Another wonderful week ahead at Martin's Gully, with students participating in many different actvities.

Our year 3 and 5 students will be participating in NAPLAN this week. We encourage parents and carers to remind their children that NAPLAN is a snapshot of one aspect of a school’s assessment and reporting process. It doesn’t replace ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance, but it can provide teachers with additional information about students’ educational progress.

NAPLAN also provides schools, education authorities and governments with information about how education programs are working and whether young Australians are achieving important educational outcomes in literacy and numeracy.

Our Year 6 shirt design has been decided and congratulations to Charlise Deiderick, who designed this years shirt based around the centenary.

PAX Word of the Fortnight: TEAMWORK

Teamwork involves including others, allowing everyone to have a voice, leadership skills, listening skills, sharing and being respectful of others. At MGPS, we are all part of the team.

Discussion points: How do you demonstrate good teamwork in class, during games or sports and in the community?

Students successes this week:

A huge congratulations to Jack Grace for being awarded the Senior Boys Swimming Champion at the the Northwest carnival.

Well done to Tommy and Jake on a very successful week away playing cricket for Northwest. What a great experience!

Maddie Byrne represented the Armidale zone on Monday at the Northwest tennis trial and although she missed out on progressing to represent Northwest, she placed 7th and is a reserve.

Well done Maddie.

Connor, Jack, Tommy and Kai represented the Armidale zone in touch football on Tuesday. Kai has been selected to represent Northwest at the State Championships.

Dates for your calendar:

Martin's Gully Cross Country - Thursday 30th March
Autumn Festival 1 April 2023 - Martin's Gully PS will be part of the Armidale Community of Schools (ACOS) Autumn Festival. This will be held on the Saturday 1st April.
Easter Hat Parade - Thursday 6th April
An Evening with ACOS - Students from 3-6 Thursday 10th August at 6pm.

Attendance Matters:

We have set our school a target to achieve 90% attendance 90% of the time for 2023.

Can you help us do this? Can you make appointments or attend extra curricular activities outside school hours? Coming to school each day between 8:30am and 9:00am and leaving at 3pm is just a simple way we can achieve this together. Let's do this together.

Staff Spotlight:

Kim See

Hello Martin’s Gully families. While I have only been at this school a little over 2 terms, It’s safe to say, I’ve found my best job so far. Being the Teacher’s Aide on the kindergarten class in a school where student’s learning and welfare are the number one priority is very rewarding. I believe this can’t happen without the dedicated leadership and professional teaching staff Martin’s Gully offers.

I do also acknowledge my previous roles, beginning in Early Childhood Education/Teaching for around 12 years, followed by 16 years as a Teacher’s Aide in Special Education, at Sandon Public School (Support Unit), and later Armidale High School and and Armidale Secondary College Support units. These positions have given me skills and experiences both personally and professionally that can now be transferred to my current role here at Martin’s Gully.

I love building relationships with students and families, both within the kindergarten class and extending out to other students within the school. I also have a passion for supporting students with addition learning and social needs, to ensure they are understood and have the opportunities to reach their full potential.

Outside school, I live with my partner Andy and have 2 grown adult boys, one living in Townsville and one still in Armidale. I was also born and raised in Armidale .

My interests very much lie with anything nature related, camping, bushwalking, yoga meditation and photography. This is what I love doing the most in my spare time.

Ellie Barraclough

Hello Martin’s Gully! My name is Ellie Barraclough and I team teach Kindergarten with Felicity Pennington. I have been lucky enough to be a part of the MGPS family for three and a half years. I was an SLSO for 3 years prior to starting teaching in Term 3 2022. I am a born and bred Uralla girl, and I am still yet to leave the town!

On the weekends I love spending time with my family and friends especially at the coast any chance we can get. Nothing beats seeing the sunrise and sunset over the water!!

I often get asked why I wanted to be a teacher and I actually don’t have an answer for it. Three years after I finished school, I decided to enrol in a teaching degree at UNE and now here I am, and I couldn’t think of better school to start my career. I love seeing the students learn and grow, each and every day in their learning. I’m passionate about sport and enjoy seeing students excel in any sporting opportunity that is given to them. I love sport myself, in particular footy and swimming. I’m a keen Titans supporter, through the good and bad (the bad has definitely out-weighed the good lately). Hopefully 2023 is our year!

Felicity Pennington and Peta Deiderick

Gulgos

Issue 7 · 15 Mar 2023

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