Wonderful to see so many families in attendance at our Family Maths Night yesterday afternoon and especially to see so many parents actively involved with their children in the activities. Some wonderful teamwork on display and healthy competition!

Special thanks to Mrs Morgan for her organisation of another wonderful school event.

Congratulations to the following families:

Tallest Tower Challenge – The Kelly Family at 219 cms
Paper Plane Challenge – The Brar Family (over 10 metres)

The collaboration and our community coming together, certainly a highlight and positive way to conclude the term. Thank you to all who attended and joined in.

Staffing Update

Starting next term, we warmly welcome Laura Vallance to Fyans Park Primary. Laura will be teaching in 1/2C for the remainder of the school year. Laura has over 17 years of classroom experience, across a variety of school settings and I am sure she will be a valued addition to our team.

I would especially like to acknowledge the work of Miss Jane Lloyd over the last seven weeks. Jane has ensured learning continuity and maintained a positive classroom environment for all students.

We have Mr Hambrook taking leave in the first two weeks of Term 3 and Miss Lloyd will be taking 56H during this time.

We also welcome back Mr Calnin for the first five weeks of Term 3 with Mrs Clementine Counsel taking over the STEAM program from Week 6 -10.

A big thank you to Clementine who has also worked tirelessly this term in the STEAM program, supporting all students in the creation of their costumes and assisting Mrs McLean and the team in preparing for our school performance.

Finally, we have Mrs Vincent taking leave for Term 3 and wish her all the very best for safe travels and a happy holiday.

Author Study Celebrations

Last week we enjoyed sharing about the learning across the school with our Phil Cummings Author Study. Students from all year levels, enjoyed reading and learning about our chosen author through a variety of texts which culminated in our assembly on Friday.

Students particularly enjoyed the lunchtime clubs, all fostering a shared love of reading and strong connection to Australian Authors. A big thanks to Mrs Morgan and our teachers for their organisation of our Author Study week.

Please ensure that when you are next in the school, you check out the classroom Author Study door displays. A colourful addition across the school.

School Council News – Uniform Update

Our June School Council meeting was held on Monday night and as you will all be aware our uniform offerings were on the agenda due to A+ Uniforms, our existing supplier, selling their business to Noone Uniforms.

A big thank you to the 158 families who took the time to complete our uniform survey. There was a wide cross section of views and feedback, however we used all the available information to inform a current uniform list.

Moving forward, uniform items will only be available from Noone (this includes bucket hats and reader bags) with all uniform available at their Belmont retail store and we will let all families know as soon as the online portal becomes available. The online service will be a terrific addition for families.

From today, we will not be selling school logos for use by families. Logo items will only be available from Noone Uniforms.

Our school is mindful of the cost-of-living pressures for families and will continue to support all families who need extra assistance with State Schools' Relief (uniform support). If you wish to discuss this further, please contact Mr Scade at our front office. This year we have assisted many families with uniforms and uniform vouchers and will continue to do so.

In addition to State Schools' Relief, the Victorian Budget 2024/25 will deliver the School Saving Bonus - providing $400 in support for every child at government schools.

The Bonus will be provided to the school during Term 4 of this year, making sure families have time to plan and budget for the 2025 school year ahead.

Families will receive a credit on their school family account to help meet the cost of activities and uniforms. Cash will not be paid directly to individuals or families.

The School Saving Bonus is available to parents and carers of every child enrolled in a government school in 2025. Families eligible for the means-tested Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) including healthcare and concession card holders, will also receive the additional $400 support.

If you are a parent or carer of more than one child, you will receive the $400 School Saving Bonus credit for each child.

School Council is still finalising some uniform items and we anticipate this will be completed in our August meeting.

With any change to uniform, we acknowledge that this will take time and wish to reassure all families that students will be permitted to wear all uniform offerings for the 2024 /2025 school year.

Thank you again to all families who completed the survey and to our School Council members for representing the wider school community.

The following policies were also consulted on and endorsed by School Council this month.

Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
Child Safety Responding and Reporting Obligations Policy and Procedures
Student Wellbeing and Engagement
Inclusion and Diversity
Digital Learning Policy

Part of our PRSE (Pre-Review Self Evaluation) is ensuring our school polices are up to date and reflect the work taking place in our school.

Based on the current guidance of the Department, we have recently updated some of our policies including Duty of Care, Bullying Prevention and Yard Duty and Supervision. All current policies can be located on our school website: https://fyansparkps.vic.edu.au/policies/

In the coming months, our School Council will be supporting the school to review several policies and we will continue to keep our community up to date on the school’s website and via our newsletter.

Our Yard duty Supervision policy does require that we communicate to parents regarding our safety plans for before and after school supervision. Please see below for our recently updated details.

Before and After School Supervision

Student safety at Fyans Park Primary School is our highest priority and the safe and appropriate supervision of students is an important element of our duty of care to students. Part of this duty is ensuring parents and students are aware of our student supervision arrangements before and after school.

Before school: School grounds are supervised from 8:45am – 9:00am on the top and bottom surface of the school grounds.

After school: School grounds are supervised from 3:30pm – 3:45pm at the Camden Road and Cook Street school gates.

Students on school grounds outside these times will not be supervised (unless they are attending a before or after school care program or supervised extracurricular activity).

Parents/carers are requested to ensure that students do not attend school outside of these supervised times unless they are attending before or after school care, or a pre-arranged supervised activity (i.e. sports practice).

Families are encouraged to contact Camp Australia on 1300 105 343 or refer to https://campaustralia.com.au/schools/807F?keyword=oshc for more information about the before and after school care facilities available to our school community or if you would like any further information about our student supervision arrangements.

A reminder also to families to avoid parking across the driveway on Camden Rd before and after school. We are required to keep the driveway clear as per standard road rules.

Parents and Carers are most welcome to attend school grounds with their children on the weekends to use the oval, playground and tennis courts.

SAVE the Date for our Whole School Performance

The Museum – Secrets of the Past, Present and Future

Thursday 15th August at Costa Hall

Preparations are well underway for this year’s whole school performance. To ensure no parent misses the important information, for several weeks, we have included information about costuming requirements for each year level via your child’s department newsletter.

Similarly to our performance in 2022, we are seeking the support of families to assist with costuming with many items requested, regularly found at home or inexpensively via second hand stores or Kmart etc.

Once you have your child’s costume, please place in a labelled bag and hand in to your child’s classroom teacher.

On the day of our performance, we will be taking students to the venue for a dress rehearsal and students will return to school for the end of the school day.

Our concert this year will commence at 6.30pm at Costa Hall. We request that students arrive at 6.00pm.

Tickets will go on sale early next term, and I will send all families a post via Compass when tickets become available.

Be sure to save this date for what I am sure will be another wonderful performance and a highlight for our school community.

Our pre-recoding for the concert was held at school on 7th June and all classes had time with Mrs McLean to record their voices for the performance.

See below for 1/2N, 1/2W, 56B and 56C in action.

In STEAM classes, Mrs Counsel is working with all grades in supporting their costume creation using the design cycle and things are really starting to come together for what I am sure is going to be a school highlight!

Around the Classrooms

I was invited to 1/2B last week to share in their learning and their creation of their own class text. Each student had selected a page from the text ‘One Little Duck’ and made inferences about each of the characters, using wonderful expression in their reading aloud and punctuation in their writing., bringing their original story to life.

Save the Date - Parent Teacher Interviews

Our Parent/Teacher Interviews will be held on Wednesday 21st August from 2.30-7.00pm.

Early next term, all families will receive notification via Compass to make a booking with your child/ren’s classroom teacher.

As this is our final newsletter before the end of Term 2, I wish all students, families and staff and happy and safe school holidays and look forward to seeing families at our final assembly to be held on the green surface next Friday morning 28th June starting just after 9.00am.

A reminder that Term 3 for students commences on Tuesday 16th July with Monday scheduled as a Student Free Day.

Have a wonderful week!

Mrs Cameron

Friends & Families of Fyans Park (F & F)