Message from the Principal 

HOUSE CROSS COUNTRY

Well done to all our students who participated in our House Cross Country Carnival on Wednesday last week. This event was held at Whatmough Park and Partington’s Flats in Greensborough. It was a terrific day with all the elements of a successful event coming together: the weather, a wonderful level of parental attendance and support, outstanding organisation by Jordan Daley and the staff team, our awesome student leaders (Sports & House Captains) and most importantly an amazing level of student participation and of course our school values of Grit, Respect, Effort, Adventure & Teamwork.

Congratulations to all the students who pushed themselves out of their comfort zone and well done to those who will go on to represent our school at District level on the 16th May.

Our House Sports days are a real feature of our school and a celebration of our school culture and values. Most importantly, they provide the opportunity for all students to participate at their own level with a great level of support from everyone. 

BUILDING CONNECTIONS

Each week at our staff briefing on Monday morning before school, our staff share highlights from their teams. We call this our “60 Second Spotlight” and this example was shared by our prep team on Monday. It highlights the way the team is helping our students to build stronger connections across the cohort. The teachers in each class arrange picnic mats and students are mixed up to enjoy their lunch with different students. This is a GREAT way to build up social skills, set the students up for success and build a culture of inclusiveness which is what Greenhills is all about. 

TERM TWO - WORKING BEE

Save the date: Saturday 18th May 8.30am – 11.30am

At our Term Two Working Bee we are planning to paint and stain entrance ways to classrooms, the Ga-Ga pit and a few other areas around the school as well. We will have the paint and brushes – we just need lots of hands-on deck to help! A link to Care Bookings will be sent home shortly.

WE WANT OUR STUDENTS TO TELL US WHAT THEY THINK!

We value student voice as a means to improving student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction and are conducting a survey to find out what your child thinks of our school. The Attitudes to School Survey is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education and Training to assist schools in gaining an understanding of students' perceptions and experience of school. Our school will use the survey results to plan programs and activities to improve your child's schooling experience. Students from Years 4 to 6 at our school will participate in the survey. Your child will complete the survey online during school hours using a purpose built secure online survey tool.  It is important to note that we are not in any way “testing” your child. Your child has the right to refuse or withdraw from the survey at any point before, during, or after completion of the survey. 

Your child will be provided with a unique login to complete the survey. The student login is an assigned identifier that may be used to link data for statistical and research purposes only. All responses to the survey are kept anonymous in the response file. Personal identification data will not be recorded in the survey response file. This ensures that the confidentiality of your child’s responses is always protected.

This year the Attitudes to School survey will be conducted at our school over the period Monday 13th May to Friday 7th June. The survey only takes 20 minutes to complete and occurs during your child's class time. The survey results will be reported back to the school later this year. All survey data that is made available in reports are for groups of students only so that no individual student can be identified. If you would like more information, please contact me: james.penson@education.vic.gov.au

TRANSITION UPDATE

Our Year 6 students and families are now in the process of organising their preferences for their placements into high school. This is an exciting time, but it can also be challenging and stressful for families as they make this decision. DET Schools must follow a very strict regime of dates and processes and it is very important that this is maintained. The next step is for all our families of Year 6 students to complete the preference form that will be sent home shortly and send back to our school by Friday 10th May. It is also important for our Year 6 parents to understand that many schools in our area have enrolment restrictions. I encourage you to research this in detail and make the time to find out more about the school/s you may wish your child to attend. 

The Year 6-7 placement process is just one very small part of our transition program at Greenhills. A major part of our focus and work in this area is preparing all our Year 6 students for the transition into secondary school. The feedback we get from our local schools is that our students are very well prepared academically and socially. They are well equipped to deal with the many changes and challenges they must face including the movement from classroom to classroom, teacher to teacher and other key organisational aspects that impact on learning. 

This is the result of the way we set up and deliver our curriculum structures and programs, the quality of our teaching team and also the many extra-curricular programs we operate. As a school community we can be very proud of the achievement of our students and know that they will leave our school very well prepared for the next stage of their learning.

James Penson 

Principal