Principal Report

Dear parents and carers,

Welcome back to school for 2024. There is a calm yet purposeful feel to our school this year. Our children have moved through to the next stage of school with minimal fuss and have been sharing how much they are enjoying their new classes, teachers, and most of all making new friends. 

The only thing that was missing in the first week was our new prep students and families. We are so pleased that they have now joined us as of last Tuesday.  We always forget how small, funny and cute they are at first, let's hope they stay that way when they become teenagers! The preps have all completed their one-on-one interviews with their new teachers allowing them to really get to know the children, and for the children to have some precious time in the classrooms before they start. 

For those new (or old) we have a parent booklet that you may wish to read. It will answer some of the many things we need you to know when joining a new school. 

I would like to thank all of our staff, old and new, for their contribution to the wonderful start to the school year. I am very grateful for all the hard work they have contributed at the end of 2023, and at the start of this year. 

Our attendance has started great, and we would like to keep this going. We want your child here at school every day they are well enough to be here. Please add any absences to Compass if they really do need to be away. We will follow up with you when children have been absent for more than one day. 

Uniform

The students look very slick in their new uniforms and runners. One of things we are finding is that their clothing is not labelled. It makes it hard to return expensive hats and jackets. Please can you label everything. 

If you do not have a sharpie, please pop along to the office and we can loan you one. A reminder that we do have a uniform shop at school on alternate Friday's if you need to buy a hat.

On the subject of hats, it is term 1 and the weather is hotting up. Next week is a scorcher. Please ensure that all children have a hat for school and have added a base layer of sunscreen before school. We have sunscreen stations at the office and in the Boorai. We are not able to apply sunscreen to children. 

Assemblies

We have our first assembly this Monday 12th February at 2:45pm. The school captains will host and they will be sharing the school representative council / SRC news to students. A student from each class will represent their classes views and voice within the school. Ms. Poole will be the facilitator this year. The preps will be chosen and announced at the following assembly, that will be hosted by 56P. A schedule can be found here for when your child's class hosts. 

Traffic Management 

If you are attending school for the assembly, you will need to park away from our school carparks. It is a good time to remind everyone of the traffic management plans for Rolling Hills PS.

Parking at school

The parking bays at school are all used by staff. We do have disabled bays for families at the front and rear. We have passes for students who have extenuating circumstances through the year, like broken bones etc. See below for details. 

Kiss-N-Go

In the morning, we operate a Kiss-N-Go system after 8:30am at the front and rear. Please help us by having your child ready to hop out the car with their belongings. For safety they need to hop out on the curbside. If there is a child lock on, and a staff member is there, give them a wave and we can open the door for you. 

If you are using the system and find yourself needing to wait for someone else's child to get out of their car, we PLEASE ask that you be patient. We never overtake other cars. If you are dropping children for OSH care and need to sign them in, please make sure the ringway is clear by 8:25am if you park up. We DO NOT operate a pick-up system due to the volume of children leaving school at the same time. The gates are closed at 3pm. 

Roadside

We have lots of on-street parking, and lots of neighbours. When parking, please only park in marked car spaces. Let’s show kindness by not double parking and by keeping driveways clear for the households to be able to enter and exit without stress.

Kinder Parking

We are lucky that the Kinder/council allow Rolling Hills families to park in their spaces. We do however need to ensure that their families have access to parking at all times. It is a popular pick-up and drop-off spot and in discussion with the Kinder/Council we need to ask you to follow their preferences when using the space. 

RHPS families park on the far side of the car park ensuring the bays nearest to the kinder are free for when their families pick-up.

As a community we need to continue to show their families kindness while using their parking spots. Please do not double park or block the entrance area to their car park, even if their are no spaces. This makes the area unsafe for ALL children. 

General Safety 

Drive safely and slowly at all times. The speed is 40km outside of school and 5km inside. Please respect this and keep children safe. 

We received numerous requests to remind families that safety of your children is of upmost importance. Please remind your child/ren how to move through carparks by checking for moving cars (including cars reversing from car parks). We encourage you to please park your vehicle, get out of your vehicle, and supervise your child/ren as they cross car parks.

Walking and riding 

Children leaving school need to use the pathways, rather than driveways when approaching or departing school. It would be greatly appreciated if this could be emphasised and modelled to them. 

If you find parking near the school during these times a challenge, we encourage you to park a few streets away and take a short walk to meet / drop off your child. We would also welcome the safe use of bikes and scooters. Helmets are a must. 

Permit to Park

If you have an expired 2023 Family parking permit, can you please bring it into the office to be swapped for a current 2024 permit. These are for families who have an ongoing physical issue and need support with accessing school.

Volunteering

We are always happy to have volunteers at school either in the canteen, parents and friends, reading with children or joining school council. Nominations for council will be sent out next week. We have a minimum number of parents we need to govern the school and have a 8 meetings per year. Look our for more information. 

When volunteering in school hours there are a few things, we need to check off to be child safe compliant. You will need a voluntary working with children check, you will need to read and sign to say you have read the Volunteer Induction Handbook and you will need to complete all this through the office who will record the details. The great news is that this is a one-off process and all in support of ensuring our school is safe for children. 

Policies 

There are number of policies that have been recently updated or we are due to update.

I would like to share our Child Safety Responding and Reporting Obligations Policy and Procedures as well Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy

We also passed through our Homework policy late last year. Homework for our different levels will be begin this year. Look out for information from your level team next week or come along to the Parent Information Nights next week on Tuesday 13th February at 6:00-6:30pm. 

We have also introduced the DET mobile phone policy. Please take the time to read this. 

We will be offering children the chance each day to them to keep their phone safe here at school until the end of the day. 

(Please note we only have a few mobile phone users. We do not want to open the gates to mobile phones at school. We need to leave some joy for the high school Principal's)

Stay safe and well,

Craig