In the Education Support Department our focus is supporting our students who have additional learning needs including academic, social, emotion and/or behavioural needs.

There are many supportive programs available for the students to attend such as Play Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy to name a few.

As mentioned in a previous article, early intervention is key, so if your child faces difficulties in any area of learning there are many options available to gain extra support outside of school. These supports also inform what we do to assist the students at school.

Only about 5% of NSW children eat enough vegetables. And the statistics are similar for adults. To help our community do better, our school is participating in Vegetable Week & The Big Vegie Crunch.

To encourage our school families to eat more vegetables we will be sending home hints and tips.

Up the veg at your place by…vegging up your snacks!

Our Year 3 and Year 4 Junior Mission students have been busy creating flyers and role plays to help promote our National Missions Fundraiser to Support Down Syndrome NSW, the ‘Lots of Socks’ Fundraiser on Thursday 21 March. 'Lots of Socks’ day helps to teach people about Down syndrome and raise funds to provide support for families and their children.

Students in Junior School and Early Childhood can participate by wearing colourful socks with their school uniform and by bringing a gold coin on Thursday 21 March, 2019.

Please CLICK HERE for more information about this event.

We were very excited to announce our new Middle School Student Leadership team for 2019 in assembly last Wednesday. We are very proud of all of the students who have put up their hand to grow and to serve as leaders this year. They will all be trained and receive opportunities to lead as part of the team.

Our Captains for 2019 are Hannah Kennedy and Ezekiel Barter; and our Vice-Captains are Sam Kennedy and Ella Stoodley.

Congratulations to the new leadership team!

We would like to congratulate Jazmine Alessio, Penrith Christian School Graduating Class of 2018, on being invited to display her Major Textiles Project as part of the 2019 TexStyle Exhibition at the Muse, Ultimo.

Each year, the TexStyle Exhibition presents approximately 40 pieces of work, from students across New South Wales that represent excellence in their Major Textiles Project, to inspire up and coming students in their project work, and to celebrate the students' achievement in the HSC. 

For her Major Textiles Project, Jazmine designed and created a cupcake beauty pageant dress, within the focus area of costume design, of which she is very passionate, having competed in pageants herself.

Prep have turned into would-be entomologists as we have spent time this term studying insects. This project has emerged from the children’s interest in the little creatures found in our environment. This interest has spanned into a large, ongoing project that has allowed us to delve deep into the insect world and apply this topic across a wide range of learning domains, such as Art, Science, Maths, as well as during outdoor play.

We have learnt how to classify insects, identifying that they have three body parts (head, thorax and abdomen) and six legs. We have been able to practise our classifying skills with both model and real insects. We have also been looking up close at these, identifying parts through some microscopes we borrowed from the School Science Department .

We have enjoyed transferring our knowledge through art and have created beautiful artworks that depict what we have learnt about each different insect. Being able to work on our artworks over a span of weeks has allowed us to hone our skills and practise the different techniques we are learning.

My name is Ashleigh Ure. I have had the pleasure of starting at PCS this year, having joined the team in the Mathematics Department. I come to PCS from a local government school, and have previously taught in the Newcastle area.

I’ve always had on my heart to pursue teaching as I believe a teacher can be extremely influential in a young person’s life.  After graduating high school I went straight to university to study teaching and then back to school again to start teaching!

I started my career as a HSIE Teacher, specialising in History and Geography. However, I received the opportunity to teach Mathematics some years ago and I haven’t looked back. While teaching any subject brings me great joy, I am fascinated by God’s consistent but creative nature shining through Mathematics. God can be glorified through learning and teaching Mathematics, and I am ecstatic that I am able to exalt Him as a day job.

Join us on 19 June 2019 for our annual OPEN DAY! We invite friends, family and anyone who would like to see what Penrith Christian School is all about, to come along.

Activities include:

Student Showcase at 10.00 am

Tours from 11.30 am

Martin Garcia and the Word of Life Australia team brought 'KickOff' to PCS on Friday 8 March. Martin and his team of Bible College students from Florida, USA, ran two sessions: one for Junior School (from Year 1 to Year 4) and one for Middle School. These fun, energetic sessions also included large scale games and a presentation of the Gospel through drama and talks.

Below is a report from some of our Middle School students:

KickOff is a Christian presentation by Word of Life Ministries where we could play fun games and learn about Jesus.

On Wednesday 6 March, Year 5 families attended our annual Welcome to Middle School BBQ. We were thankful the weather held out for us, and the night was a huge success. It was fabulous to see all the families connecting and enjoying themselves.

This event is a favourite night amongst the staff as we get to mingle informally with families, and enjoy some social time together.

Thank you to everyone who brought a plate of food and/or drink to share; and thank you to Mr Benbrook for the fantastic photos!

I would like to introduce two new additions to Mathematics staff in 2019. This staffing is intended to provide support for students in our continued implementation of 21st Century Learning in Mathematics.

Mr David Badger is a NESA accredited and approved Teacher of Mathematics. He comes to PCS with a wealth of teaching and leadership experience both in Government and Christian Schools.

He has extensive experience in teaching all levels of Mathematics from Years 7 - 12. He has a strong understanding of the curriculum and what it takes for students to succeed at Mathematics. His passion is that all students enjoy Mathematics and have success for the effort they put into their learning.

Congratulations to all our students who represented PCS at the recent Nepean Zone Swimming Carnivals. Everyone competed with sportsmanship and determination to put in their best efforts. It was fantastic to see so many personal best performances, in addition to many places achieved and records broken. We have two large teams heading to CSSA State Carnivals, with many students achieving 1st, 2nd or 3rd places.

PRIMARY ZONE (Years 3 to 6)

The 2019 Nepean Zone Primary Swimming Carnival was held at Glenbrook Swimming Pool in Week 3 this term. PCS sent a strong team of around 20 swimmers. The day was a bit wet to start and the ground was quite boggy but that did not dent the enthusiasm of the PCS swimmers. Our students all performed outstandingly well on the day, dominating in most events, including winning three out of four relays and 2nd in the other relay. We had a number of new records set by Olivia Galea in Year 3 and several age champions named on the day as well as PCS winning the overall Zone Champion School for the day.

The Year 12 Physics class have been building motors over the past few months and explaining how they work using the principles of electromagnetism. These models contribute to their Depth Study Assessment Task. All motors are up and working!

Congratulations Year 12 Physics on this section of the Task. Well done!

Mrs Denise Bailey

Only around 5% of NSW children eat enough vegetables. To help our community do better, our school will be taking part in The Big Vegie Crunch (part of Vegetable Week) at 10 am on Thursday 4 April.

Schools across NSW will be joining together to break the record for the most students crunching vegetables simultaneously. Last year 50,260 students crunched together.

What can you do to help?

This event is now BOOKED OUT! Although there are no tickets left at this stage, you can add yourself to the waiting list by clicking on the ticket link: https://www.trybooking.com/BBIPQ

For those who do have a ticket, if your circumstances change prior to the event, and you are no longer able to attend, please contact School Reception on 4737 4300, as there are already people on the waiting list who will be happy to take your place!

**************************

As an expression of our gratitude and desire to honour our PCS mums on Mother’s Day, we invite you to our Tea-riffic High Tea at 1.30 pm on Friday 10 May, 2019. There will be beautiful food, as well as student performances and other special activities designed to spoil our mums!

PCS Middle School students Isaac Cavanagh (Year 8) and David Quinn (Year 7) recently returned from representing Australia as part of the Australian Ice Crocs Ice Hockey team at the 60th Anniversary International Peewee tournament in Quebec, Canada. This tournament attracts ice hockey teams and players from all around the world. 

The Australian Ice Crocs, consisting of players from all over Australia, didn't train together until they reached their pre-training camp in Troy, New York. Although they had been training, they had not played competition games since September. This was in stark contrast to the majority of the other teams who are still in their competition season and are used to playing together.

Despite this, the Ice Crocs did extremely well, and became the first Ice Crocs team in over five years to win a tournament game in the knockout round, and became the first Ice Crocs team ever to make it to the semi-finals (teams in previous years had won exhibition games but not a tournament game). Despite not advancing past the semi-finals they took consolation that the two teams they lost games to were the eventual gold and silver medallists in their Division. 

The NAPLAN exams for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will take place between Tuesday 14 May to Friday 24 May 2019. The NAPLAN exams will be completed online this year, and we will also be running an online practice session in March.

In accordance with the Disability Standards for Education (2005) equity principles, some students who have a learning or physical disability may qualify for adjustments or for exemption from sitting these NAPLAN exams. The aim of any adjustment is to facilitate access to all of the tests for the student. 

If you think your child might qualify to have adjustments granted, please contact Jenni de Villiers at jenni.devilliers@pcs.nsw.edu.au, or Brian Cavanagh at brian.cavanagh@pcs.nsw.edu.au, to discuss this further.

What a fabulous start to Year 2! The Golden Retrievers and the Polar Bears are well and truly in the swing of school and are already achieving some fantastic learning goals!

We have welcomed some new students to our grade and they already feel like family.

We also welcomed some new class pets that relate to our Science topic of 'Watch it grow'! We have been using all our science skills of predicting, developing ideas, defining information, organising and investigating the changes that take place in the life cycle of a mealworm and a stick insect!

Students at PCS once again have the opportunity to take part in the Premier’s Reading Challenge. The Challenge is a special initiative of the Premier of NSW presented by the NSW Department of Education to foster a love of literature and to encourage children to read widely for leisure and for pleasure. It is open to all students from Kindergarten to Year 9 in 2019.

For students in Kindy to Year 2, the challenge is to experience 30 books by 30 August, 25 at least of those books should be chosen from specific booklists. and up to five of the books can be their own choice.

NOTE: Experiencing a book means that the K-2 child may either read the book themselves, or have the book read or shared with them in a joint reading situation and it still counts towards their Premier’s Reading Challenge records.

Years 7 and 8 had a great time on camp at Collaroy recently. We hope that the students came home suitably exhausted after three days of challenging fun. For many students, it was their very first time to try high ropes, rock climbing or surfing. We are proud of our students for trying new things and giving it their best effort.

I’m very glad that in our camp survey, many students were able to nominate another student to receive an award. Many students were inspired and encouraged by each other and appreciated the helpful support from their peers.

I am very thankful for the former students and volunteers who came out from Imagine Nations Youth to inspire and connect with the students. With their help, Mr Wallace and Mr Favretti developed themes of ‘change’ and ‘leadership’.