From the Junior School
From the Head of Junior School
Welcome to Term 4 and a warm welcome to our new students and their families and those who are returning to our Junior School; Olivia Xiao (Year 3), Adela Wu (Year 4), Uya Cheng (Year 4) and Ula Cheng (Year 6). We look forward to sharing your daughters’ journey through our Junior School with you.
It has been a joyous start to the term with the girls excited to be back and happily exploring our fabulous new Junior School office. We were honoured today to have our office officially with a smoking ceremony led by Uncle Gavi, a highly respected elder in our community. It’s clear our girls are also loving the new flat space behind our office which allows them to hone their soccer skills and play on the grass together. I was lucky enough to take part in a Year 4 Mathematics lesson yesterday in this outdoor space led by Mrs Shaira Musico and Mrs Di Lewis with lots of mathematical discussion and active participation as the girls predicted and measured capacity using water.
Our Year 2 have blasted into the term with a series of ten rotations exploring push and pull forces including rocket balloon, pendulum paint art, aqua cars, magnetic cars and paper aeroplanes. The girls recorded their observations and wonderings and will deep dive into some of these experiments as they continue their scientific investigation of forces.
Year 5 Team Collaboration
Year 5 started the term strong with a whole grade team activity to look at the power of collaboration. All but two of the girls spread themselves out in a long line along the Valley Playground. The aim of the activity was to move 6 items (pens) from one end of the line to the other as quickly as they could. The girls could choose how to pass them along, but no girl could have more than one pen in her hand at a time. The other two girls, two of our wonderful athletes, had to transport the pens one at a time to the end of the line by themselves – running as quickly as they could. Surprisingly the two girls completed the task at the same time as the larger group.
During the reflection activity, the girls made suggestions for how they could have significantly improved the team performance with ideas about being more aware of where the pens were and passing accurately suggested. The activity allowed the girls to see how stronger collaboration with their peers could have led to greater success. Year 5 hope to repeat the task later in the term to see if they have improved their collaboration skills. What a great lesson for the girls to learn as they head into their final term in Year 5 and look towards leadership next year.
A message from our Sustainability Captains – Oriana Fenton & Richielynne Xiong
Thank you to everyone for bringing in your creative artworks for our recycled art competition. We were so excited to see the amazing entries so far. The competition closes tomorrow, so please bring all your artworks to the Junior School Office. Prizes will be awarded to the most sustainable and creative artworks!
Last term, the Sustainability Club undertook a garbage audit. In this audit, we all put on our gloves and sorted the garbage generated by the Junior School over the course of one day. Some things we found were:
- There was a lot of food waste in our bins
- Many items that could be recycled were placed in the ‘normal’ bin
- We had lots of rubbish that came from our lunch orders including containers and bags and this took up much of our bins
We decided that some things need to change following this and we will be working with the Term 4 Sustainability Captains to minimise our rubbish and also make sure our recyclable items are put in the correct bins. We also will continue talking with the College kitchen about the lunch orders.
A message from Lara Bird, Deputy Head of Junior School – Academics
ICAS Certificates
Congratulations to all the students who participated in the ICAS assessments. We are extremely proud of our girls and results achieved. We are currently waiting to receive all certificates from ICAS. Once we have received certificates across the assessments, we will present them to participating students.
Parent Focus Group – Homework and Academic Reports
Mrs Christine Kenny, Deputy Principal – Academics and I will be hosting parent focus groups on Thursday, 2 November with a focus on homework in the Junior School and academic reports. A portal notice will be uploaded with more information for parents on how to register.
A message from Kate Giles, Lead Coordinator K-3
In the school holidays, Mrs Davey and I headed to Westmead Children’s Hospital to deliver the second donation of stationery packs and toiletries for the HARK Clinic for refugee children. We were excited to be able to donate over 30 stationery packs and almost 90 toiletry packs for children from the ages of 5-12.
A massive thank you to all of our Junior School families for your generosity and kindness and thank you to our Kindness Club and Social Justice Club students who kindly packaged and labelled each pack. The Hospital Clinic were extremely grateful to be able to assist so many refugee patients who are seeking their medical care, most of whom have arrived in Australia with nothing.
In the lead up to Christmas, the HARK Clinic are seeking donations of toys, specifically Barbie dolls, baby dolls, play dough, matchbox cars, soccer balls and Lego. These items can be brought to school by your daughter or dropped at the Junior School office. If you have any questions, please email kgiles@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au. We thank you for helping support the HARK Refugee Clinic at Westmead.
From the Junior School Parent Group (JSPG)
Welcome to Term 4, we hope all our Junior School families had a wonderful and restful break.
Coming up this term, the JSPG events include:
1. JSPG Term 4 meeting on Tuesday 24 October from 8.30am to 9.30am – to be held in the Junior School Library. We hope you can join us.
There is a call out for any parents who would like to fill the role of year coordinator in 2024. We would like to announce these candidates at the meeting. Please find further information below.
2. Build-a-Bear on Friday 16 November for Kindergarten to Year 2
3. Swimming Carnival stalls on Thursday 15th November (Years 3 to 6) and Friday 30 November (Kindergarten to Year 2).
2024 Parent Year Coordinators
We would love to introduce our new year coordinators for 2024 at our upcoming JSPG Term 4 Meeting, so we are now looking to fill these roles.
The year coordinator role is a hands-on role in the coordination of school events/activities and provides support for each year level in the College. In the Junior School, our year coordinators act as a conduit between the JSPG leaders and class parents, help to find volunteers for various activities and work closely with the JSPG leaders, Community Engagement and school staff as needed.
If this is of interest to you, we’d love to hear from you. Ideally we will have one or two year coordinators per year group. Please reach out to your current year coordinator or a JSPG leader to discuss further, as planning will soon get underway for next year.
Please contact us at pymblelcjspg@gmail.com if you have any queries. Wishing everyone a fantastic term ahead.
Important Dates for Term 3
mportant Dates for Term 4
| Saturday 14 October | Year 5 Father/Daughter Camp |
| Sunday 15 October | Year 5 Father/Daughter Camp |
| Wednesday 18 October | Year 1 Get Growing Incursion |
| Friday 20 October | House Dance K-6 |
| Saturday 21 October | Year 4 Father/Daughter Camp |
| Sunday 22 October | Year 4 Father/Daughter Camp |
Kate Brown
Head of Junior School