Principal's Report

Multicultural Harmony Day – Friday 21st March- TOMORROW

Each year in March, Harmony Week brings together people of all ages, cultural backgrounds and experiences to celebrate our diverse multicultural communities. This year, Harmony Week will run from Monday 17 March to Sunday 23 March. The theme, ‘Everyone belongs’, encourages inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone. 

As always, Albany Rise will mark the week through our Multicultural Harmony Day celebrations, which we will celebrate on Friday 21st March with a cultural dress day and whole school activities.  There is a wonderful whole school incursion planned on the day- information and permission to attend can be accessed on Compass parent portal.

Incursion information:

ABOUT KITA PERFORMING ARTS COMPANY

“Kita Performing Arts Company (also trading as Sabrina Chou Dance Company) presents traditional and contemporary performing arts of Asia. We love to share our cultures with each other and our audiences. We are equally at home in professional theatre and in communities, schools and at festivals. Our performances are lively, colourful, interactive and educational.

Kita is based in Melbourne, Australia. We mostly work across the Melbourne metropolitan area and regional Victoria. Kita is an Indonesian word that means ‘we’. We chose this word for our name because of its Indonesian meaning, and also because the letters of the word 'Kita' stand for our home countries; Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan and our new homeland of Australia. We met in 2001 when our original members were studying dance teaching and management at Box Hill Institute. Together with our lecturer Kim Dunphy, we formed this company. Since 2001 we have been busy performing in schools, at community and corporate events and creating our own professional works. We have been touring Victoria with Regional Arts Victoria Arts 2 Go program since 2003 and have performed to more than 50,000 students in that time.”

I am sure the children will have a wonderful learning experience as part of their cultural learning curriculum from taking part in this incursion.

House Athletics Day on Thursday the 27th March. 

This year we are holding our ARPS House Athletics Carnival at an alternative venue: Davies Reserve in Oakleigh. Students in Year 3 to 6 will travel by bus to the event. This day will be the basis for selection of our team for the District Athletics, which will be held later in September (tbc). It will also allow the children to have some prior experience of the events before the District Event.Events include: Sprints, hurdles, shotput, discuss, long jump and high jump.

Parent Helpers are very much needed on the day, Please contact the office to confirm if you are able to assist for all or part of the day.Students can wear their House Team Colours (Red-Freeman, Yellow-Perkins, Blue-Fraser or Green-Bradman).

Permission to attend is confirmed via Compass. We are eager for every student in Year 3-6 to attend on the day.

Somers Camp Report

“Somers camp was good, fun, the best, nice and had caring teachers” according to the students from ARPS who attended for 9 days recently.

According to the students “At the camp fire, my heart was crying because we made really good friends. I really liked the teacher.

All the activities were fun. The challenge swing was 18.5 meters high. We all went on it. We went surfing. Some people fell off. The food was really good. We had hamburgers and cake. We also had ice cream. We also had money to spend. I bought presents for my teachers.

Our parents came to visit- it was a great day.

We did a high rope course and boating. We had to write a diary each day.

They had so many activities. Hana and Vard won a writing award. Everyone was so helpful.

We sang funny songs every day, like ‘a wombat on a surfing board’. 

They had pets. We saw the sugar gliders and they had Guinea pigs that we could feed. We made friends with them too.”

The children had a wonderful time and strongly recommend any Year 5 or 6 students in 2027 to take the opportunity when it comes up again.

Working Bee & farewell ‘Celebrity Bollard People’

Many thanks to all of the wonderful families who assisted with our Working Bee on Friday 14th March. It was fantastic to see so many families ready to help out and we achieved so much in a very short time. It was also very nice to just spend some time with families having a BBQ and chat after all the hard work. During the Working Bee, displays were created, weeds were removed and new trees and plants were planted (and some transplanted), soft fall was added to playgrounds, trip hazards were painted yellow, and more!

One of the most challenging tasks, was the removal of our 2018 Year 6 legacy Art work- the ‘Celebrity Bollard People’. Sadly, the bollards succumbed to weather, wear and tear and were no longer safe in the playground. We have kept the special ‘QR codes’ from the project and many photos, and we will create a commemorative art piece for display so that the 2018 Year 6 cohort will continue to be part of our Year 6 legacy Art tradition.

Thanks to these families for their support on the day:

School Council Update

We are pleased to confirm that all places on our 2025 School Council have been filled, with Christina Conway filling our last casual (parent) vacancy.

Our School Councillors for 2025 are:

Parent Members

Chris O’Shea

Andrew Muller

Jade Horua

Paul Scolaro

Naveet Legha

Aleisha Kinross

Amanda Lewis

Christina Conway

Staff Members  

Judith Drew

Michael Mottershead

Collette Wilkinson

Narelle Seremetis

At our meeting on 26th March, office bearers (including School Council president) will be elected, and we will also be presenting our Annual Report. All members of the parent/carer community are welcome to attend this meeting. The meeting commences at 6.30pm.

NAPLAN completed! 

Congratulations to all of our Year 3 and 5 students, who were so diligent and engaged in completing all four NAPLAN assessments over the past 2 weeks. Students appeared confident and happy with their efforts throughout the testing period. Many thanks to parents/carers for your support and encouragement of students during this testing period. Your positive approach has made a difference.

We will look forward to seeing student NAPLAN results later in the year.

Friday, 28th March

Colour Explosion

All Welcome!

4pm-6pm - BBQ afterwards

This is a Parent Association Fundraiser.

Fundraising for our Colour Explosion School Fun Run is entirely online. Follow the instructions in your child’s sponsorship booklet to create a cybersafe, online profile page at https://myprofilepage.com.au/. At the end of our fundraiser students can order up to a total of 5 prizes based on their donations received. They can even mix and match!

SAVE THE DATE!

EASTER RAFFLE: Donations Please!

This year our Easter raffle will be drawn at our last assembly on Friday 4th April. We are asking for your help by donating items for the prizes. eg chocolate eggs, Easter toys or anything else that relates to Easter. Donations being dropped at the office will need to be received by 2nd April please.

Raffle Tickets are available on Compass NOW.

Judy Drew

Principal