Principal's Report

Staffing updates

I firstly just wanted to provide you all with a couple of staffing updates. You will notice that the next few newsletters will only have a principal's report due to Ms Sutherland being away on Long Service Leave. Ms Sutherland is enjoying some well deserved time travelling through Europe and will be returning early in Term 3. During this time a number of our teachers will be supporting myself and the admin team in the office area. 

We recently said farewell to Mrs Knight who has now commenced family leave, awaiting the birth of her baby girl. We wish her and her family the very best on the arrival of her little one. Mrs Kovac has returned from family leave to fill this position and this transition has been a smooth and positive one. 

A big congratulations to Mr Hodge and his wife Kat who this week welcomed a baby boy, Kai Charles Hodge to the world. From all accounts, mum and baby are doing well and Mr Hodge and big brother Cooper are on cloud nine. Mr Hodge will be taking some family leave over the next few weeks. 

Finally, today we are saying farewell and good luck to Sam Lehman, who will be departing Orchard Park Primary School to continue her teaching career in the secondary school system. Sam has a real passion in literacy support and intervention within older students and an incredible opportunity has been presented to her that she has decided to take. Whilst we are incredibly sad to see Sam leave, we are so grateful for the time she has been here, and we wish her the very best in her future teaching career. 

For the remainder of Term 2, Maria Hughes will be teaching 5/6B. Maria has been a consistent CRT here at OPPS over the past term and is someone that is very familiar with our students and our school. 

From the beginning of Term 3, 5/6B will have 2 familiar teachers stepping in to teach the class. On Mondays and Tuesdays, Bridget Stein will be teaching the class. Bridget has recently been teaching our Tutor Learning Program and is a familiar face for many of our students. On Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays, Tegan Peebles will be returning from Family Leave to teach the class. Both Bridget and Tegan are very excited to be taking on these responsibilities for the remainder of the year. 

Reconciliation Week

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending flag raising ceremony at the Cardinia Shire Offices with Mrs Delport, our indigenous students and School Leaders. This was to recognise the commencement of Reconciliation Week.

Students participated in a range of activities and were fortunate to also be a part of the smoking ceremony as part of the Welcome to Country that was conducted. One of our students Kaya also did an incredible job of representing our school with pride and raising one of the flags. As always, our students did an incredible job of representing our school with pride. A personal highlight for me was hearing from a primary school student about what Reconciliation Week means for herself and her family. It was very inspiring and motivating to hear. 

Professional Practice Day

Last Friday 2nd June, we had a Professional Practice Day here at OPPS. Whilst students were not in attendance, our staff were immersed in a range of professional learning sessions to further build their capacity as teachers and education support staff. One of the main parts to the day was further building our understanding of the writing continuum and how we assess and monitor the learning progress of students in this area. As always, it was just brilliant to see staff engaging so positively in this learning to further improve outcomes for our students here at OPPS. 

Inclusive Schools Fund

As some of you may recall, we were extremely fortunate last year to have been successful in receiving over $190,000 through the Inclusive Schools Fund. These funds are to extend our playgrounds at the front of the school to cater for the interests and needs of our students. I recently met with our appointed architect and began drafting some initial concepts around this design. I look forward to keeping you all up to date with the progress of this project and I anticipate we will commence construction later this year. 

Lightning Premiership Sports

Today we sent our Senior School students off to Lightning Premiership Winter Sports competition. Lightning Premiership is a culmination of our interschool sports program, where our students will compete against all of the neighbouring schools in their chosen sports. At the time of writing the newsletter, results were not known. However I am sure the students have done their best and stay tuned for more news on the final results. 

Division Cross Country

Recently we had 8 students compete at the Cardinia Division Cross Country event.

We are super proud of you all for your huge efforts in your races and being fantastic representatives for OPPS!

Congratulations to Jacob who placed 3rd (earning a bronze medal) and Harley who placed 6th in the same race who now progress to the Southern Metro Region event! This is an incredible achievement and we wish them both well at this next stage of the competition.

End of Term reminder

Just a reminder that in 2 week's time, on Friday 23rd June, our term will conclude. As such, the school day will finish at 2pm. We will adjust our school day and assembly will run at 1:30pm on this day.