Assistant Principal's Report

Welcome to Week Nine of Term One!

A huge congratulations to our Prep students who have almost been at school for a whole term. We have noticed a big change in all of you since you started Prep and became DPS Superstars. We can't wait to see what you will achieve in your first full year of Primary School.  

Cultural Diversity Week

This week, we have celebrated Cultural Diversity Week at DPS. Students have been learning about different cultures and recognising and celebrating the diversity among us here at DPS. We are so privileged to have so many cultures represented at our school. The students have enjoyed participating in different activities throughout the week to celebrate this special occasion. Student work samples are included in this newsletter and they look wonderful.   

NAPLAN

Congratulations to all of our Level Three and Five students who participated in the NAPLAN assessments. We have almost finished, we just have our Level Five Maths NAPLAN Assessment on Friday 24th March. A huge THANK YOU to Niky Corfios who has assisted us in the transformation to the online NAPLAN service this year and an even bigger thank you to all of the Level Three and Five teachers for their preparation and hard work leading up to NAPLAN. We are sure that our students did very well and displayed their abilities and skills throughout all of the assessments. Congratulations to our fabulous DPS students, we are very proud of your efforts.

Easter Raffle 

The JSC are holding an Easter Raffle and selling tickets for $2 each. Tickets will be on sale each day from Monday 27th March and the raffle will be drawn on Friday 31st March. Thank you to Miss Larsen for your work with JSC and for sourcing such great prizes for our raffle this year.  Good luck, I hope you win some choccies!

Fathering Project: Thursday 30th March

We are very excited to be hosting our first Fathering Project Event for 2023, Pizza and Planes next Thursday evening. This will be a free event for all DPS families to attend. Families will make paper planes and see how far they can travel and there will be pizza available on the night. We hope you’ve registered and we will see you there. Thanks to Mrs Coumaros and the Fathers on the Fathering Project Committee for all of their work planning this event. 

Policy

We have updated many of our Doncaster Primary School policies at the start of this year. Please see our website for these and all of our school policies. If you have any questions regarding these, please contact the school office on 9848 1122.

New School Council President 

Congratulations to Kelvin Wong (father of Elijah Wong 5K) who was nominated and appointed School Council President at Tuesday's Council Meeting. Kelvin has been a member of School Council for quite a few years and has bought so much enthusiasm and passion to council. We look forward to working with Kelvin on many projects throughout the years to come. 

Free groceries: Eastern Food Rescue

Eastern Food Rescue (formerly Food is Free Mitcham) is an outdoor free access pantry for everyone, where locals can either donate goods or take things that they need. The primary goal is to divert food waste from landfill and feed it back into the community. 

Eastern Food Rescue collect donations from various local businesses to help keep the pantry full and also rely on community donations from neighbours. Regular donors include: Wendy’s Bakery (Mitcham), Mylk Bar (Mitcham) and Bakers Delight (Forest Hill).

There is no need to show ID, produce a concession card or be approved, ANYONE can attend and take the free food they have on offer.  Remember to take your own shopping bags.

Location: 8-12 Simla Street, Mitcham.

Time: Accessible 24/7 but mini markets are 11:00am and 8:00pm Mon - Fri

Special Events: Free food market on Saturday and Sunday 11:30am at Antonio Park Primary School 

National Young Leaders Day

Next Monday 27th March our School Captains Jude, Isaac, Adrina and Jenna will be attending the National Young Leaders Conference held annually at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. There they will participate in workshops with inspirational leaders and other school captains too. Guest speakers this year will include; Nazeem Hussain (TV and radio personality), Amanda Johnstone (Tech Inventor), Robert Dipierdomenico (AFL Superstar) and Candy Hertz (TV Sports Broadcaster). I am excited to hear all about the day from our School Captains in our next issue of the newsletter. Have a great time captains!   

IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS 

If you or a family member are struggling and would like to seek help the following numbers may be of use. 

Kids Help - kidshelpline.com.au phone 1800 55 1800 

Parent Line - betterhealth.vic.gov.au phone 13 22 89 

Headspace - headspace.org.au phone 1800 650 890 

eSafety Commissioner - esafety.gov.au - Advice for parents and carers to help children have safe experiences online

Carly Epskamp