Principal's Message
Wawa, Wominjika.
Here at Old Orchard Primary School, we acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we visit each day, the Wurrunguri and Woiwurrung people of the Kulin nation. We acknowledge and respect the elders and leaders past and present and the elders and leaders of all of the cultures and nationalities that are part of the Old Orchard Primary School community. We express our gratitude towards the orchards that were kept in place by the peoples on this land before us. We thank the traditional owners for sharing this beautiful land that we all love, and for keeping the land, sky, waterways and animals all in great condition for thousands of years, not only for themselves but for all the generations to come.
Pupil Free Day
Earlier this week, our staff attended a full day professional learning session presented by highly regarded literacy specialist, Riss Leong. The primary focus of the day was how to maximize and enhance the quality of our teaching of writing. It was a highly engaging session and staff spoke enthusiastically about their key takeaways and learnings from the day at our follow-up session on Wednesday. Teachers are excited to incorporate these ideas and strategies into their planning and their day-to-day practice. Several of the key takeaways included:
- having clear and explicit learning intentions for every writing session
- developing and articulating success criteria that are easily understood by the students
- focusing on narrow and specific teaching as opposed to broad
- using mentor texts to model and unpack the real strategies used by skilled writers
- providing targeted feedback to students
- explicit teaching of writing strategies that help students structure well-crafted and engaging pieces
- using student data to target lessons at students' point of need.
We hope to continue our work with Riss in the coming months, resulting in a visible difference in how we teach writing and the manner in which our students engage with it.
Our students will enjoy several exciting activities next week.
Book Week
It’s Book Week at Old Orchard, celebrating all that is special about books and reading. A highlight of Book Week is always the Book Week Costume Parade. We look forward to the many amazing and spectacular costumes that will be on display.
Prep Zoo Excursion
One of our favourite excursions every year is the Prep Zoo Excursion. The students are very excited in anticipation of the many and varied animals they will see and we look forward to hearing about their favourite animals when they return.
Fathers’ Day Stall
A reminder that our Fathers’ Day Stall is scheduled for next Thursday, so please remember to send along an appropriate amount of money with your child. There will be a wide selection of special gifts available to purchase and surprise our Old Orchard dads or other special father figures on Fathers’ Day.
We are still needing some more volunteers to assist on the stall. If you are able to help, please complete your details on the form below.
https://forms.gle/2Kz9o39cMf1yeHMz6
Fire Drill
We will be conducting another Emergency Drill this coming week. This could be a lockdown, evacuation or potentially a drill in response to an isolated incident such as a staged significant injury. We will provide a summary of the event at a later date.
Facilities
The ramp works around the school are very nearly complete and we thank everyone for their patience during this year. The builders still need to address some minor defects however we are very pleased with the overall result and the improvement. This will make a significant difference to how our students, staff and visitors are able to move around the school.
District Athletics
As you will now be aware, the district athletics event that was planned for today has been rescheduled to next Friday due to an unfavorable weather forecast. Our students are very excited about this event and have been training hard during lunchtime in preparation. We are keeping our fingers crossed for more favorable weather conditions next Friday.
Comedy Night
This evening‘s comedy show is a sellout with 150 tickets being sold. This is approximately double the usual attendance for this event and it promises to be a great show. Thanks again to our PFA and Sheree Knight for all of their hard work in preparation for the event.
Sun Smart
A reminder that all students are now required to wear sunsmart hats outside during recess and lunch breaks as well as during other school activities. It’s been great to see so many of our students quickly adjust to this expectation.
Kind regards
Duncan Cant