Email gets Googled

News from www.schools.nsw.edu.au about the Department's new email contract with global e-giant Google.

Link: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/news/schoolstories/yr2008/aug/email.php

Email gets Googled in $9.5m deal

The education department will become one of the world’s largest clients of Google following the selection of a new email provider for NSW students.

Acting education minister John Hatzistergos announced SMS Management & Technology had been chosen to provide a customised email system for NSW public school and TAFE students, using Google’s Gmail service.

“Students will have greatly expanded mailbox storage capacity, improved user features and state-of-the-art filtering and security,” Mr Hatzistergos said.

“The new email system will cater for 1.3 million users and be in place by the end of the year.”
The new system will offer at least six gigabytes email storage per mailbox and be similar to standard Gmail to use.

The three-year contract is worth about $9.5 million with a two-year extension option.
The department’s chief information officer Stephen Wilson told the recent interactive classrooms conference in Sydney the decision made the department one of “Google’s largest [customers] in the world”.

Students will be able to access the new accounts, integrated within the student portal, by using their department user identification and password.
“We are also moving to put all [teaching and administration] staff on our upgraded corporate email system,” Mr Wilson said.

The email upgrade coincides with the rollout of the State Government’s $158 million Connected Classrooms program.

Mr Wilson said the program was ahead of schedule with 202 schools receiving their equipment by the end of June. Another 400 schools would receive equipment by the end of December. The bandwidth upgrade in schools was on schedule with the majority expected to have 10 megabits per second by the end of 2009.

“We will be, far and away, ahead of all other states and territories in Australia,” he said.

BEN WYLD

Family guide for starting kinder

The department has released a document Time to Start School, for families intending to enroll their child in kindergarten for the 2009 school year.

The document can be downloaded from www.schools.nsw.edu.au or click here.

Term 2 Week 4 Newsletter

National Testing
Last week our Year 3 and Year 5 participated in the first National testing. This test took the place of the Basic Skills Test which was previously confined to just NSW. Our results were compared to schools right across NSW, the National Test, as the name suggests will allow results to be compared to other schools right across Australia. As there are variances in curriculum content in other states it will be interesting to see how the NSW system, and in particular, our students compare to students the same age in other states.
Thank you to our Year 3 and Year 5 teachers for effectively administering this test and also to Mrs Gonzaga for her overall outstanding organization.

Mothers Day Stall
Thank you to Sharon, Jodie and their hard working team for their terrific effort in providing our 2008 Mothers Day Stall. Our students were provided with a wide array of gifts and the decorated bags were a magnificent innovation. Thank you again.

P& C - Fundraising
Thank you to everybody who helped in any way with the Mother’s Day Stall. We hope every mum enjoyed receiving her gifts the children selected. The gift bags the children decorated looked great. Thank you to the teachers for their efforts with the decorating. The voucher shopping was very successful and we will be introducing a cashless-voucher only shopping for the Father’s Day Stall. More information will follow closer to the day.

Student Welfare and Anti-Bullying Policy
Our staff have been working reviewing and implementing certain variations to our current Student Welfare Policy. Like all effective organizations it is important to revise and review our operational practices.
Procedural fairness and equity must underpin and support all of our decision making and have a positive emphasis.
Any variations to our current policy will be communicated to the whole school community in the near future.

Walk Safely to School Day

Walk Safely to School Day (WSTSD) is an annual, national event when all primary school children will be encouraged to walk and commute safely to school. It is a community event seeking to promote road safety, health, public transport and the environment.

It will be held throughout Australia on Friday 2 May 2008

 

The objectives of WSTSD are:

To encourage parents and carers to walk to school with primary school age children and reinforce safe pedestrian behaviour.

To promote the health benefits of walking and help create regular walking habits at an early age.

To ensure that children up to 10 years old hold an adult's hand when crossing the road.

To help children develop the vital road-crossing skills they will need as they become mature pedestrians.

To reduce the car dependency habits that are being created at an early age and which will be difficult to change as children become adults.

To promote the use of Public Transport.

To reduce the level of air pollution created by motor vehicles.

To reduce the level of traffic congestion.

 

Find out more at www.walk.com.au

Rudd recalls summit to read blog

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has recalled participants of the 20-20 summit back to Canberra to read and discuss postings of the Corrimal East Public School blog.

"This is very exciting. I urge all Corrimal East residents to bookmark this page and comment often," said Mr Rudd.

Above: Rudd encouraging students to blog often.