Principal's News
With just under a month remaining until our school fete, it is all hands-on deck as our Fete Committee are working diligently behind the scenes to prepare for a wonderful event. You will find significant focus in our correspondence over the coming month geared towards supporting this event. I encourage all families to support our fete committee (and our school) by sharing the event with friends and family, pre-purchasing ride packages and importantly, freeing up the calendar so that you can attend and support the day.
As per usual, we have had a busy fortnight around the school. Our prep classrooms were looking at diagraphs yesterday morning (Thursday), our 2024 Preps enjoyed their first transition session on Wednesday and as I write this our junior school is having fun together at their junior sports day. Our senior classrooms are beginning to look at student leadership elections, whilst it feels like the whole of the school has embraced the Jump Rope for Heart Challenge with our Wednesday morning skipping becoming a community event. Some more highlights and information from around the school is detailed below.
Fete Reminder
An important piece of housekeeping as we prepare for our fete, given we have not held a school fete since 2019, for many students and families it will be the first fete that they have experienced. As the fete itself is held on a Saturday, it is a day where students will be supervised by families. Whilst staff will be in attendance on the day and volunteering their support, they are not providing direct care or supervision of children, all students will require supervision from families over the course of the day.
Why is our Fete Important
Our Fete committee have worked extremely hard to be incredibly transparent around the benefits that our school fete provides to our school community, you can read this important message by navigating to our School Fete Sub Heading in this edition of our newsletter.
Team Kids
The transition to Team Kids is an exciting step for the school, we kindly acknowledge their role as a major sponsor of our school fete. In preparation for the delivery of our Out of School Hours care program in 2024 please find some details below:
TeamKids is the premium provider that exists to enrich children’s lives before school, after school and throughout the school holidays.
When attending TeamKids before and after school care, your children are in remarkable hands. The full-time Director of Service is highly experienced in the field, and their number one priority is fun – your child will love the experiences we have on offer every day at TeamKids.
When children join the team, not only are they able to explore their world through our designated activity zones and TeamKids Clubs, but they’ll get to connect, collaborate and learn with others in a supportive and nurturing environment that fosters their individuality and own unique interests.
They’ll also enjoy an incredible menu, jam-packed with nutritious and delicious food. One thing is for sure, your child will not go hungry. From the moment you walk through the door, TeamKids provides an atmosphere that is welcoming, relaxed and inclusive. At every opportunity, we aim to promote child agency and help to shape their innate leadership skills through a variety of in-house leadership opportunities and fun, engaging rewards programs.
Team Kids offer industry-leading educator to child ratios, resulting in safer, better supervised experiences for all involved. All the programs are fully approved under the National Child Care Subsidy (CCS). We’re excited and look forward to partnering with the TeamKids Family. To find out more, register or book, click here.
Vision Personal Training
One thing I have really enjoyed about the lead up and organisation of our school fete is the opportunity to meet with and partner with local business, many of whom have provided genuine support for our school and our fete committee. Late last term, our staff spent a fun afternoon with Marvin and his team at Vision Personal Training for a group activity. Vision Personal Training have provided the school with sponsorship of our Dunk Tank this year and have generously supported the school. We look forward to exploring this partnership as a means of promoting healthy lifestyles for our whole school community moving forward.
Working Bee:
We have our final working bee for the year scheduled for Friday 10th November, all families are encouraged to attend and some minor work around the school will begin from 2:30pm onwards concluding at 5pm. This will be a final opportunity to prepare the school in the lead up to our school fete to be held the next weekend. Your support would be greatly appreciated.
Open Classrooms:
We have had so much going on in our classrooms at the start of Term 4, we would really enjoy the opportunity to share some of these highlights with you. We are hosting our Term 4 Open Classrooms over two Tuesday afternoons for our Prep – Year 2 students and our Year 3 – 6 students. We would really appreciate the chance to share with you.
- 14th November – Prep – Year 2 Open Classroom – 3:30 – 3:50pm
- 21st November – Year 3 – 6 Open Classroom – 3:30 – 3:50pm
A reminder that these are moments to share in the work of your child, they are not informal parent-teacher interviews, should you wish to speak more formally of a concern or something of significance that is impacting on your child, you are encouraged to email the office or the classroom teacher to arrange a time to discuss this further.
Hats Off to Teachers:
Friday 27th October is World Teachers' Day, we are choosing to celebrate this day on Thursday 26th October as many of our part time teaching staff do not work on Thursday. I greatly admire and appreicate the work of our teachers at our school, they are such a dedicated team and continue to do everything that they can to provide our students with such a wonderful set of opportunities in our school. Teaching can be really challenging, it is a position that requires so much of our staff, we are in the middle of a nationwide teacher shortage and significant impact on this profession because much of what our staff do is well beyond the hours of a 9am - 5pm position. If you have an opportunity, please say thank you to our teaching staff in any manner next week. They are dedicated to our school and our students and put in such effort each and everyday.
SaGE Meeting:
Morioka sensei and I attended the SaGE Principal Network meeting last week, these meetings frame an important piece of professional learning and leadership for both of us. We were joined by our Senior Education Improvement Leader, Stuart Andrews whilst Ryan Dunn presented as our keynote speaker for the day. Within our network of schools, the key focus for Principal class members is leading improvements in student wellbeing, student attendance and numeracy outcomes.
School Council Meeting:
Our school council met on Tuesday evening, once again I extend my thanks to our school council members for the voluntary time that they commit to supporting our school. At our meeting, we were provided with a comprehensive update by our school fete coordinator Deb (Mother of Otis). We also looked at some of our student attitudes to school survey outcomes and some building and maintenance reports that were recently independently completed by the Department of Education. Our school council next meets on the 21st November.
Storage Shed:
Thank you to Ken F (Father of Alannah and Ewan) and Sam B (Father of Mika and Naoki) who have completed the installation of our storage shed. This will be a great addition to our school and provides us with some increased capacity to store items in the lead up to our school fete. Thank you to Ken and Sam and their volunteer support team.
Referendum BBQ:
A massive thanks to our school community who supported our Referendum BBQ last Saturday, whilst we are still finalising our final outcome, we believe we made over $3000 on the day. Thank you to all families who supported this day by baking and preparing food and volunteering on the day. In particular a big shout out to and special mention to Sam (Father of Mika and Naoki), Jenni (Mother of Tom), Kylie (Mother of Callum) who were in attendance throughout the whole day.
Thank Your Cleaner Day:
Whilst not widely advertised, thank your cleaner day was celebrated on the 18th October, Warren is a big part of our school and an important member of our staff. Thank you Warren for all that you do to support us.
Active Schools:
A reminder as we reach the finishing line of October, to keep active in our commute to and from school. Our Active Schools program continues through to the end of October with one lucky student winning a Fit Bit Ace for their participation in the program. We will celebrate our Active Schools month with a Walk to School Day next Friday (October 27th).
Hats:
Melbourne spring is doing Melbourne spring things! We have had some really beautiful days but also some really wet ones as well. Unfortunately, teachers on Yard Duty are finding large numbers of students do not have a hat with them which is impacting on their opportunity to play with their friends at recess and lunchtime. Whilst we provide a hat to complete a learning activity such as Physical Education, students that do not have a hat for recess and lunch are asked to sit in the shade and are unable to play throughout our areas of the school. As the weather warms up, please ensure your child has a hat every day.
Colouring In for CPS:
Thank you to Tristan (Father of Leo) who shared a creative opportunity to support our school. The Camden Hotel is celebrating their 150-year celebration on the 19th November. They are currently running a colouring in competition for children with profits from the 150th celebration to be shared between winning entries in support of local schools or sporting clubs. Children can access the colouring in link here. If you are unable to print these off, I have some in the office available if students wish to collect these from me. Further details can be found here.
Enjoy this beautiful Friday afternoon sunshine, next week appears to get wet again, thank you for your support over the last fortnight. I look forward to seeing you around the school over the coming weeks.
Edward Strain
Principal