Principal Report 

Oatlands from My Point of View

It has been a big couple of weeks at Oatlands Primary School. We have enjoyed several special events that involve our broader community, including our Remembrance Day ceremony, our biannual school fete and our dance production.

Our Remembrance Day ceremony last Thursday was fantastic. We had numerous special guests in attendance, and the students and staff participated in the ceremony very well. This ceremony was dedicated to former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Winston Churchill. Staff members Luke Huggins and Ranjit Virk, both born in England, were tribute wreath bearers, and many of the speeches were recitals of Churchill’s most iconic speeches during WWII. The preparation is always a team effort, so the thanks must be broadly shared around, however Ms. Fiona Jamieson deserves the largest congratulations and thank you. Her time and effort to prepare herself, the choir and the student leaders for this ceremony is amazing. Madison, Akhilesh, Jordan, Tye , Saanvi  & Hanya, our student leaders who made speeches and participated in flag and wreath bearing were brilliant and should be very proud of themselves.

Last Friday, we held our biannual school fete. This is always a highly anticipated event, which students get very excited about. As usual, there were so many things to do, there were market stalls, food stalls, rides and many other fun attractions. Attendance was outstanding and the vibe was incredible from my perspective. It was wonderful to see students and their families having so much fun. We also had many former students come down for a visit, some only recent graduates, however there were quite a few who have finished secondary college and are well into their 20s. It is always so special to see these former students, to reminisce a little and to find out what they are doing now. Our school fete takes a lot of time and effort to put on and the number of staff and volunteers to bring it all together is enormous. Thank you to every single person who helped either in the lead up or on the day, it is very much appreciated, and we could not run the fete without this level of support. There are also a few people who must get a special mention and a massive congratulations. Thank you to Thilini Perera, Harjit Kaur Gill, Amanda Savage, Kelley Brown, Susan Potito, Erika Martonhelyi, Sally Ebery, Kavipriya Thompon, Shivani Rai, Elisse Silver, Bhagua Sham, Kellie Quirk, Josie Siata Faatau, Sarah Higgins, Linda Lindsey and Jay Fletcher. Thank you to Jodie Kumbara, Bec Sullivan and Jess Ward for the amazing work they did and the hours they put in to coordinating such a highly successful event for our community.

This week we held our annual school dance production, and it was another huge success. Our PE team of Sarah James, Kara Ellis and Martine Carmichael co-ordinated with an external dance company to teach our students a dance routine. The PE team also organise our performances, which include the dress rehearsal and the performance for our students’ families, working with our Tech team, videographer Ben Miller and our Admin team for ticketing. The students did so well to learn their dance routines and they performed them wonderfully well up on stage. Thanks must also go to our school captains, Madison McCaughan and Akhilesh Ravikumar, for their role as MCs for the day.

Matthew Kenny – Assistant Principal