Principal's Report
Pakenham Springs Primary School acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners of the land on which the School stands.
It has been wonderful to walk around the school over the past few weeks and observe how beautifully our students are settling into the new school year. Our focus these first few weeks has been on setting our high expectations for learning and building a positive learning climate.
In writing lessons, students across the school have been focusing on personal writing during their writing sessions. Starting next week the whole school writing focus will be on persuasive writing. Families who were part of the Springs over the last two years will remember our large focus on writing and our strategic whole school approach. This will continue in 2019 while teachers also begin to work on a consistent approach to reading. Already students across the school have been learning our high expectations about their reading and reading lessons.
School Council
We have seen lots of interest throughout the nomination period for the School Council and will announce the 2019 School Council members in the next newsletter. Some parents have opted to nominate for school council while others prefer to help out the parents group. If you are interested in helping out throughout the year please let the office know. If you are interested in School Council please make sure your nomination form is in before nominations close at 4pm Monday 25th February.
Yard supervision
Whilst there are often staff present at Pakenham Springs PS from approximately 7.30am to 6pm each day, they are not on duty for all of this time. Students are supervised in the yard before and after school from 8.45am-9.00am and then from 3.15pm-3.30pm. If you need to drop off or pick up your children outside these times please use the Out of School Hours Care program. Please visit the OshClub website for further information.
LOST PROPERTY
Please name your child’s school uniform. The students are very good at finding items of clothes and bringing them to lost property however if unnamed it is difficult to find an owner amongst our eight hundred students! All named items are returned directly to the classroom.
Hats
Just a reminder that it is school policy that hats must be worn outside during Term 1 and 4. Students without hats have restricted undercover areas to play in. Please make sure your child has a correct hat. Thank you in advance for supporting this and keeping your child safe in the sun.
INSURANCE OF ITEMS BROUGHT TO SCHOOL
Parents are reminded that the Department of Education does not hold insurance for personal property brought to schools and it will not pay for loss or damage to such property. This means that if a child brings something to school which is then subsequently stolen or misplaced, the school is not liable for replacing this property. As such, parents need to consider carefully what items (i.e. mobile phones, computer games, ipods, bicycles, skateboards, scooters etc) that students bring to school. Many household insurance policies allow parents to nominate “portable” items which are taken out of the household.
PARKING IN LOCAL STREETS
We have had a request from local residents regarding parking in the local streets surrounding the school. Can parents please be mindful of not parking across driveways - blocking residents from leaving their houses. We thank you for your understanding with regards to this matter.
Kerryn Baillie
Principal