Principal's Message

BOOK WEEK – FIND YOUR TREASURE

Only a few more sleeps until … Book Week! “Find Your Treasure” is the theme for this year’s Book Week and there will be plenty of treasures available at our Book Fair and some special competitions run throughout the week including prizes for the best book characters at our Book Parade.

Coming home to your child this week is the catalogue for next week’s Book Fair which will be held in the Library directly before and after school from Monday to Thursday.

Coinciding with Book Week is a visit from Melbourne-based writer, Alex Miles. Alex published her first play at age seventeen and has gone on to write across theatre, television and advertising. We know her best for her Olive Black series and her work under the penname H.I. Larry for eight books in the popular Zac Power series. Alex visits us on Thursday 23rd of August.

At the conclusion of Book Week is our annual Book Parade. This will be held at school from 9.15am on Thursday 23rd of August instead of Friday, because we have many students at the District Athletics. This is always a great highlight of the year where we see students (and staff) dressed up in costume as one of their favourite book characters. All RPS community members welcome!

YEAR 5/6 CAMP MANYUNG

On Monday our 5/6 students excited as can be, accompanied by staff who volunteered across the school, departed to the YMCA adventure camp on the Mornington Peninsula. I had the pleasure of joining our campers on Tuesday, as they revelled in the fun activities Manyung had on offer. From the giant swing to the tree top challenge, initiatives and international games of Poly Pong, and Ga-Ga were amongst some of the favourites. Lots of great hearty food and night entertainment with murder mysteries and a trivia night. I can honestly say our students had a marvellous time and proudly represented RPS. I’m sure these pictures can attest to everyone having a great time building stronger connections and friendships.

Thank you to all the staff who looked after our students: Ms. Skinner, Mr. Leech, Mrs. Howell, Ms. Grey, Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Watts-Hall, Miss Barrow and Mrs. Agnoletti.   

FATHER’S, GRANDFATHER’S & SPECIAL FRIENDS DAY – COMING SOON

Please join us on Wednesday 29th at 7:30 am for a hearty BBQ breakfast, fun old school games, like hopscotch, egg and spoon, marbles and a good old footy parade at 9:00am.  So come out with your favourite footy attire and bring along your special person for the day. All students will also pick up some special gifts at the Father’s Day Stall at 2:00pm specially organised by our Ripper Family volunteers.

ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

Congratulations to Ms Jo Ritson, accompanied by the tremendous support of our parents and staff, for a very successful 3-6 Athletics Carnival last Monday. The atmosphere was of sheer excitement and competition, but always in the spirit of good sportsmanship. Students competed in relay racing, various sprints, shot put, long jump and high jump, including a range of novelty events such as the teachers vs students race. Apart from a few hamstring injuries from our teachers, the day was enjoyed by all.  Many of our students from Year 3-6 will represent RPS at the District Competitions on Friday 24th August.

100 DAYS OF SCHOOL

We arrived at school last week to find some strange teachers taking the place of our regular Foundation teachers, Ms Wimpole, Ms Clover and Mr Porteous.

Our Foundation students are officially 100 days smarter and celebrated their first 100 days of school. Not only did they come dressed representing the number 100, but they spent the day engaging with lots of fun activities, such as the art and crafts, a parade with their Year 6 buddies, dancing, creative writing, and much more. The range of activities left the students spoilt for choice and fully engaged. It was clear from the many smiles that the whole day was a great success. Thank you to all the teachers and students who put extra time in, to ensure everyone had a thoroughly good time!

PARENTS OPINION SURVEY

We are reaching out to all parents who received this survey to kindly complete this online. To ensure validity of the survey, we must reach over 50 respondents. We are currently on 36 completed surveys as of today. Parents who have completed the survey can contact the office and enter their child in the school’s fortnightly cake raffle. At Ripponlea we value your feedback and this supports our planning for 2019.

THREE WAY CONFERENCES

We hope many families took the opportunity to meet and celebrate their child’s learning through this very unique reporting opportunity. This reporting procedure, in which the student is very actively involved in the learning and reporting process, is a fundamental shift away from the one-way transference of information from teacher to parents, and is consistent with the characteristics of effective pedagogy and assessment in the Victorian Curriculum.

Three Way conferences achieve the following:

• students demonstrate evidence of learning;
• teach students the process of reflection and self-evaluation;
• facilitate the development of students' organisational and oral communication skills and increase their self‐confidence;
• encourage students, parents and teachers to engage in open and honest dialogue;
• encourage students to accept personal responsibility for their learning; and
• increase parental understanding of their child’s learning through improving attendance at and satisfaction with the reporting process.

If at any point parents would like to discuss the progress of their child, without the presence of the child, please contact the teacher to arrange a meeting mutually convenient for all parties. 

STUDENT ATTITUDES TO SCHOOL

The results of the 2018 Student Attitudes to School Survey have been returned to the school by the Department of Education & Training. Each year this state wide survey measures the opinions of students in Years 4, 5 and 6 on a wide range of factors focussed on student relationships, wellbeing, and teaching & learning. We are really proud to share with our community that the 2018 results are an improvement on the 2017 results, across many survey scores. To compare we have provided you with a table of positive percentage responses.

It is very pleasing to see that our students are feeling so positive about their school, peers, teachers and in particular their wellbeing and learning experiences. Last night at School Council, we discussed this data and what possible planning will occur. I will be meeting with all students to seek further input from them, promoting their student voice in future planning of curriculum programs and other student led initiatives.

LEADERSHIP TEAM – PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

Our leadership team has been extremely busy participating in a range of professional learning centred on building Professional learning communities. Professional learning communities (PLCs) are an approach to school improvement where groups of teachers work collaboratively at the school level to improve student outcomes.​ Creating a culture of working collaboratively to continuously improve teaching and learning is at the heart of the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO).

We have extended opportunities for more staff to embrace new positions of leadership. We congratulate Mr. Braden Leech who will lead the Mathematics PLT and Ms. Lucy Clover who will support the F-2 sub school alongside Vicki Smith.

Please see our updated leadership co-learning and distributive leadership structure.

AMENDED POLICIES

At last night's School Council the following policies were ratified:

• Attendance Policy 2018

Volunteers Policy 2018

First Aid Policy 2018

These are available on RPS's website (http://www.ripponleaps.vic.edu.au/ourschool.php?id=31) and on the COMPASS portal under School Documentation.

COMPASS

If you require any assistance with COMPASS, please contact the office on 9527 5728 or ripponlea.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au. If you've misplaced your letter with your first time login details, we can easily generate a new one for you.

Please be aware we will cease the use of Skoolbag by the end of this term so to make sure you don't miss any communication from us, please join COMPASS.

PRODUCTIVE GARDENING CLUB

We are looking for enthusiastic volunteers to join Alison Douglas, Bec Parker, Dominique Wimpole and our students next Wednesday 22nd August. Everyone to meet at 1pm at the garden. 

Until next fortnight!

   Natalie Rose                          Jess Grey

Acting Principal        Acting Assistant Principal