Principal Update

We have been busy planning for 2024 and have some exciting news:

After a thorough and considered evaluation of our out of school hours providers the School Council has selected a new provider- “Their Care”. We are very grateful that Hannah is joining the Their Care team and will be staying and co-ordinating at APS. The decision was made on a thorough tender process. There is a parent information session on 30 November at 6.15pm which you can attend in person or zoom in. They have also provided marketing materials that we will distribute tomorrow on Compass. Families will need to enrol with Their Care as the new provider. They will begin the Holiday Program on the 8 January. OSHClub finishes on the 31 December. I have attached a welcome flyer from "Their Care" and as mentioned, full details will be posted on Compass tomorrow.

Lunchtime offerings: School Council sought proposals from dance providers for lunchtime classes and we are pleased to announce that Stageworks will continue to provide Ballet and Hip Hop dance for two lunchtimes. 

We have a new dance group - Emilio Ela Rose who will be offering multicultural movement and dance for one lunchtime a week. If this trial is successful they may increase to two lunchtimes.

Code Camp - this group will be offering a lunchtime coding club for Years 2-6 during term 1 as a trial. The students will need to use their school device for this program. 

Student Leadership: We had the absolute pleasure of hearing Year 5 students giving their leadership speech yesterday. They spoke about their aspirations and what they believe leadership involves. The process to select the leaders is very considered. All Year 5 students write a speech with the prompt of “We all lead in different ways”. This is done in class and has been happening over the last few weeks with the support of the class teachers. The students then decide if they would like to try to become one of the 10 school leaders. We had 42 students take the opportunity to give their speech to an audience, which included the Year 4’s, the current student leaders, Shane, myself and the teachers.  The audience have a chance to vote and this is used along with teacher input to shortlist 20 students. These 20 have an interview with a panel of staff and they answer a few questions. This helps to determine the 10 students who will become the Year 6 leadership team. I really admire the efforts students put into this process and they are pleased with the opportunity and the approach we take. The new team will be presented to the school at assembly on Friday 8 December. 

The Year 2’s ‘slept’ at school last week as part of their outdoor education. Next week the Year 5’s are off to Portsea and the following week the Year 6’s are off to Marysville. They are fantastic experiences for the students that we are grateful to be able to offer. 

Have a lovely week

Melissa Mackenzie

Principal