We have enjoyed a really busy fortnight around the school, as we move into winter next week, please ensure your child is appropriately dressed for the colder days. Wherever possible, we try to give students time outside at recess and lunch, this might mean they need those additional layers of clothing (school uniform) to keep warm. Thanks for taking a moment to engage in the details below, I look forward to seeing you around the school or at our next assembly on Monday morning.

Reports

Term 2 provides a timely opportunity to engage with families more formally as we report on semester 1 achievements that our students have focused on. Reports undertaken as teacher judgements are a considerable piece of work for all teaching staff to moderate, evaluate, award scores and then summarise achievement through written comment. From beginning to end, this would nearly take 2 hours per student. Noting that this work is always undertaken in addition to a full teaching load. We do take report on achievement with a view to ensure that we can engage with our families as the primary purpose for these documents. This year reports will be distributed on the 24th June with the opportunity to meet with our teaching staff on Wednesday 26th June for Parent -Teacher Interviews.

Making Sense of It

If you are new to the school or have had difficulties engaging with our reports or unsure what to make of this, I would welcome you to join me on Thursday 20th June from 3:45pm for an informal information session. This would be aimed to support families that have any questions or are unsure how to interpret the data and evidence provided. I would be happy to answer any questions or provide you some further information in preparation for receiving your child’s report on the following Monday.

Mother’s Day Stall

We hope that all of our mums/grandmothers/nanas/aunties had a wonderful day last Sunday, surrounded by their family. Last Thursday, our PFC organised our annual Mother’s Day stall and our students were all very excited to make that special purchase. On behalf of everyone I would like to thank the PFC for getting this organised for our students and giving them this opportunity. Additionally, as a fundraising piece, the school was able to make $829 from sales made.

Parent Teacher Interviews

Parent Teacher Interviews will be held in coming weeks on the 26th and 27th June. These will provide an opportunity for families to engage in discussion with our teaching staff around Semester 1 reports. A student free day is scheduled for Wednesday 26th June to host interview bookings with the afternoon of the 27th also made available for families. Further information will be shared in coming weeks to support families to book in for these discussions.

Prep 2025 Enrolments

If you are enrolling a sibling or have plans to enrol your child into Prep in 2025 please step through the following information. Enrolments are currently open and we look forward to welcoming your child to our school community.

Contact our school to book a school tour with Morioka sensei or myself or to learn more about our school and the enrolment application process.
Download the Foundation (Prep) enrolment information pack from Enrolling in Foundation (Prep)
Submit an enrolment application for Foundation (Prep) by Friday 26 July 2024
You will be notified of the outcome of your application by Friday 9 August 2024. If you receive an offer of placement, you should contact our school to accept the offer by 23 August 2024
Take part in enrolment information and transition sessions during Term 4, 2024
Your child will begin their schooling with us in January 2025.

Education Week

Education Week is an annual celebration of education in Victoria. In 2024, Victoria will celebrate Education Week from Monday 13 May to Friday 17 May. This year’s theme, Spotlight on STEM, highlights the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in our everyday lives, in the classroom and beyond.

Throughout Education Week, students, parents/carers, teachers, and school communities are encouraged to celebrate and share ideas to learn more about the endless possibilities of STEM. To help inspire your Education Week, check out our list of idea-starters below.

District X-Country

We have 30 students from Year 3-6 competing in the District Cross Country carnival on Friday, I have written this entry slightly before our competition day but I am looking forward to welcoming them back from the event and have no doubt that they represent themselves and our school brilliantly. Regardless of the results, it is a significant achievement to compete at that level and I am very proud of each of them. Well done to everyone!

Open Day

Thank you to our families and community for supporting our first Open Day of the year last Saturday. This was really well attended and was a great opportunity to share our vision for the school now and moving forward. Our student leaders did a fantastic job advocating for the school and sharing their voice on the day. A special thanks to our Parents and Friends Club for running such a successful cake stall and BBQ making just over $1500 and feeding many hungry families. Our final Open Day for the year will be held on Saturday 15th June.

IDAHOBIT

Today is recognised as IDAHOBIT Day, a day that internationally advocates against LGBTIQA+ Discrimination. The Department of Education is committed to ensuring all Victorian government schools are respectful, safe and inclusive places of learning and work for all students, staff and members of our school communities.

This is to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex, queer, questioning and asexual (LGBTIQA+) people in our schools and the community, in accordance with Department of Education’s equal opportunity and anti-discrimination policy for students and employees, and the obligations in the Child Safe Standard 5 to uphold diversity and equity for everyone regardless of their background, characteristics or beliefs.

We believe it is important to teach our students about acceptance, respect and inclusivity. By doing so, we are not only creating a safe and supportive environment now, but also preparing students to thrive in a global society. If you have any queries, you can contact the department by email: enquiries@education.vic.gov.au. We look forward to continuing to work in partnership with you and all our families to support everyone to be safe and thrive at our school.

Car Parking

A reminder to families that the school car park on Poplar Street near our Prep building is not a school drop off or pick up zone for cars in the morning or afternoon. Please ensure you are not driving into this area in the morning or afternoon and are not dropping your child off from a vehicle in this area at any time. This is used as the main entry for many our prep and year 5/6 students in the morning and I would ask that this is kept safe and free from any moving vehicles entering the car park at all times.

Further to that, please only park on Poplar street in allocated car parks, I completely understand that car parking can be a challenge for all families but I am unwilling to compromise on safety for our students and families because of this.

Emergency Drill

To begin the week we conducted an emergency drill for all students. A scenario-based drill involved a required relocation to the hall during lunchtime. I acknowledge the response and the maturity of our students to support this process, we had all students assembled and accounted for inside 6 minutes which is a great achievement and a credit to our students and staff.

Education Support Day

Thursday 16th May was an opportunity to thank our tireless Education Support team that make our school the place that it is. They care for our students and set such high expectations for themselves, they are committed to learning and building their own capacity, they are invested in what we are trying to achieve and they are the strongest advocates for our students. Our school is so much better for their support and we couldn’t achieve what we do without them. I extend my sincere thanks to Asako, Azka, Caroline, Jess, Lauren, Miki, Payal, Therese and Tomomi. Thank you for helping to make our school so special!

Attitudes to School Survey

The Department of Education's annual Attitudes to School Survey (AtoSS) for students in Years 4 to 6 will be conducted from May 20th to the 14th of June. The AtoSS is a voluntary annual student survey offered by the Department of Education to assist schools and the Department to gain an understanding of students' perceptions and experiences of school. We value student voice as a means to improving student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction, and will be asking your child 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.

The results are presented to our school in an aggregated form to protect student privacy. Our school reflects on the collective responses and identifies practices across our school that are strong and areas where we can improve. The data informs our Annual Implementation Plan ensuring we are supporting the learning and wellbeing needs of our students.

With absolutely no confidence, I am hoping to see the Blues power onto a Friday evening victory tonight against the swans, outside of that and more importantly, I hope you and your family have a wonderful weekend I look forward to seeing you around the school next week.

Take Care,

Edward Strain

Principal

Parents and Friends Club News