Across Oliver's Desk 

Dear Parents,

As I do tours for perspective parents, I often walk around the school like a proud dad. The school and classrooms are really buzzing with kids working hard at their goals and teachers making sure lessons are engaging. The energy, the laughter and the smiles is the reason I love my job.

ON GOING REPORTING

As a school we are always looking to improve. One of the ways is to make sure that parents are kept informed on what their child is doing in our classrooms. I do hope you are all enjoying the compass uploads of your child/children at work. I know you all get far too many compass notifications but we think more news is good news. 

CLOSE THE GAP

National Close The Gap day was yesterday Thursday 20th March. 

Many of Australia’s First Peoples are still denied the same access to healthcare that non-Indigenous Australians take for granted. Despite a decade of Government promises the gap in health and life expectancy between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and other Australians is widening, not closing. On average Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people die 10 years earlier than other Australians. In a country such as ours this is unacceptable.

We hope that with education across Australia we can finally start seeing equity with the way indigenous people are treated. 

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST VIOLENCE AND BULLYING

We certainly want to educate our students on what bullying is and the consequences of bullying. We also want to make sure all our students understand what to do if they are being bullied. 

Every class at Woori Yallock P.S. will participate in anti bullying lessons before the end of the term. Remember if your child tells you they are being bullied at school please make sure that you contact myself, Flick or your classroom teacher so that we can put a stop to the behaviour and educate the bully. Bullying does not stop unless there is intervention. 

HOUSE SPORTS 

I really love our house sports day every year. It’s wonderful to see so many students with ribbons. I must congratulate Birrarung/Blue house for winning the day. Well done to the captains and the whole team. 

The most important event of the day was the parents Vs teachers race again which again was won by the teachers for the 12th year in a row, the teachers are very glad that they are still the champions. Bad luck again parents. 

I would like to thank all the parents that ran our canteen and our special lunch order day, we have an amazing parent community that I’m extremely grateful for.

DISABLED PARKING AND LOCAL PARKING

I am well aware that like most schools parking is a big issue around pick up and drop off times, believe it or not we are better off than most schools. Because of our lack of parking we have had some parents parking in the disabled parking spots. This has caused some real hardship for a few of our parents that need to use the disabled parking because they have a disability themselves or they have a child that has a disability in the car with them. 

Can I please ask all of our school community to be understanding and not park in the disabled parking bays unless you have a disabled parking sticker. 

I know that some of our parents are now parking down Symes Road and then walking up to the school. I appreciate everyone for their understanding that we will continue to have a lack of parking. The school was built for 420 students in the 1980’s but in the 80’s most students walked to school. The Yarra Ranges Council knows that we need more parking but funding is the issue.

Only two weeks of school left, hasn’t it gone fast?

Here are this week’s wonderful parents reading with their children.