World Day of the Sick (Ref: 011/21)
On February 11 we come together as a community to pray for the sick and those who care for them.
Here is what you can do to observe WDOS:
- Say the prayer tonight to thank the nurses, doctors and all the wonderful carers for taking care of us during COVID;
- Commit to washing your hands frequently, keeping surfaces clean and wearing a mask on public transport;
Please find attached a letter to principals and World Day of the Sick flyer.
NCEC Statement: Sally Egan appointed as Deputy Director of National Catholic Education (Ref: 012/21)
The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) has appointed Sally Egan to the role of Deputy Director commencing Thursday 30 January 2021.
Read the full statement here.
Changes to School Developed Board Endorsed Courses (SDBECs): Catholic Studies and Studies in Catholic Thought (Stages 5 and 6) (Ref: 019/21)
As part of the NSW Curriculum Reform process, there are changes to School Developed Board Endorsed Courses (SDBECs) from 2021 that affect Catholic studies and Studies in Catholic Thought courses for Stages 5 and 6.
In general, any Stage 5 SDBECs currently endorsed by NESA will still have this endorsement until the end of 2022, unless the endorsement period was scheduled to end earlier. These courses can continue after the NESA endorsement ends, and schools may still choose to develop their own Stage 5 courses, but they will not be endorsed by NESA, nor will they be included on NESA credentials such as the RoSA. Please note that Stage 5 Catholic Studies courses are subject to a number of different NESA applications and therefore have differing endorsement periods. Some endorsement periods expired at the end of 2020 and others will expire at the end of 2021 or 2022. Schools should check the scheduled expiry dates for their school.
Stage 6 SDBECs that are currently endorsed and already selected by students for the HSC will continue in 2021 and 2022 only. From 2023, these courses will be subject to new endorsement criteria.
Individual schools and/ or systems that did not submit their applications to deliver a new Stage 6 course or renew an existing Stage 6 course for 2021 by the published deadlines in Schools Online may have found that they do not have NESA endorsement. NESA will only consider reviewing these cases in very limited circumstances. These schools should contact the Board Endorsed Programs Unit at [email protected] or 9367 8579.
New Smartcopying website now live (Ref: 020/21)
Please note that the National Copyright Unit has announced that the new Smartcopying website is now live.
They have updated the look of the website and also much of the content (including new FAQs and a new Copyright Guidelines section).
Safer Internet Day (Ref: 015/21)
Safer Internet Day is the Office of the eSafety Commissioner’s most important awareness-raising event of the year, bringing millions of people from 170 countries together with a shared vision for a better internet. The eSafety Commissioner is calling on everyone to get involved and start planning their online safety activities for Tuesday 9 February and beyond.
Please promote this to your networks as relevant. More information is available on this webpage and in this promotion pack.
Save the date: An hour with John Hattie talking about Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers (Ref: 023/21)
Want to know more about Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers?
Join Emeritus Laureate Professor John Hattie, Chair, Non-Executive Director the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership to talk about a Principals role in supporting Highly Accomplished and Lead teachers through National Certification.
The session will run twice for your convenience
Thursday 18 February 9:30 – 10:30
Thursday 18 February 3:30 – 4:30
See attachment
HSC Data Analysis Seminar Updates (Ref: 024/21)
Due to Covid restrictions, some HSC Data Analysis seminars we are holding have been restricted in numbers. The following changes have been made to future programmed seminars:
Thursday 11th February Leading your School in the Analysis
Venue Change: now Sydney Masonic Centre, 66 Goulburn St, Sydney
Tuesday 16th February Introduction to the Analysis
Venue Change: now Sydney Masonic Centre, 66 Goulburn St, Sydney
Thursday 4th March Introduction to the Analysis
ADDITIONAL SEMINAR: to be held at Sydney Masonic Centre, 66 Goulburn Street, Sydney
All other details remain the same.
Please see attachment.
Recruitment for the NSW Youth Advisory Council Open (Ref: 018/21)
Recruitment for the NSW Youth Advisory Council (YAC) 2021 is currently open.
Last year, with your support, a diverse and dedicated group of children and young people were appointed to the YAC, who provided feedback to the government over the year. I am writing to ask you to kindly support our recruitment of the YAC again this year by reaching out to the children and young people in your networks and encouraging them to apply.
Thank you to those of you who have already promoted this opportunity within your network.
Membership of the YAC is open to children and young people between 12-24 years of age residing in NSW. Applications are particularly sought from diverse locations, backgrounds and life experiences.
The 12 member YAC provides a direct avenue of communication between young people and the NSW Government. The YAC meets regularly throughout the year to discuss a range of topics and provide feedback on policies, procedures and resources affecting children and young people.
Members also provide feedback to community groups, government agencies and Departments and Ministers on issues concerning children and young people.
Applications close 14 March, 2021.
For further information about the YAC and for young people to apply, please use or share the link below:
https://www.acyp.nsw.gov.au/nsw-youth-advisory-council-application-information
Please find the media kit link below with a sample newsletter article, poster and social media posts you may wish to use to promote recruitment for the YAC 2021.
https://www.acyp.nsw.gov.au/yac-media-kit-2021
If you have any questions feel free to call the office on (02) 9248 0970 or email us at [email protected].
Thank you for your support in ensuring that as many children and young people as possible have an opportunity to apply for the NSW Youth Advisory Council 2020.
Vegetable Week & The Big Veggie Crunch (Ref: 021/21)
Welcome to the second of our Resource eNewsletters for Vegetable Week & The Big Vegie Crunch 2021 (missed the first one? You can find it here).
This eNewsletter has information on all the resources available for this super-fun, quick and easy health promotion event. You can also find all the resources via the event’s resource webpage.
In 2021, we’re aiming to ‘beet’ these incredible records from previous years:
- 50,260 students crunching simultaneously in 2018
- 14,991 students crunching at another time of Vegetable Week in 2019
In doing so we hope to make vegetable eating exciting and encourage kids, and their families, to eat more vegetables every day!
Get Ready, Get Steady, Get Crunching, has tips on communicating with colleagues, parents and your local community and accessing support. You’ll also find a comprehensive dated planning template which you can use to tick off preparation tasks.
You will need the help of parents to make The Big Vegie Crunch a success. Let them know about your plans to run the event and what is needed from them (vegetables!) – with plenty of notice. You can find two ready-to-insert snippets for your school newsletter, app or social media posts here.
Use Snippet 1 in the month leading up to the event. Use Snippet 2 in the days before The Big Vegie Crunch to remind parents to send in vegetables for their child/ren on the big day.
Find the Media Release here.
To help you spread the UP THE VEG message throughout your school we have developed a set of eye-catching resources with a whole bunch of fun and educational ideas.
UP THE VEG in the Classroom provides information on educational resources that are available to teach about and promote vegetables to your students.
UP THE VEG over the Whole School has lots of ideas for veg-positive activities to run over the whole school.
UP THE VEG at Home provides helpful hints on how families can encourage their kids (and themselves!) to eat more veg. More detail can be found in the Veg up your families resource section below.
We know that health promotion activities in schools have the most impact when families are engaged. Get parents on board with the ‘eat more vegetables’ message by using these tools:
- The UP THE VEG at Home resource. The information provided in this resource is based on feedback from parents on what they wanted to know: how much vegetables do family members need; how to encourage their kids to eat more veg; and, of course, meal and snack ideas! Send parents the link to the resource via Newsletter Snippet 1
- An A4 size poster, and notes page, for families so that they can challenge themselves to increase the amount and variety of vegetables they eat over Vegetable Week (and beyond!)
- School Newsletter Snippets so you can inform families about your involvement in The Big Vegie Crunch and how they can support it
You can include these resources in your school newsletter, school app notifications or your social media posts. Or print out copies for those parents where hardcopy resources are more successful.
Printables
Stickers
Instructions on how to print the stickers can be found here.
To print in house, on your office printer, use these templates (full colour or reduced colour). For commercial printing use this template.
Poster
You can print it out in A3 or A4 size. There is even a notes page for teachers to provide more information on how to use it.
play The Big Vegie Crunch Song to boost the vegetables-are-funky vibes! You can access the song, and the lyrics, on the song webpage.
Want your students to be included in a music video for the song?
We would love to put together a video of kids dancing to The Big Vegie Crunch song to make available on our website and use in promoting the event. If you think this is something your students would love to do then please send us some video footage of the kids (or vegetables) dancing to the song. Be creative! Perhaps students could dance with vegetables in hand, or do a routine in the vegetable patch or even make a stop motion video of vegetables dancing? Contact us via email so we can determine the best way for you to share the files.
Please note: you will need to confirm that you have permission to share images of the students for publication.
Healthy lifestyle programs for primary schools (Ref: 025/21)
Healthy lifestyle programs for primary schools
Please note that NSW Health have changed the website location for these resources which can now be found here.
This means the URL for every page within this section (LLW@S, Crunch & Sip etc.) has also changed for example Crunch&Sip has changed from this link to this link.
Student Voice Surveys - eSafety resources (026/21)
eSafety has released a new Toolkit resource, Student voice surveys. The surveys are designed to help schools understand the attitudes of online safety from the perspective of students and are a great opportunity for schools to start the conversation early about online safety with their students.
Three surveys have been released including:
- lower primary (F- Year 3)
- upper primary (Years 4-6)
- secondary (Years 7-12).
Each survey includes an Educator guide to help implement the survey, along with resource recommendations to assist schools in identifying opportunities to improve or strengthen online safety knowledge and practices.