Year 4 students and parents are warmly invited to our Transition to Middle School evening on Tuesday 11 September at 7 pm. This event provides an opportunity to:

find out the differences between Junior and Middle School at PCS

learn about Year 5 timetables, diaries and other day-to-day changes

hear from current Middle School students about their experiences (including what to expect at Year 5 Camp)

discover how 21st Century Learning and curriculum operate in Middle School

(We couldn't go past a lame 'dad joke' for the title of this article!). We hope that all our PCS dads had a lovely Father's Day and we know that many of you were able to drop by last Friday for your free egg and bacon roll. We hope it blessed your day!

A big thank you to all the staff, students and volunteers who pulled together a fantastic event for our dads. The atmosphere in Express was loads of fun, and it was lovely to see so many dads enjoying breakfast together with their kids in the Cafe.

Here's some feedback from our Facebook posts:

Our special celebration for Book Week is fast approaching!!!! We are excited to announce that our special Book Day will be on Wednesday 5 September. 

Students from Preschool to Year 4 are invited to come to school dressed as a book character – ready for the Book Character Parade which begins at 8.30 am in the Auditorium. Students in Years 5 to 8 may also dress as a favourite character or as a character in their Buddy Reading book (Years 5 and 6) or according to the book that they are displaying in the Book Expo (Years 7 and 8). Dressing up is optional but students who choose not to dress up must wear their school uniform to school. It is not a mufti day. Please check the note that was sent home with your child last week as to each year group timetable for the day.

PLEASE CLICK HERE for more information

On Wednesday 8 August in Week 2 of this term, Year 5 visited the Australiana Pioneer Village in Wilberforce. It was a fun, exciting, educational and interactive day learning about Australian life and its heritage back in the 1800s. 

The students were involved in a number of rotational activities which included: The Shearing Shed, Spinning Wheel Demonstration, Marsden Park Public School, Rose Cottage, Butter Churning Demonstration, Water Pump Demonstration, Cartwright Cottage, The Blacksmith Shop, Washing Board Demonstration and The Old Church. There were also so many more things to see. 

Below are some reflections from Year 5 students on their visit:

Last week, Year 7 students visited Auburn to learn and experience new things.

In the morning we did the Refugee Experience where we got to hear real stories from real refugees. It was powerful and sad at times but we had some laughs too. For lunch we headed into Auburn to try new foods such as pide and baklava

The day ended with a visit to the Japanese Garden where we saw displays of flowers and fauna native to Japan.

We are excited to announce that some of our students in The Music Bus program have been invited to compete in The Music Bus’ Band Slam band competition!

Band Slam is an annual band competition where each performing band competes to be crowned the ultimate performance in a range of categories. It’s the biggest band competition of its kind in Australia.

The Lela’s (made up of Lilah, Summer, Amy-lee, Elliott and Lachlan in Junior School) first performed at our fundraising event PYMWYMI in July this year.  They will be performing at the local Band Slam heat to be held on Saturday 8 September in Quakers Hill, with finalists then going on to perform at Band Slam Finals Camp in Term 4. Let’s give a big congrats to these students.

The Children’s Book Council of Australia have announced the Book of the Year Winners and here within the iCentre, we have most of these wonderful books for students to borrow and enjoy.

As our Junior School classes are currently working hard to complete their Book Week displays, I will refrain from announcing which of the younger titles we have in the iCentre.  Undoubtedly, some classes will be very excited to hear that their class display is of one of the winning books.

For our older readers, ‘How to Bee’ by Bren MacDibble was the winner for children aged 8 - 12 years category, with ‘Henrietta and the perfect night’ and ‘Marsh and me’ both by Martine Murray receiving the Honours Award.

In Term 2, students were selected from Year 2 to Year 11 to take part in the ICAS Science competition.

Congratulations to all students who invested time and effort into the competition.

Below is the list of students who achieved outstanding results:

What a great day we had recently on our excursion to Warragamba Dam!

A short bus trip away and we arrived and after having a quick recess, we got our first look at the Dam. It is huge and stunning!

We spent the morning with education officers learning all about how Warragamba Dam looks after and supplies all the water in Sydney, and some of the things we can do to help. We got to examine species of animals that live in the dam and even made our own catchment areas as part of our hands-on learning.

Penrith Christian School would like to introduce and congratulate those who are our Junior School Leaders for Semester 2, 2018. It is a true honour and we are proud that these Year 4 students have taken this role seriously and stepped up to the challenge.

Captains

Nicholas Nelson

Summer Hayes

David (Year 6) and Isaac (Year 7), will be travelling to the Czech Republic during September/October to attend an International Ice Hockey Camp under the guidance of former NHL Player Jan Caloun. Both boys have been selected as a team of 13 players from around NSW to attend this prestigious camp.

This will be David’s third year and Isaac’s second year attending the camp and both are looking forward to gaining more skills, building on what they know, and applying them during their games.

David and Isaac were selected as members of the Peewees U/14 Flyers Ice Hockey Team as defenseman and goalie respectively. Earlier in the year David was selected, from players all over Australia, to play in the U/14 Ice Crocs Team to compete at the Peewees International Ice Hockey Tournament in Quebec, Canada. David has also been selected to play for the Peewees NSW Team to play in a National Ice Hockey Tournament in Melbourne in mid August.

Term 3 has started and Year 1 are firing on all cylinders as they immerse themselves in the learning tasks that are happening within the classrooms. The teachers have been impressed with the improvement in knowledge and skills that the students have developed when working collaboratively.

Our Science topic for this term is called ‘Look! Listen!’, and the children will be investigating the sources of light and sound, how they are produced and how light and sound travel. The children have used guitars to see how vibrations can cause sound and have felt the vibrations in their throat as they speak. We also explored sounds around the school and located several areas with near and far sounds. The students spent some time in the classroom after our sounds expedition classifying and sorting the sounds we heard. Over the coming weeks the children will have the opportunity to share items that they have at home that produce light or sound with their classmates.

Year 1 students have been diligently applying themselves to the hands-on learning tasks that have been provided in Mathematics. This term the students have been developing their problem solving skills when working on a variety of addition and subtraction problems. Over the next few weeks we will be investigating area and volume in measurement as well as position skills and concepts. 

At the end of Term 2, Year 6 students had the opportunity to participate in the St Marys Community and Road Education Scheme. C.A.R.E.S is a purpose-built bicycle safety education facility that gives school students an interactive and fun way of learning about the serious nature of road safety.

On the day, a Police Officer from the St Marys Local Area Command conducted road rules and safety classes with the students, being able to put it into practice on the mini road environment complete with working traffic signals, roundabouts and pedestrian crossings. Students were challenged to ride a bicycle on the course while respecting all road rules with those who rode safely and obeyed all the road rules being rewarded with an ice block.

Annually, helmets are purchased for C.A.R.E.S as part of Council's Road Safety budget, and each Year 6 class was given a helmet to award to the child completing the best road safety assignment after the bicycle safety day.

One of our Kindy students, Lucy Herridge has made a splash in the publishing world! Lucy was moved to write a story which began on post it notes. Lucy sent off a draft narrative to HarperCollins Publishing house and received a letter response from the publisher, and has had some articles written about her.

When PCS found out about her efforts, Mr Ollis, our iCentre Manage, Teacher Librarian, gained permission from the author and her parents, and used a book publishing software to create a picture book using Lucy’s text. The book was shared with her Kindergarten peers and Lucy was able to read and share the illustrations with her class.

Lucy’s work has inspired many of her classmates who have been enthused to continue to hone and write stories. We are very proud of Lucy and her enthusiasm. We should never underestimate our children’s God-given gifts, passions, and ideas that can make a difference if we just step out and give it a go.

Our Father’s Day Stalls are an opportunity for PCS to bless our school community and for students to choose a special gift for their dads.

If your child would like to purchase a Father’s Day gift, please send in $5.00 ON THE DAY OF THE STALL with each Preschool to Year 6 child.

We ask that students BRING A CARRY BAG so they can buy their Father’s Day  present at the Stall and then take their chosen gift home.

On Tuesday 7 August 2018, our Senior School Student Leaders attended the Bible Society Masterclass. Students were equipped with fundamental apologetic-style teaching; listening to three engaging, relevant speakers on topics that pervade much of our society (i.e. Science and God, Islam and Loving Our Neighbour, God and Sex).

We learnt that the scientific endeavour traces its origins from a Christian worldview, arguing the relationship is more complementary than competing. We were confronted with the many pictures of Islam, and how to love and engage Muslims with the person and work of Jesus Christ. Finally, we were encouraged to find our identity in Jesus rather than our sexuality. 

As educators, we look forward to seeing how our Senior School Student Leaders use this knowledge and lead wise lives to the glory of God.

This morning, with tears in our eyes, we said goodbye to our Japanese host student. She has been a part of our family for ten days and it has been really wonderful getting to know her.

Even though Mark and I lived in Japan for four years, and I was an exchange student in Japan when I was 17, we hadn’t hosted a student before. Our kids were little in past years and it just felt like it would be too tricky for our family. We had entertained the teachers before, and I had even been the English teacher for a group of Japanese students a few years back. But the kids had been asking if we could have a student, and I just really felt in my heart that this year was the year.

It was a bit inconvenient of course, the kids generously donated their rooms, and we re-shuffled the sleeping arrangements, even having our youngest child sleeping in our room. We made the house spotless getting ready for our guest. We also had to take two cars on any family adventure now, as there were six of us! But even though we all had to stretch a bit to make our guest feel welcome, it really felt like she was just a part of our family for ten days.

The Boost Extension and Enrichment department has been very busy in Term 2 and the beginning of this term.

In Term 2 the Boost Science students sat the ICAS Science Competition and I am very excited to say the students from Year 2 to Year 10 did extremely well in this competition. Last term we also had an exciting visit in school from Fizzics Education looking at Mini Beasts.

This term has started off with two competitions, the ICAS English Competition and the Australian Maths Competition for a number of students. Thank you to all of the students who have participated in these competitions. We look forward to getting these results.

Last term our school community, at a special presentation, was touched by speaker Andrew Kelly from Jeans for Genes Day. Our School had already planned to fundraise for this event, however, over the weeks we have heard more from Linke Nel, one of our Kindergarten students, who is a national ambassador for the 25th Anniversary Jeans for Genes Day. Linke has had her health battles and wanted to share her story with Australia, promoting gold coin donations for Scientists to find cures to childhood diseases. You can donate to Linke's Jeans for Genes Day page here: http://www.jeansforgenes.org.au/fundraiser/linke-nel 

All of Junior School, plus Middle and Senior School leaders, attended the presentation and our School began gearing up for our Jeans for Genes fundraiser which was held last Friday 3 August. All staff and students from Early Childhood to Year 12 joined in wearing their jeans to school while understanding that every little bit of support helps to make a BIG difference. The Bible teaches us this life changing principle that we need to:

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

There are (more) exciting times ahead again this term in the iCentre. On a creative front, Year 3 are continuing their excellent writing using Storybird. Over the course of the term, we will be beginning to download, print and bind these terrific stories once our editing is complete. Year 4 have just begun to use Storybird also which has been very exciting to see. My initial observations of their writing has been very encouraging. We have been talking about the amazing God-given gift that the imagination is, to which the students have been tapping into.

Term 3 also sees Book Week and the MASSIVE Book Day happening. I am most excited about all that this entails. Mrs Thompson over the years worked very hard to make this a wonderful experience for all students, a legacy to which the iCentre staff and myself are looking to continue. I will even be dressing up!! My first PCS Book Day will be one I’m sure to remember. Book Day is set for Wednesday 5 September, with the Book Fair running in the iCentre from Thursday 30 August through to Wednesday 5 September.

Term 3 also sees the conclusion of the Premier’s Reading Challenge. I have seen great enthusiasm among the Junior School students, which has been most exciting, to the point where students are commenting on my choice of story to be read to the class whenever it doesn’t possess the famous PRC red sticker. I congratulate all students on how well they have engaged in the PRC this year.