Scotsburn News 

Important Dates

Welcome Back!

A big warm welcome back to everyone at Scotsburn for 2024. Both SC1 and SC2 students have settled back into the year beautifully well and we have such an amazing year ahead of us. There is a lot of information below for our first newsletter for the year, however this will be a good newsletter to save and refer back to from time to time. We will also keep some of these items in the next few newsletters as reminders for all families. 

A big congratulations to Savannah, Isla and Rhylee, who are our new Scotsburn Campus Leaders for 2024. The three girls are very excited and motivated for the year ahead and they all spoke beautifully well at the whole school assembly last week. 

As an addition to our Meet and Greet coming up (information below), we will also organise a parent morning tea in the coming weeks. This will be a great opportunity to discuss the start of the year, as well as organise some volunteering and fundraising opportunities.

Once again, make sure you have a really good read of all the items below, as well as all other sections of this week’s newsletter. Have a wonderful week everyone!

Scotsburn Assembly this week - Friday 9th February

We will have our first Scotsburn assembly this Friday in the shed. We have adjusted our assembly times this year to 3pm and conclude at the end of the day. This is so that we have a greater opportunity to align our timetables across SC1 and SC2 and make the most of the literacy and numeracy time available to us across the week. We would absolutely love as many parents and members of the community to be in attendance for our assemblies again this year. 

We have 3 Scotsburn assemblies scheduled for this term, with the aim to make them really meaningful, with lots of student involvement, presentations and celebrations. We hope to see you all there!

Family Groups - Starting Week 3

We can’t wait to get back into Friday Family Groups this year, with us kicking off next Friday. We will run these sessions this year from 2pm - 3:30pm, on weeks where we don’t have assemblies. For Term 1, we will have a cooking group, and a sustainability/team building group. Across the year, we will look to keep the cooking group consistent, with the second group rotating through different themes each term.

Below are our groups and schedule. It is a good idea to send a small Tupperware container with your child during the weeks that they are cooking, as they may bring some yummy food home!

Toastie Tuesday and Thursday Breakfast Club - Starting next week

Next week we will be starting back up our Toastie Tuesdays and Breakfast Club. Remember to send $1 with your child on Tuesdays if they would like to purchase a toastie, and also be ready on Thursday mornings to come into the old building for some yummy breakfast, which is free of charge! We will be once again looking for some parent assistance with these programs - please let any Scotsburn staff know if you can volunteer some time.

Meet and Greet Afternoon - Wednesday 21st February

This year, we have decided to run our Meet and Greet afternoon at Scotsburn a little differently. The reason for this being that with a new class structure, we would love to present lots of information about Scotsburn 2024 to our parent community in a structured and consistent way.

With this in mind, we have decided that we will run a parent forum for approximately 30 minutes, from 1:30pm. We would love all parents to be in attendance for this session, where we will present information about the year ahead at Scotsburn, including class structures, workshop models, spelling programs, take home reading, homework etc. We will also provide some time for a bit of Q and A. At the conclusion of this session, if parents have some specific information that they would like to share with their child’s teacher, they are still welcome to book a time after this.

We have organised for all Scotsburn staff to be at the forum, including Liz, Ana, Kirsty, Rachel and Jarrod. If you wish to have an individual booking with Liz or Rachel after the forum, these will be available back at the Buninyong campus. 

We would really love all parents to be in attendance for the forum. Weather permitting, we would also love to see parents and kids mingling for the afternoon, so feel free to bring a picnic rug and some afternoon tea!

Welcome to our 2024 Preps and Families

A big Scotsburn welcome to our new Preps Gracie, Fraser and Elijah. It was wonderful to see you all happy and excited on your first day. We look forward to seeing all the great things you will achieve this year. 

At this stage, we have the Ballarat Courier coming to take a prep photo for the paper on Thursday February 22nd. If you have any questions, please see Ana.

Prep Buddies

It was wonderful to get our Prep Buddy program underway last week. This year our buddy pairs are Isla and Elijah, Rhylee and Fraser, and Savannah and Gracie. Our Grade 6 girls have already provided great assistance to our new preps, and will be a familiar face for Elijah, Fraser and Gracie across the year. 

Prep Interviews

Just a reminder that Preps have Wednesdays off for the month of February. This time off is to ensure that children have the chance to recharge mid-week as they settle into school. On these Wednesdays, each Prep student needs to come in for a mandated Prep Interview that takes approximately 45 minutes for an English and Numeracy assessment to gauge where each student’s point of need is. Please see Ana to lock in a time if this has not been done.  This interview only requires your child to be present. 

Arrival Time

8:45am is an ideal time to arrive at school, as the classrooms and playground are not supervised until then. If you are regularly requiring your child to be dropped off prior to this time, just a reminder that we do have before school care available at the Buninyong Campus. Students attending before school care at Buninyong are driven via to the Scotsburn campus before 9:00am. Feel free to catch up with any of the Scotsburn staff if you have any questions about your child’s morning drop off arrangements.

At Scotsburn, we want all students to be ready to start the day at 9am. If your child is absent on any given day, please ensure that you contact the Buninyong Primary School office to inform them, so as our role marking procedures are accurately updated.

Bus Travellers

If your son/daughter is a bus traveller and you haven’t already done so, please contact Mel in the office at the Buninyong Campus to complete the required forms. A reminder that if travel plans change on any certain day, please call the Scotsburn Campus or come and see the bus duty teacher before collecting your child. This will save any confusion when doing the bus roll.

Lunch orders

The canteen will be back up and running for lunch orders each Wednesday and Friday. Please use the QKR app to order these.

2024 BYOD IPAD PROGRAM - Grades 3-6

Devices are now welcome to be brought back to school from tomorrow Wednesday, 7 February 2024. 

Prior to sending your child’s device back, could you please take some time to revisit and digitally accept the Acceptable Use Agreement that is available in your Events tab on Compass. This step must be completed before your child brings their iPad to school. 

For our Grade 3 students, or if your child has a new device or is new to the BYOD program, you are welcome to send your device in for set up on Friday, 9 February. Before you bring your child’s new device in, please ensure that the following has been completed:

-        screen time is off

-        passcodes are off

-        you are signed out of iCloud in settings

The new devices will be wiped as part of the set up, so please ensure you have backed up any important information. If you have any questions about the BYOD iPad program, please contact Jarrod and he will be able to assist you.

Local Excursion Consent

Annual local excursion permission is now required from all families. A Compass event has been created and sent to families. Local excursions are excursions to locations within walking distance of the school and do not involve ‘Adventure Activities’. Please note that while we do not need to seek further consent from parents before local excursions take place, we are required to provide advance notice to parents/carers of upcoming local excursions through Compass. For local excursions that occur on a recurring basis, we can notify parents/carers once only prior to the commencement of the recurring event. Many of these local excursions will occur across the year when we are joining students down at the Buninyong campus.

Items Brought to School

Just a reminder that toys do not need to be brought into school. We have lots of toys and resources at our lunch club and in the classrooms which students can play with and enjoy. Personal items brought to school can be lost and damaged and teachers cannot guarantee that these possessions will be kept safe. 

Hats and Uniform

A reminder that students are required to wear the school hat when outside in Term 1. If your child has lost or misplaced their hat, new hats can be purchased from the Buninyong Campus office. 

Please also have a good read of the uniform section in the newsletter, as a reminder of the correct uniform to be worn each day to school. Last year the Scotsburn students did a wonderful job maintaining high uniform standards and we know this will continue this year.

SC1 Learning Snapshot

SC1 has had such a wonderful start to 2024. The first week was extremely settled as we began to explore our Learning to Learn program. This will continue throughout Week 2 as we set up our learning space as a team, teach routines, expectations and organisation. These first 2 weeks also give us a chance to delve into our school values, respectful - responsible - kind, and what this looks like in the classroom, yard and community. We know our students do a wonderful job at this and enjoy taking ownership of how we can all be happy and inclusive at school as well as setting up the best possible learning environment for everyone. 

We hope everyone now has a copy of our Term 1 newsletter that was sent home last week with your child and on Compass. If you have any questions about anything, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. 

Thanks, and have a great week.

Ana and Kirsty

SC2 Learning Snapshot

What brilliant start SC2 has made to 2024. We have such an exciting year ahead, filled with so many great learning experiences and fun in the classroom. This week we are continuing our Learning to Learn focus, developing our classroom routines and ritually, as well as our agreed classroom expectations. We could not be more impressed with how each and every student in SC2 has contributed to this work so far.

We have also finished off a few afternoons with some fun Minute to Win It games, which certainly have been fun!

As stated earlier in the newsletter, SC2 students can begin bringing in iPads from tomorrow, as long as parents have signed off the Acceptable Use Agreement on Compass. If your child has a new iPad or your child is new to the BYOD iPad program, your child’s iPad will need to be set up on the school system this Friday. Please follow the instructions outlined earlier in the newsletter to ensure this process goes smoothly.

Homework and home reading will commence this Friday. We will be making a big push this year to get into wonderful homework routines, including nightly home reading.

Students in SC2 can read at home independently, however we would love to have parents discuss with their child their reading as well as sign off that their child has completed their home reading. 

Finally, we have now confirmed our SC2 class roles for 2024. Given that we have 3 Grade 6 students this year, we are requiring some assistance from all students in SC2. They are very excited about the roles they have been selected in, and over the next few weeks we will be providing some training and preparation so that students can complete these roles independently across the year. Here are the roles for 2024:

Have an amazing week everyone!

Jarrod and Liz

Specialist News and Timetable

Once again this year our Specialist program will be a shared role between Mrs Morgan and Ms Middlin. Mrs Morgan will be teaching Art and Japanese on Wednesdays, and Ms Middlin will be teaching Physical Education and Performing Arts on Thursdays. This year our students will also get the amazing opportunity to participate in STEM with Ms Middlin every single week as well - how amazing!

Below is Scotsburn’s Specialist timetable for Term 1. Please remember to bring a spare pair of runners for PE each Thursday, particularly if the weather looks to be a bit wet.

Staff Contacts

Mr Morgan: jarrod.morgan@education.vic.gov.au

Mrs Anderson: anastasia.anderson@education.vic.gov.au

Mrs Robinson: kirsty.bull@education.vic.gov.au

Mrs Morgan: elizabeth.morgan2@education.vic.gov.au

Ms Middlin: rachel.middlin@education.vic.gov.au

The Scotsburn Team