School Philosophy

Orchard Grove Primary School is committed to providing a safe, nurturing environment that engages curiosity, promotes learning, personal growth and wellbeing for all students. We strive to develop adaptability and resilience so students can become valued members of the local and global communities and be prepared for future life experiences.

From the Principal

Well, I finally had my five minutes of fame with the media coverage last week about the new legislation by the Andrews Government regarding abusive and violent parents in schools. I was approached for my comments as I am on the Board of the Victorian Principals Association (VPA) and as soon as I did the first radio interview with Virginia Trioli on the ABC, my phone started ringing. I have no idea how they get your mobile number!

For many of my colleagues, this is a huge and sad issue in their schools and the reaction to my interviews with Channel 9 and ABC news, along with the Today Show, was quite overwhelming. I had many principals and teachers reaching out to thank me for being a voice for them. I also appreciated the response of support from our OGPS community. Thankfully, this issue isn't much of a concern in our context at OGPS, which is a testament to the calibre of our community and our supportive, tolerant and understanding culture.

Our Year Four students and teachers have been on camp at ADANAC in Yarra Junction this week from Wednesday to Friday. The weather has been a bit of a mixed bag, however they have had a great time hut making, experiencing archery, canoeing, trampolining and having a wonderful campfire experience. Have a look at our Facebook site for some great photos. A big happy birthday to Miss Tahnee Ramsay, who had the best birthday party ever by sharing her birthday with the children on Thursday. Once again, it is wonderful to hear feedback about how well behaved OGPS students are. Thank you to the staff and parents who attended the camp. Without their willingness to attend, the children would not be able to have these wonderful experiences. In two weeks' time, our Year Fives will be off to Coonawarra for the week, a fantastic camp experience, and we look forward to hearing all about it.

The Book Fair trolleys have arrived and the children are having a wonderful time exploring all the books on offer this year. The sale of the books will start next week, and the library will be open before and after school if you want to come in with your child and purchase some books. The library is a bigger space than the classrooms so, under the present COVID density limits, we can have thirty people in the library, including students, at any one time. Please come along and support the library and purchase some books for your children, or even gifts for others. All profits from the Book Fair go back to support the library.

Today is our wonderful art teacher Mrs Georgia Syme's last day before she goes on leave in preparation for the arrival of her baby. We would like to thank Georgia for her dedication to teaching here at OGPS and wish her and her husband, Richard, all the best as they venture into parenthood. I would also like to congratulate our Spanish teacher, Senora Natalia Thomas, on the arrival of little Mila Jae, weighing in at 7.1Ibs. A hearty congratulation to Natalia and her husband, Chris.

Open Night this year for Education Week is Wednesday 2nd June from 5:30-7:00pm. There is more information on the flyer further in the newsletter, however, basically, each year level will hold activities such as games, exploratory activities, displaying student work and hands-on demonstrations in Wellbeing, Literacy, Numeracy and Inquiry in the classrooms. Once again, due to COVID restrictions, density limits in each classroom including students restrict us to having only 24 people in a room at any time. Please help us with this as you prepare to visit your child's learning area. It would be great to see you there, and it is lovely to finally be able to invite parents back into the school. The library will also be open, but the other specialist spaces won't be available due to the current restrictions.

Remember, we have our WOW Walk or Wheel to school program on the go at the moment. Whitehorse Council has sponsored this event, with the Golden Boot Award and other prizes for the class that records the highest participation in walking to school each Friday.

Please encourage your child to join in; it is a valuable initiative with great health benefits.

We are needing to remind the students about their uniform consistently at the moment. It is quite cold now and all children should be wearing the winter uniform. We are still seeing students coming to school with no jackets or hoodies and wearing summer dresses. Please also note that summer dresses with tights or leggings is not acceptable. Due to health and safety requirements, long hair needs to be tied up, and hair should not be restricting the child's vision or causing them to be continually needing to brush their hair away from their eyes while working and playing. We would really appreciate it if you could help us to enforce our uniform policy as we have no desire to embarrass children for not being in the correct uniform.

The tender of the second stage of the Level Four building project has finally closed. Unfortunately, we needed to go through this process twice to secure a suitable contractor. We are hoping to appoint a builder in the next week, with the project starting within a few weeks and having an end date of mid-September. If all goes to plan, this would mean that the Year Four classes would take ownership of this space ready for Term Four; we will keep you posted. This is an Orchard Grove Primary School self-funded project, something of which we can be very proud.

Foundation tours and enrolments are well underway so, if you have a child ready for school in 2022, please get an enrolment form from the office or the school website and return it to school as soon as possible. We would greatly appreciate your help with this, as it helps us with our future planning for next year.

We will be running two sessions next week for parent helpers. The first session will be at 3pm on Tuesday the 18th May and the other will be at 9:30am on Thursday 20th of May. Please register your interest by emailing the office (orchard.grove.ps@education.vic.gov.au), noting the session you would like to attend so we can allocate an appropriate COVID-safe presentation space.

Finally, there is a Working Bee on Saturday 22nd May from 9am until 12pm. We are trying a Saturday this time rather than a Sunday to see if we can get a better turnout. It would be wonderful to have as much help as possible on the day. Working bees are an important way for us to keep our maintenance costs down and we really appreciate the help.

I hope you have a terrific weekend. Take care and talk soon.

Glenda Harry

Principal