From the Principal
Welcome to the start of a wonderful 2019. The year has begun well and is as busy as ever. This year we have 21 classrooms across two sites – the main site and the campus site. We have approximately 85 staff including teachers, School Learning Support Officers (SLSOs), administration, therapists and general assistants. We continue our holistic approach to positive education and wellbeing by focussing on our character pillars of hope, curiosity, kindness and gratitude. I was recently interviewed for Regional Voices and was so proud to be able to speak about our school and share this with the 1.6 million viewers nationally. If you would like to hear the podcast go to http://www.regionalvoices.com.au/listen
Some exciting new developments at our school include the employment of a clinical psychologist for half a day a week with this increasing to two days a week once we can secure a suitable person; a dietician, Dakota Rhys-Jones, one day a week to help staff and students set up a breakfast program, a healthy lunch program, and providing information to families through the newsletter. We also warmly welcome School Psychologist Liz Sams and School Counsellor in training, Ammie Nyitrai joining our team from this term. Of course, we continue with the wonderful expertise of our physiotherapist, Jennie Kempson; Occupational Therapist, Michelle Maunder and new Speech Pathologist, Sarah Philpott.
In our teaching and school administrative and support staff we welcome new staff members Tracey Borg and Michelle Whiley to the executive; Matthew Casey, Karyn Dive, Christopher Novak, Heidi Duffy and Kellie Scurrah to the teaching staff; and Joseph Almond, Krissie-Lee Cartwright, Sheryll Selwood, Kris Lear and Anthony Wilson to the support staff. The full list of staff and their roles can be found on our school website https://ansonst-s.schools.nsw.gov.au/.
A reminder that our new school times are 9:00am until 3:00pm. Personalised Learning Plan meetings were held recently and I hope you found this opportunity to meet your child’s teacher and work on goals for the year ahead a valuable process. If you have not been able to make an appointment, this is an important meeting to organise, so that your child’s needs are met and planned for.
With the newsletter moving from printed form to online, I encourage you to provide us with your email address so that it can be distributed every three weeks. The newsletter will also be available on the website https://ansonst-s.schools.nsw.gov.au/ and on our Facebook site https://www.facebook.com/AnsonStreetSchool/ . A limited number of printed copies will be available to those families who are unable to access technology, however as these editions will contain many more photos and stories we are unable to continue with the cost of producing a printed colour copy for each family. Please return the attached sheet so that Miss Cridland can update your details and ensure that you have the access you need whether printed or online.
Like all NSW public schools, we can request contributions to enhance our educational and sporting programs including elective subjects. School contributions help provide additional educational resources for the benefit of students. Payment is voluntary. Parents who are unable to pay for costs related to their child’s schooling because of financial hardship may be eligible for assistance from the school. Please discuss with your child’s teacher or make an appointment with me to discuss this matter in a confidential and private manner. The school currently pays for all materials required by your child and this also includes subscriptions to Mathletics, Wheelers online library and ClickView which support learning in the classroom. Fees are set at $75 per student or $150 per family (2 or more children), with payments of $25 for the first three terms able to be made in instalments throughout the year. Invoices will be sent out to families and the online payment system through our website will be available from Term 2 to enable easy payment of any monies due. There will also be eftpos facilities available at the front office from Term 2. ASSET contributions will remain at $30/term, payable by cash or cheque as this is a registered charity and all payment are tax deductible.
Each week primary and secondary classes will be running assemblies and we hope that members of our school community will be able to come along when your child’s class is organising the assembly.
I invite all of our school community to join us at the welcome to families and carers BBQ and games evening on Thursday, 28th February at 5:00pm until 6:30pm. The event will be an opportunity to meet staff, have a tour of both the main and campus sites and enjoy some games (including jumping castle) and a free sausage sizzle. Everyone is welcome.
I look forward to another exciting year at Anson Street School and hope that your engagement continues with us throughout the year.
Melanie Meers
Principal
Adjunct Lecturer CSU
DipArts(Music), GradDip (Education), GradCertEd (Pedagogy), MEd (Leadership & Management), GradCertEd (Learning Support), ProfCert (Positive Education)
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