Sport at Lindfield 

Sport is an important aspect of the education that all of the boys at Newington experience. Our commitment to Sport is based on the importance of physical activity, developing gross motor skills and sportsmanship, and being a member of a team.

Since I joined the College I have been inundated by parent feedback about our sporting programs; good and bad. Due to our size, the management of our sporting teams and programs is a constant challenge.

To support our boys in their ongoing skill development in the sports of Basketball, Cricket, Football and Rugby, we have made a decision to change our training sessions from the beginning of Term 3. The plan is to replace the Additional Skills Session on Monday afternoon with an in-school training session after lunch on Monday. The Monday session would take the same format as the Wednesday training session and would allow us to consolidate skills, teamwork and develop the boys’ fitness throughout the week in readiness for Saturday games. The support coaches (Rugby Coaches from Sydney Uni and the Football Coach from the Football Factory) who currently assist would also be involved in the Monday session.

As expressed above, Sport is just one component of our educational offering and therefore we are very conscious of this change not impacting on other areas of learning. To ensure this, we will simply take two timetabled fitness sessions and replace them with this focused training session. Ultimately, we believe that the educational value of this initiative is more beneficial than the two fitness sessions.

Whilst we don’t believe this will solve all of the challenges that we face as a small school competing in the IPSHA competition, it will certainly provide our boys with regular and consistent high quality coaching throughout the week to develop the boys skills, fitness and teamwork.

As part of this change, the Select Choir will now be starting at 7:45am on Monday mornings (previously 8:00am) so that the boys can be ready to start their learning at 8:30am. Previously they missed part of a fitness session.

Boys will be required to bring their PE uniform and training gear to school for these Monday sessions.

Farewell Mr Findley

It is with much sadness that we farewell Mr Findley, our School Counsellor at the end of this term as he and his family relocate to Victoria. He has served the College, both here and at Wyvern, since 2010. Mr Findley has provided great wisdom and insight into the needs of our boys. Whilst Mr Findley leaves officially at the end of term, he and his wife are also expecting the imminent arrival of their first child and he will be on paternity leave towards the end of this term. We are in the process of interviewing for Mr Findley’s replacement.

Coffee and Chat with Mr Wyatt – Tuesday 18 June

Communication is an essential part of any learning community to ensure that we are all on the same page as we support the boys in their learning. To support this I am planning to run Coffee and Chat morning twice a term to provide parents with the opportunity to come and ask questions, talk about school matters and to share stories of success and progress. At this stage there won’t be any particular structure or format; simply a chance to have a cup of coffee and to chat about school related matters. I look forward to seeing you there.

Part-time Bus Driver wanted

We are currently advertising for a part-time (5 days a fortnight – 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon) bus driver to share the role with Norm Madden, our current driver. If you know anyone who might be interested, please encourage them to contact me in the next week.

PALS (Positive Attitudes and Life Skills)

This week our Year 6 boys led the other boys in the second instalment of the PALS program. The boys introduced the concept of ‘looking on the bright side’. This is a really important social and emotional skill for all young people as they face a multitude of social interactions on a daily basis. Whilst the vast majority of these interactions are positive, occasionally they can be negative. ‘Looking on the bright side’ will help them to not let individual occurrences to get them down and to maintain a healthy and positive outlook on life.

Please join us in using this language with the boys as we support them in developing this valuable skill and coping with the realities of life.

Enrolments

Due to the addition of an extra Stage 3 Class in 2014 we are in the fortunate position to have vacancies for next year. We are currently enrolling boys for Year 5 2014 as we seek to gain the necessary numbers to make the additional class a straight Year 5. Limited vacancies also exist in Kindergarten for next year. If you know families that might be interested, please encourage them to call the School Office on 9416 4280.

Earn and Learn Points – Vouchers will end this weekend

Over the last couple of years our community has taken part in the Woolworths Earn and Learn scheme which allows us to purchase additional resources for the school. We feel very blessed to be supported by such a generous community.

This year, with your support, we will once again participate in this scheme in a slightly different manner. Given how well resourced our school is we thought this would be a great opportunity to support another school community that is in greater need than us. Given our connection over the years with the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children we thought it was appropriate to donate our school tokens to ‘RIDBC Garfield Barwick School’ at North Parramatta.

Please send any tokens to the School Office so that we can make a difference to another school community.