Principal's Report 

What a busy start to Term 2 we have had at Rangeview! Level 2 have participated in Netball Clinics, Level 4 have gone to Scienceworks, our whole school has participated in a creative writing piece on 'The Chair', our staff have accessed flu vaccinations, our whole school participated in the Cyber Safety Project Incursion including training for our teachers, our Principal Class have attended the Riversdale Principal Conference, our wonderful P & F have run the Mother's Day stall, Level 1 & 2 have participated in their swimming program at Aquanation,  Level 4, 5 & 6 heard from the author A F Steadman in a wonderful incursion, and our whole school celebrated Education Week with our Open Afternoon on Monday. 

Cyber Safety Project Incursion

A big thank you to Steve Atkinson for organising our annual Cyber Safety Incursions and staff professional learning. The students were very engaged and learned a lot about being good safe digital citizens. 

Riversdale Principal Conference

Liam Sommers, Kate McLeod and I attended the Riversdale Principal Conference at Cape Shanck last week. After an opening speech by Karen Money the Regional Director, we heard from Keynote speaker Dr Tom Brunzell with the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM). 

The BSEM is a trauma informed strengths based educational practice that teaches classroom practices which support maintaining students in the optimal zone of regulation. Students have a window of tolerance in relation to arousal. Hyper arousal is too high – this leads to emotional overwhelm, panic, angry, feeling unsafe. Hypo arousal is when students are too low – This leads to feeling numb, shut down, or having no feelings. 

We need students in the optimal arousal zone. We learnt about the Circle of Security - students need to have a safe haven and a secure base in their teacher. We also learnt about the Mohawk of Self Awareness - the midline of the brain makes up our sense of self. There was much focus on co-regulation. We need to bring students into our calm, and not join them in their chaos. When children are dysregulated, adults need to go Zen. A Zen mind creates room for empathy. Rangeview has participated in some BSEM professional learning a number of years ago - this was an excellent reminder to revisit this learning. 

Following the keynote we heard from Professor Di Siemens. Prof Siemens presented on the importance of repeated teaching in the Big Ideas in Numbers. Across the country Australia is not performing as well as other OECD countries in mathematics. Only 37% of grade 4s state they really like mathematics. Only 13% really like mathematics by year 8. Participation in most year 12 math and science subjects is declining. It is at its lowest in 20 years. Studies show that the key is Multiplicative Thinking. A students ability to apply Multiplicative Thinking almost entirely explains the 7-8 year range in mathematics achievement in Level 5-9. Multiplicative thinking is indicated by a capacity to work flexibly with the concepts, strategies and representations of multiplication (and division) as they occur in a wide range of contexts. We must work on our students ability to apply multiplicative thinking and this will be a focus for Rangeview moving forward. 

On the second day we heard from Dr Kelly-Ann Allen. Dr Allen is a psychologist who specialises in belonging. School belonging is the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included and supported by others in the social environment. Belonging is highly linked to life satisfaction. Close adult relationships are important to build a sense of belonging. The teacher relationship is the most important factor in students sense of belonging at school.  Students want teachers to notice if they are away, support their learning, help them build social connections and treat them all fairly and with equity. Rangeview works hard to build our students sense of belonging, however there is more work we can be doing in this space also. 

Our final speaker was Simon Kuestenmacher. Simon presented on changes in social demographics and the effects of these changes on our teaching workforce and our students as learners. Australia is transforming into a knowledge economy. STEM learning is very important for the future, but of equal importance is interpersonal skills and communication skills. They will need to be able to self organise and self motivate. They will need to be confident to embrace change, show cultural competency, enterprising mindset, and show empathy for others. 

Education Week / Rangeview Open Afternoon 

This week Rangeview has celebrated Education Week. The theme for Education Week this year is Active Learners; Move, Make, Motivate which celebrates physical activity, hands-on learning and student voice in education. Students are taking part in activities across the school this week that involve hands on learning and creating, physical activities and games, and student led inquiry tasks and topics. 

We were so proud to open the classrooms on Monday to families and prospective families to showcase some learning in action. The afternoon was complete with our music performances in the gym including Choirs, the band, the string orchestra, and the senior rock band. Thank you to all of the families that came along and made it special for our students. 

Before and After School Care Provider - TheirCare 

After a thorough tender process a decision has been reached to change before and after school care providers at the end of Term 2. Rangeview will be moving to a new provider – TheirCare.  This was a difficult and considered decision and I would like to publicly thank OSH Club for their 9 ½ years of partnership with Rangeview Primary School. 

TheirCare provide a stimulating & safe environment where children develop life skills, friendships, confidence, and creativity.  They will provide to Rangeview a full time onsite Program Coordinator who will work closely with our school to further develop the partnership. The onsite team will work with the students at our service to design the program and purchase the new activity resources. They also provide a Toy Library which is a new resource pack changed regularly which includes; Coding and Sphero, Karaoke, Silent Disco, Science, Construction, Giant Games and a Sensory/Calming Kit.   There will be further information and transition support provided to all of our families to ensure that the move to a new provider is smooth and seamless for our parents/carers and our students. We are very excited to be partnering with Their Care. 

For further information, visit www.theircare.com.au or call their support office on 1300 072 410.

New Playground

Our new playground of the banks of the oval is finally complete. We will be opening this playground on Monday next week and two lucky classes have been drawn out of a hat to attend the opening with one student from each class being the first to try the new slides. Congratulations to 2G and 5/6G! All of the other classes will be able to watch the opening which we will film and then we will have set days of the week for each level to use the new playground - for the first week. This is to minimise the numbers of students on the space and ensure safe and responsible use. We are very excited to start using this new play space - finally. 

Mother's Day Stall

A huge thank you to our wonderful P & F committee and all of the volunteers who ran a fabulous Mother's Day stall for our Rangeview students - and mums. It was another great success and literally hundreds of gifts were taken home for our fabulous mothers, and grandmothers. 

Lego Masters

The newest season of Lego Masters - Grandmasters has wrapped up and we are so proud of our Rangeview Grandmaster - Ryan Evans! We know that most of the school community were watching each episode and we were all behind Gabby and Ryan. To just miss out on the Grand finale was a bitter pill - but what an achievement to get that far. 

Well done Mr Evans. 

Thank you to our community for another wonderful two weeks at Rangeview. I am constantly grateful to be working in this school and in this community. We hope you are staying warm as the nights get colder. 

The school we have is the one we build together. 

Marika Ferguson

Principal