Dear Families,

I hope you all enjoyed a great long weekend and managed to find some downtime in amongst the sports, camping, surfing and other activities our community engage in.

REPORTS: There has been some great discussion amongst staff during planning and assessment time recently as staff begin to compile data and review student growth to give a mid-year assessment. Sometimes staff find it tricky to determine a final result if children have missed several classes and they may message or call you to have a conversation around this. I look forward to seeing the overall results across the school, especially in AUSLAN as it was our first semester of learning in this new area. The other area to mention again is Mathematics which has various strands that we teach but we are only able to give a summative dot for Mathematics overall. This may be a good conversation with your child’s teacher if you want to dig deeper into the specifics in parent teacher meetings.

AUSLAN: Reports in this space will be not in line with the majority of year levels as we have ALL started in the program at the Prep entry level. We may have some students who have picked up the skills quickly but please know we understand the Year 6 stage of AUSLAN this year (and for a few more years) will look different compared to the established curriculum programs that get assessed.

PARENT TEACHER MEETINGS: We look forward to seeing families book in for the midyear checkpoint meetings to ensure we are all on the same page as we launch into term 3 learning. The meetings help strengthen the partnership between home and school while keeping you informed as to where your child is currently at in their learning.

Parent–teacher meetings can be booked via the Sentral Portal from 9:00am on Monday 13th July (the first day of Term 3). The booking window will remain open for one week and will close at 9:00am on Monday, 20th July. Please ensure your booking is made before the closing date.

CAMP: Year 3’s set off yesterday to Anglesea. This is a big step for many students as they have their first school camp experience. Imagine have 80 students at a sleep over! Thanks to all staff involved and to the parent helpers who make sure we have appropriate ratios, adequate eyes on the kids to keep them safe and just to help staff ensure a great time for all involved. It was great to pop down yesterday afternoon for a visit and see the students learning Archery, harnessing up for the flying fox, completing the ‘leap of faith’ and so much more. There will be a few tired bodies this afternoon, so don’t overload them with too many questions… shower, food, rest and then questions.

YEAR 4 CAMP: Not long until the Year 4’s head off to Beaufort and set up camp at Cave Hill Creek. Please ensure all information, medications etc are up to date for staff to collate. We look forward to hearing more about all camps over the next few weeks.

SUSTAINABILITY: This Thursday, Mrs Earle will be super excited as she ventures up to the MCG for the Resource Smart School awards. We have been nominated yet again for the work we do across the school in the sustainability space. Jo believes we are well positioned to win this year as it is about sustainability infrastructure and we have worked so hard from having more solar panels installed, water saving devices, through to making videos for The Department about sustainability practices. Can’t wait to hear the result!

COMMUNITY UNDERSTANDING AND SAFETY TRAINING: Tomorrow, Mrs H and I will attend the Victorian Teaching Academy in Geelong and learn more about how we can increase our understanding of Koorie culture, history, and experiences. We have recently been asked to provide some of the work we have done for a celebration piece in the Geelong Addy soon. We are doing a great job in this space and want to continue to develop it, so our indigenous students continue to feel connected to OGPS.

SCHOOL TOURS: If you have any family or friends who are in the zone and are thinking of moving to OGPS soon, please remind them we have a school tour at 9.15am on Friday.

STRANGER DANGER: It is important that as a community we look out for each other, our young people and have discussions with children about what to do if they encounter an awkward situation. I strongly encourage ALL families to give your children the skills and confidence to identify any situations that are ‘not quite right’ and then act to be safe. If your child encounters anything ‘out of the ordinary’ please report it to police and even let us know. Thanks for keeping the OG kids safe.

Have a great week everyone.

Scott McCumber

Principal

Parenting Programs