Principal's News

I hope that you all enjoyed a happy holiday period, it’s great to see so many smiling faces back at school.  The time off for me was spent at a tennis tournament with my family in Maffra followed by some time down at Ocean Grove exploring the area. 

We have much to look forward to in Term 2 including the Year 6 camp, Cross Country carnivals, winter sport, half year reports to name a few exciting activities.

Our School Vision

"Cheltenham East students are empowered learners who are flexible thinkers with the skills and knowledge to respond critically and creatively to their world.”

Aussie of the Term - Millie C

Millie has been a model student at CEPS since she first arrived. She is well mannered, friendly and a hard worker.  Well done and congratulations Millie.

Do you have any siblings?

I have one sister called Charlie

What are some of your hobbies?

I do basketball and I love doing some gymnastics activities.

What is your favourite movie?

Happy Potter

What is your favourite food?

Lamb shanks

What is your favourite drink?

Lemon, Lime and Bitters

What has been your favourite ex perience at CEPS?

Grade 4 camp

Do you have any pets?

No

Farewell Robyn Kimpton 

We had a special assembly and presentation at our last assembly for Robyn Kimpton to acknowledge her amazing work at CEPS over the last 31 years. We have also set up a special friendship seat with a plaque in honour of her contribution to our school.  I would like to thank Mr Jon our handyman for setting the seat and flower arrangements up, it looks terrific. Robyn was very appreciative of the effort put in to make it a special occasion for her.

Dental Visit

The children have been visiting the dental van this week for a free check up to check their teeth and ensure they are healthy.

Year 6 Camp

The camp is happening on Monday for our Year 6 children. The children will be taking the train up from the Cheltenham station and transferring to a bus for the trip across to Echuca.  Thank you to the following teachers for volunteering their time to take the Year 6 children on camp: Miss Boucher, Mr Packham, Mr Hughes, Mrs Divya Rai, and Mr Bach. The camp is for five days where the children will attempt many challenging activities, including riding a horse, during the week and will learn more about themselves and their capabilities as they participate.

2023 Foundation BBQ

Parents of prospective Foundation students for 2023 will be coming to school on Saturday May 14th for the first of several transition visits. It will give the families an opportunity to visit classrooms and find out more about the programs we are running at CEPS. 

A huge thankyou goes out to our current Foundation teachers for giving up their time and co-ordinating the activities as well as our Parent Committee for providing sausages in bread for the families.

Working Bee

We are having a Working Bee on Sunday May 15th starting at 9am and finishing at 11am sharp. This is a great opportunity for parents to connect with each other at the school again after two years of COVID restrictions as well as helping to make the school look better.

It is hoped that as many families as possible will be able to assist. Children are most welcome and morning tea will be provided.  

Jobs to do include:

• Replace split borders around the adventure playground area

• Clean out roof gutters

• Gurney entrance ways of buildings

• Redesigning and weeding front garden beds at entrance ways

• Redesigning and weeding hall garden area

• Putting up more seating around the school using the old eating area seats

• Painting seating at the front of school

• Repairing fly screens

• Raking mulch

• Removing dead shrubs and trees

• Putting painted bollards back into the ground near the eating area

• Relocating old seats around the school

• Removing cobwebs around buildings

• Pruning shrubs

The following tools would be helpful:  Ladders, Wheel barrows, spades, rakes, blowers, gardening tools.  

To assist in the planning of the work & refreshments would you please respond via email (cheltenham.east.ps@education.vic.gov.au) or on class DOJO post with expected attendance by Friday 13th May;

Family Name:

Adults attending:

Children attending:

We will be completing a variety of work around the school with more details of activities to come shortly.

NAPLAN Readiness 

Our Year 3 and 5 students have been preparing for the NAPLAN tests coming up in May. The following dates are set aside for testing across the state:

Tuesday 11th May - Writing     

Wednesday 12th May -  Conventions of Language (Spelling and grammar)   

Thursday 13th May -  Reading

Friday 14th May -  Numeracy 

Tests will be conducted online and the children will be attempting some practise tests in the lead up to NAPLAN week.

School Hats

Just a reminder that school hats are no longer required to be worn by the children. They can be taken home and washed ready for the summer months later in the year.

Principals Conference

Mrs Ward and myself are attending a Principal’s conference yesterday and today (Friday) to learn more about resilience in children and literacy and numeracy teaching.

Student Learning and Effort 

When we talk about student achievement, we talk about what the teacher does that is most effective and also what students can do that increases their learning. Things like maintaining effort, concentrating, giving attention to, focusing, persevering and completing the work or task. 

CEPS students and teachers use learning goals and intentions for each lesson to help students know what to do and what to focus on. Focus is about making things clearer, doing those things like identifying similarities and differences that make learning explicit and building connections to other things students know or know how to do. 

Students in class can do many things to help improve their learning like making notes while the teacher is talking, draw an image to represent what they have learned, asking the teacher for help or feedback. Teachers have a feedback session during and at the end of each lesson so they know who is learning and who needs more help. These things keep our students on track, paying attention and focused. 

Through their planning, our teachers help students to focus and improve. Through their use of prompts, visual images, short video clips, humour, making things engaging and fun, making it challenging, making the learning interesting, students will be more focused. This means students will do more, write more, read more, be connected more, be able to apply more, be involved more in class, be learning more. As a staff we are aiming for at least 12 months’ learning progress in a calendar year for all of our children. 

Medication Reminder

A reminder to all parents that any medication your child is to receive at school must be clearly labelled and explained to their teacher. All anaphylactic and asthmatic sufferers need an ASCIA action plan from their GP for staff to follow in case of emergency.

COVID Update

COVID cases continue to be a part of our daily life. The Rapid Antigen program will continue for the first four weeks of Term 2. Children are not required to wear masks at school.  If your child contracts COVID please continue to send in an email detailing their date of birth, date of when they contracted the virus and include symptoms if any.  Children displaying COVID symptoms or signs of illness at school must be collected and returned to school after 24 hours (if testing negative to a RAT test).

CYBER SAFETY

As a school we are very pro-active with ensuring technology is being used in the right way so the following are some tips for parents to follow to ensure their children are following expectations:

• If your child comes to you for assistance on an online encounter they’ve had, try not to be judgmental; regard it as a learning experience
• Be sure to set a good example yourself, and ensure that older siblings or other adult influences in your child’s life promote appropriate use of the internet
• Take the time to teach your child effective conflict management skills, and what actions they can take if someone confronts or antagonises them
• Be an ongoing resource in helping your child to consider the potential consequences of their online actions, not just for themselves but for others (remember, children don’t have fully developed frontal lobes – which is the part of the brain responsible for consequence anticipation – so this can be challenging for them to do on their own)
• Educate your child on the importance of privacy, and keeping their personal information secure
• Explain red-flag behaviours in a way that young kids can understand; you might tell them that chatting to other players about the game publicly within the game is okay, but to tell you if anyone ever messages them privately or asks for offline contact
• Check privacy and location settings, use parental controls, configure your home computer’s browser search settings, and familiarise yourself with how to make complaints about offensive content
• While it might be tempting to use spyware or surveillance apps, it’s best to try and nurture mutual trust between you and your child so that they don’t go to extra effort to hide things from you.

School Values

The children will continue working closely together through the coming winter months. This is a great time to reinforce our school values of RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, COURTESY and CO-OPERATION with all children.  Filling someone’s bucket of kindness should be a priority for all children and adults. Helping others is to be encouraged by everyone and can be done in a variety of ways. It is great to see our Year 6 children looking after the younger children out in the yard.

Thought For the Week

Principal

Wayne Bach