Principal's Message 

It was lovely to have such great attendance at our first community event for the year. Our open classroom and twilight house sports evening was well attended and great fun. It was great to see so many of our children dressed in their house colours as they chanted, danced and competed to earn points for their house. 

We had positive feedback regarding the open classroom and the opportunity to have an informal conversation with class teachers. Next year we are going to include our parent community in the sporting activities to make it a true community event so start practicing your egg and spoon race technique! 

Donations for Easter raffle

Parent’s Group are beginning to collect donations for the Easter raffle that will be held at our final assembly for the term (Monday 31 March). We accept anything Easter related that could be added to a hamper. Last year we had 30 hampers that were raffled off at the final assembly. Thank you in advance for your support.

Ruby and Charli – Literacy Captains

Our Year 6 student leaders have begun the year with such a positive attitude towards their leadership roles. Some examples are that our house captains were outstanding in supporting their house teams at the twilight sports event and the green team leaders have been meeting regularly with Mrs Meaby to make plans for the kitchen garden redevelopment. 

Two of our leaders have been really putting in a big effort during their recess and lunch breaks. Ruby and Charli have been spending their breaks in the library returning books to the shelves and helping younger children find great books to read. Well done girls, we appreciate your efforts! 

School Council and Parent Group updates

We received 2 nominations for our 2 vacant spots on School Council. We therefore don’t require an election this year.  Congratulations and thank you to Lauren Ewart and Erin Duncan for continuing in their roles on School Council. 

We also thank and congratulate our Parent’s Group executive committee. Dionne Holland is our president with Kelly Przybycien as vice president. Sam Conway is treasurer and Emma Joy will be our secretary. 

Thank you also to Jacinta Schelfout who is a long standing Parent’s Group member and picks up significant roles whenever required. 

Please contact Dionne if you’re able to help at any event throughout the year.

Athletics Days

I am fortunate to be attending the Year 5/6 Athletics Carnival at Morrison Reserve in Mt Evelyn today.  A lot of work goes into preparing for the day. A big thankyou to Mr Steele for his organisation of the day and to all the parent helpers who volunteered to lead a team.  We look forward to the Year 3/4 event that will be held next week. 

NAPLAN

Our Year 3 and 5 students have been quietly preparing through short daily activities in class that focus on strategies to unpack the many types of questions that will be asked in NAPLAN.  NAPLAN is a one-off assessment that is mandated by the Department of Education. The tests provide parents and schools with an understanding of how individual students are performing at the time of the tests. NAPLAN tests are just one aspect of a school’s assessment and reporting process, they do not replace ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance.  

We are very proud of the positive manner in which our Year 3 and Year 5 children have demonstrated towards the assessments.

The following NAPLAN assessments will be complete next week:

We offer selected catch-up sessions for students who are absent. We have a two week window to complete all assessments. Should you have any questions about NAPLAN please don’t hesitate to contact us. 

Working Bee and sausage sizzle –  2:30pm – 6pm Wednesday 26 March

We are hoping to begin the year with a huge working bee to give our school a much-needed tidy up. We have lots of jobs including:

• sweeping
• hedging
• weeding
• mulching garden beds
• planting the kitchen garden bed
• digging holes for trees and planting 
• tidying up
• cleaning of drain pits

We will be providing a sausage sizzle for dinner.  Please come along and support the school at this great community event.

Regards

Michael Puddy