ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

The Hands on Learning program is back in full swing again after our school closure a few weeks ago. As I’ve mentioned before, Hands on Learning (HoL) is an innovative in school program that schools use to increase attendance and student achievement by building personal and social skills and supporting the different ways young people learn. 

This term the team have had the HoL Café open for teacher lunches every Thursday and have been receiving rave reviews. Customer service, stocktaking, ordering, money handling and menu planning are just some of the skills incorporated into an average day, with each member of our team improving every week. 

Early this term, we had our espresso machine installed and team members have now begun to learn the basics of making a great hot chocolate or cup of coffee. For now, the students are practising on the teachers, but we hope to have coffees available for parents and friends in the near future. Stay tuned for more details on this. 

At East, we are lucky to have our beautiful vegetable garden space and this term the team have been working hard to get things up and running again. As we begin to grow our own produce, we plan to use it in the development of our menus as well as hopefully having enough to share with our school community. Thursday also saw the arrival of 4 new hens that the HoL team will take care of as part of the program. These girls are already proving to be mighty layers with their eggs going straight into this week’s sticky date puddings. The garden and chook pen are regularly open at lunch time or recess for all students and are proving to be very popular places. 

The HoL team have big things planned going forward so keep an eye out and hopefully you’ll be getting a taste of our spectacular food and great coffee sometime soon.

Ben Hawthorn

Assistant Principal.