From Our Principals

Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey

With only a day to go, we are grateful to the 112 households (41% of our community) who responded to the Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey.  The final data will be available to the school early in Term 4. We will provide a summary to the community through our newsletter. 

If you have time to provide your feedback before the survey closes on September 20th, please click here or scan the QR code. You will need to enter our unique school PIN: 274776.

Real Schools

Thank you to the 30 or so parents and carers who joined us on September 12th for our Real Schools parent session with Marion. There were lots of interesting conversations and questions about our implementation of the approach at Ormond Primary School. Aaron Jones will provide more information to families on an ongoing basis so please watch this space for more. 

Gardener Hired

The Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee of School Council are are delighted to announce that we have appointed a gardener for four hours per week. You may seem Phil around the school over the holidays and on Wednesdays in Term 4. His priority for the final term of the year is to prepare the gardens for the growth season and for 2025, at which point we intend on introducing gardening club, during which the students will participate in all stages required to grow our own food, herbs and other plants. 

Greg is a local resident, and his two (now adult) daughters attended Ormond Primary School. He also served as a member of school council. Watch out on our social media pages for a photograph of Phil. 

Lockdown Drills

Congratulations to the students and staff on two very successful lockdown drills this month. We had observers from the Department of Education on both occasions and, while they had some tips for us to improve further, they were very complimentary of the response of all members of our community to the drills. It was a tight procedure that is now clearly documented and embedded into the practices of the school. We will focus on another type of emergency situation in Term 4. 

Student-Led Conferences

Congratulations to all of the students on a very successful round of student-led conferences over the past couple of weeks. There was a strong culture of celebration as the students sat with their parents/carers to present the key aspects of their learning this year. Our hard work will continue in Term 4 and there will be plenty more opportunities to celebrate.

Ormond's Got Talent

What a great event we had this year with students from Prep to Year 6 showcasing their talents. The focus of the judges was to determine the acts that were entertaining and specialised, resulting from a significant amount of practice, focus and attention by the performers over a prolonged period of time. We had a wide range of items including singing, dancing, music recitals, fact recall, and lots more. The students were nervous backstage but presented themselves admirably on stage. Congratulations to everybody who participated and to the Art Leaders for their organisation. 

Footy Colours Day

Another successful event this month was our annual Footy Colours Day! The students (and staff) celebrated all of the teams with grace and positivity, by cheering on every team, regardless of our perspective and allegiance. 

End of Term

As we bid farewell to Term 3, I wanted to thank everybody for your warm welcome and support over the past ten weeks. It has been a pleasure getting to know everybody and figuring out what makes Ormond Primary School tick! I have engaged in lots of strategic focused conversations with integration aides, administration staff, maintenance staff, teachers, school leaders, parents and friends. The focus at all of those meetings is on the students’ experience at school and how we can continually improve. The improvement journey is constant and will never end and our attention, while maintaining an overall view of all aspects of the school, can only be on a small number of clear areas at any one time. 

The energy right now is going into student wellbeing, positive behaviour expectations and ensuring that every student in our school has an opportunity to feel safe and supported so they can learn. 

Please encourage your child to show their appreciation to the staff members who have made their term enjoyable and engaging, be they a teacher or education support officer. 

As part of the initial discussions, I had with the Department of Education in relation to my secondment, I committed to remaining at Ormond Primary School until the end of the school year, if it was required. I was happy to receive confirmation of that agreement last week and look forward to continuing to work with the community to build the process and approaches, and to prepare the school for a very successful 2025.

Regards,

Patrick Halpin and Aaron Jones