NICS News Week 1 Term 1 2024

The highly anticipated NICS Beach Carnival will be held on Wednesday, 21 February, weather permitting. Permission notes have been sent home with students this week. Please return them to the office.

The Junior School Leadership Team nominations have been released with speeches to occur at next week’s assembly from 1:45pm. Families are welcome to come along and hear the speeches from the Year 6 nominees.

House Captain nomination forms have been distributed this week. All nominations are due to Mr Miller on Monday, 29 January. House Captains and the Junior School Leaders will be inducted at the Week 3 assembly on Wednesday, 7 February, at 1:45pm.

As you may have heard, the school canteen will not be operational at this stage. With the support of the P&C, the school is looking for a new canteen operator. With this vacancy, students will need to bring their own food to school each day. Students are not permitted to leave the school to collect lunch from town. Once we have a new canteen operator, I will inform the community. If you are interested in becoming the canteen operator, please contact Joel Reeves, P&C, or Russell Moore before Thursday, 25 January.

We take great pride in our school and the wearing of school uniform is an observable demonstration of this. Students are required to wear the school uniform along with the school hat, and we seek family support to ensure this happens. If students are out of uniform, please send a note to explain the situation. If families need assistance with acquiring school uniform, please contact the Deputy Principal, Julia Cullen.

From the beginning of Term 1, 2024, all Queensland state school students must keep their mobile phones switched off and ‘away for the day’ during school hours. Notifications on wearable devices, such as smartwatches, must be switched off so that phone calls, messages and other notifications cannot be sent or received during school hours. Students are being asked to put their phones away for the day to help:

• reduce distractions in the classroom

• increase face-to-face interactions between students

• promote student health and wellbeing

• reduce the potential for student exposure to negative impacts of the digital world, such as cyberbullying.

The school has ordered lockable phone pouches which should arrive soon. We will hold sessions with students on how to use the pouches effectively. Parents can support their child/ren by starting conversations now regarding the benefits from having phones away while at school.

In Term 1 this year, NIHRACS and NI-Connect offered the “Tuning into Teens” parenting course on how to develop emotional intelligence in your teenager. The course will be offered again in Term 1, 2024. The program is highly recommended for parents of teenagers, especially in Years 7 and 8. Please contact Karen Innes-Walker for further details or check the NICS Facebook page.

The Norfolk Island Regional Council is now providing photo ID cards for youth who don’t hold a passport or any other form of photo ID. We are hoping these cards will reduce the difficulties families and youth have when travelling to and from Australia. The cards are for children 2 years and over (and where applicable adults who have no photo ID). There is a form to be completed, and accompanied by a copy of their birth certificate and Medicare card (or alternate insurance / ID), at a cost of $28 for 3 years, the forms are to be lodged at Customer Care where they will take the photo and produce the card.

At this stage, NICS is working on a solution to produce student ID cards.

Russell Moore

Principal - Norfolk Island Central School

NICS Library Fun Facts for 2024

Library opening times are:

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 8.30am – 3.15pm

Mondays and Fridays we are open Recess and Lunch times only

• Our library had 9,266 items borrowed over 2023
• In 2022, we had 7,455 items borrowed – so that’s a positive of 1,811 more items borrowed in the last year
• In the 2 days that we have been back, 253 books have been borrowed … let’s watch this space to see if we can beat the 2023 borrowing statistic
• P – 6 students who borrow library books need a library bag to borrow
• Library lessons for P – 4 are on Thursdays
• We have the competition for best borrowers for library every month and a best class borrower for the year with prizes
• On Tuesdays only we have technology available for students
• Our library is an air-conditioned environment with a variety of spaces for reading, playing, drawing, talking, planning, meeting and creating.

Happy reading from the library staff