.

Alex Karbon were our main raffle sponsor, providing wonderful prizes and coming to  school assembly to draw the raffle in front of some very excited children. Also a big thank you to the Delmont family for donating a whole case of special brew.

The winners of the raffle prizes were very happy indeed, including:

• Ipad mini - Alex W, 1D
• $200 JB-Hi voucher - Emily, 4D
• $100 auction rooms voucher - Greg Martin
• Fixation Brewing box of beer - Chau Tang
• Meal for 4 from the Roller door cafe - Alice, 3A
• Invictvs Eau De toilette - N. Pavitra
• Diesel BAD Eau De Toilette - Benji Lim

We also want thank the North Melbourne Rotary Club, who lend us their trailer which included an amazing amount of essential equipment, Leonie and I had a great girl power moment towing it out of a very narrow lane way :-)

And thanks to beautiful connections with St Mary's Kindergarten, we were allowed to use their BBQ toolbox. We were so prepared.

The queue for coffee was enormous, North and West Melbourne people must truly love their coffee in the morning. Miss Love a Coffee kept her cool and served every last person in that queue which was an amazing effort. A better solution for next year is already in the making.

As the event and our school keeps growing, it is not so easy to accurately estimate numbers for ordering. We didn't run out of anything (phew) and all our surplus was donated to St Mary's House of Welcome in Fitzroy, where chef Dougie will turn it into delicious meals for vulnerable and homeless people in our city. Our donation was greatly appreciated, but really, they helped us out, we could have had to eat sausages all spring.

Thank you again for your continued support of the Parents and Friends events - through these events we can continue to grow our community spirit.

The Parents and Friends Committee are mums with kids at NMPS. If you feel you could give us a hand with the next event, please attend a P & F meeting. Dads are also very welcome!

Our next meeting is in the second week of term 4, Tuesday 17 October, 7pm in the Staff Room.

Reflection on the Annual Blokes' Breakfast

Amanda, mum of Felix, Year 6,  Griff, Year 3 & Nimmy, Foundation

Over our many years at NMPS we've seen our annual "bring a bloke breakfast " change from something similar to a casual backyard BBQ, to an event which has required BBQ organisation skills beyond expectations, to cater for many hungry (increasingly bearded) dads. Our family has experienced the breakfast from many angles depending on who's been able to go (including my dad, myself and finally this year James!). No matter who has been "our bloke", we've always felt very much part of the day.

One thing, however, hasn't changed and that is the wonderful sense of community that these days bring, the Parents and Friends Committee, staff and volunteers bring these days to life and bring us all together. We are always ever so grateful

And yes, the queues are getting a bit bigger these days but that is where we have met some wonderful dads over the years which is what it's all about, as well as giving our kids lifetime memories.