On Saturday 28th October, Nicho opened the doors to the community for the annual Halloween Festival. The sun was shining and the tombola jars were glistening as some 1500 guests came and enjoyed hours of fun, food and entertainment.

This year the covered outdoor learning area was on display for the first time and become a bustling hub for coffee, sweets and treats, fortune telling and face painting. Families were able to sit back on the steps of the amphitheatre and enjoy the scenes of Halloween happiness.

October was an incredibly successful month of raising funds for our small but mighty school and also bringing the community together. From the referendum BBQ, to our Loyalty Square fun day and the big Festival Day itself, Nicho raised an almighty $33k to go towards supporting the teachers next year with realising their visions for improvement to the school in whatever form that may take. The priority aim is to finish the upgrades to the playground as well as the future focused learning furniture plans for inside the classrooms.

Never let it be said that being generous needs to be ultraistic!

Over the last six months, the P&C has undertaken a range of successful community-focused fundraisers from Halloween to Fruit and Veg boxes, as well as held numerous events to ensure our community remained strong and engaged over COVID. Over this time we've raised over $53,000 ($39,000 profit) to support the school! ...but we shouldn't play down the fun we've had blast doing it. These events have been some of the best nights of the year, so if you're yet to come along to one of our events, I encourage you to do so!

Please note that as of the beginning of March 2021 all uniform purchases will be via the Nicho Shop on this site only, and not via Flexischools.

Should you wish to order pre-loved uniforms, you can also do this via the form on this site.

Uniforms will continue to be delivered to your child's classroom once a week - usually a Thursday or Friday.

As many of you will realise the uniform shop is managed by volunteers, so should you feel like helping out please shoot us a note!

Some may be aware that the Healthy Classroom's subcommittee put together a proposal to install solar power across the school. This is part of a program that's run in conjunction with the Department of Ed and the council.

The total cost came in at $35,275 with a payback period of 2.4 years (an annual saving of $9.7k against a $17k school investment - see below).

The cost will be shared with 50% covered by Dept and 50% by grants pursued by the P&C.

We have successfully had $14k via the community building partnership grant, approved, with a pending Purryburry Trust grant request of $3,637.

We are now awaiting guidance from the Dept as to next steps but we expect to see this move within the next month or so. Stay tuned!

Following our Sports Survey from last year, the Outdoor Learning Subcommittee has been looking at a range of options to support the findings and the desired sports priorities.

We have looked at multiple surfaces (hard court, sports tiles, and 5 different grades of artificial turf) and believe we have the final synthetic surface selected. The quotes we have received all include court resurfacing, new line marking, fixing equipment (hoops etc), and new fencing.

The Subcommittee is now rounding off the proposal for the P&C for approval to move forward ASAP.

Congratulations to all of the students and teachers who are much cooler today in the heritage-listed classrooms, the teachers' lounge, and the principal's office.

After a herculean effort, we managed to complete the air-conditioning installation over the summer break. Five ducted units were installed throughout the roof to ensure compliance with heritage requirements, as well as individual controls in each room.

And a big thanks to Todd for leading the final stage, but also to all of those that have supported, researched, presented and persisted with this project over the years. Amazing job!

What is DGR?
In simple terms it allows individuals or businesses to claim tax relief for any donations, thereby making it much more appealing for donations to occur.

Why a “Building Fund”?
The P&C cannot be registered for DGR status as “education-related bodies” can only use DGR funds for building and/or scholarships, therefore as we invest in many other non-building work we cannot be granted this status. To comply we created the NSPS P&C Building Fund managed by the P&C. It has its own constitution and bank account and is managed through the same governance model.

How does it work?
Money donated to the school for building projects goes into the “building fund” and the business making the donation can claim a tax deduction. The money in this fund can only be used for building projects.

This is a master plan that will be used for DA approval and includes all previously discussed concepts (even if formal approval has not been granted) as this saves us from submitting a proposal to the council for each item.

The core elements include the COLA, court resurfacing, fencing, play equipment groundcover, etc.

We have collated feedback over the past weeks and will be making final updates prior to our DA submission.

We are always looking for input and ideas, so please don't hesitate to reach out now.

The School Song project has been gathering momentum - a true community effort. Mara Page has filmed each of the classes talking about the “five things that Nicho means to you”. Lara has been able to use that feedback to work with the lyrics of the original song and some more recent reworking of those lyrics. The feedback from the kids has been amazing, it tugs at the heartstrings and just proves why we all do what we do for this great school!

We're excited to let everyone know that Bunnings has been hugely generous and supportive of our school gardens, and has donated thousands of dollars worth of plants, soil, fruit trees, seedlings, water cans, gloves, tools, and more!

Thanks to this donation, the school can continue to revitalise the gardens both within school grounds, but also the school Garden Club.