Welcome to a very busy, exciting and what will be a most productive Term 4! Here is a snapshot of some of the main events and happenings for this term: -

Tuesday 15th October - Year 4 – 6 Division Athletics
Friday 18th October - School Disco
Sunday 20th October - Year 3 Working Bee
Wednesday 23rd October – Whole School Japanese Day
Friday 25th & Saturday 26th October- GPS Family Camping Weekend at Healesville
Monday 28th October to Friday 1st November - Year 5 Bike Education
Wednesday 6th - Friday 15th November - Year 3 to 5 Swimming Program
Wednesday 13th November - 2024 Prep Parent Information Evening
Tuesday 19th – Friday 29th November - Prep to Year 2 Swimming Program
Monday 25th November for a fortnight - Year 6 Transition Program
Wednesday 27th to Friday 29th November - Year 3 Camp
Friday 29th November - Year 4 – 6 Swimming Carnival
Monday 9th December- Whole School PPD – Pupil Free
Tuesday 10th December - School Concert
Friday 13th December - Billy Carts Grand Prix
End of Year Reports and 2025 Class Formations
Monday 16th December – Year 2 Final Assembly
Tuesday 17th December - Year 6 Graduation
Friday 20th December - Last Day of School Year

New Logo and Signage

I am incredibly grateful to David Marinelli for his initiative, hard work and generosity in rebranding our school. David has worked closely with Dimi Sfetsas, Ali Rehn, Lyla Hennig, Lisa Liu, Henrietta Bird, Rachel Bloom and Nicole Goodman to develop the new logo taking in the thoughts and ideas of many from our community. The next stage of the rebranding will impact our school uniform. The Uniform Committee has made some changes to the uniform and there will be additional items available for our students to wear. There will be a two year transition period where both the old and new uniform can be worn to school. More information will follow in the coming weeks.

Junior COLA

Over the holidays the Junior COLA was installed and looks fantastic! After a number of years of fundraising and budgeting we now have this much needed addition to our Junior Campus. So, to all of our school community, that have supported our fundraising initiatives, it does make a huge difference to our facilities and we are extremely grateful! The COLA would not have been able to have been built without our community’s generosity!

Paving

A big thank you to Tricia Ciampa for organising the grouting of the paving area outside the Art Room to be completed!

Playground Repairs

Over the holidays all of the play equipment on both campuses were upgraded and made compliant. Thank you to Meng Tan for organising these works to be completed.

Footy Day

We all enjoyed a fun day celebrating our football allegiances on Footy Day on the last day of Term 3.

A big thank you to the following people for helping to make the day a success:

Sophie and Lucas (Sports Captains) for their work in hosting the special assembly and for helping to organize the equipment.
All House Captains for their contributions to the special assembly
All the staff and parents that pitched in and helped set up and run the activities
Tom Pitts for organising the special assembly!

It was certainly a fun way to finish off the term!

2025 School Year

Our Prep enrolments are now complete for 2025. We would be so grateful if parents could inform the Office in writing if their child/children will be leaving Gardenvale PS at the end of this year (not current Year 6 students). This will greatly assist planning and ensures we have accurate projections for class structures, planning and room allocations.

Professional Practice Day

Monday 9th December will be a pupil free day. Staff will be accessing a Professional Practice Day (PPD) that is allocated to them as part of their workplace arrangements. Team Kids will operate a long day program on this day, you can find the details on their website.

Thunderstorm Asthma Season Reminder

Grass pollen season (1st October to 31st December) creates an increase in asthma and hay fever. This time of the year also brings the chance of epidemic thunderstorm asthma.

People with a history of asthma, undiagnosed asthma or hay fever are at an increased risk during this time.

In order to best manage these risks:

If your child has asthma, please ensure that you have provided us with an up-to-date Asthma Action Plan as well as keeping an asthma kit - ( *in date) reliever and spacer if required in their school bag.

For further information, you can download the VicEmergency app and create a ‘watch zone’ for epidemic thunderstorm asthma advice and warnings.

Looking forward to a great term,

Janine Hall

Term 4 Extra Curricular Programs