From the Principal's Desk

I would like to start this school newsletter acknowledging and thanking the teachers at our school on World Teachers Day. Today we celebrate and recognise the incredible work of teachers and the important role they play in shaping the lives and futures of young people.

Teaching is about so much more than what happens in the classroom. It is about building relationships, inspiring curiosity, nurturing confidence, supporting wellbeing and helping every student discover what they are capable of achieving. And at our school, we are so blessed to be able to say that we have an abundance of those capabilities across our school. In addition, I am truly blessed to come to work and lead this team on a daily basis and when I look back over my time here (coming up to four years already) I am so proud of their achievements and all that I have thrown at them as we strive to improve learning and wellbeing outcomes for all our wonderful students. 

To all the dedicated teachers at Moriac Primary School and across our community, thank you for the care, commitment, creativity and passion you bring to your work each day. The difference you make in the lives of your students extends far beyond the school gates.

Working Bee Committee

I would like to personally thank the many families that attended our school working bee a few Sundays ago. Not only did they work tirelessly on a very warm day, they gave up their personal time to make further improvements to our school yard.

The results are fantastic and I have included some photos below. The students were so excited to see the changes and in particular the pavers in the garden bed in front of the admin building with one child exclaiming 'wow our fairy garden looks amazing'.

We can't thank you enough for your work in this space and encourage any families who might be interested in 2027, to come along and be a part of these days. 

Thank you specifically to the following families:

Ovens family

Arnall family

Hobbs family

Chrzanowski family

Laver family

Spiers family

Crocker family

Lions Club Eye Testing 

Last week the Lions Club Health Program providing free vision screening for children occurred. The volunteers that visit our school and have for the past 4 years, are specifically trained in completing the vision screening assessments. Over 146 students were tested and families that consented were provided with a report or results from the screening. The volunteers spoke so highly of our school and students and commented on how respectful and friendly they all were and thoroughly enjoyed their time at our school.

Thank you to the families that consented for this service, it is really a great opportunity to get your child/ren's eyes checked for for free.

2027 Parent Requests and friendship hands-

At this time of the school year, plans are commencing for classes in 2027. Moriac PS will continue to have 11 classes in the setup below-

Prep x 2 classes

Year 1/2 x 3 classes

Year 3/4 x 3 classes

Year 5/6 x 3 classes

We are fortunate to have low class sizes across our school with the P-6 average sitting at 21, which is well under the required number of 26 students on average.

 In coming weeks, all children in years Prep- 5 will be sent home a letter explaining our friendship hand process along with the friendship hand page where families can discuss with their child/ren friends they wish to nominate to be placed in a class with in 2027.

Moriac PS has completed this process for many years with great success and ask that you speak with your child about this to support the process. Students can nominate 5 friends (in no order) that they wish to be placed with.

We are encourage ALL students to nominate 5 friends, even if they only say they want 1 or 2 students names on there as this does not mean we can guarantee placement with those friends if they choose only 1 or 2. Having a full friendship hand means an easier process allocating your child with at least one friend or more in their 2027 class. 

As  you can imagine, this is a complicated process and therefore I also ask at this stage, if there are any specific requests from parents, you email me at melissa.maccora@education.vic.gov.au. Each year I remind families that I do not take specific requests for teachers, as the staffing profile is not complete but if there are things you need me to be aware of or student requests, please get in touch.

Volunteering and supporting the school-

We have slowly built up such a great number of volunteers and helpers over the years at Moriac PS including our main group of families that are part of the Parents and Friends crew that go above and beyond at our school. 

The help is needed for many different things and truly appreciated. We understand that sometimes it can seem daunting to put your hand up and help at excursions if you haven't done so yet or for whole school events or sometimes it is just impossible with our busy working lives. Often circumstances can change last minute and you may be free to help, but have not completed the induction process or submitted your working with children check card at the front office (WWC). This really does make it hard for event organisers as child safety is our number one priority at our school and we really must follow procedures and processes. The school is required and mandated to achieve minimum standards across the board, including adhering to all child safety regulations. Further information can be found on our website- Resources — Moriac Primary School 

In 2027, we will be encouraging any family that is keen to volunteer or support at any point in the year, to complete the induction QR code process and give a copy or your WWC at the office once, so that we can keep this on file and then if there are opportunities to support the school, you are covered and safe to do so.

This is our current induction QR for any volunteers that may need it for the remainder of this year-

Reporting Changes 2027

Recently the Department of Education has updated its student reporting policy to support a more consistent state-wide approach to reporting on student achievement to take effect in 2027. A letter detailing the changes is included here- 

At this stage as our school utilises Compass for all parent communication including school reports, the system that sits behind our reports is currently being constructed.

We anticipate student reports in 2027 will look like the example attached below along with a page explaining the new look reports-

Currently for this semester, our reports will look much the same as previous years with some minor changes, however I wanted to bring the new reporting format to your attention early. Our school will also be introducing another parent-teacher conference opportunity early in Term 1, as a way of passing on valuable information to  your child's new teacher and in support of our wider transition process. 

The success of our open classrooms this year, each term featuring learning from the humanities subjects will also continue in 2027, with a dedicated afternoon allocated to opening classrooms and connecting with families further so students can proudly show off their work and achievements. 

P-2 Athletics-

The P-2 Athletics carnival was a fantastic day for our junior students with many participating wholeheartedly in all events, doing their best and representing our school with pride. I would like to particularly thank the many parent helpers that volunteered on the day and also those that showed up to support our students. The teachers came back saying, we could not have done that without them!

The school recently purchased new flags to take to our sporting events and these had their maiden voyage on this day, the photo features on the front page of this newsletter. They make for an great impression of our school. In addition to this, many adults both from our school and other schools commented on how respectful and well behaved our students were on this day, a testament to you all as parents and families. 

Keep an eye out next year for this event and consider volunteering formally on the day to support the students in P-2. 

In other Sport news...

Recently we sent some students up to Melbourne to participate in the SSV (School Sports Victoria) Regional finals. Students in Primary School can progress to this level by participating in our District comp, qualifying for Division comp, then at the Region level in Melbourne with the hope to quality for State level.

Our 11 Year old boys relay team went to Melbourne and ran their relay finishing 1st in their pool and 5th overall, a magnificent achievement. Well done to Harvey D, Darius G, George G, and Peyton T for representing Moriac PS and doing so well!

But a standout which must be highlighted was Pippa Rogers running in the 200m who also at the Division level qualified for Region. Pippa attended the regional event yesterday again in Melbourne and came third in her heat (28.76 sec) which qualified her for the final. 

In the final she came fifth with a time of 28.83 seconds which gets her on the emergency list for Team Vic which is an outstanding achievement. Congratulations to you Pippa, we can't wait to see if you get to run and represent Victoria and everyone at Moriac PS is proud of you.

Concert-

It is that time of year that our students under the careful guidance of our Performing Arts Extraordinaire Mr Jared Smith begin to learn and perfect their carefully choreographed dance performances. To support this work in Term 4, Wednesday each week is the day all students head to 'dance' with Mr Smith and learn their many dance routines.

This year we have again booked the Geelong Arts Centre to showcase these performances which is scheduled to occur on:

Wednesday December 9th. Doors will open at 6pm. Concert to begin at 6:30pm. Finish time at 8pm

This year  we will again sell the tickets via the box office and details of this will be passed onto families by Jess and Melinda in the office when our ticketing system is up and running. We will communicate the cost of the tickets ASAP, we are currently waiting on a meeting to finalise this with GAC. As occurred last year, families will have the opportunity to secure up to 3 tickets in the first rollout of sales. Once the first rollout is complete, information regarding a second rollout will occur with families able to purchase additional tickets.

Children who are performing in the concert DO NOT need to purchase a ticket and are accounted for in the school numbers.

Any children under 2 Years, DO NOT need a ticket either and are allowed to sit on an adult's lap for the duration of the concert.

All seats are general admin- so no seats will be allocated specifically to allow for any additional tickets that might be purchased in the second rollout to sit together.

The school concert is considered a fundraiser for the school but it is mainly and most importantly a way to showcase the work our students put in all term learning their dance routines in a facility that is purposefully built for this kind of thing. Mr Smith also teaches our students all about on and off stage routines, entering and exiting the stage as well as waiting in the wings quietly and the venue really supports this element of the performing arts very well. We would like to thank all families in advance for supporting this event in our school calendar. 

Information regarding costumes and props will also be communicated to families via Mr Smith and we look forward to our annual school concert which is a highlight of the year!

Prep Team 2027-

I would like to announce our Prep teachers for 2027 as we begin to advance towards our formal transition program.

Mr Ryan Fischer and Miss Emma Rodgers will be our Prep teachers next year and we look forward to this new team leading and supporting our Prep students as they enter formal education. 

The rest of our staffing profile for 2027 will be communicated in December when all elements of recruitment is complete.

Prep transition dates:

Library Borrowing-

Library borrowing will continue to occur throughout the month of November, closing off in early December. We are very lucky and appreciative of our Library Volunteer Jenny Schmidt who is slowly making her way through our library system and cleaning up the space. We do have an extremely large number of overdue books- around 170, that need to be returned to our system which you would imagine is very costly if they remain missing, so we ask that any families with library books at home that are overdue, to please return them ASAP.

End of year events- 

With many events still on our school calendar for this year, please continue to keep an eye out on Compass for approvals and payments. We do our best to stagger these out to limit compass notification overload, however we are required to send out notifications in specific timelines and sometimes we can't avoid this. If you have any questions about events or payments, please call our school office. 

School Mural

Our Year 5/6 students have finalised the school mural that they have been designing and painting in their weekly art elective. The mural features the names and handprints of all of our Moriac students and the sprawling landscapes and native animals of the area.  We would like to thank Dulux and Waurn Ponds Bunnings for generously providing use with the paint and supplies needed to complete the project. I'm sure you will all agree just how amazing it looks, brightening up the sides of the portable that would otherwise have looked very plain and boring. I would like to thank Mr Dale Evans for coming up with this idea and leading the students through this as it did take some time. It looks amazing!

School Council- Child Safety

Our recent school council meeting that occurred this week included the updating and review/revision of some school policies in our school. The list included the following which will be updated on our school website under the resources tab.

1. Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
2. Child Safety Code of Conduct
3. Child Abuse (including grooming) identification and response policy
4. Complaints Policy
5. Student Wellbeing and Engagement Policy
6. Visitors Policy
7. Volunteers Policy
8. Mobile Phone/ Smart Glasses Policy

Child safety is a priority at our school and keeping all children safe on our school grounds takes a village and includes all adults in and around our space which is why we must follow protocols such as signing in and our of our school, QR for induction for volunteers and parent helpers etc.

As with all policies, wider parent input and feedback is welcomed and encouraged and can be passed onto a parent on school council or emailed directly to the school. There was a recent update on the policy- Mobile Phones/Smart Glasses Policy by the Department of Education due to the recent availability of smart glasses for consumers. Smart glasses are banned on school sites due to the nature of their ability to record photos and videos of others and in particular children without permission. 

Have a lovely weekend,

Melissa Maccora