Principal's Message

Dear OLA Families,

In my interactions with staff and parents so many of us have commented that Term 3 seems to be flying past, we well and truly have passed the half way point of the term and only have two weeks to go! As we look to the end of term and factor in our recent and upcoming school events, please do not be surprised if your child/ren release and express their biggest of emotions in the safety of home, especially in light of this particularly full term. Over the next two weeks, the key will be to maintain a balanced routine between school and home for all of our students, to ensure a successful and positive closure to Term 3. Removing some of the before or after school activities can sometimes help with this balance. As always, please speak with your child's classroom teacher if you have any questions or concerns. 

Wakakirri State Award

Congratulations again to all the Grade 5/6 Wakakirri students for your inspiring Story-Dance performance - Birds of a Feather! Drum roll please... Our Wakakirri Ambassador has made the final decisions, and the results are in!

How exciting. Go Grade 5 & 6! So proud of you!! 

Woooooo!! So proud of you all!

Welcome to our newest staff member

We are delighted to welcome Maria Hogan (Administration - Finance) to our wonderful community at the start of Term 4 2024. 

Maria Hogan

Hello OLA! My name is Maria, and I'm excited to join the OLA community next term in the office! I am a proud mum of three beautiful children - Jack, Poppy, and Eddie - and two fur babies, Swoop (a dog) and Bruno (a cat). I’ve spent the past 20 years working in the fitness industry, as a Myotherapist and running my husband’s gym. I'm also a teacher and have been working at a few different schools over the past 6 years as an LSO, classroom teacher and PE teacher. I recently took up basketball and now play twice a week, which I’m really enjoying. On weekends, you’ll often find me cheering on my kids at their sports events or enjoying fun family time. I'm looking forward to meeting you all!

We also thank Gabrielle McGee for helping handover and help train Maria before she retires at the end of this term after nearly 20 years in our OLA community. We will celebrate Gab at our next whole school assembly on Friday 13 September at 2.30pm. All welcome.

Genre Picnic

A Genre Picnic! Another wonderful celebration from our fortnight of enjoying the magic of reading. What a great Book Fortnight!! From activities and competitions to author visits and Book Week theatre. From Library Treasure Hunts to Buddy Reading and Prime Minister's Spelling Bees to Premier's Reading Challenges! SO much to enjoy and something for everyone.

Fathers & Special Friends Breakfast & Stall

Last Friday we invited all the special men and friends in our lives to celebrate the Father's Day & Special Friends Breakfast. The breakfast was hosted by our lovely mums - thank you! A morning full of smiles, catching up, kicking the footy or shooting hoops and sharing of our best work in the classrooms. We hope all the great men and humans in our life had a Happy Father’s Day. Thank you also to Grade 2MV for their special Father's Day themed Assembly. A lovely day for all our community and we hope you and your family felt included and part of our great community especially on this day. The children also loved the opportunity to attend the Father's Day Stall and we hope the fathers and special friends enjoyed the thoughtful gifts purchased for them. We also hope the amazing cards and written words from the children made their way to a prized place in the home for all to see. 

OLA Art Show

We are excited to invite you to the 2024 OLA Art Show! 

Thursday 12 September 

6:30-8pm

Brigid Hall

The official opening will be at 6:30pm. We will gather in the courtyard outside Brigid Hall where Mrs Hudson, Bou Watts and their Arts & Culture Leaders will say a few words and officially open our 2024 'A World Full of Art' Exhibition. We will then open the doors and families can enjoy having their child lead them through the exhibition. This Art Show will celebrate amazing artworks from around the world and the art will be created in both Visual Art and Indonesian classes. The children can’t wait to show off their creativity.

Please note we will have the Art Show open during the day on Thursday 12 September during the day for those who are not able to make it on Thursday evening as well as Friday morning 8.30-9:00am.

We thank our wonderful OLA Parents & Friends Team for organising drinks and a sausage sizzle for Thursday evening from 6:00pm.  Please let the OLA P&F know if you can help with one of the sausage sizzle shifts. The Second Hand Uniform Shop will also be open. See you there!

 We thank Sam Hudson and Lou Watts for all their work in preparing for this great event.

Second Hand Uniform Shop Sale

The OLA Second Hand Uniform Shop will be open at the Art Show night.

Date: Thursday 12th September 2024

Time: 6.30pm - 8pm

Where: Second Hand Uniform Shop (behind Admin Building, next to the Canteen)

All second hand items $10 each

CLEAN & Good condition donations can be left at the school office. 

Please label the bag so we can credit your family - $5 uniform shop credit per item donated.

This event is made possible by the kind donations from OLA families to P&F fundraising.

Thank you for your ongoing support and we look forward to seeing you at the sale.

If you have any questions or can't make it to the sale, please email uniform requests: uniform@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au

MACS School Improvement Survey is OPEN

Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools – School Improvement Surveys (MACSSIS): Monday 2 September – Friday 20 September 2024

A big thank you to those who have completed this so far. The survey has been emailed to all parents and carers - please check your junk box. We would really love to hear from as many of our community as we can. It is so important for a school to hear what they are doing well so we can keep doing what we are doing well and what could be even better so we can make improvements - please take this opportunity to share your thinking. Over the next couple of weeks our staff and Grade 4-6 students will also complete the survey.

Student Teacher Placements

We are currently training two pre-service teachers who are either in their first or final year of university at Australian Catholic University. Thank you for warmly welcoming Tash Lim in Grade 1JM and Lily Fowler in Prep EJ. We are proud to be supporting the learning journey for these two teachers who are beginning their careers in this great profession - may they remember the beautiful sense of community we enjoy here at OLA together with the outstanding collaboration as well as the beautiful and respectful students. We wish Tash and Lauren all the very best.

OLA Fete

Your donations make for a great fete!

As the fete draws closer we will be requesting your donations to fill our stalls and make for a great community fete. 

September: Each class is asked to contribute to a hamper prize. Check out the recent Operoo to see what donation category is for your child's class. 

October: Chocolate bars. Stash away a few bars when on special to donate to our Choc O Block and cake decorating stalls. 

November: Cake baking. What’s a fete without a bake stall? We’d love your donations of cakes, slices, cookies, jams, chutneys.

We understand we are asking a lot of parents but each contribution to making our school a better place. Every little bit helps and we hope by providing advance notice families can donate to these initiatives. 

Help to raise awareness 

If you live on a high traffic / visible location and wouldn’t mind have a fete billboard on your front fence or garden, please email fete@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au. Please check out our OLA Fete tab in this Newsletter and let us know if you can help in any way...

Claire & Mel

Fete Co-Chairs

2025 & 2026 Enrolments Welcome

Please note our new School Tour Dates from now until the end of the year. Please note that our next school tour is at 9.15am on Tuesday 8 October and then Friday 15 November. If these dates do not work for you please call the office to arrange a time that suits you and your family. It has been so lovely to meet with each Prep child for 2025 - we thank all families for joining us at OLA and for helping your child make the best transition possible.

2025 Plans

We politely ask all families to notify the school should your child/children not be returning to OLA in 2025.  We have had a number of enquiries in recent weeks across various levels. Having an accurate indication of our enrolment numbers ensures we are able to plan accordingly for the following school year and access appropriate funding i.e. staffing and resourcing. We thank you for your cooperation.

Community Illness & Head Lice

Over the past month, various viruses and respiratory issues have been sweeping through our classrooms, leading to a spike in absences and numerous calls for children to be picked up from school. This is a fitting reminder for everyone to remain vigilant during this challenging period. Please ensure that children stay home if they exhibit high temperatures or cold like symptoms, to ensure this does not impact the wider class group. 

We have had a couple of cases of Head Lice in the Junior Area so we do ask that families please be extra vigilant and inspect their child's hair this weekend.

Attendance and Absence

Reporting absence and late arrivals

If your child will be absent or late for school please advise the office of an explanation for your child’s absence by 8.45am. This can be done by email to attendance@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au as well as your child's classroom teacher or by calling the school 9584 9488 and leaving a message as prompted.  This is a legal requirement and should be attended to as a matter of priority. By law we are to follow up with any unexplained absence every day by 9.30am so please help our Admin Team reduce this part of their workload by informing us by 8.45am. 

Calendar

Please open the ‘Key Dates and Events’ tab in this newsletter for important dates or access the OLA Calendar here. Key dates for the coming weeks...

Pupil Free Days for 2024

• Monday 7 October Respectful Relationships 
• Monday 4 November Assessment & Reporting
• Friday 6 December 2025 Planning and Preparation 

Please note on the following dates school finish early at 1pm:

OLA Fete on Friday 22 November

Last day of school Tuesday 17 December

Congratulations

Winner in the Dymocks Australia Wide Writing Challenge

Alice in Grade 6 entered the Dymocks Australia Wide Writing Competition in May of this year and out of 4000 applicants from Prep to Year 12 she has made it into the top 100. Only 39 primary school students Australia wide were selected in the top 100, so she has done incredibly well. From here, out of the 39 from the primary school winners, 10 cash prizes are given from $500-$2000. Alice has already won $50 and is having her story published in a short story book - how amazing is that! The winners of the next stage are announced in Sydney in October so we wish Alice all the very best and congratulate her on shining brightly with her writing. Great to see Alice so excited about this wonderful opportunity.

Preps and their Maths

Congratulations to our Prep students who have been working hard, practising their addition by using the 'counting on' strategy in Maths. We love to see your thinking and your problem solving strategies and we especially love to see you working together with your learning partners.

Junior Mayor

We congratulate Bella on all the work she is doing in her 'spare time' to be the best City of Kingston Junior Mayor that she can be. Thank you Bella for representing OLA with such confidence, dignity and grace. Over this last week she has been written up in the local newspaper and has been a special part of the City of Kingston Citizenship Ceremonies.

Pride in Presentation

Nothing warms our heart more than our visits by children from right across the school who are excited to share an example of their work from the start of the year and they then compare it with their best work from the most recent lesson! Such a HUGE improvement. Congrats especially this week to Henry for his neatly presented work - your handwriting is amazing!

Premiers Reading Challenge

We are very proud of all the students involved and engaged in this exciting opportunity. Well done to all our keen and eager readers! The 60 students participating have now read a total of 2286 books! Thank you Miss Turner, parents and all our teachers for inspiring the love of reading in so many students at OLA. 

⭐Congratulations to our star readers in each level⭐

Prep: Maisie H (PCH)

Junior: Bernard G (2MV)

Middle: Noah W (3/4GO)

Senior: Peter K (5/6NC)

Prime Minister's Spelling Bee

What about this little Super Star of a Spelling Bee! Class Champion and School Champion and all this in Grade 4!  We wish Eden all the very best in the next round of championships. What a super strength to have being a good speller. Well done Eden and well done to all the children involved. Thank you Miss Turner and Miss Riley for making this happen and for creating this great opportunity.

Story Dogs

What a joy it was to see Rachael and Bonnie working their magic with our students this week. We are excited that we have been able to begin Story Dogs to further support the wellbeing of our students. This initiative has been made possible by the 2024 OLA Parents and Friends Team and it has been a wish from our students, staff and parents. 

Paralympics

Sport Sport Sport!! From the Olympics straight into the Paralympics. We can't get enough sport at the moment especially with all our very own OLA students participating in finals across all codes of sports. It has been lovely to hear so many children and adults chatting about the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. An absolute stand out for me would have to be Alexa Leary's endless energy and enthusiasm which she has combined to propel her to perfection in the women's 100m freestyle S9, breaking the world record she set just hours earlier to win Australia's third swimming gold medal at Paris 2024. Congratulations to all our Aussie athletes and all athletes competing from across the world. Aussie Aussie Aussie!!

Explicit Teaching

Visiting our classes especially in moments like this bring such a sense of pride. Our junior students are relishing in the Little Learners Love Literacy approach to reading and our learning and teaching is developed through explicit teaching. The explicit teaching model of 'I do- We do - You do' involves following a series of steps starting with the teacher leading instruction and finishing with students working independently. In the I do stage, teachers model and explain what students need to do and understand. Then, in the We do stage, teachers support the students with guided practice. In the You do stage, the students show their understanding on their own.

Staff Collaboration and Planning

What an awesome team of teachers we have here at OLA. Thank you to each and every one of them for being so collaborative and open to learning from each other and from our experts like Kate Korber who joined us for Professional Learning this week. We spent time focussing on our Term 4 'through line' of journeys, pilgrimages and connection to place.  Our curiosity was sparked through rich images and videos and and we deepened our understanding of how all human cultures have a connection to the land. We look forward to continuing to light the heads, hearts and hands of our students in their learning through this inquiry in Term 4.

Condolences

Prayers and Thoughts

On behalf of all in the OLA community we send our love, prayers and support to the Zolkos family (Jackson 3/4TR). Peter's mother Jadwiga suddenly passed away last Sunday evening after spending a beautiful Father's Day together. May you speak of your mother, mother in-law and Grandmother often and may you all keep her spirit alive in all you say and do.

Baby News!

Congratulations to Jayde and Peter on the safe arrival of their beautiful baby girl Romy. Mack is such a proud big brother and we were delighted he could share his news to the whole school at the Book Week Parade - what a special memory. Mack absolutely adores his little sister and is so wonderful at helping to hold her.

Have a wonderful, well deserved rest this weekend. 

Next week we are looking forward to seeing our Grade 5/6 students take out their State Award in Wakakirri, identified children being extended through GATEWAYS challenges onsite at OLA, students representing OLA at the STEM MAD Showcase at MACS, children Grade 3-6 giving their best at the District Athletics, Preps participating in the Prep Class Prayer Services, our famous OLA Art Show, our iSea iCare Leaders participating in two days of learning about taking care of our environment and the return of our 'Have A Ball' Day where children have the opportunity to bring in and donate a ball that will go to children in our outback indigenous communities. 

May our Grade 6 students making their Confirmation this evening feel extra blessed by the Holy Spirit and may they use the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit to make our world an extra special place to be.

Richard Jacques

Principal