Dear Parents and Carers,

What a busy but fantastic few weeks we’ve had since our last school newsletter! We celebrated Education Week with our Grandparents’ and Special Friends’ Day, where our classrooms were open and students could work through a range of classroom activities, or take their visitors on a tour of the school and to the Book Fair. It was wonderful to see so many important people in our students’ lives joining them in their classrooms, to complete some Literacy and Numeracy activities or attending specialist classes. Book Fair was yet again a huge success, and we thank everyone who came for a look and who purchased books. We receive a portion of the money from Book Fair and use this to purchase books for our classrooms and school library.

Monday last week, our Art showcase had an open house, which saw many families come through the school and celebrate their child’s work, while admiring all of the amazing entries. Congratulations and thank you to Mrs S for putting on a wonderful showcase and giving students an opportunity to demonstrate their creativity and love of Art.

On Wednesday we had a number of students represent our school in AFL, competing against many of the local Ballarat School teams. We had a boys and a girls team play, and we are proud of how well they all represented Delacombe Primary School on the day. Thank you to Mr Toan, Kyra and Shane for supporting our students on the day.

On Thursday night was the launch of the 2025 Young Authors’ Program at Mt Rowan. This year we have 30 students from Grade 4 and 5 participating in this program with other like minded students from various schools across Ballarat. The program is designed for students working 12 months ahead in writing and aims to inspire and challenge our most talented young writers.

This week, our teachers and students are nearing the end of our Assessment weeks where we have been completing a range of assessments to collect evidence of student achievement and growth in Semester One. It was wonderful to visit classrooms and see so many students trying their best and demonstrating each of our school values while working through their assessments. This data will now be used by teachers to write students’ reports. On Tuesday 3rd June, teachers will have a report writing day (student free) to complete their reports, which will then be posted on Compass on Monday 23rd June. This will allow teachers time to meet with students to discuss their reports, prior to Parent Teacher Interviews.

Our Parent teacher interviews will occur in the last week of school. This will take place on Wednesday 2nd July at 1.00pm- 5.30pm which will mean that students will finish school at 12.30pm on this day. Bookings for the appointments will come out later in the term.

Important Information:

School Savings Bonus

The Victorian Government is delivering the School Saving Bonus (SSB) – a one-off support of $400 for eligible government school students from Prep to Year 12 in 2025.

The SSB can be used for uniforms and textbooks until Monday 30 June 2025.

Any funds remaining after 30 June 2025, including online voucher amounts that have not been redeemed, will become a credit to use on school activities. However, the credit will not be available on your family account at our school until late July.

To use any remaining SSB funds to cover the cost of school activities in July, please refer to the SSB online system and allocate the funds to school activities before 30 June 2025.

To learn more about the SSB online system, download the step-by-step System guide for parents and carers or watch this School Saving Bonus video

System Guide Translations are also available in 14 languages.

The Department of Education’s SSB contact centre will remain available until 30 June 2025. The contact centre can be reached by:

completing the School Saving Bonus enquiry form https://www.schoolsavingbonus.vic.gov.au/s/enquiry-form
calling 1800 338 663, between 8:30 am and 4:30 pm on weekdays

Advanced Notice:

Some key dates and events coming up:

Report Writing day (Student free)- Tuesday June 3rd
Wednesday 2nd July - Parent teacher interviews - students finish at 12.30pm. Interviews commence at 1.00pm - 5.30pm
Next assembly is Friday 30th May

Have a great week – Stephanie, Marnie, Michael and Jacinta

Writing Stars