Principal’s Report

Dear families and carers,

My Study Trip to Canada:

During the first week of term 2- Monday 15th April-Friday 19th April, I will be on study leave. Bianca Hudson will be the Acting Principal in my absence.

Part of my trip will include discovering Canada’s world-class education system; hear from leading educational consultants and speakers; access high-level professional learning; and unlock innovative tools to improve student outcomes. I will be attending the U-Lead Summit for Educational Leaders.

I will be meeting up with eight other principals and the Victorian Principal’s Association (VPA) president and we will investigate travelling to Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver with like-minded leaders in the education sector.

Program Aims

To understand strategies and opportunities to develop strong leadership capacity and succession planning in schools.
To identify the successful strategies adopted to improve the precision of teaching practice and collective capacity to meet every student’s learning needs.
To identify successful strategies and processes across schools and networks of schools that contributes to improved outcomes in literacy and numeracy.
To explore the concept of “what makes schools high performing and how do these schools sustain improvement in their data and culture?”
To develop an understanding of how school leaders foster collaboration, engagement and empowerment of all partners in the education system to enable all students to achieve their potential.

Twilight Sports

The Twilight Sports event last Wednesday was a fun evening and a successful community event. It was filled with laughter, fun, and unity. Thank you to Costa for organising the event and to PnC for organising the sausage sizzle and face painting. Your participation and enthusiasm contributed significantly to its success, and for that, we are truly grateful.

School Council Members for 2024:

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome our new and existing school council members:-

Lee Cath

Jeff Martin

Mark Evenhuis

Belinda Slomo

Mickaela Glass

Kynan Lawlor

New school council members-

Bianca Hudson- Assistant Principal

Andrew Barker

Victoria Heaton

Frances Lyngcoln

At our next school council meeting, we will be calling for nominations for the following roles within our new school council- President, Vice President, Treasurer and Minutes Secretary.

We extend our sincerest thanks to Ziaul and Hana for their contributions during their tenure on our school council. On behalf of the entire Merri-bek School community, we extend our warmest wishes for continued success in all their future endeavours.

Wellbeing Day- 26th April

Please keep an eye out for forthcoming details regarding Wellbeing Day at Merri-bek Primary School. This event is set for the day after Anzac Day, and staff who participated in the 5/6 camp earlier in the week will have this day credited as part of their time in lieu. We will be hosting an enjoyable program, led by our wellbeing leaders and Michelle Carland.

‘Meet and Greet:’

The ‘Meet and Greet’ night was an excellent way for our school community to get together at the start of the year. The teachers were really excited about meeting with the parents and getting to know the children better, in their class for 2024.

This initial meeting at the beginning of the new school year is so important to ensure the connection between home and school are linked. By effectively communicating information between the teacher, student and parent demonstrates to your children that their education is important. The evidence is overwhelming regarding the success children have at school if parents are involved with their children’s education.

School Leaders:

It was a very special moment to see our school Leaders presented with their badges at last Friday’s assembly. Their leadership appointment and badges, signify the importance of their roles within the school and community. We look forward to seeing our School Captains, Vice Captains and all Leaders perform their roles throughout the year and lead by example as role models for students across the school. Congratulations to you all!

International Women’s Day

Friday 8 March is celebrated around the world as International Women’s Day. The day encourages us to stop and reflect on the challenges women have faced over the years to earn equal rights to men. This has included being granted the right to vote (1902 in Australia) or to continue working after getting married in the 1970s if they had children.

NAPLAN Commenced March 13th:

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students are held in March each year. This year, the NAPLAN test window is between Wednesday 13 March and Wednesday 27 March. NAPLAN tests assess student knowledge and skills in writing, reading, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy. The results of the tests provide information for students, parents, teachers and principals and can be used to improve student achievement.

NAPLAN tests are delivered in an online format. This delivers many benefits including:

a ‘tailored test’ design that adapts to correct and incorrect student responses providing a more precise understanding of student achievement;
innovative use of technology, including a more engaging test design and a wider range of item types;
an extended and more flexible test window, allowing schools greater opportunity to schedule the tests at times that suit them best and increasing student participation.

A public demonstration site is available for schools, teachers, parents, carers and students to familiarise themselves with the online tests.

Further parent informationhere:https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/assessment/f-10assessment/naplan/Pages/parents/index.aspx

Annual Implementation Plan (AIP):

In 2024 we will continue to focus on student learning - with an increased focus on numeracy - and student wellbeing through the priorities goal, a learning key improvement strategy and a wellbeing key improvement strategy.

Our school goals include:-

1. To maximise the learning growth of every student in literacy and numeracy.

2. To strengthen student engagement.

3. To improve student wellbeing.

Copies of our AIP are available in front of my office and on our school website.

Annual General Meeting (AGM)

The AGM and our School Council meeting for the term 2 school year will be held on the 20th May. At the AGM, we will present the Annual Report. The annual report looks at our school context, achievement, engagement and wellbeing and productivity. In this report there is mention of the trend data for both teacher judgement and NAPLAN. The teacher judgment focuses on student reporting, through the Victorian Curriculum and this data indicates that we are at or above in most curriculum areas.

In 2024 there will continue to be a major focus on targeting students at their specific point of need in Mathematics and English. It is important that we maintain and ensure that we are providing authentic assessment and learning that caters for individual differences and utilises our teaching and learning spaces.

Our Annual Implementation Plan has been updated to include the setting of relevant goals and targets. Student data is gathered and collated to ensure we are targeting the individual needs of our students in reading, writing and number. This is essential for effective teaching and learning to take place.

Happy Holidays

At Merri-bek Primary School, we welcome and support students from all cultural and religious backgrounds.

Within our diverse school community, several of our families will be preparing for Easter and will be fasting as part of lent. The orthodox community will be celebrating easter approximately a month later, and baking lots of biscuits, holy bread and dying hard boiled eggs. We also have families, during the holy month of Ramadan, which along with a focus on good deeds, prayer and morally good behaviour, comes the requirement for those who are healthy to fast during daylight hours. Ramadan begins at sunset on Monday, March 11, and ends on the evening of Tuesday, April 9. Eid Mubarak! Happy Eid!

To families that celebrate Easter, “Happy Easter to you all.” To our Greek and orthodox families, Χριστός Ανεστη and Καλό Πασχα and Среќен Велигден.

To our families that don’t celebrate Easter, hope you have a lovely break and enjoy the time with your families. We also wish all our Muslim families “Ramadan Kareem,” which translates into “Have a generous Ramadan,” and “Ramadan Mubarak,” “Happy Ramadan.”

Wishing everyone a lovely holiday break and enjoy the time with your families. School resumes back on Monday 15th April. I will see you all on my return from Canada in week 2. Take care!

Maria Giordano

Principal

New School Council

Frances Lyngcoln

Hey! I'm Frances and I'm a parent to a new prep at the school. As a family we love keeping fit, playing music, travelling and spending time with friends and family. I work for the Department of Education as an Education Improvement Leader, supporting school leaders to implement key improvement strategies aligned to their annual plans. When I'm not doing that, I'm busy creating and baking in my cake & cookie business. I'm looking forward to supporting this fantastic community through the school council, working alongside other parents and staff.

Victoria (Tori)Heaton

I am so pleased to be joining the MBPS school council. I am a parent to a new preppie, Owen, have a 3-year-old in kinder at Merri-Bek, Violet, and a 7-month-old baby, Lucy. I am currently on parental leave from my work as a doctor, working in paediatrics. I love to cook (savoury, not sweet), listen to music and have family dance parties. I am also newly enjoying getting out in the garden more. I am thrilled to be part of the diverse and inclusive MBPS community and looking forward to contributing meaningfully on the school council.

Andrew Barker

An active member of the Merri-bek school community, Andrew is committed to helping us achieve an inclusive, positive and healthy learning environment where our students thrive.

He brings to the Council over 20 years of financial, strategic and governance experience from senior roles in financial services. Andrew has a range of Board experience including a national financial planning firm, the ASRC, and for the past 3 years as Convenor of the Finance and Risk Sub Committee on the Wilderness Society Board.

He and his partner, Jan, have been familiar faces in the MPS community since 2021, when Torben (now in Year 3) started school. You may have met Andrew volunteering at our Election Day fundraiser or fielding traffic at our monthly Open Streets events.

He welcomes any thoughts or feedback you have on how we could make our great school even better.

He welcomes any thoughts or feedback you have on how we could make our great school even better.

Merri-bek Mail

Issue 2 · 15 Mar 2024

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