Principal's Report

From Christian's desk....

Congratulations everyone!

Over the eighteen months I have been at Croydon Hills there have been numerous discussions and actions to support the safe arrival and departure of students. This has resulted in much more efficient movement of traffic and, most importantly to me, students have been in class, ready to learn at 9:00am!

Below is a sight that is becoming increasingly familiar to me – an empty Drop Off Zone at 8:59am!

Well done and congratulations!

Early departures and daytime appointments

There are always a number of students who are leaving early or heading to appointments during the day. Our staff fully understand that we are all catching up on the appointments and visits we were unable to make over the past months. If this is the case for your family, please pre-plan arrangements with your child and their teacher. This will streamline our signing out processes. This may include:

ensuring your children are aware of the time they are being picked up
having their bag packed and ready at the office if they’re leaving at a recess break (11:30 – 12:10 & 2:00 – 2:40)
reminding them not to play too far from the office if your departure is at a recess break.

Parent Thank-You

Typically our school hosts a number of thank-you celebrations to acknowledge the contributions of our school community. These include morning teas, dinners and BBQs. Unfortunately some of these will be unable to go ahead in their normal form this year.

It is important to our staff that we still have the opportunity to celebrate your contributions. To help us, can I please ask community members to anonymously nominate parents, carers and other community members who have contributed ‘above and beyond’ this year? Moreover, if the family is concluding their journey at Croydon Hills this year please add that detail to your nomination.

To nominate a community member please complete this FORM by Friday 27th November.

Transition through the School

Over the last few weeks students have completed our ‘Transition through the School’ program. This provides students an opportunity to mix with other students in their 2021 sub-school and, if they are moving learning levels, get to know the physical spaces they will learn in.

Over the coming weeks students will share their 2021 friendship requests with their teacher and complete our final ‘Transition through the School’ session, which involves them meeting their 2021 teacher on Friday 11th December.

6-7 Transition

This week DET provided an update on the 6-7 Transition and the State-wide Government School Secondary Transition Day on 8th December. Individual Government Secondary Schools will be share their plans with Primary Schools and their families. These will be within the DET guidelines:

Students must be allocated into a single class-size group for the day (maximum of 30 people, including two staff).
There are no limits to the total number of groups on site at each school. However, students from different school groups must not mix.
All students attending Orientation Day are required to wear face masks (some exceptions may apply). This will be a new experience for Grade 6 students, who are not required to wear face masks in primary school.
Peer support or ‘buddy’ programs are not permitted. Students from other year levels are not permitted to take part in Orientation Day programs.
Schools may hold transition activities in line with this advice on other days — in addition to, or instead of, the statewide Transition Day — provided these activities occur after Victoria has reached the Last Step in the roadmap for reopening, and in line with public health advice.

Schools will be advised if there are any changes to these arrangements after Sunday 22 November 2020.

K-P Transition

This week marks the end of our first phase of Prep Transition sessions for our 2021 Prep students. The three onsite sessions conducted so far have provided the children an opportunity to get to know our school environment, some of our teachers and a small group of their peers.

There is no transition next week with soft plans made for Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd December (Week 9) and Tuesday 8th December (Week 10); we are awaiting State Government and DET announcements around the number of children allowed onsite at one time.

Further, all going to plan, we will have a Parent Information & Meet your Teacher Evening on Monday 7th December. These class session will be conducted over Zoom.

Assistant Principal Amy Prior will update families in her weekly Prep 2021 email update.

School Review

This week our Review Panel continued their Fieldwork, exploring the school’s approaches to improve student achievement, engagement and wellbeing.

The panel provided the most overwhelmingly positive feedback to Carol, Amy and I. This was not a surprise to us as we are well aware of how very special Croydon Hills Primary School is, however it did fill us with an enormous amount of pride and satisfaction.

The Review will conclude with the Panel Day on Wednesday 25th November.

Christian Holdsworth - Principal