From Our Principals

Dear Families,

It has been another action-packed fortnight, and the weeks are flying by.

Mr Jones and I were fortunate to attend the Bayside Principals Conference this week. Some highlights included Dr Lorraine Hammond, who focused on explicit instruction, Dr Ben Jensen on knowledge-rich curriculum, and the Australian Education Research Organisation on implementation science. We are incredibly grateful that such high-calibre experts were part of the conference lineup. We look forward to sharing our learnings with our teachers and the wider community.

The visitors keep rolling in at OPS, and we were very lucky to have Dr Nathaniel Swain from La Trobe University drop by to say hello and take a walk around our school. I have been lucky to work with Nathaniel in my previous role with the Department of Education, where we collaborated on a professional learning series focused on strengthening reading approaches from Foundation to Year 2. Nathaniel was also involved in the creation of PhOrMeS, the synthetic systematic phonics approach we have adopted. Many teachers took the opportunity to ask questions, and we hope Nathaniel will return for another visit soon as we delve deeper into our evidence-based approaches.

I greatly enjoyed our first assembly last Friday and again would like to thank our wonderful Yr 6 leaders for running the show, they did a wonderful job. A special thanks to Miss Vallence for supporting our leaders to plan and rehearse so our assemblies are student led and run smoothly. We look forward to seeing families at assembly next week.

With thanks,

Anna-Marie Yelland

School Council Election and Nominations

Nominations have now closed, and we had enough nominations for positions therefore we did not need to hold an election. We welcome Jackie Middleton as a new member to the OPS School Council. 

I wish to thank outgoing school council member, Michelle Gilmore. We thank Michelle for her time, commitment and involvement in school council over many years.

Our Annual General Meeting will be held at 6pm on Wednesday 19th March, we invite all families to attend. More information will be sent via Compass in the coming week.

Maths Morning

Wow, what a wonderful morning and event! Thank you to all our families, students and teachers for a great fun filled morning of maths.

Every classroom was abuzz of excitement, pride, and maths games for the whole family.

A special thanks to our Maths Professional Learning Team, Kirsty and Mel, for organising the event and to all our teachers for preparing such fun and engaging games for our community to enjoy.

Media and Photography Reminder

The School Improvement Team, in consultation with School Council and the wider school community, constantly review and update practices, procedures and policies in place at Ormond Primary School. All of our policies are available on our school website. 

We want to send a reminder about our Photographing, Filming and Recording Students Policy, which can be accessed here. This policy has been updated last year to reflect the current Department of Education guidelines - families have been asked to provide consent only once for their child's image to be taken. Many families have not completed this form, in order to ensure our records are up to date, we ask you review the policy and either accept or decline. We are asking to:

1. Use images of your child within the physical environment of the school: this involves displaying your child's photograph within the classroom and around the school, including shared spaces.
2. Use images of your child within the school environment, including online communication, teaching and learning tools, etc. that can be accessed by students, parents/carers and staff with passwords and/or in the school magazine and yearbook.
3. Use images of your child beyond the school community: this includes the school's website, include the newsletter that is publicly available, and on social media. 

For more information, please access the policy on the website. 

Please could all parents respond to the Compass photography consent request. You will be able to find the photography information document and the consent questions on Compass on the top right hand corner of the page (see image below).

In the case where we don't receive a response, we will assume that you have opted-out of all forms of photograph.

Volunteer Inductions

We will be hosting OPS Volunteer Inductions for all parents and carers who want to be volunteers at Ormond PS throughout the year.

We have 2 sessions planned:

-Thursday Wk 6 (6th March) - 3:00-3:30pm

-Tuesday Wk 7 (11th March) - 3:00-3:30pm

For both sessions, sign in at the office and wait in the foyer.

To ensure that OPS has thorough child safe practices, we need to ensure that all volunteers who work with students have:

• an up-to-date Working With Children Check sighted and recorded
• read, understood and signed the OHS Volunteer agreement
• read, understood and signed the OPS Code of Conduct agreement

During the session, we will brief all volunteers on these policies and record all WWC's. This process will only need to be completed 1x per year.

Even if you are new to volunteering, or are unsure how much you can volunteer, we encourage you to attend to learn more about the process. We would strongly welcome as many parents/carers as possible to volunteer and be a part of our school community.

AO Fame at OPS!

Our very own Declan Z was given the opportunity to do a coin toss at this year's Australian Open for the 4th-Round Men's Singles Match between Alexander Zverev and Ugo Humbert. 

Due to his involvement in the State Development squad earlier in the year, Declan was awarded this honour. 

Perhaps we'll see Declan playing there himself one day in the near future. Go Declan!

Kind regards,

Anna-Marie Yelland (Acting Principal) and Aaron Jones (Assistant Principal)