Principal's Report

GRADE 5/6 MELBOURNE CAMP

Last week I had the pleasure of joining the 5/6s on the Melbourne camp.  The focus at this camp is on building familiarisation of the CBD in Melbourne, including the knowledge needed to use public transport to get to and from key landmarks.  The grade 5/6 team did a great job putting together a schedule for those goals to be met and we all covered a lot of ground over the 3 days.  I have no doubt that all who attended will now be more comfortable in the centre of Melbourne and confident that they’d be able to figure out how to get to a range of places. 

The kids were super excited and were up for each of the challenges set along the way, even when the weather was against us on Thursday.  All staff, parents and students were ready for a good sleep at the end of the camp.

A big thankyou to the large number of parents who came along to help out.  All of our helpers did a brilliant job, and it was comforting to be able to move around in small groups.

REFERENDUM BBQ

It was great to use the referendum as another opportunity to run a BBQ and make some much-needed funds.  A big thankyou to Tracey and Damien Coats for doing most of the preparation and to all the parents, staff and students that joined the roster and helped out.  Thanks also to those that came across and bought a sausage or 2.

ORGANISING CLASSES FOR 2024

Term 4 is slipping by and next month the process of organising students into classes for next year will begin.  If there are significant issues, we need to be aware of when allocating your child to a class, please make sure they have been made known to Nicole, Narelle or myself by Friday, November 10th.   Teachers will be meeting soon after to begin sorting children into classes.

It is not our intention to provide parents with the opportunity to select a teacher of choice.  We have developed a very strong teaching team and parents can be confident the needs of their child will be met by any member of our team.  

Developing well-balanced classes is best for everyone and that can be made difficult if there are large numbers of requests – as such, it is important that placement requests be founded on significant reasons and not related to specific teachers. 

We try to accommodate parent requests relating to student placements, but you will understand this is not always possible.

It is also important when we come to organise classes that we know of students who will not be at our school next year. If your family is moving on, please let us know as soon as possible.  

BUSHFIRE PREPAREDNESS

After the weather we’re currently experiencing, it’s a bit hard to get your head around bushfires, but the landscape will dry out soon enough and we need to be ready to keep everyone safe. 

Our Scotsburn Campus is vulnerable to fires and each year we undertake works to reduce the fuel load around the campus and make sure the buildings are as safe as they can be in the event of a fire.

Having said that, we have every intention of hosting Scotsburn staff and students at the Buninyong Campus on days where the fire risk is high.  We are mandated for the Scotsburn Campus to close on days rated as catastrophic, but don’t intend to have anyone on site when the fire rating is Extreme.  

We will do our best to give Scotsburn families plenty of notice on occasions when the decision is taken to host staff and students at the Buninyong Campus. 

The attached document provides a detailed explanation of how we manage the threat of bushfires at our Scotsburn Campus.

COLOUR RUN

Excitement is building for our first ever Colour Run on Friday.  The weather is going to be on our side (sunny and 25 degrees) and no doubt lots of you are planning to come along and enjoy being part of the fun.  

A big thankyou to everyone for supporting the kids to gain sponsorship and well done to Jarrod Rodgers who proposed the event initially and has single handedly organised the event.