School Philosophy

Orchard Grove Primary School is committed to providing a safe, nurturing environment that engages curiosity, promotes learning, personal growth and wellbeing for all students. We strive to develop adaptability and resilience so students can become valued members of the local and global communities and be prepared for future life experiences.

From the Principal

Welcome to a very chilly week in Melbourne!

Year 5 Camp

Our Year 5 campers had a wonderful time at their adventure camp at Coonawarra Farm Resort. The favourite activities were the flying fox, the climbing wall, the giant swing and canoeing. We had a few ‘sickies’ but other than that, everything went very smoothly.

I’d like to take the opportunity of thanking the Year 5 teachers - Mr Anthony, Mrs Bird, Mrs Horvat and Mrs Wild and the volunteer parents who came along to help. It is a 24 hour a day job to make sure our students are safe, well cared for and have a good time. Our Year 5 students also did us proud - very respectful, well behaved and caring.

Here are a couple of emails the teachers received from thankful parents:

“ … thanks for the opportunity to go on the camp, it was fantastic and I would do it again if I could. The kids were great which made it enjoyable.

But I have to say yourself [Karen], Bec, Steph and Matt were brilliant, your understanding and care of the kids was unbelievable even with the lack of sleep and sometimes smiling through gritted teeth.

Organizing something like this must be an extremely difficult task and hope you guys are proud of what you have achieved.”

“Thank you & your colleagues so much for all your hard work with Camp: …... had such a fantastic time, we’ve been hearing stories since she returned! She loved so many of the activities, and the cabin full of friends just put the cherry on the icing. (Thank you 😊).”

Illness

We have had a confirmed case of Flu (Influenza B) in Year 1. Please keep an eye out for any flu symptoms in your child (eg. fever, feeling particularly tired, achy, runny nose, sore throat, head ache, coughing). If your child shows flu symptoms, please keep them at home and seek medical advice quickly.

ICAS

We have some good news for parents and carers of students wishing to participate in the ICAS competitions this year. While the manner in which the tests are administered at the school level has changed for 2019, we are now in a position to offer the six ICAS tests as a parent choice option. This year, for the first time, most of the tests will be online and the students will complete them on an iPad. The Writing tests for Years 3 and 4 will be a paper based test similar to NAPLAN.

Parent choice ICAS tests available by year level:

Digital Technologies - Years 3-6

Science - Years 2-6

Writing - Years 3-6

Spelling - Years 2-6

English - Years 2-6

Mathematics - Years 2-6

The sitting dates for the tests fall between the 2nd and the 20th of September and the school will allocate days for each sitting in due course. The cost charged by ICAS for each test has been simplified and is now $14.50 for Digital Technologies, Science, Writing and Spelling.

In line with the OGPS ICAS policy from previous years, the school will subsidise part of the costs of English and Mathematics. The cost of each of these two tests will be reduced from the ICAS price of $14.50 down to $7.

We will be sending home an order form later this week for parents to complete. If you wish your child to participate in any of the tests, please place your order and make your payment to the front office by Friday the 23rd of August. No late orders will be accepted.

Please note that this will be the last year Orchard Grove Primary will be able to take orders for ICAS. From next year onwards, parents will need to log in to ICAS to organise the testing at an individual level.

Science Week

Next week is Science Week and all classes will be participating in a ‘Mystery Powders’ Science Inquiry. Each class will be given a mystery powder and will need to use their science inquiry skills to discover what the powder is. Tasting is one of the senses not allowed!

Each year level will be creating a video showing the skills used by the students in their endeavours to discover just what the powders are. These will be presented at the next assembly on August 30th.

Working Bee Sunday 18th August

Our next working bee is on Sunday 18th August - 9am to 12pm. We greatly appreciate all the help we get from our parent community in attending working bees. This helps to to make our school look great . Children are welcome to attend - this helps build pride in OGPS and gives them a sense of responsibility.

There are a lot of jobs to do and we are looking forward to your support. Please bring your garden rake, wheelbarrow, hedge clipper and whipper snipper.

Morning tea is provided. We look forward to seeing you there.

Enjoy the weekend!

Leeanne King

Acting Principal

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