Principal's report 

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin nation; past, present and those who will walk with us into the future.

We acknowledge the rich and unique cultural and spiritual relationships to the land, waters and seas, educational practices and the hopes of all First Nations Peoples. We do this in the spirit of reconciliation as we move to a place of justice and partnership - together we work, learn, play and care for one another and this land.

Please Help - Volunteer Working Bee Week

We're excited to be trialling a volunteer working bee week from the 11th until the 15th of December.  We require a wide range of skills, and should have something for everyone to be able to help with.  If you have any time to assist us during this week - we would love to have you here at Kalinda!  We will run this during school hours (9:00am until 3:30pm) and you are welcome to bring your snack and lunch and join us in the staffroom during break times.

Please use this link to sign up.

Some of the jobs we would like to tackle are:

• Assembling bookshelves for classroom libraries, ready for 2024
• Assist with sorting and moving furniture and resources between classrooms.
• Assist with removing classroom and foyer displays.
• Remove signs and room numbers in preparation for painting.
• Assist with moving furniture in painting areas.
• Assist with reorganisation of storerooms in preparation for painting.
• Tinker Lab - remove everything off walls.
• Sort and clean out stadium storeroom.
• Assist in classrooms with sorting resources and cleaning equipment.
• Assist with skip loading.
• Cutting up of old soccer goals and shelving units beside containers – angle grinder required, or knowledge of how to safely use one.
• Library - stocktake, book covering, setting up classroom libraries.
• First Aid – help with collation of yard duty bags and posters for classrooms.
• And more as we add to the list.

You will need a current working with children check and signed code of conduct to help, and will need to sign in at the office when you arrive.

Toilet upgrade

After a very long time and a lot of work going into the planning process, our toilet upgrade of all toilets in the main building (canteen toilets, Art room toilets, accessible toilet) will be completely refurbished and upgraded over the upcoming summer holidays.

This is the largest infrastructure project at Kalinda since the stadium was built and we are really excited to be able to improve the toilet facilities for all of our students.

I would like to give a huge thank you to our Project Manager Vicki Beard, Business Manager Melissa O'Rorke, members of the facilities sub-committee and School Council for the work in planning for the refurbishment.

Gaga pits and playground upgrade

The next major works that will be planned for after the toilet upgrade, will be a playground upgrade. This planning will include consultation with our community and, most importantly, with our students. As the users of the playgrounds, they are the experts on the space.

In the meantime, thanks to the fundraising efforts of our Parents and Friends Association, we will be installing two gaga pits at the school. A large number of students have been hoping for gaga pits at the school, particularly after using them on school camps.

At the moment we are just going through the planning of where to locate them and we are aiming to have them installed early in 2024. Thanks again to the P&F for making this possible.

7 marathons in 7 days 

We are really proud to support the efforts of Curtis Cooper, father of Archie in Foundation, who will be running 7 marathons in 7 days in 7 cities around Australia as part of Bravehearts 777 Marathon.  Bravehearts is an Australian child protection organisation, you can read about their amazing work here.

As a school, we will be supporting Curtis' fundraising efforts during the lead-up to the marathons in the June of next year. Please follow this link for further information if you are keen to support Curtis with this fantastic fundraising mission.

Shaun McClare,

Principal 

Kalinda Primary School

We are kind. We are resilient. We are respectful.