It has been a very productive couple of weeks here at Duffy school with lots of extracurricular events occurring. It has also been fabulous to see so many parents in and around the school again and at our P&C Meeting this week. These meetings are always fun and friendly and are a great chance for parents to offer feedback to the school. The new hybrid (online and face to face) format has increased community participation and has enabled more parents to attend, listen and contribute. These meetings also highlight many school and P&C initiatives and give parents the opportunity to contribute to our strategic direction.

Our staff have also been busy engaging in new learning. As a part of our School Improvement plan, we have engaged in professional learning focussed on Priority 1:

Improve Student Performance in writing across all year levels.

What Reading and Writing looks like at Duffy Primary School – Reader’s and Writer’s workshop model

Research tells us that if we want children to improve their reading and writing, then they need to spend most of their learning time engaged in meaningful reading and writing experiences. The Workshop Model allows for the teacher to explicitly teach and model a strategy or skill for one-third of the lesson time and for children to practice that strategy/skill for two-thirds of the lesson time. Whilst children are reading and writing, the teacher will conference with individual children or work with a small group of children to provide feedback and to discuss individual reading and writing goals. A reflection also occurs which enables the students to reflect on their learning and consider what their focus may be for the lesson the following day.

Voluntary Contributions

Thank you to all in our community who have been able to make this contribution. With the money to date we have purchased new reading materials for classroom to support student growth.

We are also very excited to welcome the following staff to our community:

Learning Support Assistants - Trent Borthwick, Owen Hromow, Gemma Peterson and Claire Nichols.

Miss Eowyn Osborne - 1EO

Hello!

My name is Miss Osborne, and I will be a teacher for Year 1 for the remainder of Term 1 2023.

I am excited to get to know you and spend this time getting to know and learn with you.

3 facts about me:

· I love to do arts and crafts

· Go for adventures

· And helping animals and the environment

Mrs Ellie Ruscoe will be teaching in our preschool on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

My name is Ellie, and I'm absolutely thrilled to join the Duffy Primary community. I have worked with children since 2013, with a strong passion and interest for early childhood education. I believe the child's first 5 years are the most crucial and important for their lifelong development and want to ensure each child has a positive start of school experience. I have two little boys of my own, 4 and 7, who keep me busy! I look forward to meeting everyone.

NAPLAN

Our year 3 and year 5 students have completed their NAPLAN assessments. We are very impressed with their perseverance and grit when participating in these online assessments. Thank you to our teachers for ensuring our students felt prepared for the task.

Celebrating Kindness and Harmony

The National calendar places the values of Duffy School in sharp focus as we celebrated Harmony Day this week.

With families from around the world, Duffy School is proudly multicultural. Respect of, and kindness towards others is a responsibility we share and guide children towards in every interaction, every day. At Duffy we are also inclusive. We acknowledge the customs, beliefs, and experiences of our community. In the classroom we encourage curiosity and exploration of the diversity of our community and how it enriches our lives.

To celebrate Harmony Day students were invited to share their culture by wearing national costumes. Others choose to wear something orange on Tuesday to show their support for cultural diversity and an inclusive Australia.

Promoting Active Travel

Today we acknowledged National Walk and Ride 2 School Day. A delicious breakfast was awaiting students on their arrival to school prepared by our wonderful staff. The House Captains and Health Minister initiated a challenge for RWTS Day. We look forward to sharing with you the creative and practical designs our students create.

ACT Instrumental Music Program

The students listed below have been selected by audition for the ACT Instrumental Music Program’s Extension Ensembles in 2023. This is the equivalent of ACT representation in Music. Groups include ACT Primary Concert Choir for Year 4, 5 & 6 students and ACT Primary Concert Band for Year 6 IMP students.

These ensembles are directed and administered by the Instrumental Music Program and rehearse each school week at the Instrumental Music Program's Centre in Kaleen. The ensembles will perform at school, community and directorate events throughout the year. Some groups also participate in interstate tours.

We congratulate the students below for their achievement:

Primary Concert Choir

Rose B - Year 4

Harriet J - Year 4

Olivia M - Year 4

Evie B - Year 6

Eve J - Year 6

Sera R - Year 6

Primary Concert Band

Adele M - Year 6

Barney M - Year 6

Year 6 Camp

Finally, earlier this week our Year 6 students and accompanying staff attended Camp at Cooba. This was a fabulous three days with our school leaders who enjoyed some adventures, risk taking, challenges and fun together. I am sure they will have lots of interesting recounts over the last few days, especially the giant swing. A HUGE thank you to Miss Moore, Miss Kelly, Miss Green, Mr Peel and Sammy and Pipp who organised and assisted the students through this educational experience at the Year 6 Camp.

With every best wish for a wonderful weekend with your beautiful families.

Regards,

Katie, Arilia, Sarah and Katie

SPOTLIGHT ON LEARNING - YEAR 1

acknowledgement of country.pdf

Acknowledgment of Country

At the start of this term, Year 1 worked collaboratively to develop our own Acknowledgement of Country. At the start of our unit, we brainstormed what an Acknowledgement of Country is and why it is important. We spent time on Country as a class to recognise the natural elements of our school and what they do for us. Each class participated in different yarning circles, recognising what we are grateful for on Country and how we can care for the land. As a cohort, we shared our ideas and collaborated to develop our Year 1 Acknowledgement of Country which we are now very proud of.

We are Readers!

During our Readers Workshop, we have been practising building our fluency as well as developing comprehension and decoding strategies.

Year 1 started by exploring the library, looking at books we were most interested. Each class developed our own read-to-self and read-to-someone expectations. Ask us what they are and get us to show you what it looks like. We are now able to read independently for 15 minutes!

We have been developing our comprehension strategies, like making text-to-self connections. To help us with this, we read different texts from Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Stuck and The Bad Seed and related our own experiences to what happens to some of these characters. We have been working on strategies to help us decode words, like using the reading on strategy or chunking the word. This has allowed as break down tricky words and build our reading fluency.

We are Inclusive

Throughout this term, Year 1 has been working on our emotional understanding towards others. We have been working on how to communicate our feelings and needs in a safe and respectful way. To help with this, we have learnt 'The Boundaries Song' which has provided us language we can use with others.

This had tied to our Respectful Relationships unit about friendships and fair play. We have been busy learning about acts of friendship, and how our emotional responses affect others!

SWIMMING CARNIVAL AWARDS

The awards for our school swimming carnival will be presented on Monday 27th March from 9:00am on the blacktop.

Full results from the race events are available here. Ribbons will presented for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each of these events.

Students being awarded Age Champion or Age Runners up are as follows:

Age Champion

8 Years Boys - Rupert A

8 Years Girls - Erin H

9 Years Boys - Max H

9 Years Girls - Harriet H

10 Years Boys - Reed C

10 Years Girls - Elsa B

11 Years Boys - Chester D

11 Years Girls - Adele M

12 Years Boys - Thomas I

12 Years Girls - Talia C

Runners Up

8 Years Girls - Florence M

9 Years Boys - Finnegan D

9 Years Girls - Eva J

10 Years Boys - Soren W

10 Years Girls - Eleanor R

11 Years Boys - Colin F

11 Years Girls - Elke W

12 Years Boys - Henry B

12 Years Girls - Cailin R

HARMONY DAY 2023

On Tuesday March 21st, the Duffy Primary playground was awash with orange, as the students celebrated

Harmony Day for 2023

A day that recognises and celebrates the diversity of cultures that make up our community. We also had many students attend in traditional dress to celebrate and share their heritage with their classmates. It was wonderful to see the cooperation and kindness demonstrated by all students as they created wonderful Harmony Week artworks, which will be put on display in the corridor next to the canteen in the coming days.

SCHOOL LEADERS

Prime Minister

Barney Mungoven

Deputy Prime Minister

Kleio Slater

Speaker

Nina Aubrey

AWARDS

These will be presented at Monday Morning WOW (27th March)

Merit Awards

Arthur W - KDL

Hannah W - KDL

Maeve M - KBS

Curtley K - KBS

Bruce M - KRP

Lyra M - KRP

Illya D - 1ET

Angus C - 1ET

Bridie K - 1SF

Aria K - 1SF

Haya K - 1EO

Jude F - 1EO

Lewis A - 2KJ

Eleanor Z - 2KJ

Waratah V - 2RW

Harrison S - 2RW

Erin H - 3MS

Charlie M - 3MS

Matilda L - 3SZ

Josh F - 3SZ

Grayson E - 3VS

Oscar B - 3VS

Nina H - 4BH

Maxwell H - 4BH

Ciaran W - 4RP

Duane S - 4RP

Eliza R - 5CM

Eve C - 5CM

Caleb K - 5GA

Klm M - 5GA

Bella G - 6LK

Patrick K - 6LK

Jasper B - 6ZG

Logan B - 6ZG

P & C NEWS

At Tuesday’s AGM the 2023 P&C Committee was formed, big thanks to our outgoing committee members and a warm welcome to new faces.

There are a couple of gaps, so we are seeking some help with the following:

Assistant Treasurer
Pre-School Representative
Uniform Shop Coordinator (this is a supported role, with helpers ready to go)

You can learn more about what each role requires here: https://www.duffypandc.org.au/wp/about/

If you're keen to know more, or would like to fill a gap please send us a message or email duffypandc@gmail.com

The 2023 P&C Committee is listed here:

Next P&C Meeting: 2nd May at 7pm

Find the Duffy Primary Parents and Citizens Association on

Facebook!

@duffypandc

Don’t forget to connect with your Year level parent community on Facebook – this is a great way to stay connected, get year/school specific information and even organise gatherings.

Just search “DPS Year” on google and the groups will pop up, or head to the Duffy Primary Parents and Citizens Facebook page for more info.

COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS

Just a reminder that if your child has a constant runny nose and cold or flu symptoms, please keep them at home.

Active Streets

Have you noticed this logo on footpaths and shared paths in Canberra and wondered what it is?

The logo is part of the Active Streets for Schools program, which is a program to make the environment around schools safer to ride, walk, scooter or skate to and from school.

The logos will be around our school soon as part of the Active Streets program to promote walking and riding routes highlighted on our school map. The pavement stencils help to promote ‘part way’ drop off and collection points for families that live too far away to use active travel for the entire journey.

The logos also help to promote to the broader community that they are in the vicinity of the school and children are likely to be present.

As part of the program, educational resources have been distributed to certain year groups throughout the school to teach children about independent travel.

There are a number of benefits of children walking and riding to school, including safety in numbers, the health of the children, reduced congestion and less impact on the environment.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41VJf4idpbs&list=PLnX8HposULFqM9PxXXnEE3_MXiej4hGvt&index=3

Future of Education Student Equity Fund 2023

Applications are now open for the 2023 Future of Education Equity Fund. The fund provides financial support to eligible families with students in preschool to year 12. The one-off annual payment helps cover costs of everyday basics to assist with educational and wellbeing needs. Students from preschool to year 12 attending ACT schools (including non-government schools) or other approved forms of education that meet the eligibility criteria can apply. Payments of $400 for preschool students, $500 for primary school students and $750 for high-school and college students are available.

Learning For Life

The flyer below shares information about an opportunity that has been made available to families at our school called the Learning for Life Scholarship Program. It’s run by the Smith Family organisation. They provide financial support to families who are eligible to help with costs related to education, such as book packs, uniforms and excursions. They also provide access to education programs that can further support your child.

To be eligible, you must;