Parent Opinion Survey Reminder

The 2023 Parent Opinion Survey closes tomorrow. Those families who were in the random selection for the survey, please complete asap. The Individual link was sent out 3 weeks ago.

Visitors

Earlier in the term we had our Regional Director, Karen Money, and Deputy Secretary for Policy, Kylie White, request a visit to Scoresby PS and Scoresby Secondary College. They both came last Friday and we hosted the guests for a learning walk.

Karen is a former teacher and principal and left her school, Melbourne Girls’ College in Richmond, to lead the rollout of the Tutor Learning Initiative for the Department of Education in 2021. Kylie has been with government departments (including Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning - DELWP) for many years, and moved to Education Policy in 2021.

The reason for their visit was to hear and learn from both schools about their excellent achievements in NAPLAN, and the teaching practices that support the success. Karen was very keen to learn about the Point Of Need Teaching (PONT) at both schools as well.

We took them on a learning walk around the school for an hour. Karen spoke to most teachers and interacted with students in the classrooms, and asked the students about the learning and tasks they were attending to.

Both visitors were very impressed and complimentary of our school, staff and students. It was a delight to showcase our school, and lovely to be recognised in this way.

New Arrival!

Congratulations to Rachel Crofts and her partner, Jack, on the safe arrival of Layla. Layla was born two weeks early and arrived on Sunday 27th August. Both mum and baby are home and doing very well.

All School Information

We would like to reiterate the importance for families to check in with COMPASS regularly. ALL of our event information is posted via COMPASS. We chose to use this platform for a number of reasons:

mainly to keep all of the information in one place
easy access for all family members
fewer notices getting lost
payment convenience when possible
cutting down on paper costs
easy and convenient report viewing for all family members
internally for us it’s a great system and database

Our wonderful Business Manager, Tina, sends home a weekly update each Friday with the events for the upcoming week. It’s a really good place to start when planning your week ahead. This newsletter always has an updated diary at the front too.

If you have any feedback, or are having issues with COMPASS, please come and speak with us in the office. We are always willing to help and listen.

Father’s Day

We had many fathers and father figures attend our Father’s Day Breakfast Club last Wednesday. Thank you for coming; we hope you enjoyed having a special breakfast with your children at school. Thanks to the parents and staff who helped out on the day to make the morning special for our dads. We hope you all had a lovely time on Sunday celebrating Father’s Day.

Parent Teacher Interviews And Learning Tasks

We hope you enjoyed the face-to-face parent teacher interviews held last Thursday. It was nice to see parents back on-site, discussing the progress of their children in classrooms, rather than on computers.

Thank you for adapting to the new times we were able to schedule. The 2022 AEU Time-in-Lieu arrangement for events beyond school hours has an impact on times that we are able to require staff to stay back past their normal working hours of 8:45am- 4:45pm.

State School Spectacular This Weekend

This is the first time Scoresby Primary School is participating in this exciting annual event. Schools across the state send their squads in to John Cain Arena to be part of the Spectacular each year. Some schools perform in the massed choir, and this year we are participating in the massed dance. There have been many months of practise and rehearsing of the dance routines, and we extend a huge thanks to Rachel Crofts who has taught and supervised the students since the beginning of the year.

For the rehearsals and performances, Liz Dinakis will be the main supervising teacher, and Sue and Nic will be supporting her. Thanks to Liz for stepping in.

The SSS rehearsals are on Thursday and Friday, and the main performances are on Saturday 9th September at John Cain Arena, with two shows at 1.00pm (matinee) and 6.30pm (evening).

There are some tickets available if you are interested - www.ticketek.com.au

Little Angler Kits For Grade 5 Students

The Victorian Government is investing $1.5 million from the Recreational Fishing Licence Trust Fund to provide up to 95,000 Little Angler Kits to primary school-aged children in Victoria.

The free kits provide a wonderful school holiday activity for children with their families and help ease the cost of living, providing a fun activity close to home.

Grade 5 students at all Victorian schools, including ours, will be offered the opportunity to receive a FREE Little Angler Kit. Grade 5 students have been selected based on the Victorian Curriculum focus, movement and motor development, and safety considerations.

The program is entirely voluntary. Schools were provided with the option to opt out of the program. Our school has opted to stay in the program so that parents can decide whether they want their child(ren) to receive a free fishing kit.

Parents of Grade 5 students can advise the school if they do not wish their child(ren) to participate for any reason whatsoever. We support parents in making decisions that align with their family values and beliefs.

The roll-out of kits will occur through the second half of 2023 (16 October – 4 December) so that all participating children will have a kit in time for the summer school holidays.

The kits include a rod, reel with line, tackle tray, some tackle and information on how to use them to catch a fish. Please note that the tackle tray includes fishing hooks. The tackle tray will be wrapped in cardboard and placed inside a pocket inside the fishing kit bag, which will be sealed with a cable tie to discourage students from opening their kits until they are with a parent or carer.

Kits will be handed out to students to take home with them as soon as the school receives them. Teachers will tell students not to open the kits until they are safely at home with a parent or carer, however parents can contact the school and request to collect their kit from the school themselves if they prefer.

The Victorian Fisheries Authority will create a Little Angler hub on their website, which will be live when the kits start being distributed. It will have useful information, instructional videos and online resources about where and how to fish linking to existing resources from Fishcare and new resources to be produced just for the Little Angler Kits program.

This initiative aims to grow recreational fishing participation in Victoria by actively encouraging primary school-aged children to learn how to fish, as well as learning more about marine life and the natural environment.

Eastern Regional Libraries – School Holiday Programs

The school holidays are upon us, and our Eastern Regional Libraries are once again providing a variety of school holiday activities. Tickets will be made available to the general public from Saturday 9th September. Please see the flyer below.

SUE HARTLEY AND NICOLE RHEUMER

Scoresby Primary School Leaders

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