Welcome back for Term 3

Can I extend a warm welcome back to all of our students and their families. We hope you all enjoyed a restful term break and are ready to dive back into learning.

Congratulations!

Natalie Iverson and her husband Denis shared the good news with us all on the safe arrival of their new baby! Ollie Iverson entered the world last weekend and we are all very excited for them both. We can't wait to meet him and welcome him into our LEPS family.

Staffing Updates

I would like to welcome a number of new staff who have joined the team at Lalor East at the start of this term.

Charlene Stewart has been appointed to replace Bradley Jones who has taken leave for the remainder of this year. Charlene will work in the Prep classroom from Tuesday to Thursday and will provide support to other staff on Mondays.

Stephanie Richards will also be commencing with us shortly and will be working on Fridays and Mondays in the Prep classroom alongside Stephanie Chan.

We also welcome Karen O’Neill back to the LEPS team. Karen worked at the school for many years until her retirement and is more recently has been replacing staff who have been ill or on leave. Karren will be working in the new 1\2C homegroup we created at the start of this term on Wednesday, Thursday and alternate Fridays.

Indiana D’Angelis recently completed her placement at Lalor East PS in the 1/2 classes and loved the experience so much she was keen to come and work with us. Indi will be working alongside Karen as the homegroup teacher for 1\2C on Monday, Tuesday and alternate Fridays.

Stephanie Maletta is also supporting our Education Support team and will be working in classrooms and supporting students across the school.

New P-2 Playground

Works were completed during the second week of the Term 2 holidays to install our new P-2 Playground. Our official opening took place on the first day of Term 2 with Linda christening our new pink slide. Given the whole school's involvement in raising the funds to obtain the new equipment, all students across the school have been given the opportunity to use the equipment prior to it being declared a dedicated P-2 play space. Judging by the number of students I have seen utilising the new equipment, it seems to be very much valued and appreciated!

Special thanks to the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (ACPHER) for supporting our playground through their Active Schools Program grant.

NAIDOC Week

Last week, students and teachers participated in activities for NAIDOC Week.

Students worked in multi-age groups to complete a variety of activities that focused on understanding and celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. Students learned about traditional Indigenous art and listened to Dreamtime stories

We are grateful for the opportunity to celebrate NAIDOC Week with our students and community. We believe that learning about and celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is an important part of our school's mission to promote inclusion, diversity, and respect for all cultures.

Another exciting project that took place that week was the installation of our Torres Strait Islander flag. This is a project that the Junior School Council has worked on the the past 2 years through raising funds to buy the flagpole, obtaining quotes and then arranging fo the instalation.

Student Attitudes to School Survey

The Department of Education has released our 2023 Attitudes to School Survey data. Overall, we are very pleased with the results from this survey with the majority of our students ranking us highly in the majority of areas. Many domains also showed positive growth over time.

Some data highlights include:

98% of Year 4-6 students believe we have ‘High Standards for Success’ with 100% of students stating ‘my teacher expects me to do my best’
96% of Year 4-6 students believe ‘there is a teacher or another adult at this school who cares for me’

Last week, Linda, myself, Shona and Hannah worked with our Year 5/6 Student Leaders to analyse the data; with students working in small groups focusing on a particular domain. The raw survey data has also been shared with school staff for them to review.

Our next step is to hold a combined Student\Staff Meeting on Monday 24 July to unpack the survey further and to work on possible actions we can implement to improve our data.

Student voice and agency is highly valued at our school and we hope to further embed this approach of students and staff working together to lead and implement initiatives around school improvement.

Years 3-6 Swimming

Our Swimming sessions commenced last year for students in Years 3-6. We have noticed a number of students arriving at school without their swimming items. Please support your child to ensure that they have these items with them EACH FRIDAY as it can be quite distressing when they are forgotten and creates additional work for school staff.

3 Way Conferences

Our 3 Way Conferences also took place earlier this week on Wednesday. Thankyou to the families that were able to make time to attend to discuss your child's academic and social progress.

Communication between home and school is vital in ensuring that our students are successful and achieve thier personal best.

Please don't hesitate in contacting your child's teacher should you have any questions or concerns throughout the remainder of the school year.

SCOTT DUNCAN

Acting Principal

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