Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the very first edition of our new newsletter format. As discussed in our last newsletter, moving to a digital platform will provide many advantages for the school including:

Making it easier to read on your phone or device (which the vast majority of families do)
Easier formatting processes for administration staff, dramatically reducing the time taken to create each edition.
The capacity to include more digital content into the newsletter, including video and photo gallery functions that makes for easier viewing.
The ability to gather readership data to assist with targeting our audience more effectively.
Having more control over real time editing and publishing.

Nothing will change in the way this newsletter is delivered so please keep looking out for the link every fortnight on your Compass notifications.

You will notice that each page of the newsletter has a theme and a quick access menu on the first page. This will allow you to find the information more efficiently.

Right up front you will notice our calendar page with all the dates and times for events coming up. From feedback, we know this is very important to assist with family organisation.

As with anything new, I am sure there will be a few teething issues along the way which we will work to rectify as they appear. We hope you enjoy the new format and welcome any feedback.

Our Very Own Weather Presenter

It was exciting to hear that Olivia from Year 1/2 was selected to be a Junior Weather News Reader on Power FM recently. Olivia joined Jack and L.J to present the weather live on radio. Olivia said it was an exciting, but nervous experience reading live on air for all of Ballarat and district to hear. Not only did Olivia have an experience she will never forget, but she also collected some cool prizes. Well done Olivia.

Energy Breakthrough, Here We Come

We are very excited to announce that this year we will be entering the Energy Breakthrough. The Energy Breakthrough is an event that schools from across Victoria and NSW enter to race each other in Human Powered Vehicles. This week we took ownership of our very first HPV. It looks a little rough at the moment, but over the coming months, students will be working alongside staff and parents to turn this contraption into a lean, mean, racing machine. You can find out more about the event by clicking on the link below.

Stay tuned for more information.

School Saving Bonus

You may have seen the recent announcement of the School Saving Bonus, as part of the Victorian Budget 2024/25. We are sharing more information about how families will be able to access and use this support.

This one-off support will include $400 for each eligible student to help families cover the costs of school uniforms and activities in 2025.

It will be available to parents and carers of every child enrolled in a Victorian government school in 2025.

Cash will not be paid directly to individuals or families. Instead, families will receive the bonus as credits on their school accounts that will help meet the costs of your children’s activities and uniforms.

Existing supports

The School Saving Bonus support will be in addition to existing and continuing means-tested supports for camps, sports, excursions and uniforms.

The application-based Affordable School Uniform program, through State Schools’ Relief, will continue to be available to families experiencing financial hardship or other forms of vulnerability and short-term crisis. This program allows schools to make multiple applications for support on parents' behalf throughout the year if needed.

There will be more information and guidance about the School Saving Bonus in Term 3, 2024, ahead of its implementation in 2025.

Curriculum Day

A big thankyou to our very supportive parent community for making arrangements to support the curriculum day this week. We know this can be a disruption to your schedule, however the benefits for staff to have uninterrupted time focussing on important processes and systems for the school is invaluable. Thankyou.

During the curriculum day, staff were able to spend time on the following focus areas:

Helping everyone to understand the Lucas journey. (this is important as our staff team is continually growing.)
Developing our restorative practice approach to dealing with challenging behaviours.
Spending time on a long term plan to frame our wellbeing and bahaviour response process.
Tightening up our response to challenging behaviours in the yard and how we work with students to build deep reflective behaviours and respectful interactions with others.
Establishing lesson plans to reflect our SWPB matrix.

Acknowledgement of Country

Having our Koorie Champions lead the school in the Acknowledgement of Country has been a wonderful addition to our assemblies this year. At a recent meeting with our Koorie Education Coordinator, it was identified that the language we are using as part of the assembly comes from Wurundjeri land, which is closer to the Melbourne area. Womenjeka is the word we use in the Acknowledgement of Country that means welcome and was more commonly used around Melbourne. Words that were more commonly used in Waddawurrung country, which is Ballarat and district, were Nyoora and Kim-Barne

Nyoora - Hello

Kim-Barne - Welcome.

These will be added to our Acknowledgement of Country.

Mother’s Day

As we head toward Mother’s Day weekend, we acknowledge that this celebration might not be just about the mothers in our lives but those who play the mother figure role. Thanks to these very special people for the love and care they provide to our young people. All classes are working on creative ways to say thanks to the mothers and mother figures in their lives and of course we have our special Mother’s Day afternoon tea on Friday. We are looking forward to seeing everyone there. Happy Mother’s Day for this Sunday.

GRIP Leadership Conference 2024

written by Ruaridh and Allira year 6.

On Friday the 3rd of May, school leaders had the opportunity to attend the GRIP Leadership Conference at Federation University. When we arrived at the conference there were around 35 other schools there as well. We all sat in the auditorium and immediately turned our attention to the engaging presenter before us. We were all hooked but when the section ‘loud noises’ started, we all screamed at the top of our lungs. It was incredible! We had multiple breaks and saw lots of friends from our old schools. The people leading the show chose multiple people to go up on stage to share their work and participate in the activities. It was loads of fun to watch the videos that were very entertaining, funny and all together made up most of our excursion there. It was very fun and pleasant to watch. It was an exciting experience to attend in person. We learnt that we must have a voice as a leader and skills to help us with helping others. We learnt that a leader is anyone and everyone that is able to understand everybody's feelings and worries. It doesn't matter what shape or size you are; you can always be a leader. All of us thought it was amazing.

We hope other students in later years can enjoy this experience too.

TEACHING AND LEARNING