We welcome back our wonderful Year 5 and 6 students yesterday after their insightful three days stepping back in time at the historic Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. The feedback from the students as they got off the bus, was that the whole experience was ‘fantastic’ ‘fun’, ‘great’.

Welcome Picnic

The Welcome Picnic was a huge community success. We had a great number of families and friends attend; it was wonderful to see several ex-students there as well. A highlight was having our local community groups involved. Sincere thanks to:

Waverley Blues
Highvale Netball Club
NextGen Soccer Academy
Bollywood Dance Group
Gecko Sports
Stonnington Dance and Physical Culture – PHYSIE

Special thanks to Michelle and Julie for all the preparation work that they did and to all our wonderful parents volunteers for their BBQing and serving expertise to ensure the night’s success.

Working Bee

Thank you to all the families who were able to attend the recent ‘Working Bee’. We were able to complete a long list of jobs, one in particular has been very popular with the students and that is adding new sand to the sand pits.

Toilet Capital Works Update

Last Friday we had our first meeting for the refurbishment of the Block B toilet block.

Jenny Liaw is the Senior Project Manager from the Victorian Schools Building Authority and the architect is Mitchell Hatton from Ed Ewers Architecture. A site visit was conducted, lots of photos taken and questions answered. The architect is working on pricing the project to go out to tender.

NAPLAN

The NAPLAN Literacy and Numeracy tests for students in Years 3 and 5 are scheduled from Wednesday 12th March – Wednesday 19th March 2025. Students will complete tests in language conventions, writing, reading and numeracy. Students in Year 3 will complete the written test on paper, otherwise all other assessments will be completed online using the NAPLAN application. The school will be supporting students to familiarise themselves with the type of questions and related functionalities of NAPLAN Online. Today the students took part in a coordinated practice session which gave students an opportunity to experience a “Practice Omnibus”. This single test included questions from reading, conventions of language and numeracy and gives the students practice with the platform and test structure.

Students will also have an opportunity to complete a writing practice test. NAPLAN is a great tool for schools to reflect on their strengths and challenges in teaching and learning. It is data that can help measure the impact of programs and identify goals for the future. It is important that when talking to students about NAPLAN we reinforce that this assessment is for the school. All students need to do is show what they have learnt and do their best.

Parent Contributions

I would just like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all our wonderful families who have made a monetary contribution this year to the school it is greatly appreciated. Parent contributions continue to provide an important and critical source of funding which enables us to supply resources necessary to maximise the successful delivery of our learning programs. It also allows us to redirect some of our funding to engage experts like Andrea Hillbrick and Ange Rogers to work with the students and teachers to further enhance the quality education delivered at our school.

Family Safety

To ensure the safety of our families we are reminding you that the school crossing is available for families to utilise when arriving and departing from school and is a safer option than crossing at the roundabouts. Unfortunately, the low numbers using the crossing may result in the Council removing the crossing, which we do not want, so please utilise the crossing.

School Council Election Results

Earlier in the month I called for nominations for School Council, we had 4 parent vacancies and 2 school employee vacancies. I now can formally declare that the following nominated candidates were elected for the School Council:

Parent: 2 Year Term

Riaz Kingston (Gemma and Alexander)

Elaine Wong (Adele)

Stephanie Ting (Dean)

Rani Bahwandi (Amberley, Ashtin, Ashton)

Parent: 1Year Term

Titaha Gillman (Benjamin)

School Employee: 2 Year Term

Rebecca Stonehouse-Melke

Clare Searle

Finally, we wish our Division Swimming Team: Alannah, Auyrn, Francesca, Harris, Imogen, Lewis and Livia all the best at the Division Swim Meet next Wednesday at the Boroondara Sports Complex. Go Syndal!

Have a great fortnight.

Helen

Principal

The Rocket

27th February 2025

Issue 3 · 27 Feb 2025

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