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Ben Venews

Principal’s Message Week 8 Term 1

The recent declaration that COVID-19 is now a global pandemic has raised many concerns within our

school community about the role our school will play in slowing the rate of infection. Today I have

followed the advice of the Department of Health and the Department of Education and have

implemented social distancing measures. These include the cancellation of all excursions, assemblies,

choir and dance as well as restricting teachers to class based activities only. Our RFF program will

continue to run as per usual however PE and Sport activities will be modified to ensure a distance of

1.5 metres between students.

Our school remains fully operational. In the event that our school is closed, students will be able to

access school work via School Stream and our school website. There is no indication however, that

this is a likely scenario.

As a precautionary measure I urge all parents to keep children at home if they are at all unwell and ask

that you continue to discuss and encourage personal hygiene procedures such as coughing/ sneezing

into a tissue, upper arm or sleeve and always washing hands with soap and water. I am told that

humming “Happy Birthday to you” twice is the length of time we should be washing our hands for.

Cancelled Events

I have made the difficult decision to cancel many events on our school calendar. I ask for your patience

in determining how best to proceed with payments that have already been made. I will provide advice

on this in the next few days.

Events that have been cancelled include:

• Colour Run - The decision to postpone or cancel altogether will be made at the next P&C

meeting.

• ASC Musical Performance - postponed until further notice, students who have purchased tickets

will still be able to attend on the revised date.

• Year 3 Saumarez House excursion

• Cross Country

• Da Vinci Decathlon

• Easter Hat Parade

The following sporting events have been cancelled:

• Primary SOPAC Swimming Championships

• Primary Boys’ and Girls’ Northern Football trials

• Primary Boys’ and Girls’ Hockey trials

• Armidale PSSA Netball Gala Day

• Armidale PSSA Rugby Union trials and Gala Day

• Armidale PSSA Rugby League trials

Phone 6772 4263 – Email benvenue-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Website – Facebook – School Stream

In addition to this I have withdrawn Ben Venue Public School from the inter-school touch football

competition.

The following events/celebrations will go ahead with some modifications:

• Kindergarten photos.

• Harmony Day activities.

• Multi-Cultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition. This will go ahead without audiences.

• Australis Choir rehearsals. There are only 26 students involved and we will maintain safe

distances between students.

• Parent/Student/Teacher Interviews. Social distancing measures of no physical contact will be

employed.

These cancellations relate to events scheduled up to the end of Term 1. As yet I have not cancelled

any Term 2 events but I will continue to follow the advice of relevant authorities.

Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews

These interviews will go ahead in Weeks 9 & 10. To make a booking time click here and if prompted,

enter the code 5qun2.

Enter your details

Select the teachers you wish to see

Select the appointment times that suit your family best

When you click FINISH your selected bookings will be emailed to you immediately. If

you do not receive your email, please check your junk-mail, or enter the event code

again and check your email address spelling.

Update your details if the email address is incorrect.

DO NOT DELETE the email you receive. Keep it somewhere safe. You may need to

refer back to it at a later date.

UR Strong

After the success of the UR Strong parent program and UR Strong initiative that was introduced last

year, I am very pleased to advise that on Thursday 14 May our school will be hosting a live zoom

session for parents and their child/ren with UR Strong founder Dana Kerford. This session will include

interactive activities and parents will learn strategies to help their child put out “friendship fires’’ and

find out the best ways to support children through unhealthy friendships.

This program complements the language being used at school and is a great way for parents to

support their child and our school.

As this is a new model of delivery designed especially for our school, tickets are at a considerably

reduced price of $15. I have managed to reduce the cost further by subsidising tickets another $5.

Therefore the total cost per ticket will now be $10.

To register for this event please click here or visit www.urstrong.com/events. When registering, the site

requires your name (attendee 1) and the name of your child (attendee 2). Please use the discount

code of ‘bvlof’ at the checkout to reduce the price to $10 per ticket.

Phone 6772 4263 – Email benvenue-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Website – Facebook – School Stream

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Phone 6772 4263 – Email benvenue-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Website – Facebook – School Stream

Dates for the Calendar

March

• 13 Icy Poles for sale

• 18 Kindergarten school photos

• 19 Kids Lit Quiz - To be confirmed, will run remotely or be postponed

• 20 P&C Colour Run - Cancelled

• 27 Icy Poles for sale

• 31 Multi-Cultural Perspectives Speaking Competition (school finals)

April

• 1 P&C Meeting

• 6 School Cross Country - Cancelled

• 7 Go for Gold Day (students dress up in green and gold colours and bring

in a gold coin donation to support local charity event “Tour de Rocks”

• 8 Da Vinci Decathlon - Cancelled

• 8 Hockey Gala Day - Cancelled

• 9 K-2 Easter Hat Parade (10:00am) - Cancelled

• 23 - 27 Harmony Week Celebrations - Modified

• 28 Students return for Term 2

• 29 - 1 May Mothers Day stall each recess/lunch

May

• 7 Book Fair

• 12-22 NAPLAN testing

• 12 1W Thalgarrah

• 18 1F Thalgarrah

• 19 1D Thalgarrah

June

• 3-5 Year 4 Thalgarrah

Lou Moffatt

Phone 6772 4263 – Email benvenue-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Website – Facebook – School Stream

2P

Letter to our families,

Congratulations parents! You’ve passed the test. You’ve been making some very sustainable

choices about the types of packaging you’ve been putting in my bag when it comes to eating time.

I’m impressed that you are choosing recyclable, compostable and reusable containers for my lunch

and morning tea. The thing I’m so, so, so proud of is that you think about our future. You are doing

a good job for the environment and I’ll need you to make sure you never give me single use plastic

packets ever again!

Some people should definitely start to make a smaller footprint. Landfill is about to take over! I

have a real issue with landfill as people being entirely unsustainable will destroy everything in our

amazing world. The sea life will be gone forever if people keep on choosing plastic. All of the trees,

flowers and waterfalls will vanish. This seriously needs to STOP if we’re going to survive this

terrible disease! Help us ban plastic bags, use reusable packaging and sort our waste so we can

help the world and not let our environment suffer.

2P Waste Warriors

This is a mash-up of some of the persuasive writing that the students have been creating as part of their ‘Tip Toe Through Our World’ MAPPEN unit. So far we have had a blast at the Thalgarrah Environmental Education Centre, done some decomposition science experiments, participated in Clean Up Australia Day, collected data on our classroom waste and explored sustainability choices through our art making. We look forward to inspiring more of our friends and families to learn positive habits to help reduce our environmental footprints.

Alex Portell

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Phone 6772 4263 – Email benvenue-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Website – Facebook – School Stream

2M

Students have had a marvelous start to the term! We have been busy establishing our class

routines and expectations which the students have grasped remarkably well. Our home

readers have started and the students are very keen to ‘show off’ their wonderful skills at home

with their families.

We thoroughly enjoyed our excursion to Thalgarrah where we participated in many activities

related to our integrated unit ‘Tip Toe Through The World’ which addresses the need to take

responsibility to look after our environment so that it is preserved for future generations. The

students were able to use microscopes to investigate decomposers in some compost and

create something of their choice out of recyclable materials. During the unit, students are

learning how to reduce, reuse and recycle as they consider the importance of sustainability.

They have been conducting experiments to see how long things take to decompose in our

Year 2 school garden plot. We buried many different items such as an apple core, paper, a

green compost bag, plastic and polystyrene. In Week 11 we will dig up our buried materials to

see what has decomposed and changed over the 6 weeks.

In Mathematics, we have been learning about length and using the metre and centimetre

measurements around our classroom and playground. Students have realised the need for

formal units and rulers to ensure we are accurate with our measurements.

It was so lovely to meet so many of you at our Parent Information Evening and I look forward to

a successful year ahead. Thank you to all the 2M parents that have made an interview time for

Week 9. I look forward to meeting with you and your child to discuss some learning goals for us

to work on together.

Mebby McClelland

Phone 6772 4263 – Email benvenue-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Website – Facebook – School Stream

Cricket

Last Wednesday March 11 Ben Venue played Armidale City in the second round of the PSSA

Knockout Cricket Competition.

Ben Venue were sent in to bat and it didn’t take long for Armidale City to run out Luke Whitty for 1

run.

Archie Clarke came in next and he set about building an innings with Josh Clee. Clarke played

brilliantly compiling a very good innings eventually retiring 40 not out. Clee continued and at the

end of the innings was 12 not out and Ben Venue had reached 91.

In reply Armidale City were too strong with their top order firing and they were able reach the

winning total in 17 overs.

Best bowlers for Ben Venue were Lachlan Taylor 0 for 12 off 5 overs, Oliver Belson 1 for 12 off 2 overs and Luke Whitty 1 for 37 off 5 overs.

Richard Cotter

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TERM 1 2020 CALENDAR Week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

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16.3 17.3 18.3

Kindergarten

Photos

19.3

20.3

The Colour Run has

been cancelled

9

23.3

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

24.3

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

25.3

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

26.3

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

27.3

Icypole Day

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

10

30.3

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

31.3

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

1.4

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

2.4

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

3.4

Parent/Teacher/

Student interviews

11

6.4 7.4 8.4 9.4

Last day of term 1

10.4

Good Friday

FRIDAY ONLY

6 Nuggets and Drink $6.00

Orders must be phoned through by parents by

Thursday afternoon

6772 8528