Moorabbin Primary School

PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE

The Moorabbin Primary School Community touch the land and think of the Bunurong People and surrounding Clans of the Kulin Nation who cared for the land before us.

We share our gratitude to their Elders past, present and emerging.  As we touch this land, we promise to treasure it, taking care of all its people, animals, plants and waterways. We at Moorabbin Primary School appreciate this land. Thank you.

Dear Families, carers, and friends of Moorabbin PS,

 

Here we are in October and Term 4 2024! I hope you have all had a great school holiday with your families. This term is 11 weeks long and we have hit the ground running with our swimming program for our foundation and year 4 students. I spent a great deal time over the holidays with our builders and maintenance crew to make sure the removal of the portable went to plan, including several general maintenance issues across the school. 

 

Our school is undergoing an OHS audit next week, so it was important to ensure that we have all the necessary procedures and systems in place. I would like to take the opportunity to thank all our office staff and Mr Corrigan for their assistance with organising and assisting with this important audit. Every school is required to undergo an audit before a school review, which is scheduled for term 2 of 2025 for our community. We will all have a lot of work to do in the near future.

 

UPDATE ON THE GYMNASIUM BUILDING

The project is a few weeks ahead of schedule and concrete has been poured to secure the metal posts. The site has been cleared, packed and levelled with plumbing pipes installed and pits for sewers, water drainage and general plumbing have been fitted and the concrete slab will be poured in the next couple of weeks. The project is tracking well, and you will have noticed that the gate leading to the oval has been moved slightly to accommodate families who use this entry/exit point into the school.

 

      

 

FACILITIES WORK FOR TERM 4:

Work that I have scheduled for this term will entail these mini projects and funds from the building fund will be used:

  • Top up the sand in the sand pit 
  • Fix the torn sails and buy new padding for all the posts in all playgrounds
  • Line marking for our basketball courts and other areas of the school
  • Install the extra basketball hoop for our junior students
  • Top up the tan bark in the senior and junior playground
  • Purchase new sitting benches for children to sit/eat/play near the art room and in front of the new building
  • New sick bay bed
  • Fix and replace all the water troughs in the school
  • I am also seeking to reinstate our sensory garden and currently working with a variety of suppliers seeking 3 quotes for our school council to approve

 

CURRICULUM DAY – Monday NOVEMBER 4TH Pupil Free Day and Tuesday 5th November Melbourne Cup- Public Holiday

A reminder that our final curriculum day for Term 4 will be on Monday 4th November. Team Kids will be offering a program on this day and bookings can now be made.

Followed by the Melbourne Cup Public holiday Tuesday 5th November.

 

SCHOOL SAVING BONUS 

To be eligible for the bonus you need to do the following before 18 October. 

  • Complete enrolment: If your child, or children are changing government school for Term 1 2025, or starting Prep or Year 7 in 2025. 
  • Check your contact information: Ensure your email address and phone number is up to date with us. You can check this information by contacting us directly. We need to ensure your contact information is up to date as the Department of Education will email you twice: 
  • In October, to verify your email address - in November, with your $400 School Saving Bonus and access to an online system. 
  • Please check your junk mail regularly to make sure you do not miss an important email. To learn more about the School Saving Bonus 
  • click here: vic.gov.au/school-saving-bonus

INTENTIONS TO LEAVE 

Term 4 is always dominated with planning for the following year – grade and staff selection, budgets, enrolments and more. We have asked this before and many thanks to those families have been very good in letting us know of your plans for 2025.

I ask that families indicate their intentions asap, as the difficulty and extreme challenges of finding staff right now is incredibly difficult. Last term we had to undergo 3 recruitment rounds to find a replacement for Ms Smit. Our Society in general is undertaking and considering “moves for work/ health life balances” which are having a flow on effect to several industries, including education. The fall out effects of the last few years are still reeling but in a very different way. 

 

We appreciate families have a lot going on and can and do make decisions based around impacts to their immediate lives, we understand, but please out of common courtesy inform us sooner rather than later, sometimes your children do inform their friends and teachers they are leaving.

 

ENROLMENTS and numbers for 2025 

And on ‘numbers’ theme, whilst we think we have nearly all of our current family enrolments for 2025, if there is anyone out there who hasn’t completed the enrolment process yet, please do so asap. With all our planning and projections, the school for 2025 will have a possible enrolment of 543 I am about to start a recruitment process again for 1 staffing position and on a hypothetical if we have 5-10 families leave that is potentially 1 class teacher that we will be in excess of. 

 

CONSIDERATION FOR PARENTAL FEEDBACK- NOT CLASS REQUEST or GRADE PLACEMENT for 2025

Each year at this time, the staff commence the planning for the placement of students into classes for the following year. We do recognise that that there might be some limited circumstances initiating parental feedback, but please think carefully about this and if you really do feel a need to inform us of these circumstances then do let your child’s teacher or I know. Having said that, if there are special circumstances that we or I need to know about, you are welcome to let us/me know of these. Such special circumstances might include but are not limited to health, emotional or learning matters, peer or sibling relationships or changes in the home situation. 

 

SELECTING A PARTICULAR TEACHER DOES NOT FIT WITHIN THE REALM OF SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES. Information requiring your consideration needs to be addressed to ‘The Principal’ and emailed to the office or myself by Friday, October 25th. Please title the email “CONFIDENTIAL STUDENT INFORMATION for 2025’. My email address: Eudoxia.angelides@education.vic.gov.au 

 

At this stage, we have not assigned teachers to grade levels for next year, and in fact still need to select one more teacher to fill this role for next year. There are no guarantees that teachers currently teaching at certain grade levels will be teaching there next year, as leadership needs to take into consideration a range of factors including the development of our teaching staff and teacher preferences before this allocation is completed. 

I can inform our community that we have settled on a grade structure for our Foundation – Year 4 students for 2025.

  • 78 Foundation students- 4 classes (still have enrolments coming in)
  • 84 Year 1 students- 4 classes
  • 93 Year 2 students- 4 classes
  • 87 Year 3 students- 4 classes
  • 63 Year 4 students- 3 classes

I am still waiting to see what the overall total of the numbers will be in this cohort as historically some of our families in Year 5 make the decision to move to the independent sector which can affect whether we will need 5 or 6 classes. Due to the low numbers of our future Year 6 students making two classes with the very important learning and teaching needs of this group of students, we will not be making two classes of year 6 students in 2025, but definitely will in 2026.

  • 86 Year 5
  • 52 Year 6

Total of 545

 

LEARNING THIS TERM

This term our students will be immersed in a huge variety of extra-curricular learning activities which will include: 

  • Whole school musical Soiree
  • Swimming P-4
  • Kinder to Prep Transition Program
  • Whole school transition program called “Up Days”
  • Year 6 Graduation
  • Year level excursions and incursions
  • Mini maths group and mini scientists’ group
  • Chess at school
  • Dance classes at school
  • Orange music external program at school
  • Yr 6 beach Swimming program 
  • Leadership program and speeches
  • I see I care ambassadors swim with the dolphins and end of year function
  • Interschool sports/incursions along with assessments and reporting and end of year celebrations and class parties.

HATS AND SUNSCREEN

A reminder that all students need to be wearing a School approved hat anytime they are outside.  Please do not send your child to school with a baseball cap. I ask that parents name their child’s hat and perhaps also use a fabric marker to label the rim of the hat, so it is clear and visible with the child’s name. If children don’t have a hat they will be asked to sit under a shaded area of the school ground. All classrooms have sunscreen and children will be encouraged to apply some before they go outside. If your child needs to apply their own sunscreen please see your child’s classroom teacher this week or send through a note via the school email or through the student diary.  

 

We take the issue of sunburn seriously and want to work together to ensure all our children have appropriate coverage at all times during term 4 where the temperatures and UV rays can be quite high.

 

During extreme hot weather days, (temperatures that reach 32 degrees and over), all children will be directed back to their classrooms to play inside. Activities will usually take the form of reading, playing board games, drawing, construction, completing work and can sometimes include a possible short “G” rated program, with a teacher supervising each area of the school. No technology is allowed during this time inside. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Noxia Angelides

Principal