Principal's Report

Dear Members of the Glen Waverley Primary School Community,

I trust all is well with you and your family and welcome to this fortnight’s newsletter where so much is shared about our wonderful school.

As per usual, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me on 9802 9938 or via email at frank.catalano@education.vic.gov.au

The end of Term One

I find it difficult to believe that tomorrow is the final day of term One - where has the time gone? Nevertheless, a sincere thank you to all the members of the Glen Waverley Primary School community as it has been an outstanding term of teaching, learning and collaboration. I look forward to this continuing next term and beyond. 

Cultural Diversity Week (CDW)

Wow, what a great way to end Term One as we celebrated and acknowledged the different cultures that make up our wonderful school. Monday’s assembly was filled with enormous colour as the children and staff wore their traditional clothing and some performed an array of cultural songs and dances – thank you to those that did so as your efforts are appreciated immensely! 

This year’s theme is “Culture Connects Us All” and throughout the week, the children joined with their Buddy Class to share their CDW home learning as they connected through their culture. 

Thank you and well done everyone, below are some of photos for everyone to enjoy! 

Congratulations to the following children for their fabulous achievements outside of school 

Across our school we have so many students who achieve the most amazing things and one of the highlights of my role is hearing about them and then sharing with our school community. Below are some recent examples:

Soccer – Evin (Year 4), recently participated in the soccer round robin day and he sent me the following email:

Dear Mr. Catalano,

I played in the Year 4 Soccer Gala Day at Mt View Primary School on 23rd of March. 

I was in Group A, and we played four matches. We won all of them and finished at the top of our group.

We worked really well as a team by passing, dribbling and taking lots of shots. I even scored a long-range goal that curved into the top corner.

In the semifinal, the score was 0–0. I got the ball and ran quickly past a defender. It became one on one with the goalkeeper and I scored. That goal sent our team into the grand final.

In the final we accidentally scored an own goal, but I responded by scoring a great goal. Unfortunately, Pinewood Primary School scored again, and we lost the match but my team and I are very proud of how we played. 

Kind regards,Evin 

Well done and thank you for sharing, Evin. It is quite evident that you enjoyed representing our school and that you love playing soccer!

Cricket – Minza (Year 5) is a very talented cricketer, and I am excited and very proud to announce that she has been selected as a member of the Victorian Under 14 Indoor Cricket team. Naturally to make a state team is an amazing achievement, however, to be selected for the Under 14 team when you are only 10, is phenomenal! Well done, congratulations and keep up the fabulous commitment Minza! We look forward to hearing how you go at the National Championships!

Chess – Manish (Year 5) is an avid chess player and over the last 2 or so years, his knowledge, understanding and ability has improved dramatically, for instance:

• Recently he received a merit-based entry to compete in the Northern Star NSC Secondary Open Zonal Tournament held at Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School. Despite being a primary school student, he performed exceptionally well, winning a Gold medal in his category. 
• He also achieved a High Distinction, scoring 6 out of 7 points, and secured 8th place among 139 participants from 13 secondary schools. 
• His performance was also recognised and appreciated by Northern Star.
• On the 25th of March at Heathmont College Secondary Open Tournament has won the Gold Medal in his category.
• Shortly he will be competing in the following tournaments:
  • The Doeberl Cup, Sydney International Open (SIO), and the
    • Melbourne International Open (MIO).

Well done and congratulations Manish! Keep up the amazing persistence and attitude towards chess and we look forward to hearing how you go at the tournaments listed above!

Sineysha (Year 5), Amasha (Year 4) and Devindu (Year 2) love learning and recently they shared the awards received from the James An College where they are achieving approximately 2 years beyond the expected standard – well done and keep up the amazing learning Sineysha, Amasha and Devindu as you should be very proud of yourselves! 

Onalee (Year 4) is a very keen athlete and recently she shared that she was awarded:

• Gold medallions for the Under 10 High Jump and Shotput 
• Bronze medallion for the 200m sprint from the Knox Athletics Club.

Well done Onalee and keep it up, I look forward to sharing what you achieve in the future!

Bavitran (Year 2) is also a very talented athlete who recently completed sports events at the Berwick Athletics Club and the Bharathi Academy, where he received: 

Berwick Athletics Club

• Bronze medal in High Jump, with a jump of 95cm
• 4th – for the 50m sprint
• 5th – for the 70m sprint and
• 7th – in Shot Put.

Bharathi Academy

• Gold medallion in Long Jump, 100m and the 200m sprint 
• Bronze in Discuss and 
• A special trophy because he received 3 gold medals.

Well done and congratulations Bavitran, keep up the amazing effort and we look forward to hearing how you progress with your athletics! 

Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal – Coin Race

Thank you to everyone wo supported this year’s Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal as it has been wonderful to see the children proudly bringing their coins to school for our annual ‘coin race’. 

We look forward to sharing more information in the first newsletter of Term Two, in the meantime, below are some photographs for your enjoyment. 

Intra-school Cross Country Event 

Best wishes to the Year 4 to 6 students with tomorrow’s intra-school cross country event. From this point Ms. Lawlor and Mrs. Hawkins will assemble our school team that will participate in the District event on Tuesday 12th May. Good luck everyone! 

Year 5 Camp 

Wow, what a fabulous time the Year 5 children and staff had at their Beechworth Camp! We, including me, thoroughly enjoyed learning so much about Australian history as we participated in numerous activities such as:

• Gold Panning
• Honeybee Discovery Tour
• Telegraph Station
• Courthouse visit 
• Ned Kelly Walking Tour
• Burke Museum Experience
• Old Beechworth Gaol Tour
• Sweet Shoppe then Ice cream shoppe
• Cartoon Workshop

Well done and congratulations to the Year 5 students and all the staff that attended as the camp was simply amazing! 

Throughout the camp, we asked the children to reflect on their experiences, below are some of their comments:

Mahika - "In the prison experience, I have learned that Ned Kelly's family was a part of the jail as well, not just him."

Nafas - "In the prison, the women did a lot of sewing, and some of the men had to break up granite."

Aneel - "Bees have 5 eyes. Only females are worker bees, and they have only one sting, and once they sting they die. But the queen bee can sting multiple times because their sting is smooth"

Sam -  "The only way they could send messages before telegraphs was by mail."

Chase - "I learned about morse code here, and how the morse code machine looks like actually. The alphabet is only made out of dash and dots. A dash is the letter 'T' and a dot is 'E'." ‎

Japnoor: I learned that worker bees are actually all females.

Caz: I learned that Queen bees lay five eggs and, when they hatch, they fight to be the last one standing and become the new Queen.

Sanvi: I really liked how they described Ned Kelly’s lifestyle, his armour, and the judge’s wigs. I also found it interesting learning how women were not allowed to be part of the main court seating at the time. I liked how they included different perspectives in the story, such as Joey Byrne, Steve Hart, and Dan Kelly.

Grayson: I learned how Morse code can be used in real-life situations, and that each letter is made using a combination of dots and dashes. I liked pressing the buttons on the Morse code machine.

Zaiden: I learned how to make ice cream. First, they heat the sugar and milk to 60 degrees. Then, they put the mixture into a tub and place it in a machine to mix the ice cream. My favourite part was going into the freezer.

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Eesa - I learnt about the Burke Museum. The people at the time had to kill the birds from the wild to study them and they created them as realistic as possible. 

Anu - I learnt that back in the day the gold rush was hard to find gold and it was dangerous. There are different perspectives of Ned Kelly was he a hero or a villain? In my opinion he was a hero because he only killed the police because they were harassing them.

Annora - At Beechworth honey, I learnt the roles of different bees and why they have different types of stingers. Some are worker bees, which have a different stinger to the queen bee. The worker bees have a stinger with barbs.

NAPLAN Assessment Tasks 

By the time this newsletter is distributed, our Year 3 and Year 5 students will have completed this year’s NAPLAN assessments. I would like to wish all students well and extend my sincere thanks to our Year 3 and Year 5 teachers, as well as families, for their support in helping students prepare. We look forward to receiving the results next term.

Vacation Care Program

Once again our school will be implementing our very own Vacation Care (Holiday Care) program during the forthcoming holidays. Included in this newsletter is an overview of the program and the associated costs. 

Please be aware that ALL FAMILIES are entitled to a 50% rebate (which is not means tested) plus a further rebate which is determined by your family’s 2024 -2025 annual taxable income. 

If you have any questions pertaining to the Vacation Care program, please do not hesitate to contact or see Meththa (OSHC coordinator) or me at school. 

Facilities Update

The development of our school’s facilities is an important part of our overall school improvement plan, and the school holidays are an ideal time for tasks to be completed. During the forthcoming holidays, we plan to:

• Complete updating the children’s classroom furniture. Last holidays we changed the Year Prep, 1, 2 and 6 furniture. These holidays the furniture in the Year 3, 4 and 5 classrooms will be changed and 
• Continue working on our school’s garden by planting additional plants and installing a watering system. 

I look forward to sharing photographs of the above works in our first newsletter of Term Two. 

Principal Awards

Congratulations to the following students for receiving a Principal Awards recently:

Year 1:

• Thiseli, Rasansh, Saravana, Krish, Taira, Janani, Deniz, Reyan, Teyara, Jinia, Shayen, Yenaya and Harvin for being exceptionally responsible and caring members of our school community as they have allocated some of their free time to keep our school yard neat, clean and tidy
• Alishia, Tesxia, Mia and Taira for writing beautiful cards for my office 

Year 2:

• Hannah for making amazing progress with her reading skills! 
• Tatiana and Bavitran for making finger puppets to represent the people in their lives that are classified as “askable adults.’

Year 3:

• Nitish and Savik for being fabulous helpers
• Aaradhyaa, Ayara, Raghavan, Sasavi, Nairah, Ethan, Benjamin, Liam, Tenura, Dushaan, Tanvika and Aaryan for working hard to improve their handwriting 
• Samhith, Ayara, Aaradhyaa, Saambavi, Sasavi and Nithish for making excellent progress with their learning 
• Savik for learning about lots of complex words! 

Wishing everyone a safe and happy school holiday period. Safe travels to those that are travelling and Happy Easter to those who celebrate this cultural event.

Take care and I look forward to seeing everyone on Monday 20th April.  

Frank Catalano

Principal