Assistant Principal Update

NB: Last Day of school Friday 28th June - assembly will be at 2pm in the gym. 

2.30pm dismissal.

It has been another fantastic term at APS. Today is my last day as I am heading off to New Zealand tomorrow to visit family and check out the action and ski conditions in Queenstown. I’d like to wish everyone, students, families, and staff an amazing break. Be safe and look after yourself. Rejuvenate and get ready for Term 3 which is jam packed with 3-Way conferences, numerous camps, P/1 and 2-6 Concerts as well as our athletics carnivals and another round of interschool sport. I can assure you; Term 3 is not the quiet term. 

Monday 15 July – Student Free Day

Just a reminder that the first day of Term 3 will be a student-free curriculum day. Staff will be undertaking several professional development sessions on the day. 

Melissa and James will commence the day with a session reviewing some high-level whole school and NAPLAN data, reviewing our school achievement targets, and identifying next steps at a cohort level to ensure we are striving for continuous improvement.

Our Speech Pathologist, Mary, will then lead staff through a session on supporting students identified as requiring additional support and intervention in literacy development, with a focus on exploring the different types of learning difficulties that can lead to students experiencing challenges with their literacy development.

Lost Property

A big thank you to the team of Year 5 students who sorted through the mountain of lost property. They did a fantastic job and found a significant number of owners for lost items. There are some remaining pieces laid out in the quadrangle. Tomorrow these will be sorted into second-hand uniform, charity, and items for rubbish. Please review the final lost items or remind your child to do this by tomorrow morning.

Victorian Curriculum Version 2.0 Update

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) has released the Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0.

The release includes The Arts, Health and Physical Education, Humanities, Languages (Chinese, French, Italian and Japanese) Science, Technologies, capabilities, foundational skills and cross-curriculum priorities. This follows the curriculum release of English 2.0 and Mathematics 2.0 in 2023.

To support this release, the VCAA has provided resources, introductory videos and interactive webinars on the new F-10 curriculum website. The videos outline key revisions and important aspects of the curriculum, and the webinars are an opportunity to ask questions and better understand the curriculum with a VCAA curriculum manager. 

To view the curriculum, visit the new F-10 curriculum website at f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au

To read more about the Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0 project including timelines visit the project page on the VCAA website 

Interschool Sport Grand Finals

I would like to acknowledge the amazing efforts of all the teams who made it through to finals for interschool sport. The Boys Tee-ball, Girls A Netball and the Mixed AFL teams competed last Friday in finals held at Ivanhoe Grammar and Chelsworth Park. 

The Tee-ball team came up against St Bernadette’s, a team who had comprehensively won during the regular season. The first innings went to form, however the APS boys showed great determination to pull back the large opening margin with 4 runs in their second innings. The game was in the balance going into the third, but unfortunately St B’s prevailed 14 -6; the boys can be extremely proud as this was a significant improvement on their earlier season match.

The Girl’s A netball team played Buckley House in a tough contest. The team showed resilience throughout a physical and fast paced game, eventually going down 16-7. The laughter and positivity from the girls on the bus on the way home reinforced the true meaning of primary interschool sport.

The AFL team came up against St Anthony’s in the semi-final; a team who had us 60-1 at three quarter time during the regular season match, so we knew it would be a tough match. With a new game plan which was executed perfectly by every single player, the team managed to get the result and go through to the grand final versus Ivanhoe East. While we had defeated them by a single point in the regular season, the grand final went their way. Our extremely tough semi showed as we just ran out of legs after a gruelling semi-final. 

Overall, a massive congratulations to all teams and players on another amazing interschool sports season. While it is always nice to win, the growth, team spirit and enjoyment from playing with each other and representing APS is the goal and means everyone experienced success.

First Responders Day

At assembly last week the organisers of our First Responders Day were able to present our donated funds to the emergency services. Thank you to Stephen Noton for attending and accepting the donation on behalf of the State Emergency Services (SES). Thanks again to all those families and students who supported this worthwhile cause.

Report Cards:  REMINDER 

Semester One Reports were published via Compass on Friday 21 June. An electronic copy of your child’s report is available for you to view online now and download as required from Compass. If you wish to receive a hard copy of the report, please contact your child’s class teacher. So far less than half of the reports have been accessed. We recommend families sharing the report with their child, celebrating their achievements, and positively discussing the next learning steps.  If you have any questions regarding your child’s report, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher.

Have a great holiday!

Shane Wilkie

Assistant Principal