Message from the Principal 

Term 3 continues to provide many highlights and many ways for our families to participate in their child’s education. Of course, we have our parents, grandparents and carers helpers’ program. This could be assisting in the classrooms, attending an excursion or even helping out with our school production. You can also get involved directly with your child’s learning through providing a comment or feedback on any of the assessments and work samples that are sent home regularly via Seesaw as part of our Continuous Reporting program. We have our Student Agency Conferences being held on Wednesday 11th September. This is another opportunity for you to engage with your child and their teacher to review learning progress made and set new goals for the remainder of this year. More so than ever before we are working to provide you with meaningful and memorable ways to be part of your child’s learning journey.   

100 DAYS OF PREP

Our prep students celebrated their first 100 days of school last week. When our Principal team walk into the classrooms each day, we always see our prep students engaged and active in their learning. One thing that is very noticeable with this group is their enthusiasm, sense of wonder and inquiry and their terrific energy.

Our prep literacy and numeracy sessions are being very effectively structured, and we also have Sharon Draper working with our teaching team to deliver small group and targeted sessions based on student learning needs in reading, writing and spelling with an emphasis on phonics and phonemic awareness.

I will also take this opportunity to share an email that a parent sent to one of our teachers as our Preps prepared for their 100-day celebration. 

“I wanted to share a sweet story with you. My child was upset the other night as she thought after the 100 days of prep that she would be going straight into grade one. She said she was sad that she wouldn’t be able to see you anymore and was even crying. So sad and sweet all at once! I just think you’re obviously doing a beautiful job with my child, and I wanted to say thank you for all of your hard work, effort and kindness so far this year, we don’t get to chat much - that’s just the nature of your job we know. So after tonight’s Webex with the Principal team, it had me reflecting and we wanted to shoot this email to say thank you”. 

Thank you for taking the time to send this feedback through. The great thing about working at our school is that we get far more feedback from our families like this as opposed to those making a complaint or referencing something that they are unsatisfied with. It actually means a lot to our staff to hear messages like this and helps our team to know that all of our staff members efforts are appreciated and valued.

STUDENT AGENCY CONFERENCES – WEDNESDAY 11th SEPTEMBER

Our Student Agency Conferences are a terrific way for us to build our school and home partnership. Over recent years we have taken on feedback from students and parents and have worked together as a staff to develop consistent proformas that are used across the school. These are designed to support our students to be actively directing and taking responsibility for their learning. Having this Agency will allow students to develop into independent, curious and reflective learners. Teachers work closely with students to support them prior to the Student Agency Conference.

Wednesday 11th September is a School Council approved alteration to normal school attendance day.  

Students areonly required to be at school during their own Conference time.

The Student Agency Conferences will last for 15 minutes, and your child will be involved for the entire time.  If you or the teacher sees the need to speak for more time, teachers will ask you to make an alternative time. Making an alternative time will ensure that you are able to speak with the teacher when other families are not waiting for their own Conference time. 

CHILDRENS BOOK WEEK DRESS UP PARADE – 9.15AM THURSDAY 22ND AUGUST

At Greenhills we love to celebrate all things reading. A highlight of this is our dress up parade as part of the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Annual Book Week. This will be held on Thursday 22nd August. Students are encouraged to dress up as a character from a book to celebrate the day. 

There will be a whole school parade at 9.15am on the Tigerturf where each grade will have an opportunity to share their dress up and character with the rest of the school. Parents and carers are welcome to attend. 

FATHERS & SPECIAL PERSONS DAY BREAKFAST – WEDNESDAY 28TH AUGUST 7.45am – 9am

This community connecting event is run by our Parent Association and will be held on the outdoor basketball court from 7.45am – 9am. The Cheers Cheese Toastie Truck and a couple of coffee carts are ready to go so all you need to do is make sure you pre-order via QKR (orders close Friday 23rd August) and then come along to enjoy a tasty breaky with your kids. Our PA team need some helpers on the day (7am start!) so we would really appreciate volunteers signing up via Care Bookings. 

ROAD SAFETY - IT IS YOUR JOB TO ENSURE YOUR CHILD GETS TO SCHOOL SAFELY

Last week we had a near miss situation when two of our students (Year 4 and Year 1) crossed the road from the vacant block opposite the Pumpkin Patch. The students were not accompanied by a parent or carer and the younger student failed to look both ways when crossing and did not see a vehicle coming down the hill toward him. It was reported that his older brother was yelling for him to stop and come back. Luckily the driver had the presence of mind and stopped well short of this child who found himself not knowing what to do in the middle of Greenhills Rd.

We would like to remind everyone that parents/guardians have the legal responsibility to supervise their children at all times, including coming and leaving school. 

We do not want any of our students to be at risk.  Our younger students do not always have the capacity or situational awareness to be safe on the road. 

We have also asked the support of our local Police including the Highway Patrol to see if they have the resources to conduct general patrols around drop off and pick up times so that the importance of this message is reinforced. 

James Penson 

Principal