Principal's Message

We cannot believe that we are nearly at the end of Term 1, with only two more days to go! The term has flown by with lots of events for both our students and families. From unique excursion and incursion opportunities, GRIP leadership, Harmony Week, fun and fitness with Jump Rope for Heart, gymnastics, sailing, Ride-to-School day, curriculum info sessions, You-Tell-Us interviews, a SWPBS parent workshop, Welcome BBQ and not to mention the super competitive Trivia Night enjoyed by some of our staff and parents. 

As we look back over the term, we realise just how busy our school has been and even with the additional week in April, we could potentially continue with so much more to offer. The only downfall has been the winter chill we are all experiencing and we’re hoping for some extra sunny days during the school holidays.

End of Term Assembly – 2:00pm

End of Term Student Dismissal – 2:30pm

READING & CLASSROOM HELPERS

I had the pleasure of working with some of our Foundation and Year 1/2 parents on reading skills and home tips. The following PDF’s might be very helpful to all parents as we try and encourage a love of reading at Ripponlea:

Thank you to all the parents who attended the parent training course to be a Reading and Classroom Helper Volunteer. Volunteering to support school programs can be a very rewarding experience for you and your child and we really appreciate whatever time you can commit. The most important aspect to volunteering is to ensure you have a Working with Children’s Check (WWC). This link will take you to a quick step by step process if you would like to assist in the classroom, at our sporting events or excursions: http://www.workingwithchildren.vic.gov.au/

TRAFFIC SAFETY – PARKING UPDATES

Please note that Glen Eira council has changed a number of parking signs outside the school. We now have two disability parking spaces and our Kiss and Drop zone extends to the large gumtree right opposite the Ripponlea Kinder. Parking across the path that leads to the entrance of the school is permissible. We also remind all families that U-turns are forbidden along Carrington Grove between 8-9:30am and 2:30-4pm on school days.

Last year and this year our students participated in the RACV Street Scene Road Safety program. Please feel free to use this poster as a great prompt for discussion and reminders for your children to consider every day coming and leaving school and when on school holidays. We can all certainly set a good example as our children’s role models.

WORKING BEE

On behalf of the School Council, the Facilities and Environment Committee, students and staff we would like to deeply thank all the families who supported our recent working bee efforts. Throughout the day, we saw families volunteer for a couple of hours or almost a full day. We turned over the soil in the productive garden, cleaned out our costume storeroom, vacuumed the synthetic turf, topped up the sand pit and long jump pit, weeded, whipper snipped and mowed the sides of the back oval and not to mention lots of little maintenance jobs, sweeping, blowing and gathering of fallen autumn leaves. The learning deck had a good clean up and the school was looking marvellous until the dreadful storm hit us late in the afternoon. Despite the storm the school was still looking great the next day and we had achieved a lot in our first Working Bee of the year.

Robert & Bianca (Hugh), Tegwen & Benjamin (Pippi & Oscar), Chelsea (Rio & Asha), Colin & Nina (Nate), Jonathan & Suzanne (Henry), Benjamin (Millie), Clare (Celia), Bec (Pepi ) Robyn & James ( Billie, Archie & Harry), Sunil (Rafi, Sol & Wynn), Craig (Asher & Nelly), George (Bec), Jess Grey and Martyn (Josh)

YEAR 5/6 ENERGY EXPO

WOW – Our students were impressive, reflecting on their learning, demonstrating their newly acquired knowledge and showing such team work through their extended, in-depth, collaborative inquiry projects on energy sources. The whole school visited the 5/6 students to observe the Expo in action. The presentations were varied and students had several opportunities to complete peer and self- assessment of their progress. When we went around and spoke to all the students it was evident how much they exhibited true learner agency, curiosity, creativity and were highly engaged throughout the process. 

IT’S NOT OKAY TO BE AWAY - ATTENDANCE

Families are able to access their child’s attendance data each term on COMPASS. This chart can prompt students and families to consider the impact on students missing a day or more of school for no valid reason. When students stay away from school, their learning and friendships are affected. There are many practical issues associated with absenteeism. Please review this with your child and set some improvement goals for next term.

Students who are absent from school:

• miss the introduction of new work
• fail to complete work
• miss revision time
• fall behind with their learning
• develop disjointed home-reading routines
• may lack confidence and feel embarrassed because they cannot do work the class has been studying
• feel left out from class discussion when they have missed a special class activity and cannot do the associated work
• miss specialist lessons because these lessons only occur once a week and so, for example, art work is not completed or is rushed in order to finish in the limited time available
• miss celebrations, for example excursions, visitors, assemblies and special activities
• can find it difficult to break into established friendship groups and develop good friendships with their peers
• can develop a poor attitude towards school believing ‘I won’t miss much if I’m not at school’
• fail to realise that the teachers and students miss them.

Sometimes students stay at home for reasons that are not acceptable. For example:

• the child’s birthday
• too tired to come to school because of a late night
• staying home with a sibling or parent who is sick
• staying away for the whole day when an appointment is booked for a short time in the morning or afternoon
• weather conditions, for example too hot, too wet.

Please remember that if you are experiencing difficulty in having your child attend school, discuss the matter with your child’s teacher or contact us.

EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROCEDURES

Over the course of the year, our students will participate in a range of safety procedures in case of emergencies. These will include lock downs and evacuations on-site and offsite. An alert will be sent on COMPASS after each drill. Our evacuation sites include: the synthetic turf oval, basketball court, Green Meadows and Caulfield Grammar.

BUILDINGS & GROUNDS UPDATE

At the last School Council meeting our councillors unanimously agreed to direct a large proportion (40K) of fundraising monies from 2018 and 2019 to upgrade and install a new 3-6 Senior Playground. A design brief has been developed and a number of playground companies have been approached to submit their designs after consultation with our students. Our students have already put forward some of their wishes, including higher and more challenging equipment, request for two slides, gladiator monkey bars and much more. The students will be involved in a number of feedback groups early next term, following this process we will extend this consultation to our staff and parent body before a final decision is reached by School Council.

THE ROLE OF PRAISE IN GROWING MINDSETS

Kate Ashforth and I (Jess) have completed half of our training in the Berry Street Education Model. BSEM endorses our School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support approach and will inform future planning in this area. Part of our study has been on developing Growth Mindsets.

Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, conducted research into the power of praising process and effort, as opposed to praising the “natural ability” of a person. 

Dweck’s study involved several hundred Year 5 students who sat an initial IQ test. At the end of the test, the students were praised in one of two ways:

- The first group were praised for their intelligence - “Wow, great job. You must be really smart.”

- The second group were praised for their effort - “Wow, great job. You must have worked really hard.”

The impact of this subtle difference was observed in subsequent tests where the two groups began to differ vastly in their results. The second group far outperformed the first group and showed a staggering motivation to seek out increased challenges. 

So what can we learn from this? Praising the process and the effort undertaken is far more powerful than praising someone for their natural abilities and intelligence. Praise for practice, persevering with challenges and for stretching oneself promotes that growth mindset which is so pivotal in building resilience to overcome setbacks and make continual progress. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Thank you to everyone on a most succesful term! Together we have achieved a great start to the year. We would like to acknowledge our teachers for all their hard work over the term, our parents for always supporting our students and working alongside our teachers. It has been a pleasure visiting our students in their learning spaces, witnessing first hand their commitment to their learning, working alongside their peers, becoming self-directed and driven to achieve their personal and academic goals. 

“The aim is to get the students actively involved in seeking this evidence: their role is not simply to do tasks as decided by teachers, but to actively manage and understand their learning gains. This includes evaluating their own progress, being more responsible for their learning, and being involved with peers in learning together about gains in learning”.  (John AC Hattie)

We would like to wish all families and students a wonderful holiday break

and many celebrations to come over Easter. See you all next term!

    Natalie Rose                                                   Jess Grey

                   Principal                                              Assistant Principal