Altona Green Primary School Newsletter

A Message from David & Cam

As some of you may be aware, my family and I had enjoyed an extended break for the first 2 weeks of this term. Whilst I was sad to finish the holiday, it has been really nice to be back at AGPS and I have enjoyed seeing all the students, parents and staff again. I have almost adjusted to the cold weather again and almost got back on top of my email pile! I would like to thank and acknowledge the efforts of Cam, Liz and Amy during my absence - it sounds like the start of the term has been a positive one.

Remaining Term 3 Whole School Events

  • Book Week - Book Week runs from the 25th-29th of August. It is always a great week with lots of activities centred around our favourite books. The highlight is always the dress up day - we cannot wait to see all the creative costumes!

  • Father & Special Person's Day - We invite all dads and other special people in our students' lives to attend this event on the 5th of September. Details of this particular event are currently being finalised and further information will be sent via Compass.

  • Assembly - Assembly runs alternate weeks to the newsletter and is held in either the gym or under gumbuya depending on the weather. The remaining assemblies this term are:

    • 22/8  - 4/5H & 2/3A

    • 5/9 - 4/5F & Choir

    • 19/9 - 4/5Z

Farewell, Trish!

Last term we received the bittersweet news that Trish had decided to retire. This was a difficult decision for Trish as she was so invested into our school and the Kitchen Garden program. Trish has worked at AGPS since 2016 and has been a key to the overall success of the Kitchen Garden program. Her passion for the program, the environment and working with young people has been a defining feature of her work and she leaves behind a wonderful legacy. 

We would like to thank Trish for all of her efforts and dedication to making the Kitchen Garden program such a wonderful success. It will be a strange feeling walking around the school grounds and not seeing Trish deeply engrossed in one of her many garden projects. We also would like to wish Trish and Pete a great retirement and hope they enjoy many wonderful outdoor adventures together.

 

With Trish's retirement, the Kitchen Garden program has been paused and will start up again once we have appointed a new educator to the role. We are hopeful that this will be early Term 4.

School Review

Every four years, all Victorian government schools undertake a School Review. The purpose of the review is to reflect on our progress against the targets in our strategic plan, celebrate our achievements and begin to identify areas of future growth for our school. We have a lot to celebrate at Altona Green, so we are very excited to go through this process and develop plans that will continue to move the school forward.

 

An external reviewer leads a panel that includes external principals, our Senior Education Improvement Leader (Judy Maguire), and our school team, including Victoria Reynolds, our School Council President, through the review process.

 

Our review begins in early Term 4 and further information will be communicated in future newsletters. 

Ozone Day

Last Friday, our school and community participated in a day called Ozone day. This day was intended to teach students about environmental awareness and how we can look after our schoolyard. During the day, students were able to engage in environmental activities such as cleaning up the yard at break times, planting trees in the schoolyard, making artwork out of nature, and attending a whole school assembly where the JSC talked about activities they enjoyed in their classroom.

 

It was wonderful to see everyone contributing by signing our school wide petition, and we loved watching how much everyone cared. The school captains will be delivering the poster to Tim Watts in the coming weeks. 

 

Thank you again for all your support. We are so glad we had the opportunity to make this day happen. 

 

The School Captains

2026 Enrolments

There is a great demand for places at our school and we are required to carefully manage all enrolments to ensure there are enough places for all students who reside within our school zone. To assist us with this, please inform us as soon as possible if you have a prep child starting in 2026 or know of any other students who may be joining us in 2026. Similarly, if your child will no longer be attending AGPS in 2026 please let us know. All this information helps us greatly with planning.

Prep 100 Days of School!

It is always such a joyous occasion when the preps reach 100 days of school. All year they have been counting the days and getting increasingly excited about the 100 days celebration that will come. Finally, the day arrived and it was so nice seeing the excited smiles and wonderful 100-themed costumes as the preppies entered the school.

 

The whole day was filled with a range of fun activities, games and celebrations! We are so proud of the prep students and all that they have achieved in their first 100 days of school. They are a fantastic group of students who are all like KEFAR!

 

Congratulations preps (and prep teachers and ES)!!

Curriculum Day Professional Learning

Our Curriculum Day last Monday provided a timely opportunity for our staff to spend time together engaging in professional learning about problem solving and the mathematical concept of reasoning. Reasoning involves the capability to explain your thinking, justify strategies, and adapt known concepts to new situations. It is a higher order mathematical skill and it is critical that our students are explicitly taught about reasoning in order to become more well-rounded mathematicians. Our staff unpacked different types of problems and discussed the teaching strategies best suited to introducing these problems to our students. It was a very productive day that will help us continue to enhance our teaching & learning offering to our students.

 

Remaining Pupil Free Day - Monday 3rd November

We have one final pupil free day on Monday 3rd November (day before Cup Day) which will be a report writing day. 

Lunchtime Clubs

Last week, our School Captains conducted interviews for this term's student-led lunchtime clubs. This term the clubs are as follows:

  • Monday - Senior Sports Club

  • Tuesday - Junior Sports Club

  • Wednesday - Netball Club

  • Thursday - STEM Club

 

These clubs are all student-led and provide another opportunity for our students to develop their leadership skills. Well done to all students who were interviewed to run a club this term! 

Safety Reminders

Early Arrivals

We are noticing an increasing number of students arriving early to school. A reminder that yard supervision starts at 8:45am each day. We ask that your children do not attend school prior to this time unless they are accompanied by their parent/carer. If you need to drop off your child/ren early please enrol them in our before care program provided by TeamKids.

 

In addition to this, we also ask that all students, unless accompanied by a parent or carer, play at the usual play spaces (playground, b'ball courts, gumbuya) before school starts. We ask that they do not play at the front of the school as this is an unsupervised space. Thank you for your cooperation with this.

Maths Olympiad - Home Challenge

Our Mathematicians have recently sat the third Olympiad Test. The continued development of effective mathematical strategies along with a high level of persistence is really pleasing to see! The students are using their prior knowledge in attempting challenging questions that often they haven't encountered previously. Thank you to Ainsley that has been continuing the Maths Olympiad sessions during Cam's absence in Term 2.

 

Have a go at these Maths Olympiad style questions!

  1. Two doughnuts and three eclairs cost $6.50. Three doughnuts and one eclair cost $4.50. How much will I pay for one eclair and one doughnut?

     

  2.  Spencer writes down three consecutive counting numbers. The first is a multiple of 5, the second is a multiple of 3, and the third is a multiple of 4. What is a the least possible sum of Spencer’s three numbers?

Disco Pics

For those who do not follow our Facebook page, here are some pics from our awesome school disco held at the end of last term. This event is always a great way to end the term and the kids had a ball. Thanks to all the amazing volunteers who make this event happen!

We hope you all have a great weekend!

 

Take care,

 

David & Cam