Principal's Message

Dear OLA Families,

We have enjoyed an exciting couple of weeks at OLA. Thank you all for being part of these wonderful opportunities:

• School Tours are well underway
• Our School Advisory Council and Parents and Friends Team have met for the first time for 2024
• Grade 5/6 enjoyed their Beach Swimming Program and Grades 1-4 attended their swimming sessions at Mentone Girls Grammar
• Our OLA Swim Squad represented our school and many competitors came home with a ribbon or two! 
• The Student Representative Council (SRC) students received their leadership badges
• All staff attended First Aid Professional Learning with a focus on CPR and Anaphylaxis Training
• Our FIRE (Friends Igniting Reconciliation through Education) Carriers took on their new roles and we enjoyed the handover ceremony
• Staff met with parents and celebrated learning and wellbeing as well as set goals for their children during our Parent Teacher Interviews
• Families attended the first Working Bee of the year and left the school grounds and buildings looking amazing
• The 5/6s also engaged in a Parliamentary Process Incursion and Leadership Program
• Some of our families went online to listen to Carley McGauran in regards to Big Feelings which is extra helpful at this time of the year      
• We finished the week with Interschool Sport for our Grade 5/6s  
• Prep completed their first full week of school.

Best Wishes to Mrs Taig

We all feel like we are walking alongside Mrs Taig as she prepares to have her baby around early to mid April. Tuesday 19 March will be Mrs Taig's last day before she embraces Parental Leave and enjoys welcoming Baby Taig into the world with her husband Rick. I know you will join me in giving Caitlan our warmest and best wishes with this exciting time in her life. On Tuesday 19 March at 3pm we will gather outside as a whole school to wish her well. Please come and join us if you can.

Change up of roles

With Mrs Taig beginning Parental Leave after 19 March I am delighted to announce the following staff appointments during Caitlan's leave:

Deputy Principal & Learning Diversity Leader - Josy Reeder

RE Leader & Learning and Teaching Leader - Michela Vella

Intervention, Literacy andWellbeing Leader - Shelby Turner

Mathematics Leader - Nicole Collins

Congratulations to these great educators and committed staff members. Thank you for being embracing of a leadership reshuffle and opportunity.

Catholic Education Week

Next week we celebrate Catholic Education Week - this is an opportunity for all Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Melbourne to celebrate our Catholic identity and the role we play within our local community. May all our students be inspired by St Patrick and strive to grow in faith, hope and love.

Loving God,

In this Catholic Education Week, 

when we celebrate Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Melbourne,

we thank you for the teachers, staff, students, families and administrators

who together create school communities of faith, hope and love.

We ask you to bless our schools as they continue the mission of Catholic education. May they always be places where young people are formed and inspired by the light of Christ and share the joy of the Gospel with all the world.

We ask this prayer through your son and our Teacher, Jesus Christ.

Amen. 

St Patrick's Day Mass at the Cathedral 

Happy St Patrick's Day for next week and happy Catholic Education Week! Our School Captains together with our Wellbeing/Social Justice Leaders will represent OLA at St Patrick's Cathedral next Friday. The children will be amongst 2000+ students and staff from schools across the Archidiocese of Melbourne.

Parent Teacher Meetings

Thank you all for taking the time to meet with your children's classroom teacher/s.  This is such a wonderful moment in time where the teachers learn more about each and every child while they also share successes, challenges, data and set goals for the year ahead. Three good questions we endeavour to answer: Is my child happy? What is my child doing well? What can I do at home to help my child?

Working Bee

Thank you to those families who came to school last weekend to help out at the Working Bee! Our school looked so lovely and we are so thankful for another successful event to beautify our school. The tmosphere inclusive and warm and the jobs completed were many! The school buildings and grounds looked and continue to look amazing with so much pride taken in taking care of them and making them safe and tidy.

Review

On Monday 4 March our Reviewer Jan Hayes together with Mark Workman visited OLA for thier Preliminary Visit focussed on Compliance. This is part of our four year School Review. It is important in the life of our school for us to stop and reflect on what is working well and what can be even better. As you can appreciate we have been meeting deadlines over the last couple of weeks to provide evidence of meeting all VRQA and Child Safe Standard requirements. We thank the students, parents and staff who are meeting and speaking with the Reviewer. The remaining Review dates includes:

Day 1 of Review - Tuesday 12 March

Day 2 of Review - Thursday 14 March 

Dialogue and Engagement - Tuesday 23 April 

Parent Contact Lists

This afternoon we will send out Parent Contact Lists for each class via Operoo. Please note that you will receive the contact lists for all classes in the level that your child is in, for example, if your child is in Grade 1ET you will receive both 1JM and 1ET Class Lists. Please note that these Parent Class Lists are for playdates, birthday invites and social opportunities. A reminder that our OLA Code of Conduct clearly outlines that parents do not go to another parent to speak to them about behavioural concerns or incidents that happen at school - always speak directly with your child's classroom teacher first and the the Wellbeing Team will always support in these situations.

WhatsApp Communication

The Parents and Friends 'WhatsApp' groups are a great way for the P&F Team to keep everyone informed of P&F activities. They are also a place for the OLA community to interact, socialise and get organised throughout the year. Can we please all remember that they are not intended for sharing photos of the kids. We need to be mindful that not all families consent to photo sharing, which is completely ok. Kids photos will be shared via the school managed platforms where the parent/guardian consents are managed. As a way of working we ask all users to remember that all communication entered into on this platform is to be  respectful - if you have any concerns or questions please speak directly to the school and take this offline. Thank you all for your understanding. If you have any questions on this, please be in touch with Lauren Koukoumanos and Claudelle Salter, P&F Chairs 2024 or Richard Jacques, Principal.

Operoos

Today in addition to the Parent Contact Lists we will be sending through an Operoo providing clearer access to the School Calendar as it has been reported that this has been challenging for some of our families to access. 

In addition to this, early next week we will send through our Child Safety policies and procedures including our OLA Code of Conduct, Photo/Video Permission & ICT Acceptable Use Policy. Thank you for your understanding on receiving the many required documents that come out in a school at this time of year.

OLA Expectations

At our recent Parent/Teacher meetings families and teachers were talking about the whole school OLA Expectations and we promised to add to the newsletter for families to reference.

OLA Car Park

Thank you for the positive feedback about our OLA Car Park following it being repainted and new signage making it a safer place for all in our community. Thank you for your patience and understanding with each other and the person on the crossing!! Please explain the process to grandparents and other friends or family picking up your child/ren. Some tips from users include:

• Please follow the flow of the car park as directed by the arrows 
• If your child is not waiting at the Hug and Drop section please move on to find a car park so the other families can pick their child up and so that the traffic is not stuck out on Centre Dandenong Road or Wilson Street
• Cars coming off Wilson Street are having difficulty in joining the Hug and Drop line - please allow one car car at a time to join the Centre Dandenong Road cars and we ask that cars dont block the though lane for cars looking for a car park
• Some users recommend reverse parking so that your departure is smoother

Do we have any younger sisters or brothers keen and ready to start school next year?

Please submit your Enrolment Application Forms online before the Easter School Holidays. We can't wait to welcome the siblings of our OLA students next year. We also want to ensure we keep enough spaces open for current families before offering places to our new families.

2025 Prep Enrolments

Our next school tour will be on Thursday 21 March at 9:15am. If you have a child or you know someone wanting to tour schools for their child, please encourage them to book a school tour online on the school website or call Sharan or Gabrielle in our front office to book a school tour. We encourage our current families to have their Enrolment Applications (now online) completed and submitted as soon as possible.  It is exciting to see so many little brothers and sisters bursting to start here at OLA next year.   If you are not able to make these tours, you are welcome to call to make a time that does work for you. 

Request from our Social Media Team

Calling all OLA parents!

Your feedback means the world to us! 

Every day, we strive to provide the best possible educational experience for your children, and your thoughts and opinions play a crucial role in helping us achieve that goal. If you've had a positive experience with our school, we kindly ask you to take a moment to leave us a review on Google or on our Facebook page. Your reviews not only help us improve but also guide other parents in their decision making process. Thank you for being a part of our OLA School family.

COVID Safety

We are no longer required to inform MACS or the government agencies about positive COVID cases.  We are also no longer required to send communication home to families here at school. We will however, inform families when there are four cases in the one class. 

While we are beginning to see some COVID Safety rules and routines relaxed, we want to assure you that we continue to maintain the following COVID safe practices:

• Hand sanitizer is available for all to use as you enter new spaces
• Children wash hands before eating
• Teachers disinfect desks at the end of each day 
• Air purifiers are turned on in every room
• Doors and windows open where possible for ventilation.

Reminder - It is still strongly recommended that students:

• who test positive for COVID-19 should stay home and isolate for five days 
• should not attend school after five days if still symptomatic
• who are symptomatic but have not tested positive should not attend school.

NAPLAN 

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) begins on March 13. This annual assessment is for students in Grades 3, 5, 7 and 9. NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment that allows parents to see how their child is progressing against national standards in literacy and numeracy. 

Our Grade 3 and Grade 5 students will be involved in the Reading and Writing NAPLAN assessments next week and will undertake Language Conventions and Numeracy the following week. After this we will have allocated days of catch up testing for those students who for any reason have missed an assessment. 

The NAPLAN timetable at OLA is as follows:

• Wednesday, 13th March: Writing
• Thursday, 14th March: Reading
• Tuesday, 19th March: Conventions of Language (spelling, grammar & punctuation)
• Wednesday, 20th March: Numeracy

As a school, we then have until 25 March to catch up on any missed assessments. Given we have such a large period of time to catch up missed tests, please don't feel the need to send your child to school if they're not feeling well on the day of a test. We can administer any missed assessments at a later date.

Over the past weeks students have been exposed to the style of questions they're likely to encounter in these assessments. We have also ensured students see the classroom set out in the required testing conditions that they will encounter to ease any potential anxiety students may feel from the experience. To assist our children to feel relaxed and prepared for the tests, we encourage families to ensure students have a restful week at home during this time. As most of the assessments are now completed online, students will need to have their headphones at school. 

Below is a post from respected local educationalist Kate Korber. It is such an important message. Whilst we ask our children to turn up ready to do their best and have a growth mindset, we also want them to know that its just one test, on one day and it does not measure everything that makes them incredible...

Calendar

Please open the ‘Key Dates and Events’ tab in this newsletter for important dates or access the OLA Calendar here.

Pupil Free Days for 2024

• Monday 15 April  RE/Inquiry with Kate Korber
• Friday 7 June Positive Behaviour & Family Partnerships 
• Monday 15 July Spiritual Development/Faith Formation
• Monday 7 October Literacy
• Monday 4 November Assessment & Reporting
• Friday 6 December 2025 Planning and Preparation 

Please note on the following dates school finish early at 1pm:

Parent/Teacher Interviews on Thursday 27 June

OLA Fete on Friday 22 November

Last day of school Tuesday 17 December

Key dates for the next 2 weeks...

Congratulations

District Swimmers

Congratulations to our District Swimmers - all 24 of you for representing OLA at the District Swimming Championships. A special mention to Dolores, Sophia and Jess who move onto the next level of Kingston Division with first places for each of them. Amazing achievements!! We wish Dolores, Sophia and Jess all the best for Tuesday's Kingston Division Championships.

Parish

Please take a moment to look at the Parish News tab to see a letter from Fr Joe Caddy, Vicar General of the Archdiocese, addressed to the parish and school communities engaged in the reconfiguration of parishes within the Bayside area. This letter will be distributed at Masses this weekend, and Cath Garner, the Strategy Coordinator for 'Take the Way of the Gospel', the evangelisation strategy of the Archdiocese, will be speaking at each of the Masses across Highett and Cheltenham this weekend.

Invitation 

To All OLA Parishioners,

You're Invited to a Community Gathering for parishioners and members of the 

OLA & St Agnes' parish communities. This is an opportunity to get to know one another, as we seek to build our new identity in preparation for our approaching amalgamation of two churches into one parish: Wednesday 13th March from 7pm to 8:30pm at St Agnes' Hall, 1 Locinda St, Highett.

Fete Information Evening

Invitation

As we excitedly begin to plan for our OLA Fete on Saturday 23 November we would like to invite you to a Fete Information Evening. At the session, Mel and Claire our Co-Chairs of the Fete Committee will provide you with a comprehensive overview of the upcoming Fete, its significance to our OLA community, and how your participation can make a meaningful impact. Your involvement and support are crucial in making this event a resounding success, which will ultimately benefit our children and Parish. 

St Agnes Fete

Invitation

Lachie Foote, Principal of St Agnes has asked me to invite each and every family to join their community for their St Agnes Fete on Saturday 16 March, 10:00am-3:00pm.

Have a wonderful long weekend. Enjoy this precious time with family and friends.

We hope everyone enjoys the long weekend - we think the extra few days off for the students (and all of us!!) has come at the perfect time.  

Richard Jacques

Principal