Principal's Report

Wow! Can’t quite believe December is almost upon us!

Over the fortnight I have been involved in a few exciting and rewarding activities.

On Saturday 23rd November, I was lucky enough to join Max Chen’s proud parents at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre to see Max receive one of the highest awards given by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) - The International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) Medal for achieving the top score awarded in a subject in a year level for English. There was only one other child who achieved this level in Year 6 in Victoria.  An amazing achievement! Congratulations, from all of us, Max.

Science Fair

On Monday night I attended the Australian Science Fair held at John Monash Science School. As part of the Little Scientists program, four of our Year 6 students, Albin, Nupur, Sanjaya and Sathee presented their research project. Their research question was “Can hand sanitizer effectively kill bacteria?” They were all able to articulately explain the investigation and the findings to other students, teachers and parents in attendance at the Fair.

The following is a report of the evenings experience from the four presenters.

We started by making Albin put his fingers on a petri dish which had agar in it. Then, Albin used some hand sanitizer and cleaned his hand then he put his finger on the next Petri dishes with agar and let the bacteria grow. After five days some growth of the bacteria had shown on two clean Petri dishes and two dirty Petri dishes. The difference from the clean to the dirty Petri dishes were significant. The reason why some bacteria was growing on the clean Petri dishes was that the hand sanitizer that we used, Palmolive Japanese Cherry Blossom, only kills 99.9% of germs so that is the reason why there was still some bacteria growing. At the Science Fair, there were many other projects done by other schools. Our project had attracted a lot of people and they asked questions about our project such as, “How much alcohol was in the hand sanitizer?’ and “Were we killing good or bad bacteria?” The year elevens had a separate science fair. Some of the topics they did for their project were “If homemade soil is better than organic soil?”, dementia, tetanus and human reproduction. Some students from different cities of Australia such as Sydney, Darwin and Adelaide, came to visit and judge the science fair. Everyone did an amazing job and our experiment was a success.

By Albin, Nupur, Sanjaya and Sathee

Instrumental Music Concert

I am looking forward to this evening to attend the Instrumental Music Concert. This is a wonderful opportunity for students who are part of the instrumental music program to showcase their talents and to share what they have learnt over the year to their parents, grandparents, siblings and friends.

Staffing News

I do understand that as one year draws to a close students, parents and teachers look forward to what the next year will hold for them. We are currently finalising the employment of teachers for the 2020 school year, as soon as this is finalised I will to let you know the staffing structure for 2020. Thank you for your patience with this.

Launch into Learning

Last week, we had our final ‘Launch into Learning’ transition days, with our new 2020 Foundation students. It was a musical experience, for our littlies with Leo Kahans our marvelous music teacher.

Orientation Day for our new Foundation students will be on Tuesday 10th December from 9.30am to 1pm. On this day they will meet their teacher and their ‘buddies’ for 2020, receive their school t-shirt and have a morning experience similar to a typical day at school.

Whole School Transition

Internal transition opportunities have begun, these allow for students to move to the next year level to experience their new environment in a relaxed informal manner. A more formal session is planned for Tuesday 10th December, when students will move to their next year's level space from 9am to 1.30pm. In addition to this, the teachers are again currently working on creating a ‘Fact Sheet’ for parents/carers who have students moving from Foundation to Year 1, Year 2 to 3 and from Year 4 to Year 5. The fact sheets will set out the major organisational changes that will take place for the students in preparation for the 2020 school year.

Camp Out

Camp Out is happening tomorrow night from 4pm onwards on the oval. From my many years in schools I haven’t heard of such an event, it sounds a perfect opportunity for lots of fun and community engagement.

Dessert Night

Please note there has been a change to the calendar, the Dessert Night has been moved to Monday 16th December. For those who are new to the school this year the Dessert Night is when families bring a dessert to share. It is our final opportunity to farewell the families who are leaving us at the end of the year, this includes all our Year 6 families and those families from other year levels too.

Finally, I would like to wish our Solar Car team all the best, Anthony, Flynn, Max, Ostap and Mrs Giannone-Perri, as they head to Hobart this weekend to compete in the Australian-International Model Solar Championships. Go Syndal!!