Principal's March Report

We at Aitken Hill Primary School recognise the rich Aboriginal heritage within our community and acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung, which includes the existing family members of the Gunung-Willam-Balluk clan, as the Traditional Custodians of this land. We embrace Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander living cultures as a vital part of Australia’s identity and recognise, celebrate and pay respect to Elders past, present and future.

 One Community, Smiling and Succeeding Together!

End of Term  

Here we are at the end of a busy Term 1… wow, time flies! Our students have had a wonderful start to the year; we have been focussing closely on student engagement and resilience, and establishing clear routines and structures that support our students to thrive in their learning. 

This has been very successful and we look forward to continuing that work into Term 2. 

Well done to our amazing Prep students who have finished their first term of school- what an achievement! 

Congratulations to our Year 3 and Year 5 students for their mighty effort to complete the NAPLAN assessments! We look forward to sharing their results once they are delivered and then unpacking our results as a school to help improve our teaching and learning as a school.

Thank you for coming along to our open afternoon this week! It was great to see everyone coming into the classrooms, talking with teachers and seeing the learning students have been doing. 

The following topics are covered below:

• School Review

• Our Focus in 2025

• Online Safety

• Road Safety

We hope everyone has a wonderful term break and you get to spend time with your families doing the things that make you happy.

School Review

Next term we will conduct our School Review with members of the Regional Team from the Department of Education. Our School Council President will also be part of the review panel as well as members of our leadership team.

As part of this process, we gather feedback on how our school is going from students, staff and parents. Some of this information is gathered prior to our school review and some will be gathered during the review.

We would like your input to the questions below, we greatly appreciate if you can spare 10 or 15 minutes answering. Currently we have 24 families that have completed the survey, it would be great if we could get more input from our families prior to our review which occurs over the first 5 weeks of next term.

Our Focus in 2025

Our main focus in 2025 will continue to be on Reading, Mathematics and student wellbeing.

Our Annual Implementation Plan goals for 2025 are:

Goal 1: To improve learning outcomes for every student in literacy and numeracy.

Goal 2: To strengthen students resilience and wellbeing.

This year we have partnered with the Resilience Projectin order to build our students Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness (GEM), along with their Emotional Literacy, Connection and Physical Health. 

We will also continue to build our staff's capacity to implement the Mental Health in Primary Schools program and the implementation of the Department of Education's approach to Disability and Inclusion.

We will also continue to focus on improving our student attendance. It's vital that children attend school every day for a full day. It's important that our students arrive at school on time every day, they should be in their classrooms when the music is on and getting ready for the day so that when the bell goes learning can start. 

Online Safety

social interactions both in person and in an online space.

In our ever changing world, it is important to be aware of our young people's online interactions. 

Commonsense media is a website that helps parents and educators navigate the content of online apps, movies, books, tv shows, games, podcasts and youtube. The site recommends age appropriate media for children and also gives ratings and information about what you will and won't find in the app etc. This is especially helpful given the vast array of content children can access and will helps parents and carers feel more comfortable about what we allow children to use.

Below is a link with advice regarding the game Fortnite which recommends children to be at least 13 years old, which would be Year 7, therefore children in pirmary school should not be playing Fortnite.

Below is a link with advice regarding Snapchat. Students must be at least 16 years old to use Snapchat. 

Road Safety

Last week unfortunately a parent and child from one of our families were injured in an accident when walking to school on Elevation Boulevard. The family were crossing the road safely when they had a green light to cross the road and the driver did not give way to them. Firstly we send our best wishes to the family and are supporting them through a transition back to school. We also thank Assistant Principal Kathryn Adams for her prompt and brave support of the family by providing first aid and caring for the family until other support arrived, as well as follow up support over the last week.

This is a timely reminder of how important it is for everyone to be extra careful when driving during school arrival and departure times around our school.  Please be mindful of pedestrians and bike riders, especially during these busy times.

Next term, Principal of Elevation Secondary College, Colin Burke and myself will meet with our Mayor Cr, Jarrod Bell to discuss ways we can improve safety for our students and families when heading to and from school. We will engage Vic Roads to see what supports they can put in.

Unfortunately, we continue to witness many unsafe practices during the morning and afternoon each day. 

Around the school we have witness:

• Parents and students crossing the road not at the crossing in the morning and after school
• Parents letting children out at the crossing and other spots on the road rather than the car park
• Children getting out of moving cars
• Parking in no parking areas, particularly at the crossing
• Parents dropping children off in the drive way
• Illegal parking at the Community Centre next door
• Cars stopping in the middle of the carpark to drop of children
• Parking in the disabled car park without a permit
• Stopping outside the front of the Community Centre which is a no standing point
• Children are running across the Community Centre carpark whilst parents are trying to enter and exit the car park

We have reported these unsafe practices to the police and local council who will be coming to monitor and issue fines as necessary.

We appreciate your cooperation with this matter.