Dear RMPS families,

We hope this newsletter finds you well and in good spirits. The PFA have a few events coming up in the next couple of weeks before we wrap up the year!

Only a few days away

Foundation Transition Program Morning Tea, Wednesday 22 November – The 2024 Foundation children complete their transition program in Term 4, in preparation to join Robbie Mac next year. While the children are in the classrooms, their parents/carers will be offered morning tea in the hall on Wednesday 22 November between 9:00-9:50am. This is a great opportunity for the new families to meet each other and have a chat, as well as to start to feel a part of the school community and meet some existing families. Current families and carers of Robbie Mac students are also welcome and encouraged to drop by and grab some morning tea as well as to meet and greet new families. Please come along and say ‘hi’.

One week away

School Colour Fun Run, Monday 27 November – The PFA is holding our School Colour Fun Run for all the students on Monday 27 November on the school oval between 1-3pm with the principal/teacher sliming at 3pm. The day is all about Fun! It will be a huge colourful mess and is undoubtably one of the most exciting days on our school’s calendar, with everyone’s participation the aim. We love to see the children outside and moving and revelling in getting blasted with colour and water and well, getting a ‘little’ messy. Please make sure you attend the event and cheer the kids on! Everyone’s invited! Spectators will be able to watch from the Synthy grass.

You may have seen Compass posts and class rep messages asking for assistance. We do need your help to make this a great event for the children.

Child Sign-Up and Fundraising – The Fun Run is fundraising for the school’s planned inclusive sensory garden, on top of covering the costs of hosting it. To everyone that has raised funds – THANK YOU. For anyone that hasn’t yet, we would love for you to do so too before time runs out. You can still create your child’s profile page and share their link to seek donations safely online, then place their prize order or charity donation. Fundraising and prizes close on 23 November. We currently have 152 students (45%) with donations raised. So, if you haven’t done so already, please:

Help your child(ren) create a profile page at schoolfunrun.com.au.
Share the profile page to seek donations. To get started with fundraising, can you think of five people you can share the profile page with who are likely to donate? Text message is always the best way to share your link, followed by social media and lastly, email.

Help on the Day – Are you available for 30 minutes or more on Monday 27 November? We are seeking volunteers at various times to help with activities like spraying children with water, throwing coloured powder at them, using bubble wands, helping on the course, being Chase the mascot, setting up and packing down. We're using SignUp to organise our volunteers and, we need your help to make this event successful; it would be fantastic if you can help on the day!

Pick your slots and sign up as a volunteer using these 3 easy steps:

Click this link to go to our SignUp page: https://signup.com/go/SyGTtbA
Enter your email address (You will NOT need to register an account on SignUp)
Sign up! Choose your spots – SignUp will send you an automated confirmation. Easy! Tip: You can check the ‘Hide Full Spots’ checkbox to see the ones that still need to be filled.

Note: SignUp does not share your name, mobile number or email address with anyone other than the organisers. If you prefer not to sign up online though, please contact rmps.pfa@gmail.com and we can sign you up manually. You can still use the online form to see what spots need filling.

Important: For this event all helpers need to have a current Working with Children Check (WWCC). Please refer to the article below on applying for a FREE volunteer’s WWCC if you do not already have one and links to the associated school policies. A WWCC can be organised quickly. Please show your WWCC to the school office for their records

by Friday 24 November.

We appreciate your time and effort in making this a fun day for all the students.

Prizes and Charities – Students who raise $10 or more will receive a reward, and the more money raised the better the reward and the more you help the school! For those who would prefer not to receive prizes such as toys or gadgets, students can elect a wonderful charity to donate some or all their prize money to. It would be fantastic if you can discuss this with your children and encourage them to help in this way. Students who have raised funds can order and edit their prizes or donate to charity until Thursday 23 November. The two charities being supported are:

Daniel Morcombe Foundation, which combines with the school’s respectful relationships program. The Foundation specialises in education programs for both children and adults in how to keep kids safe, while also directly supporting young victims of crime.

GreenFleet, a leading not-for-profit organisation committed to protecting our climate by restoring our forests. Donations will help create homes for Koala’s by planting trees throughout Australia.

Note: If you selected a goal prize, you still need to log on to order your prizes. If prizes are not ordered by 23 November, a donation to charity will automatically be made on your behalf.

What to wear –

Students

Come to school in a sun safe outfit that they can run around with, preferably a WHITE or light-coloured top that can get stained with colour, and runners.
Can wear sunglasses or other glasses to help protect their eyes from powder.

Will most likely be messy and wet when picked up as this event is at the end of the day – a towel will be handy and maybe something to sit on in the car!
Will use their school hats when not running in the fun run and have access to their classroom tub for water bottles.

Adults

Spectators – Spectators are spectators only, so do not need any specific clothing but should be prepared for stray colour powder and water.
Helpers – Helpers are likely to get wet and/or come into contact with colour powder, so it is advised to come in older clothes and lighter colours, if possible.

Powder – The powders to be used are non-toxic, non-hazardous and de-gradable, and made from corn starch and food grade dye colours. Contact us for a copy of the Material Safety Data Sheet.

2024 Coordinator Expressions of Interest

At the last PFA meeting, it was agreed that we would like to try and better balance our activities across the year. To do this, we are considering hosting an event like a parent/carer night or family event sometime in Term 1 2024 – could stretch to April. This would be a way to help people new to the school or who have not had much opportunity to meet others, to meet and start to feel a part of the school community earlier rather than later in the year. Given events like these can take a bit of planning and preparation, we have decided to put out an expression of interest now to see if there is anyone who is interested in coordinating something like this in the earlier part of next year – you can even find a friend and do it together! Unfortunately, we had to cancel our planned Parent/Carer night in 2023 as we could not find a coordinator (which may have been because it was Fair year).

The primary purpose of a parent/carer night is to hold an adult social event to help build community engagement and a sense of belonging and provide parents and carers with an opportunity to meet other RMPS families in a relaxed, fun setting without the children. These usually prove to be popular and enjoyable evenings. Examples of past events include:

2022 Trivia Night

2021 Drinks and food at Rosa Mexicano, Brickworks (cancelled due to Covid)

2019 Finger food, drinks and music at the Box Hill Golf Club

Other ideas include a bingo night, 10 pin or lawn bowls, or more drinks and nibbles. Also, note that we promote this as an evening event, but we are open to other times such as a Sunday afternoon.

A family event would include the children too and may be something like a cinema at the school event, games day, potluck/bring a plate (communal meal) mingling event or something else.

Please email us by Thursday 30 November at rmps.pfa@gmail.com, if you are interested.

PFA

The PFA is a group of volunteer parents and carers who help organise events and fundraising activities for RMPS, welcome families and bring people together from within the community. This helps us all connect more closely with our school and to raise vital funds for school improvements. Without volunteers, there would be no PFA.

All RMPS parents and carers are welcome to register as PFA members, enabling them to receive copies of meeting minutes, vote on items/actions and the office bearer (executive) roles as applicable, and be elected to PFA office bearer roles. If you would like to register as a member, please contact us for a copy of the registration form. Note that you do not have to be a member to help on events or attend meetings.

Next meeting: Monday 20 November @ 2:15pm – 3:15pm. This will be an onsite meeting at the school. We look forward to having parents and carers join us for this meeting.

Please get in touch if you'd like more information on the PFA, have any event queries or an idea you’d like to share with us, or would like to get involved in the committee and/or activities – rmps.pfa@gmail.com.

That’s it for now,

Wen Li (President), Elizabeth (Secretary) and Bård (Treasurer)

The PFA Committee

FREE Working with Children Check (WWCC)

Ever thought about volunteering at a school (e.g., excursion, swimming, classroom) or PFA (e.g., disco, colour run) activity or event, or even at your child’s sports or dance club, but haven’t been able to because you don’t have a Working with Children Check (WWCC)? Well, you can get a volunteer WWCC for FREE! Applying for one takes about 15-20 minutes and you can do it online via Working with Children Check (service.vic.gov.au). Once you have completed the online application you will receive an application receipt, followed by a card after the check is completed. (Note: We recommend you do this using your mobile phone because of the photo process etc.)

What you'll need to do

Prove your identity with documents using your phone. The online application shows you which ones.
Fill out the online application form
Consent to Service Victoria passing your info on to the Working with Children Check (WWCC) Unit Victoria (Department of Justice and Community Safety) to process your WWCC application. (Services Victoria does not keep your information, they just pass it on.)

Your Working with Children check

The Working with Children Check Victoria screening process looks at:
Your criminal record in all Australian states and territories, including any charges, regardless of the outcome
Your professional conduct as determined by these groups, and

Whether you're required to report under sex offender legislation

If you have applied for a WWCC but are unsure whether your card will arrive before you want to volunteer at an event, please speak to the school office about possible options. A check may take between 3-12 weeks to be processed.

Copies of WWCC cards are kept on file by the school for compliance and a Working with Children Check is required for doing child-related work which includes volunteering. Please provide the school office with a copy of your card.

If you would like to get a WWCC card but are not confident doing this yourself, please contact the school office for assistance by calling 9890 2372.

For RMPS related volunteering, please also read the school’s:

Visitors Policy
https://robmacps.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Visitors-policy.docx
Volunteers Policy
https://robmacps.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Volunteers-policy.docx

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