A Message from David & Cam...

Farewell

Families

Along with the Grade 6 students graduating, there are a number of families that we will say goodbye to AGPS at the end of the year. We would like to thank all of the students and their families for being such wonderful members of our community and for all of their contributions over the years. 

We say thank you and goodbye to the following families:

• Arundell, Cheung, Egan, Hayden, Jones, Lunn, Mak Sorel, Murnane, Wright, Broome, Mallouk, Meadon, Zoghaib, Akdag, De Visme, Ducuara Travis, Hannan Oukily, Marinakos, Nastevski, Stewart, te Marvelde, Yuen

Thank you again for your contribution to our community and you will always be part of the Altona Green Family.

Staff

We also sadly say goodbye to some staff at the end of this school year as they forge their paths away from Altona Green Primary. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following staff and acknowledge their wonderful contributions to the Altona Green community. 

• Tayler Muir - Tayler joined our school at the beginning of 2023 as a graduate and has had a wonderful start to her career in education. She has made a positive impact on the two classes that she has had at AGPS and has made many great connections with her colleagues and families. We thank her for her time with us and wish her all the best at her new school in 2025.
• Josh Hahnel - Josh joined our school mid-year in 2021 and spent time in the 4/5 team before embracing his role as the BFG in prep. He has always been a kind, patient and caring teacher who the kids (and families) all adore. His positivity and enthusiasm will be sorely missed at Altona Green and know he will make a significant positive impact on the students and staff at his new school. We particularly want to thank him for all his efforts in setting up so many preppies with a successful start to their schooling.
• Neil Marshall-Inns - Neil joined our school at the beginning of this year and has been a wonderful addition to the Year 4/5 team. His calm, positive and caring nature has helped build many positive connections with the students and families of 4/5N. He is an incredibly hard worker and does whatever he can to support his students - this will be an asset to his new school in 2025 and beyond. Thank you for all that you have done during your short time at AGPS.

Welcome!

We are delighted to welcome a number of new staff to our school in 2025. We welcome Susan Lipscomb (Point Cook College), Kate Seinfeld (Saltwater College) and Travis Wood (South Melbourne PS) to our school as well as officially welcoming Georgia McNaughton as she joins our school in an ongoing capacity.  All of these teachers will add great value to their teams and we are really enthusiastic about what they will bring to their classes. Susan, Georgia and Kate met their 2025 students at our final Step Up day and Travis spent time meeting staff and working with Nancy on all things PE. All the teachers and students are very excited about sharing their 2025 journey together. 

2025 Class Details

Year 6 Graduation

We had a wonderful time celebrating our Year 6 students at our graduation ceremony last night. It was wonderful to hear the students share memories of their time at AGPS and to celebrate the achievements of this cohort of students. We were really pleased to be able to share this special event with so many families and other significant people in the students' lives. 

Our Year 6 award winners for 2024 are:

• Kitchen & Garden: Liam Fogarty
• Italian: Madelyn De Vaux
• Physical Education: Jensen Wheeler
• Arts: Isla Evans
• STEM: Joseph Uluakiahoia
• Citizenship: Amelia Alexis, Isabella Parratt, Georgia Arundell, Eve Walton
• Academic: Kabir Khan, Harriet Culbertson, Adele Marinakos
• Tim Watts Award: Logan Howard

I would like to thank Fiona, Hayley, Eugene, Carly and Tanya for their tremendous efforts in putting such a great event together. Cam and I, along with the students, parents and staff, are really appreciative of everything they have done to make this event and their final year at AGPS a special one. 

A Message from our School Captains

Dear AGPS,

We hope you are well.

From the deepest part of our heart, the 2024 school captains, Harriet, Jensen, Georgia and Connor would like to thank the current and extended school community for the last 7 years here at Altona Green. We would like to say merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all and wish you all the best of luck for 2025.

AGPS, thank you for everything! You have taken us from nervous 5 year olds and turned us into strong and determined adolescents we are today and we are forever grateful.

Thank you,

Georgia, Connor, Jensen & Harriet

End of Year Concert & Christmas Fun Day 

A reminder that next Tuesday we will be having our annual Christmas Fun Day during the day followed by the end of year concert in the evening. Both of these events are highlights for our kids and the wider community and we are very excited to have a day and night of celebrations after another wonderful year at AGPS.

Here are the details of the events again:

Christmas Fun Day:

• Casual clothes - Christmas theme!
• Students can bring along $1 coins for:
  • Dunk the teacher!
  • Xmas face painting
  • Xmas temporary tattoos
  • Guess the lollies competition
  • Pin the nose on Rudolph
  • Icy Poles
  • Popcorn
• Students go home at 3:15pm as usual

End of Year Concert:

• School opens again at 5pm
• 5-6pm families are invited to attend for dinner. Food options include:
  • Sausage sizzle
  • or Bring your own picnic
• Concert will begin at 6pm and conclude approximately 7:30pm
• Raffle ticket winners will be drawn during the concert
• Seating is limited so we encourage you to bring along a chair

End of Year Assembly

At 12:30pm on Friday 20th, we will have our final assembly for the year. At this assembly we will announce the 2025 school captains, present student awards, announce this year's recipient of the Jo Tyers Community Award and farewell our Year 6 students with the traditional guard of honour.

A reminder that school finishes at 1:30pm on Friday 20th.

Grade 6 Smoothie Project

The Grade 6 students have been working diligently researching, marketing and finally producing a range of delicious smoothies! We, along with the Grade 4/5 students, were invited to taste each of the smoothies and vote for the smoothie that we liked the best. There was a high degree of excitement as the Grade 6 students, working in small groups, tried to persuade us that their smoothie was the best! 

The quality of the marketing material, teamwork and the end product are a testament to the extremely hard work that our Grade 6 students have put into this authentic and engaging project. Congratulations to all of the Grade 6 students on a very successful project!

Prep Morning Tea

Our wonderful Preppies recently had a fantastic experience of coming to school in their PJs for their special morning tea! They were very independent and prepared their own food before getting themselves dressed and ready for the rest of the day at school. The smiles on their faces said it all. 

A huge thank you to all of the teachers for their time and effort in organising and participating in these memory-making experiences for our students.

Year 1 Inquiry

The Year One students have been learning all about their local area through the “My Community” Inquiry unit. A big part of this has been developing a shared responsibility to care for our local area. Last week, the students had a call to action and got outside to clean up our school! Thanks for making our community a better place, kids!

Kitchen

The kitchen has been a hive of activity in recent weeks with a few significant events occurring. The first was the first kitchen session for our 2/3 cohort. We know this is something that all kids look forward to and all reports from the staff and students indicate that it was a huge success! Trish told us how well the students worked together to make their delicious snacks.

Whilst the 2/3 students were just getting started on their kitchen journey, the Year 6s sadly came to the end of theirs. The final session is always a highlight as the students put on a high tea for their class. Cam and I are always lucky enough to be invited and to eat all the delicious food on offer. Thank you to Trish and her team of volunteers that work so hard to make this program such a success.

2025 Start and Pupil Free Days

The following dates were approved by School Council recently

2025 Start Dates:

• 28th January - Staff begin
• 29th January - Years 1-6 students begin
• 3rd February - Preps begin

2025 Pupil Free Days

• 28th January
• 28th February
• 10th June
• 4th August
• 3rd November

Millenium Time Capsule

The Altona Rotary Club have been in touch with us to let us know about the exciting opening of the Millenium Time Capsule from the top of the 100 steps at Truganina Park. All local schools contributed to the time capsule and I am sure there will be many people within our community who will know someone who put their letters in the time capsule or they themselves wrote a letter when they were in primary school. Please see the below details if you are interested.

https://altonacityrotary.org.au/sitepage/millennium-time-capsule 

Thank You!

I know we still have a week to go and I am hopeful I will be able to see many of you in person before the end of the year, however, in case I don't I would like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful community for another wonderful year at AGPS.

We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved in 2024. As a school, our focus on our key improvement strategies has continued and we have seen excellent results in all measures across our whole school.  We have recently collated all of our student achievement data and the results this year are some of the strongest that our school has had and continue the wonderful improvement that we have seen over the past few years. We are particularly pleased to see the improvement in student growth data which indicates that we are catering for all the individual students at our school. Thank you to all the staff for their efforts to make this happen and for their efforts in providing such rich, varied and positive learning experiences for our students.

We are also incredibly proud of our students. We are always proud of how kind, polite, inclusive and hard-working our students are and this is always evident as we greet students in the morning and walk through the classrooms and schoolyard. It has been great to hear of individual student achievements in a number of subject areas or extra-curricular activities and we particularly enjoy hearing about the hard work and effort that the student puts in behind each of these achievements.

We would also like to highlight the amazing achievements of Parents and Friends. This year we have had another great schedule of events and activities and these events are what sets our school apart and makes our school community as strong as it is. From the regular Friday treats to the major events that occur each term, the members of Parents and Friends have done such an impressive job putting all this together for the benefit of our kids and community. I have been lucky enough to be part of the 2025 fete committee and seeing the work that has gone on in the background to get this event up and running has been truly impressive. We are so fortunate as a school to have so many dedicated and passionate people who volunteer their time to make our school the best it can be. Thank you to anyone who has volunteered their time to make this year such a success - your efforts are such a vital piece of what makes our school such a great place.

We are really excited for 2025 and continuing to make our school even better. We are very fortunate to have a full staff for next year despite the ongoing chronic teacher shortages in Victoria, particularly the western suburbs, whilst still retaining our small class sizes and excellent range of subjects offered. 2025 is shaping up to be another productive and positive year!

Thank you again for all for all your contributions to making this year such a success. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe, relaxing and well-deserved holiday period and cannot wait to see you all again when we return in 2025!

Take care,

Dave & Cam