Assistant Principals' Report

Dear HPS Community,

Welcome to our newsletter item for this week. 

Duke the Groodle

Duke was introduced to HPS in May 2023. Duke participated in a 12 week training program before starting his work supporting students at Heidelberg. 

We have a mentorship with Dogs Connect which has supported us to be compliant with having a dog at the school. This includes members of staff that have completed the training to support the work. If you are a new family to school, we invite you to complete the attached brief survey to assist in supporting students and their families.

Please click the following link to complete the form:

Attendance

As the students have returned to school in recent weeks, we wanted to just highlight the importance of attendance at school every day. We have included a resource with more information. 

This is an excerpt from the Department of Education (DE) resource. 

SCHOOL IS BETTER WHEN YOUR CHILD IS THERE 

Why it’s important 

We all want our students to get a great education, and the building blocks for a great education begin with students coming to school each and every day. 

If students miss school regularly, they miss out on learning the fundamental skills that will set them up for success in the later years of school. 

There is no safe number of days for missing school – each day a student misses puts them behind, and can affect their educational outcomes. 

Each missed day is associated with progressively lower achievement in numeracy, writing and reading. 

Getting in early 

Attendance patterns are established early – a child regularly missing days in kindergarten or in the early years of school will often continue to miss classes in the later years, and receive lower test scores than their classmates. 

It’s vital that students go to school every day – even in the early years of primary school. 

Please see the full resource from Department of Education (DE), attached below.

Evolve 'Digital Parenting- Safety and Screen time' 

Thursday 20th February 6.30pm in BER/ Library

Save the date. Please see below a testimony from one of our families who attended the Evolve session last year. 

Raising digital natives sometimes really scares me. I grew up without a mobile phone, without an ipad and without the internet; and now now I'm raising two little humans and my job involves helping them to navigate all these things that sometimes I'm not that good at using myself. Then there's the overwhelm of the online dangers for our children and while there is lots of information out there, it often seems like there is too much and I don't know where to start. Last week I went to the Evolve Digital Safety & Digital Wellbeing night. It was raining, it was cold, it was dark and it was an effort to get out of the house for the 7pm start but it was BRILLIANT! The presenters, Bec & Steve were engaging and the information was practical and meaningful. I now know where to go when I need help (the Beacon App). More importantly I also know where to start with making some small but important changes with technology with my kids (before I know it, they'll be heading to high school and into a digital world that frankly terrifies me). One simple thing that made me stop & think; my older son is really into Minecraft & Steve suggested that if your child built what they build on Minecraft in the backyard, you would stop and be amazed. By me showing an interest in his Minecraft builds and chatting to him about it, we are now speaking in a positive way about his online time, in contrast to the seemingly endless battles about how much time he's allowed to have. I guess if I managed to show an interest in Thomas the Tank, then Pokemon, Minecraft is not a huge leap and I know the more I show an interest, the more I keep the conversation going and the safer he and his brother will be online. If/when this presentation comes along again, I cannot recommend more highly that every parent/carer try to attend. 

Sarah James, mum of Lachie (grade 6) and Theo (grade 4).

Have a lovely week ahead.

Helen Thomas & Monique Rankin

Assistant Principals

Heidelberg Primary School