Silverton Stories

A few reminders:

Please ensure that your child(ren) are in full school uniform. If you have any questions about uniform or require any assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact Mr Mark Pollard.
Arrival time: For safety reasons, students should not arrive at school before 8:45am. This is when staff begin before school yard duty. If you need your child to be supervised earlier than 8:45am, we have an Oshcare service which runs everyday from 7:00am – 8:45am. Please enquire if you require this service.
Pick up time: School finishes at 3:15pm every day. If you require your child to be supervised later than that, please also enquire with our Oschare program.
Please DO NOT park in the disabled carpark unless you are permitted to do so.
Please obey all street parking signs in neighboring streets to avoid being fined and do not perform U-turns outside the school gates.
Please ensure that everyone crosses the roads at the designated school crossings.
Please ensure that students are not late for school. 8:50am start on Mondays! 9:00am start Tues – Fri.

Rubbish Free Lunches at Silverton

Silverton Primary School is a Sustainable School.

This means that we are committed to reducing waste that is going to landfill, recycling whatever we can and reusing as many of our resources as possible.

In support of our goals, we introduced a Rubbish Free Lunch Policy in 2025 for all students.

According to our data around 30% of students were bringing Rubbish Free lunches to school last year which is a big improvement from previous years. However, our goal is for 100% of students to bring rubbish free lunches to school.

There are several reasons behind the push for our school to be a rubbish free lunch school:

Each month we spend on average $700 on rubbish removal services for landfill.
With your help, this money could be better spent on resources for our students.
A rubbish audit from July 2025 showed that 23% of the rubbish by weight in our bins were plastics.
Plastic packaging when measured by volume took up most of the space in our bins.
Our school does not have the capacity to recycle plastic containers or soft plastic packaging.
Most homes in the City of Greater Dandenong have Recycle Bins for plastic containers and some Woolworth stores are now able to take soft plastics for recycling.

We would like all families to support our school’s efforts to reduce plastic waste and food going to landfill.

Depending on the type, plastic takes an extraordinarily long time to breakdown at landfill.

For example, chip packets take around 100 years, and cling wrap round 25 years to decompose.

Our landfills are filling up at an alarming rate, and we all have a responsibility to help our environment by recycling as much as possible.

Please take the packaging off any snack or lunch items and put the food into containers labelled with your child’s name. The soft plastic packaging can be collected and taken to Woolworths and many containers can be recycled in your recycle bin at home.

To allow time for families to transition to this new system, students will be allowed to put their rubbish in the bins at school for the rest of the term.

However, starting from the beginning of Term Two any rubbish being brought to school will be returned home for recycling.

Food Waste

We are also noticing many students are not eating all of the food in their lunch boxes.

We will be sending home any uneaten food, so parents are aware of what is and what isn’t being eaten.

Many students have far too much food and cannot eat it all or do not like the food that they are being given.

We do not want food in our bins going to landfill. Food in landfill produces methane gas which is one of the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.

City of Greater Dandenong is also committed to being sustainable and recently introduced the Food and Organics Bin. What use to be just a Garden Waste bin can now take food as long as it is free from stickers, elastic bands and is not in any packaging.

Watch this video for more information. Follow Your Waste - Food and Garden Organics Bin

Thank you, for your ongoing support in helping our school become more sustainable.

Emmanuelle Blake

On behalf of the Silverton Sustainability Committee

Playgroup

Do you have a child who is not yet school age? We warmly invite families to join our Playgroup — a relaxed and fun opportunity for young children to explore, play and connect.

Our Playgroup sessions provide engaging activities designed to support early learning through play, while giving parents and carers the chance to meet other local families and become familiar with our school community.

It’s a wonderful way for children to build confidence, develop social skills and feel comfortable in a school environment before they begin their formal schooling journey.

We would love to see you there!

School Crossing

The Dandenong Council school crossing team have sent through the following reminders about using school crossings.

Children using the crossing must dismount their bikes prior to using the crossing and walk their bikes across. School Crossing Supervisors have reported children not adhering to this request from them.
No bouncing balls or running on the crossing.
Children and the school community to adhere to instructions given by the school crossing supervisor to stand behind the safety line and only cross when instructed to do so. It’s been reported by the public that at times adults are not following the school crossing rules which does not set a good example for the children.

Reminder that School Crossing Supervisors are there to ensure children and other pedestrians are safely using the crossings.

Annual Permissions

There are many occasions during the school year when staff photograph, film or record students participating in school activities or events. Our Photographing, Filming and Recording Students Policy (available on our website) outlines how images of students are collected, used and stored.

There are also occasions where we take students outside of the school grounds to undertake educational activities in the local area. These are known as local excursions and involve walking to locations within walking distance of the school.

Parent/carer permission is required each school year to allow students to be photographed and to participate in local excursions. Consent provided in previous years does not carry over and must be renewed for 2026.

There is an event in Compass called Annual Permissions and we would appreciate your prompt responses.

School Hours

9:00am - 3:15pm

Assembly: 8:50am Mondays

Recess: 11:00am - 11:30am

Lunch: 1:45pm - 2:15pm

Breakfast Club and Early Bird Reading:

Tues - Fri at 8:45am in Prosser Hall (Gym Foyer)

Deakin Green School

Silverton is once again participating in the Deakin Green School research project. Participation in this project benefits Silverton Primary School in the following ways:

Staff, students and parents get to be part of an important research project and gain information on the positive impacts and health benefits from green spaces in schools.
The school receives some additional funds to upgrade our green spaces.

I am now asking if we can have more parents complete the survey and more students given consent to participate. Please click on this Link to find out more about this study and to provide your consent for you and your child to participate: The parent survey only takes 5-10 minutes to complete.