A Message from David & Cam...

Mother’s & Special Person’s Day

What a great afternoon celebrating all the mothers, grandmothers and other special people in our children's lives! We were fortunate that the rain held out and it was great to see so many people enjoying time together under Gumbuya and through the school grounds with their friends and families. 

A huge thank you to Leanne for her organisation of the stall and to Tom for organising and preparing the wonderful food. Another huge thank you to the wonderful volunteers who gave up their time and worked behind the scenes to help create such a successful occasion for all of our families. 

I hope all the mums and other special people in our community have a wonderful day on Sunday and are able to relax, get spoilt and enjoy the day with their loved ones.

Laverton District Cross Country Results

What a fine day we had last Friday the 3rd of May as our young, long distance runners took to the track leading up to the 100 Steps and back.

Of the 32 participants from the Altona Green Team, the following students have qualified to go on and represent our District in the Hobsons Bay Division event on Tuesday the 28th of May.

Good luck to the following qualifiers:

• 9/10 Boys - Oden W (2nd), Ned K (9th), Jack W (10th).
• 9/10 Girls - Gracie W (3rd), Olivia B (8th).
• 11 Boys - Felix L (3rd), Josh Q (9th)
• 11Girls - Bobbie W (2nd), Rosie C (4th), Willow E(9th).
• 12/13 Boys - Jensen W (1st) 
• 12/13 Girls – Harriet C (1st), Evie C (3rd)

Shaping Minds - Numeracy Professional Learning

As part of our school focus on the effective teaching & learning of Numeracy, this week Amy from Shaping Minds visited our school and observed our classroom teachers during a Numeracy lesson and then provided the teachers with feedback. Amy also ran a session for staff after school on effective teacher practices. Amy mentioned how impressed she was with the lessons she observed and the attitude of our teachers in relation to continually striving to improve our teaching & learning strategies.

Parent WelResource

Recently Liz attended the Victorian State Conference on ADHD and learnt about many excellent resources relating to ADHD and overarching, effective parenting strategies. The below link from Stephanie Pinto is an excellent parent resource and contains strategies pertaining to a range of challenges that parents / carers face when raising their children. 

We encourage you to explore this link:

Athletics & Sports Day

3-6 Athletics

Our 3-6 Athletics Day was a huge success! The weather gods smiled on us and our students gave their all in the events. There were some fantastic performances, however the highlight of the day was seeing and hearing how encouraging our students were to their peers. Nancy is compiling the results of the different events and working out who will progress to the next stages of competition. This information will be published in the near future. Thank you to Nancy for all her hard work in organizing the Athletics Day.

P-2 Sports Day

Whilst all the big kids were off at athletics, our P-2 students were enjoying a fun-filled morning of different activities and games. From all reports, the sports day was a great success and all the students had a great time. The P-2 students were able to make new friends in their mixed groups and were required to work together to complete challenges. Thanks to all the teachers, ES staff and parents that were able to help out and make the event so fun for our students.

Shark Tank

Our Grade 6 students have been exploring their creative side along side implementing their learnings about recyclable plastics to produce a product that utilizes recycled plastic. The students also had to consider such things as their target audience, the cost involved in producing their product and the profit that they would like to make! 

The students then presented their product to the Sharks (Cam, David, Tanya & Carly). We were really impressed by the students enthusiasm, creativity and the knowledge that they shared about recycled plastics. The Sharks had a very difficult job in selecting one group per grade to give their 'money' too! Well Done Grade 6 and thank you to Janine for providing such an authentic and engaging learning experience!

Maths Olympiad

Our Olympians sat their first Olympiad test this week and effective strategies were certainly on display!  It was quite a challenging paper, however the students persisted and the results were pleasing, especially considering it was the first test of the year! The Tuesday lunchtime sessions have been a source of rich discussion as our students continue to challenge themselves.

Home Challenge!

Have a go at these example Maths Olympiad questions and see how you go!

1. A total of 20 marbles are placed into 5 cups. Each cup has a different number of marbles. No cup has exactly 4 marbles and no cup is empty. What is the greatest number of marbles that any one cup can have?  
2. The quotient of two numbers is 4 and the difference between these two numbers is 39. What are the two numbers?

Student Achievement

Gracie

We were recently informed about Gracie's participation in the Wyndham Rotary Fun Run. Gracie and her family completed the 5km run which supports Mercy Hospital and Australian Rotary Health, with proceeds going towards enhancing community health services and supporting mental health research. Great work, Gracie!

We are always keen to hear about any student achievements outside of school. Please inform us by sending an email or giving us a call as we would love to share these stories with our wider community.

Principals for the day

Some of our amazing students have earned so many KEFAR tokens that they got to be principal for the day last week. They had a great day visiting classrooms, handing out KEFAR tokens, planning and hosting assembly and, of course, bossing us around! Great job, principals!

Student Attitude Towards School Survey

Next week we will be conducting student surveys with all students in years 4-6. The surveys provide students with an opportunity to share their voice which supports us to improve student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction. The survey is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education to assist schools to gain an understanding of students' perceptions and experience of school. Students will be asked about their thoughts and feelings in relation to their school, their learning, peer relationships, resilience, bullying, health and wellbeing, physical activity, and life in general.

Participation in this survey is voluntary. If you do not wish for your child to do the survey, please opt out via email to your school: altona.green.ps@education.vic.gov.au. Please do so before 13/5/23, stating that you wish to opt out of your child’s participation, along with their name and year level.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Take care,

David & Cam