Principal's Report

It’s been a chilly couple of weeks, but lots of exciting events happening!

District Athletics

Huntingdale students were the winners of the district athletics, which occurred on Monday. Across all events our students performed to a high level and when the scores were aggregated, we performed the best! Well done to all of our team for their efforts, our teachers for preparing our students for the events and to our parent community for supporting our students. Many members of our team will progress to the division level of competition, and we will keep you informed of their achievements.

School Review Update

The school had it’s final two review days recently. First of August was the fieldwork day, and I wish to thank all the parents who attended in person or online to give feedback to the reviewer on a range of topics about the school. There was overwhelming positive opinion about the school as well as some feedback on areas to improve.

The final review day was on 5th August where the review panel considered the feedback given by parents, students, staff as well as a myriad of data sets such as NAPLAN, achievement against the Victiorian Curriculum, parent/student/staff opinion and attendance data and to set our strategic plan goals and targets. This will be written into a review report which will be available to the school this term. From here we will write our new strategic plan.

If you have any questions about the review process, please contact me.

2024 Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey

Our school is conducting a survey to find out what parents / caregivers / guardians think of our school. The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education that is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage all families to participate. Our school will use the survey results tohelp inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies.

All families are invited to participate in the survey. The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open from Monday 5 August to Friday 6 September 2024.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the survey period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

You can complete the survey using the following link https://www.orima.com.au/parent and use the PIN 576672.

Please speak to the school office if you would like more information.

Year 5 Visit to Parliament House

Last week our Year 5’/s visited Parliament House and the National Gallery of Victoria. When attending Parliament House, the students were met by Member for Oakleigh and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, the Environment and Outdoor Recreation, Steve Dimopoulos. Steve discussed with students about working at Parliament House and his role there. It’s great for our students to see our local member and we thank Steve for his time. Our students had a great day on the excursion and we thank our parents who attended on the day.

Science Week

Science Week is being celebrated from 19th – 23rd of August. This year’s theme is Species Survival - More than just sustainability.

We are running a number of events at school during lunchtimes including quizzes, games and experiments and also running a poster competition.

Principal’s Day

Friday August 2 was Principal’s Day. This is to highlight the great work that Principal Class employees do in leading their schools. We are very fortunate to have Naomi Mori-Hanazono as our Assistant Principal in this school. She works tirelessly to support students, teachers and the bilingual learning at Huntingdale. She also is an excellent support to me as Principal and together we work well as a team. Naomi’s work is often ‘behind the scenes’ as she organises the timetables, student support, visitors, casual relief teachers, Watashi Mo and bilingual teaching and learning to name a few of her roles. Thank you, Naomi, for the work you do!

Naomi and I received some beautiful cards and letters for Principal’s Day from students at a brief assembly. We are very proud to lead Huntingdale PS.

Important Dates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island People

Over the next fortnight, there are a number of significant dates for our First Nations People

4th Aug – National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day

In 1988, the first National Aboriginal and Islander Children’s Day was established on 4 August and was set against the backdrop of protests led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their supporters during the bicentennial year. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people felt that a day was needed to celebrate our children to give them confidence and make them feel special and included. The date 4 August was historically used to communally celebrate the birthdays of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children who were taken from their families at a young age without knowing their birthday- the Stolen Generations.

Credit: https://www.aboriginalchildrensday.com.au/what-is-childrens-day/

9th Aug – International Day of the World’s Indigenous People

There are an estimated 476 million indigenous peoples in the world living across 90 countries. They make up less than 5 per cent of the world's population, but account for 15 per cent of the poorest. They speak an overwhelming majority of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages and represent 5,000 different cultures.

In order to raise awareness of the needs of these population groups, every 9 August commemorates the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, chosen in recognition of the first meeting of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations held in Geneva in 1982.

As one of the oldest indigenous populations in the world, this is an important date for our First Nations People.

14th August- 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petition to Parliament Anniversary

Indigenous Australians known as Yolngu, have been living in Arnhem Land for thousands of years, mainly living in the settlement of Yirrkala, with a Reserve established in 1931. Reserves were not managed by the government.

In 1952 large deposits of bauxite were found near Yirrkala. After this discovery the federal government gave permission for mining companies to work on Aboriginal reserves. In February 1962 the government gave authority to mine bauxite near Yirrkala, with the Aboriginal Community hearing the announcement via the ABC news!

The Yolngu wanted to send a petition to parliament to stop the mining. On 14 August 1963 the Yirrkala bark petitions were presented to the Australian Parliament. Sadly, the petition was ignored. Four years later the Federal Government granted permission for a mine to be built. In 1968, the Yolngu decided to launch legal action. It was the first native title case in Australian history. They unfortunately lost this first case even though the court recognised that Yolngu had been living on the land for thousands of years but found that any rights they had before colonisation had been invalidated by the Crown. After many years, the Yolngu eventually received native title to their land in 1978.

The Yirrkala bark petitions were the first example of a native title litigation in Australia. They paved the way for the Aboriginal Land Rights Commission and the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976.

Credit: https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/yirrkala-bark-petitions

Assistant Principal's Report

We are almost half way through Term 3 and its getting warmer and I can feel Spring coming on.

Foundation’s 100 days Celebration

Our Foundation students have reached a milestone of 100 days of school. They celebrated it on 2nd August with many fun activities.

They participated in some Literacy and Numeracy activities, counting to 100. We are so happy to see our foundation students make excellent progress and enjoy coming to school to learn.

Haiku and Abacus (Soroban) lessons

5 teachers from Japan visited our school. Grade 3-6 students enjoyed Haiku lessons and each student created two poems which will be submitted to a Haiku Contest (BashoSai) in Japan. Grade 2 students enjoyed learning Soroban (Japanese Abacus). The visiting teachers and HPS teachers met after school and discussed how maths is taught in Japan and Australia and also how we could improve our teaching and how we could support students learning.

Maths in the STEM room

I visited FC students learning “Volume” during the maths session in the STEM room. Students learnt the math languages to compare masses and capacities using cups and water. They were so well-behaved and enthusiastically used the Japanese.

Psychs in Schools

We would like to welcome Anna (provisional psychologist) Anna will be at our school each week on Wednesday and Thursday. She works with the staff to determine the best treatments and recommendations for students. If you have any concerns with your child, please talk with your teachers or me about this program. There is no cost for parents for this program.

School Uniform

It has been warm but still it gets cold in the morning. Please make sure your children come to school with warm clothes with school colours.

Lost Property

Lost property is mounting up again. Please check the tub in office to see if anything belongs to your child. Please remember that if you put your child’s name on their lunch box, jacket, hat, etc., there is a better chance of them finding their owner. At the end of each term items left are disposed of resonsibly.

Naomi Mori-Hanazono

Assistant Principal

Team Kids