A Message from David & Cam...

Sports Field Update

We are so thrilled to update you all on our fundraising project - the upgrade to our sports field. We can confirm that through the incredible fundraising efforts of this year and previous years, our school community has raised enough money for us to get this wonderful improvement to our school facilities done! Here is the design:

Unfortunately, due to supply issues and delayed projects due to the poor weather, we were not able to get this project completed before the end of the year as planned. At this stage the project is planned to be done in February 2023. Once completed, we will hold a grand opening event and invite the whole school community, including past families that have worked hard to fundraise for this.

This is a wonderful achievement for our small community and something that we are incredibly proud of. Thank you all for your continued support and the support you have shown towards all of our fundraising efforts!

Farewell

Families

Along with the Grade 6 students graduating, there are a number of families that will say goodbye to AGPS at the end of the year. We would like to thank all of the students and their families for being such wonderful members of our community and for all of their contributions over the years. 

We say thank you and goodbye to the following families:

• Allwood, Anderson, Ashgar, Assadi, Baldacchino, Barbour, Borsi, Brewer, Celodka, Chapman, Conate, Coso, Dang, Graham, Horvat, Iemma, Kang, Kaspal, Mackin, Mercieca, Miles, Namok, Qiu, Rolstone, Rossouw, Shaw, Tiwana, Underwood, Weston, Young

Thank you again for your contribution to our community and you will always be part of the Altona Green Family.

Staff

We also sadly saying goodbye to a number of staff at the end of this school year as they forge their paths away from Altona Green Primary. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following staff and acknowledge their wonderful contributions to the Altona Green community. 

Sarah Bergin - Sarah has been successful in a promotional role as a Disability Inclusion Leading Teacher at Wyndham Park Primary next year. This is a wonderful opportunity for Sarah to further develop in an area that she has shown a real commitment to for a number of years. Sarah has had a number of important roles at AGPS over the years and leaves a wonderful legacy of her time here.

Lucinda Porter - Sadly for us,Lucinda is moving to a school closer to home next year. She joined us in 2021 and has had an instant impact with her incredible positivity and enthusiasm. We will all miss her smile and laugh around AGPS!

Andrea Belfall - Andrea is going to be a mum any day now! And what an amazing mum she will be. Like Lucinda, Andrea is such an incredibly positive person and someone that has made such an impact on so many people in our community. We wish her all the best with this next chapter in her life and look forward to the day that she returns to teach.

Amy Moore - Amy has stepped into 4/5S this year and has been a wonderful addition to not only the 4/5 team but the whole AGPS community. She has made wonderful connections with the children in 4/5S and will be sorely missed. A career change beckons for Amy and we know she will be a star in everything she does. 

Elisse Christensen - Elisse has been a member of the AGPS community for many years as a student and then a teacher. Elisse and her family are embarking on an adventure next year as Elisse has been successful in obtaining a teaching position in remote Queensland! Elisse has been wonderful for the students in 1D this year and it has been lovely for her to have the opportunity to share a class with her mum - there wouldn't be too many parent/child class sharing situations out there!

Debbie Markovic - We probably say this every year (and maybe we will say it again next year) but we would like to thank Debbie for once again stepping in and supporting our school. Spend 3 seconds with Deb and you will know how much she cares about AGPS and all the students. She, along with Elisse, has done a wonderful job providing an amazing education for the students in 1D.

Fiona Pace (our wonderful crossing supervisor)- We were devasted to find out very recently that Tuesday will be Fiona's last day. Fiona provides such a wonderful start to the day for so many of our students and their families with her warm smile and kind greetings. She is a wonderful part of the school and wider community and we thank her for her many years of service keeping us all safe. Hopefully we can spot her out in the community without her hi-vis jacket and hat next year! Thanks for everything, Fiona!

Welcome!

We are delighted to welcome back Michelle Hoffman, Bianca Andrzejewski and Sarah Myers to our community. They are all experienced educators who will add great value to their teams and we are really enthusiastic about what 2023 will bring for their classes. We are also excited to welcome several new staff to our community. Zach Mullenger, Merryn Watts and Tayler Muir met their 2023 students at our final Step Up day and both the teachers and students are very excited about sharing their 2023 journey together. 

2023 Class Details

Christmas Fun Day & End of Year Concert

Despite the wintery conditions, we had a wonderful whole school fun day yesterday. The students' day was filled with fun activities with their friends as we celebrated a great year together. During the day we had a whole school practice of our concert. This allowed all the students to see the other performances as well as an opportunity for us to have our whole school song led by our staff and year 6 students!

And in the evening we had a terrific turnout for the end of year concert. The gym was packed with people watching our very excited and brave students perform their Disney inspired dances. We were most impressed with the wonderful variety of acts and the effort that the teachers and students put in to their performances. Whilst we would have loved to have the whole school community together outdoors, we were still able to capture the community feel and sense of fun and joy with our modified indoor concert. Thank you to all that worked so hard to make the event a success and thank you to all families for coming along, being patient with the changes and joining in the fun.

Year 6 Graduation

We had a wonderful time celebrating our Year 6 students at our graduation ceremony last Thursday night. It was wonderful to hear the students share memories of their time at AGPS and to celebrate the achievements of this cohort of students. We were really pleased to be able to share this special event with so many families and other significant people in the students' lives. 

Our Year 6 award winners for 2022 are:

• Kitchen & Garden: Leanne
• Italian: Sausan
• Sport: Milos
• Arts: Daniel
• STEM: Adriana
• Citizenship: Ann, Shamoe, Will & Lillian
• Academic: Emily & Lara

I would like to thank Fiona and Clare for their tremendous efforts in putting such a great event together. Cam and I, along with the students, parents and staff, are really appreciative of everything they have done to make this event and their final year at AGPS a special one. I would also like to thank Nancy, Vera, Betty and Sammy who helped throughout the whole process.

Principals for the Day

I sure had my work cut out for me today with this group of principals! All 5 of the prep principals for the day were bursting with excitement as they started the day and that excitement did not subside at any stage throughout the day! We all had a great day together - what an amazing group of kids!

2/3 Letters to Port Phillip Retirement Village

Our 2/3 students recently wrote heartfelt Christmas cards to the residents at Port Phillip Retirement Village. This was facilitated by EdConnect, an organisation that we work with that connects volunteers to schools. The residents of Port Phillip Retirement Village were ecstatic and so pleased to receive the hand made cards. 

End of Year Assembly

At 12:30pm on Tuesday, we will have our final assembly for the year. At this assembly we will announce the 2023 school captains, present student awards, announce this year's recipient of the Jo Tyers Community Award and farewell our Year 6 students with the traditional guard of honour

A reminder that school finishes at 1:30pm on Tuesday 20th.

Floyd's Prostate Cancer Fundraiser

Thanks to the generosity of our Altona Green Community, we  helped Floyd raise over $5,586 for Prostate Cancer.  Floyd's Boppy came and watched as Floyd had his hair cut like his idol Dustin Martin and Cam got all his hair shaved off - brave effort by both of them to sit in front of the whole school that was loudly cheering "Shave it off" "Shave it off".

Special thanks to Vera and Lanika for being our barbers for the day and to all our students, staff and families who donated.  

Thank You!

Thank you to all the members of our beautiful community for a really positive 2022. This year has been a bit of a rollercoaster but overall it has been so great to have a full and relatively normal school year after the difficulties of 2020 and 2021. As usual, the AGPS community has worked collaboratively throughout the whole year to make this year as positive as possible for all of our students. 

We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved in 2022. As a school, we have been able to continue with many of our improvement strategies and have seen some wonderful results across the school. Our focus on supporting the academic and wellbeing needs of all of our students has continued to be strengthened and we are really excited to continue to build upon this as we move through our strategic plan. Thank you to all the staff for their efforts to make this happen and for their efforts in providing such rich, varied and positive learning experiences for our students.

But we are most proud of our students. It has been quite an adjustment for many of our students to get fully back into the regular school day and we have encountered many unexpected challenges post-lockdowns. We have seen the students all adapt throughout the year but the overall sense of connectedness and positivity has never waivered and the effort they have put in through the year has been outstanding.

We would also like to highlight the amazing achievements of Parents and Friends. This year we have had such a great schedule of events and activities for our whole community. From the regular Friday treats to the incredibly impressive Fete that was held earlier in the year, the members of Parents and Friends have done such an impressive job putting all this together for the benefit of our kids. It has also been an incredibly successful year with fundraising and as of about a week ago, as a school we have collectively raised $51,818!! What an achievement! Thank you to anyone that has volunteered their time to make this year such a success - your efforts are such a vital piece of what makes our school such a great place.

We know we are all feeling fatigued at this point of the year and are eagerly awaiting the holiday period. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe and relaxing holiday period and cannot wait to see you all again when we return in 2023!

Take care,

David & Cam