From The Assistant Principal
BUILDING WORKS UPDATE
With the easing of restrictions, planned building and maintenance works will be resuming at the school. Recent government funding has been acquired to repair the structural supports of the main building and renovate some classroom and attic spaces in the northern and southern towers. The electrical upgrade has commenced. This is quite a lengthy process, however upon completion we will be able to upgrade the air conditioning units upstairs and have the electrical capacity to do so.
During the school holidays, the eastern and southern side of the school will be underpinned and renovation works will commence in the LOTE room.
The school is organising the PE office to be repainted by the end of the year and new carpet will be installed in the PE office and Out of Hours School Care room on 22nd December. The OHSC room will be painted before the carpet is laid, but after school finishes for the term.
TRANSITIONS
Schools have had to be very flexible this year due to the varying COVID restrictions and consider new ways of doing things.
We are hopeful that with the Premier’s next announcement on 22nd November, further easing of restrictions will enable us to have all new prep students attend school for their final transition session on 8 December and year 6 students attending their future secondary schools.
The whole school transition day will be held on 8 December. This is when students meet the teachers who will be in that year level and learn more about specific programs and what to expect in the following year. Teachers use this day as an opportunity to observe group dynamics and further changes to class lists are made accordingly. Parents will be informed of their child’s class placement and 2021 teacher in the final week of school.
CAMPS AND EXCURSIONS
This week, DET announced that camps and excursions can now go ahead. As a result, the year 5 and 6 teachers quickly secured camp bookings. The Year 5’s will go to Log Cabin Camp in Creswick in the final week of school (16 – 18 December) and the Year 6’s have secured a place at Phillip Island Adventure Camp from Wednesday 2 to Friday 4 December.
An expression of interest was posted to parents on COMPASS and after receiving an overwhelmingly positive response, and approval at School Council last night, both camps will go ahead.
Parents will receive detailed information about the camps in the coming days. The costs of the camps have been significantly reduced as a result of utilising remaining funds from the excursion levy, provided that parent payments have been paid.
EXCURSIONS
Each Year level is reviewing how much they have left in their excursions/ incursions budget and aiming to arrange excursions between now and the end of the year. Given the challenging year students have had, it is timely they have events to look forward to. For example, Year 4’s are planning a day trip to Golden Valleys Lodge.
Each year level will post to parents an overview of the incursions and excursions that have been or will be undertaken this year.
If funds are not expended, parents will have the option of making a tax deductible donation to the building and maintenance fund or carrying over this credit into 2021.
This naturally depends on whether parents are up to date with their school fees.
WHOLE SCHOOL INCURSION- Kaboom Sports Friday 4 December
Kaboom Sports is back by popular demand. Students from prep to year 5 will be dancing and actively engaged in a range of fun filled novelty activities with music pumping to enhance the mood. The cost of this is incorporated into the incursion levy.
FREE DRESS DAY
Usually on the last day of the term, students enjoy a free dress day and bring a gold coin donation. Instead, the Kaboom Sport Day will be a free dress day with the gold coin donations going to a charity chosen by the Student Representative Council.
SWIMMING
Our swimming program is on a user pays basis. If the children participate, the parents pay for the program. During term one, all of the year 4 and 6 classes and year 5A (Mr Cook’s grade) completed the swimming program. Therefore, parents are required to ensure payments are up to date.
If your child’s class has not participated in swimming this year (preps, year 1, year 2, year 3 and Miss Callanan and Miss Piles’ classes), parents may deduct $55 per student from their parent payment statement.
Please note, if you have already paid (eg. through an annual or quarterly payments) you will have the option to make a tax deductible donation to the building and maintenance fund or carry over the credit to 2021.
PARENT PAYMENT CONTRIBUTIONS AND SAKG
Parents and carers have recently received statements outlining the 2020 outstanding costs, including the SAKG program. Refunds are not required to be made for essential learning items. These levies are paid to continue curriculum delivery. While curriculum has been delivered differently, costs have been incurred to support offsite and online learning. For example, rather than classroom materials being used, there have been additional costs incurred for online learning platform subscriptions for online apps, such as Seesaw and Essential Assessment.
With regard to the year 3 and 4 students participating in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen and Garden program, Anna and Angel continued working to deliver a variation of the program during remote learning. With the return to school, students are once again enjoying the meals made. It is a costly, but worthwhile, program so we are hopeful that parents will support this through their payments.
GRADE 6 GRADUATION
While we are hopeful that the Premier’s next announcement will allow parents to attend the year 6 graduation, at this stage the ceremony will be livestreamed through a private you tube channel for parents to enjoy. Funds from the year 6 excursion levy have been used to pay for the live streaming and video production of the students’ graduation performances, the Year Book and DJ. (Normally year 6’s run a ‘Market Day’ to raise funds to offset the cost of the Year book and pay for a DJ.).
Thank you parents and carers for your flexibility in adapting to the changes our school has made in response to Victoria's changing restrictions.
Chellee Plumb
Acting Principal