From the Principal's Desk

Welcome Back to Term 4!

Welcome back to all of our Moriac Primary School families for what promises to be a wonderful Term 4!

I hope everyone enjoyed a well-earned break and had the opportunity to spend some quality time together. It has been lovely to see our students return with such enthusiasm, ready for another busy and exciting term of learning, friendships and fun.

Term 4 is always a special time at school, and we have lots of celebrations, exciting events and fun activities to look forward to. There will be plenty happening across the school as we make the most of our final term together and begin celebrating the many achievements of our students throughout the year.

This is a slightly shorter newsletter than usual. Rather than our regular year-level updates, we have kept this edition focused on key dates, important reminders and the latest information that families need to know as we head into the term. Please take a few minutes to read through the newsletter and add important dates to your calendars.

As always, thank you for your ongoing support of our school and our students. We are looking forward to a fantastic final term and to finishing the year together with lots of wonderful memories!

Colour Run

A huge thank you to all of our students and families who attended our annual Colour Run yesterday. Despite the cooler weather, the sun came out for the duration of the event and the students had an absolute ball! It was genuinely so much fun to be a part of and such a wonderful way to finish off the term, despite being slimed!

A very special thank you to our incredible PnF crew who came together to make the event possible. From manning stations, bringing water, filling buckets, setting up the obstacle course and spraying students with coloured powder, to all the jobs in between — we could not have done it without you. We really appreciate you giving up your personal time to help create such a fantastic experience for our students.

As a school community, we raised an incredible $5,200, which will go directly towards the purchase of literacy resources for Term 4 and into 2027.

As mentioned in last week's school newsletter, School Council has made the decision to direct our fundraising efforts in the near future towards purchasing much-needed books for our students — from picture storybooks and mentor texts through to novels for our senior students. This forms part of our ongoing overhaul of our English Scope and Sequence and will ensure all students across our school have access to engaging, high-quality and up-to-date texts and important literacy resources.

Colour Run prizes will be handed out in Term 4 once they arrive at school and have been correctly sorted and distributed. This does take our office staff some time, so please remind your children to be patient in the meantime — we know they are very keen to receive their prizes ASAP!

Playground Update

As mentioned in the previous newsletter, we are getting very close to our new playground project physically commencing at the school which is a Victorian Schools Building Authority (VSBA) led project. This has meant that although I am part of the team that is involved in this project, it is different to a project that I would lead and see through to completion with restriction on decision and options. Along the way over the past 8 months, our School Council has been kept informed about the works and stages we are up to which has included project design, tender processes, contracts and budget updates. 

As many of you would be aware in the building industry, money does not often go as far as you would hope and throughout this process I have been really optimistic that the inclusive playground of our dreams could be built within the budget we were granted. Of course I am never one to look a gift horse in the mouth so I am really grateful that we were given a grant of $250,000 to allow this project come to life. 

Please see some computer drawn images of our new playground which shows what will be included in the design. The colours of the playground themselves are not correct however as this is a computer drawing for planning purposes. In addition the blue track on the ground is actually synthetic turf which isn't depicted very well here either. Overall however, as you can see, the design is roughly the same size as the existing playground, includes ramps and paths that less abled students will be able to easily access including in wheelchairs, there are play panels that are interactive that are included throughout the playground as well as on the ground level which is far more inclusive and overall, this is something that is far more safe and certainly compliant than our current playground.

We are extremely excited for construction to begin and preliminary timelines (dependent on availability of the product) is looking like installation will occur this term. I will keep everyone posted on this however. 

Digital Devices in 2027

Late last term I sent a separate letter via compass explaining that in 2027, our school will completely cease the BYOD iPad program that was previously implemented in our school. The letter outlines and explains that we have decided to fully support students with devices which is a much safer and more controlled way of implementing the digital technologies curriculum at our school. We have committed to purchasing new netbooks, which are a smaller version of a laptop for students in Year 5/6 to use while our students in Year 3/4 will have access to our school owned iPads. Students in P-2 are required to be on digital technology as minimally as possible with only P-2 classroom teachers and support staff accessing iPads for any learning within the digital learning framework.

In addition, a school council initiative includes asking any families with spare iPads that may not be used in homes to be donated to the school for refurbishment and use by the school. Any iPad that is able to be donated must be an 8th Generation or newer however to ensure they are still able to download the latest iOS system and can work effectively in our school network.

Communication with School

We value positive and open communication with our families and want to ensure that questions, concerns and information are responded to appropriately.

As we head into Term 4, I would like to remind families that teachers and school staff require 2–3 working days to respond to emails. Our teachers receive a significant volume of communication from families, and responding to emails can take considerable time away from the planning, preparation and teaching that occurs each day.

Teachers are not expected to respond to emails during teaching time, and they need dedicated time to plan lessons, assess student learning, prepare resources and support students. Allowing 2–3 working days for a response helps us to balance responsive communication with these important responsibilities.

Where an issue is urgent or requires a conversation rather than an email exchange, families are encouraged to contact the school office so that we can determine the most appropriate person to assist.

We have a Communication with School Staff Policy, which outlines our shared expectations around communication between families and school staff. This is available on our school website, and I encourage all families to take a few minutes to read through it- https://moriacps.vic.edu.au/s/MPS-Communication-with-School-Staff-Policy.pdf 

Thank you for your understanding and for helping us to protect our teachers' valuable planning and teaching time while maintaining strong and respectful communication between home and school.

SunSmart Term 4

A small reminder that next term is a Sun Smart Term and therefore students will be expected to have their wide-brimmed hat for use at recess and lunch and during all outdoor activities. Please also make sure you child's hat is clearly labelled with their name to prevent sharing of hats as well as any bugs that might live in hair that we seem to have had many issues with this last term.