Principal's Message

Jackson School is a collaborative learning community for all. We aim to develop independence through safety, respect and responsibility. We aspire to offer authentic, quality educational experiences that develop futures, create opportunities and inspire student potential; enabling our students to be valued and contributing members of the wider community. We share and celebrate our successes and achievements.   

The Issue Highlights

• Winter Fete. Thank you to all who attended. With your support we raised $2146.25!
• School Building Upgrade Update.
• National eSMART Week - “Be your best self online”. See attached resource links from the eSafety Commissioner. 
• PRIME: Please note that hydration and energy drinks are not suitable for our students and not permitted onsite at school.
• Please be aware that at Jackson School many of our students have food allergies. It is important that parents and carers are aware of this when packing your child's lunchbox. 
• Teachers are now completing our end-of-semester assessments and writing your child's Semester 1 Reports. These will be published to you via email and in the Xuno Portal by the end of term.
• Students of the Week from our PBIS rewards system.
• Showcase of students' learning from across the school in Primary and Secondary
• Health and Wellbeing information to support you and your child.
• Community news including from Jackson OSHC provider TheirCare.
• School Dates -For the most up-to-date calendar dates, always refer to the Xuno Calendar in your Parent Portal.

Dear Families,

Winter Fete

Thank you to all of the parents, carers, family members and friends who were able to join us today at our Winter Fete. 85 families were able to attend. We sold out at most stall, especially our Jackson Xpress Baked Potatoes and Sausage Sizzle from ASDAN. Due to your support we raised over $2146.25! Thank you for your contribution as always. School Council will decide how the money will be allocated. Two charities we will continue to support are State School Relief and Second Bite. State Schools’ Relief is a not-for-profit organisation that provides much needed financial assistance to many of our families. SecondBite provide all Breakfast Club ingredients and also much needed food packages for our community. Our students displayed many of our employability skills in preparing for and running their stalls. Thank you to Helena McAloon (Leading Teacher) for your coordination of our Winter Fete and thank you to all the staff who made it such a wonderful day. 

Thank you to again to Rod Tobin (School Councillor) and Wynstan Blinds for your generous donation of a $500 voucher for our raffle. The winner of this prize was Christine Sacco! 

For more information, please visit: https://stateschoolsrelief.org.au/ or to donate to State Schools Relief click here: https://www.givenow.com.au/stateschoolsrelief.

School Building Update

Work on our Primary School and Allied Health Centre is nearing completion. The power upgrade works were more complicated than initially thought. These are now complete in the car park and in our first stage of buildings. Painting is now being completed before final cabinetry is installed. Our new furniture arrived last week so the pieces are starting to fit together. This is now due for completion around 20th June.

Progress on our Middle School buildings have been delayed due to excavation works for new stormwater services. It is taking longer than expected due to lots of rock underground. Only another 58m to go! Once these groundworks are completed, Rendine Modularity will start delivering 6 modules a day. We will begin to move classes into these buildings towards the end of August. Landscaping is due to be completed by October.

Works in our Library/Food Tech/Cafe and Performing Arts spaces are now well underway. Now the walls are install you can truly get a sense of what these new learning spaces will be like. These are due for completion in August. Furniture has been ordered and is now in production. 

eSMART

Last week was National eSMART Week; featuring the theme “Be your best self online”, this year’s event invites children and young people to explore what it means to be a positive digital citizen. Some classes took part in activities to learn about being Cyber Safe, Digitally Responsible and Respectful Online. Where this could not take place due to swimming and excursions, these classes will celebrate this before the school holidays. By taking responsible action, we can demonstrate how we all keep kids safe online and offline. This has never been more important with our children's increased screen-time and access to the internet. We know this causes many issues for our families at home and at school. Many of the issues we face are because children have access to social media and apps which are not age-appropriate. This creates a real safety concern for our students. Many apps and games have a minimum age requirement under their terms and conditions.

The eSafety Commissioner website has many resources for families, such as:

• eSafety has a guide for parents, carers and grandparents (in six languages) which covers key online safety issues for young people and includes a range of practical advice on what to do if things go wrong. These resources cover the big issues and has tips for the hard to have conversations.
• Screen time for your child – 7 tips on how families can balance their time on and offline
• Screen Smart Parent Tour provides advice on social media, screen time, personal information, cyber-bullying, stranger contact and inappropriate content.
• Be an eSafe kid for students with limited literacy.
• Join one of the Parent Webinars:  https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/webinars 

If you have any concerns about your child or another child online, you can report this directly to the social media platform. If you do not get a response within 48 hours you can then report this to the eSafety Commission. Learn how to report cyberbullying, image-based abuse and illegal content. School wellbeing staff are always available to support you and your family where possible. Issues that happen on social media out of school hours can also be reportable to Victoria Police.

Please find below a photo of our online expectations of our students at Jackson to be Cyber Safe, Respectful Online and Digitally Responsible citizens:

PRIME & Energy Drinks

We are becoming aware that many of our students are purchasing and bringing energy drinks to school. Energy drinks usually contain high levels of caffeine and sugar. Under the Food Standards Code Standard 2.6.4 formulated caffeinated beverages are not recommended for children. These products come with a warning label stipulating “Not recommended for children under 18 years of age". In the case of PRIME energy drinks specifically, these products contain nearly two times the legally allowed limit of caffeine for beverages sold in Australia. However please note, that Prime "Hydration" sports drinks are caffeine free which are readily available at Woolworths. Prime Energy drinks are not available for sale within Australia, but can be purchased from online retailers and shipped to Australia. Some have even taken to getting it from Facebook Marketplace. Please note that hydration and energy drinks are not suitable for our students and not permitted onsite at school. 

Food Allergy Aware

Please be aware that at Jackson School many of our students have food allergies. It is important that parents and carers are aware of this when packing your child's lunchbox. Where there is a child in your child's class who is at high risk of anaphylaxis, we may request you do not send certain allergens to school where possible. Staff at Jackson School are trained in anaphylaxis management. To view our Anaphylaxis policy, please click here. Some of the known allergens within our school are:

Wheat, egg (raw and cooked), all nuts (including: peanuts, cashews, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, tree nuts) kiwi fruit, banana, strawberry, grass pollen seafood and dairy. 

For tips on providing your child with a healthy lunchbox, please visit: https://heas.health.vic.gov.au/schools/healthy-lunchboxes or click here to download the poster: https://heas.health.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/pick-mix-lunchbox-poster.pdf. Please do not hesitate to contact our School Social Workers, Alex Baynes and Marg Keatley, if you would like some food support for at home or school.

Assessments and Reports

Over the last two and a half years, our network of schools across Keilor-St Albans have been working with Dr Lyn Sharratt from the University of Toronto and the University of Melbourne. Yesterday, myself and the leadership team presented at the showcase about our school improvement journey to improve student outcomes. We are immensely proud of the work we have done with Lyn and our network schools, in particularly our work around using quality assessment data to inform our teaching and learning in Writing.

Teachers are now completing our end-of-semester assessments and writing your child's Semester 1 Reports. These will be published to you via email and in the Xuno Portal by the end of term. Next week, teacher teams will be working together with leadership to plan for your child's learning next term. Whilst the teaching staff are out of class, our specialist teachers will cover these classes as normal.

I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Anthony