Our Jazz in the Park event last week was a great reminder of the role of our parent community in making our school such a great place to be and a warm, friendly and well-resourced learning environment for our students.

The benefits of having such an involved, supportive (and fun) community and a program of engaging and varied events throughout the year are threefold;

Firstly (and most importantly) are the benefits created through the social connections and belonging that is fostered by getting involved and contributing to events and activities. The last two years have meant that we now have three cohorts of families (Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2) who have not yet seen the 'real SKiPPS' and this is a real shame. It was great at Jazz to see parents introducing themselves, getting to know new faces and forming connections. As you know, parenting is hard and it isn't possible to have too many supports and people to turn to when you need a hand. Our community has a long history of providing this for each other.

Secondly are the benefits that your involvement brings to your children's experience of school. Connecting and helping at school also has a real and noticeable impact on your child's connection to SKiPPS. Kids love seeing their parents getting involved and they take pride in seeing them on the cake stall, cooking sausages, joining the school council or otherwise helping us to help them.

Thirdly (and perhaps sadly) are the benefits that your involvement can bring to an underfunded public school system. In an ideal world, our school would be resourced appropriately and we would have the money to provide your children with everything they need (in beautiful buildings and grounds) without asking for additional help. However, as has been reported in the news this week, the public school system in Victoria is now significantly underfunded by both State and Federal governments compared with the Private sector and this makes things very challenging. The impact of our local fundraising through things like our school fete, our trivia night, Jazz in the Park, and our merchandise makes a huge difference to your child's experience of school and allows us to purchase up to date books, technology and maintain buildings to ensure that they are not disadvantaged by this unfair system. Similarly, providing your skills and expertise through our School Council and sub-committees and at events like working bees allows us to keep improving and to provide your children with the education that they deserve.

I know that the requests for help from the school are many and often and I wish this weren't the case but we do encourage you to try and find the time - both for your own social connections, your child's benefit and also to allow us to keep doing the best for your children.

There are a few upcoming ways we would love for you to get involved;

School Fete - we would love to run a school fete in mid-November (our last one was in march 2020). Our fetes are completely parent-run events and require a large group of people to make them happen. We are having a meeting this Wednesday (16th March) at 6pm in the Bowls Club to try and get our 2022 event up and running. Please come along - there is no commitment involved at this point! Please email me on neil.scott@education.vic.gov.au to find out more (or just come along).

Buildings and Grounds - maintaining a 140-year-old building and our school grounds on a shoestring is exactly the challenge you would imagine and we have long relied on parents with experience in trades and construction to keep the school looking so great. Sadly, a large group of these parents left at the end of 2021 as their children graduated and we desperately need some new faces who can advise us and roll their sleeves up when needed. We are holding our first Buildings and Grounds meeting of the year at 6pm on Wednesday 23rd March in the staffroom. please come along if you can help us in any way. Please email me on neil.scott@education.vic.gov.au to find out more (or just come along).

Parents' Association - Whilst SKiPPA, our Parents Association, do a wonderful job, many of them are approaching the end of their time at SKiPPS at the end of this year as they have children in Year 6. We would love to have some new faces get involved so their work can continue seamlessly when they are no longer here. As well as helping the school, joining SKiPPA is lots of fun and the best way to make new friends and connections at our school. please email them on stkildaparkparents@gmail.com to get invpolved.

Reconciliation Action Team - last year we created our first-ever Reconciliation Action plan with a group of passionate parents and staff members and, in 2022, will be working hard to implement this plan and improve how we acknowledge and learn about our First Nations culture and history. Our first meeting of the year will be at 3:45pm on Thursday 24th March. If you would like to get involved please email Stephen at stephen.stanisic@education.vic.gov.au

Sustainability sub-committee - Our school has committed to becoming a 'Resource Smart' School and to improve our sustainability practices and we have a group of parents and staff who meet roughly 8 times a year to monitor and lead this work. If you are keen to be involved, please email Lil Wymant on lila.wymant@education.vic.gov.au

One of our recent School Council Presidents who left the school recently after 7 years of getting involved in fundraising, SKiPPA, School Council, running the fete (and in hundreds of other ways) encouraged new parents to do the same by saying 'the more you give, the more you get'.

The nature of school parent communities are that people regularly move on as their children get older and so we need a whole new group of parents to replace them every few years if we want to keep these special things going.

I hope you can find your own ways to ensure that our school remains the special place that it currently is.

Neil Scott

Principal

Team Kids News

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