Principal's Message

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Prep Parents Welcome BBQ and Chat

It was terrific to welcome a large number of Prep families to our BBQ and Information Session on Monday night, a great chance to meet and get to know one another.  Our Prep team then did a terrific job to provide parents with an overview of our Sounds Write program and the processes involved in teaching the students to read through learning phonics and phonemic awareness. Whilst the information session took place the students enjoyed a play outside in far nicer weather conditions that we experienced the week before – many children not wanting to leave! Thank you to our wonderful Prep team for organising the night, along with Mrs Carolynn Murray and her husband Glenn for cooking the BBQ, along with Miss Paton for helping supervise the students. 

Athletics Sports

An annual highlight on our school calendar is always our two-day Athletics Sports that were held earlier this week, with the running events taking place at Mitchell Park on Tuesday followed by the field events at school on Wednesday.   Our students were absolutely amazing across the two days of competition, not only running, jumping and throwing at their best, but also cheering and supporting all other competitors with great sportsmanship, and school spirit on display.  We had rather warm weather on both days however this didn’t deter our students from giving their best, they were all little superstars!  It was fantastic to have so many parents, grandparents and family friends in attendance to support our students – it certainly means a lot to the children.  Thanks must go to Mr Watt for the wonderful job he did in organising the event along with teaching staff, Education Support and Administration staff for the various support roles they carried out.  I would particularly like to thank parents Jason and Kelly Thomas, Bec Doheny, Stacey Stewart and Ngaire and Sam Alexander for the amazing job they did all day on the Tuesday to help ensure the day ran smoothly and was the success that it was!

Whilst the highlight for me is always the way in which the students participate and make improvements from year to year, it is terrific to also acknowledge the students who have excelled in the various disciplines.   

 Today at our assembly we also acknowledged the various Age Group Champions – congratulations to each of these students on their achievements.  It was great to once again welcome back former Principal Mr Jack Waldron to present the ‘Jack Waldron Shield’ to the winning House Team.  The winners and placegetters for each of our Age Group Champions, along with the House Shield results, are below:

1st - Grange 

2nd - Wannon

3rd - Glenelg

4th - Nigretta

HDSA District Athletics

The annual Hamilton and District Sports Association (HDSA) Athletics Sports will take place on Thursday 21st  March, also up at Mitchell Park.  This event is held for children in the 9, 10, 11 and 12/13 year old age groups. Children will be selected to represent our school based on the results from our school Athletics Sports earlier this week, along with some trials that will be held for additional events such as Triple Jump.  Mr Watt will be working through our results in the coming days and children will then be notified if they have qualified to represent our school.  Two children from each school may qualify for each event with children limited to compete in up to 5 individual, and 1 relay event.

School Council

Nominations for Parent Members on School Council were called on Friday 23rd February and closed at 4:00pm last Friday, with four nominations received for the four vacancies.  Therefore a ballot is not required and I can congratulate Alison Quade, Brad White, Mark Hibberd and Michael Davies on their re-election.  I thank all four for making themselves available for this important aspect of school administration.  I also like to thank Mrs Janelle Harms on re-nominating and being elected to the first vacant Department of Education member position for the next two years, along with new staff member Mrs Alison Smith who will also be joining us on School Council.

School Arrival Times

We would like to remind families that children are not to arrive at school before 8:35am as this is when staff are first on duty and we are not able to provide supervision for students before this time.  Thank you for your assistance with this matter.

Drop ‘n’ Go Zone

I’d also like to remind families that when entering the Drop ‘n’ Go Zone vehicles should remain in this space please for a maximum of two minutes and unless assisting your child to get in and out of the vehicle, parents are to please remain in your car.  If walking your child into the school parents are required to please park your car elsewhere, not in the Drop ‘n’ Go Zone.  Thank you all for your assistance.

Athletics Achievement

Last week I wrote in the newsletter about Manaia’s effort at the State Athletics Championships and last week he backed up his outstanding results by this time placing 2nd in the 800m for his age group.  This gains Manaia an additional entry in the National Championships at the start of term 2, qualifying for both the 800m and the 1500m – an outstanding effort Manaia – you are a superstar!

NAPLAN

Next week our students in grades 3 and 5 will be completing the annual NAPLAN assessments.  Students will complete the writing assessment on Wednesday, Reading on Thursday, Language Convention (Grammar and Punctuation) on Friday and Numeracy of Monday of the following week with all assessments (except Year 3 Writing) to be completed online.  Any children who are away will be expected to complete “catch-up” sessions over the following week.  Staff have been giving students the opportunity to complete practice test sessions to help familiarise themselves with the testing format.  We have also been reinforcing with students the importance of ‘giving their best’ however this assessment doesn’t define a student or their overall capabilities.  This is one test, on one day, that gives us an overall indication how our school is progressing.  Staff use a range of other assessments, over extended periods of time, that give us a much clearer picture of the great progress being made by all of our students.

Arts Festival Night

Preparations are well underway for our Arts Festival Night on Thursday 21st March.  This event returned to our calendar last year after being interrupted by COVID and the night was a great success.  Ms Brown has been busily preparing for a range of art activities that will take place, open to all current students and their families to come along and enjoy.  There will be different art stalls, activities and demonstrations that will be available for students to come along and try, and put their creative talents on display.  We hope to once again have a large number of attendees on the night, that is sure to be a lot of fun!

Labour Day Public Holiday

A reminder that Monday is the Labour Day public holiday and our school will be closed but we look forward to having all students return on Tuesday refreshed and ready for a new week of learning and great achievements.

Have a great weekend!

Ben Kelson

Principal