From the Assistant Principal 

NAIDOC Week message from Education Consultant and Media Personality

DEAR FAMILIES,

WELCOME BACK: I hope everyone is feeling relaxed, refreshed and ready for a big term of learning! The school holiday period can provide some well-deserved rest time for our students and their families. Term 3 will be another busy one, including the swimming program, puberty education program, camp experiences, sporting competitions (HOOPS, athletics and more), excursions, incursions, cyber safety sessions, special event days and lots of professional learning experiences for staff (sustainability, differentiation, ICT and social and emotional learning). 

OUR PRINCIPAL: Scott is currently on long service leave and will return to school in week three. We hope he is enjoying this special time with his family as they travel to some amazing places within Australia, caravan in tow! I have received several messages from him and it looks as though they are having a great time. I will replace Scott whilst he is away and Ann Miller will be the Acting Assistant Principal during this time.

2022 Enrolments and Transition: Once again, I strongly encourage families to enrol their Foundation child for 2022 ASAP. Enrolment enables families to begin the transition process for their child and allows us to strategically plan our classes (class sizes). Please collect an enrolment form from the office.

Information regarding our Kinder to Foundation transition program will be available in the coming weeks.

NEW STAFF: I hope you all managed to get a copy of the Bellarine Times during the holidays. There was a terrific article in there about Judy and her retirement. Judy has been an integral part of the OGPS community for 29 years. She will be greatly missed. This leads me to sharing our new staff with you – as most of you are aware, Lara Field is our new Business Manager. Lara started with us on Monday and we are delighted to have her on board. Some other exciting news that happened towards the end of Term 2 was the appointment of a part time Disability Inclusion Coordinator. This is an area that I am extremely passionate about and I’m overjoyed to let you know that James Field (no relation to Lara) will be taking on this role with us. James has previously worked with SSS (student support services), had visiting teacher roles (supporting students with disabilities across various school settings) and has vast classroom experience. James will be with us every Monday, Thursday and Friday. Lauren Baker is taking long service leave for Term 3 and will be replaced by Sebastian Earle, whom a lot of you already know. We’re extremely lucky to have Sebastian with us for the term. Joanna Earle will be working in Ann’s class for the first 2 weeks of term and then every Wednesday for the remainder of the year and Nikki Keating will be working in Kerryn McKeon’s Year 2 class every Tuesday for the remainder of the year. Both Ann and Kerryn have curriculum leadership duties (maths and literacy) and therefore Jo and Nikki working alongside them both will enable Ann and Kerryn to work with staff to ensure consistent literacy and numeracy practice across our school. 

We warmly welcome all new staff to Ocean Grove Primary School.

REPORTS/TEACHER CONFERENCES: Besides a few technical glitches on the evening of our parent/guardian and teacher conferences, things appeared to go extremely well. Scott and I nervously waited to see how this process would unfold, as it is the first time we have conducted interviews online, according to COVID regulations. We are extremely grateful for the patience and effort you made in connecting and collaborating with us (online) to discuss your child/rens progress, their celebrations and any queries you may have had. School and home are a partnership and open communication is pivotal to success. Thank you everyone.

iPADS: If you have been issued an iPad from OGPS we ask that your child/ren bring it to school, fully charged each day. ICT is a tool that can enhance learning and some of the apps that are downloaded support classroom programs and learning goals significantly. Thank you for supporting the ICT development at Ocean Grove Primary School.

INSTAGRAM: Are you following OGPS on Instagram? If not, please do so and check out our regular updates and photos (@oceangroveprimaryschool).

QR CODES & OTHER COVID PROTOCOLS: I have been monitoring the school operations guide and can provide the following information for you. Face masks are to be worn only by parents/carers when a distance outdoors of 1.5m cannot be maintained and also in school buildings when interacting with staff etc. There is also no need to sign in via a QR code unless you enter a school building e.g. a classroom or the admin area. QR codes are displayed throughout the school (on windows and doors). Schools have also been requested to limit the number of external visitors on site. We will keep you informed as to when we can have parent helpers and volunteers back onsite. We have done extremely well with our COVID processes and protocols and I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support with this.

This week the Ocean Grove Primary School community was saddened by the loss of Andrea Thompson’s dearly loved partner, Scott. Our sincere condolences to Andrea, Holliday and Sailor, our thoughts and love are with you.

Take care everyone,

Kristy