Message from the Principal 

CHRISTMAS CONCERT

Thank you to everyone for a wonderful night last Thursday. Our Christmas Concert was so much fun, and the “vibe” can only be described as truly Greenhills. Well done to those brave students who told a joke. It looks like I have officially lost that job for next year, so students, start working on them now!

GAZILLIONS WHOLE SCHOOL POSITIVE SYSTEM - MOVIE DAY REWARD

Well done to our students for collectively earning enough Gazillions this year to earn our whole school movie day. What a logistical exercise – booking out the whole of Greensborough Hoyts and getting everyone to and from on the day. Thank you Brad Ryan for organizing this and thank you to our parent helpers who were scheduled to assist on the day. Our Gazillions program is part of our schoolwide positive behaviour system.  This pro-active system helps to support, define and teach appropriate student behaviours to create positive learning environments. 

There has been recent interest in the press and media around the evidence based practice for schools to teach positive behaviour and set up very clear whole school behaviour expectations so that academic success can be achieved. Our school has been moving towards this approach for some time which is a positive in itself!  The G.R.E.A.T. news is that our school has been selected to become part of the School Wide Positive Behaviour Support program for 2024. 

School-wide Positive Behaviour Support is "comprised of a broad range of systems and individualised strategies for achieving important social learning outcomes while preventing problem behaviour with all students. It is not a specific model, but a compilation of effective practices, interventions and systems change strategies that have a long history of empirical support and development, and individually have been demonstrated to be effective and efficient" (Horner & Sugai, 2004). 

Greenhills currently has a suite of wellbeing components that are well embedded across the school, including our G.R.E.A.T. values, 4:1 positive approach, Get Set Connect Program, Smiling Minds, Zones of Regulation, Student Agency and Respectful Relationships. Every classroom also has one session per week dedicated to wellbeing focused on social and personal curriculum. All of these are highly visible and deeply embedded and under the SWPBS framework will enable our school to deliver the highest quality positive learning environment for all of our students. 

Our school views SWPBS as the “glue” that would bring all the effective work happening at our school under one clear framework that would deliver precision and a core focus to optimise student learning growth and strengthen student voice and agency over the next four-year period and beyond.

THANK YOU SCHOOL COUNCIL

As we move into the last week at Greenhills Primary School for 2023, I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank all members of our School Council this year for their significant contribution to our school: 

Sam Redman, Jessica Barden, Katrina Purcell, Adam Laws, Rosita Zakaria, Irina Fainberg, Jaime McCowen, Caroline Bennett, Donna Anderson, Janine Hough, Brooke Connane, Brad Ryan and Victoria Harris.

This group of dedicated parents and staff have further strengthened the educational environment for our students.

In particular, I acknowledge Sam Redman for her leadership as School Council President. Sam’s leadership of Council has ensured that we have been able to successfully manage the challenge of providing time for rich discussion and debate whilst also ensuring that all voices are listened to. Most importantly Sam has managed this with a sense of fun and humour as well!

A special thank you to Jaime McGowan who with the Year 6 graduation of her daughter, will be leaving our school community. Jaime has been a long serving member of School Council and also held the role of Treasurer. Her contribution has been significant and lasting. 

Overall, much has been achieved in 2023. We can all be proud of our school as it is today and excited about our school into the future.

Next year there will be number of vacancies to fill to form our 2024 School Council. If you would like to find out more about the role of a school councillor and the time commitment involved, please contact me. One of the strengths of our school is our strong parent involvement and support and we need this to continue with our School Council and all our sub-committees in 2024 so that all our work and momentum can continue!

TEAMKIDS IS ON THE WAY!

TeamKids have an amazing Summer Holiday program planned! 

Come along and experience the TeamKids difference: 

• Learn new skills and make new friends
• Qualified and REMARKABLE Educators
• Digital detox with our no screens policy
• Delicious and nutritious morning and afternoon snacks
• CCS-approved car

Head to teamkids.com.au to secure your spot!

BATTLE OF THE BANDS & FINAL ASSEMBLY

Don’t forget that our Battle of the Bands will be held this Friday from approximately 9.45am. This is where each of our Year 5 & 6 classes perform a song they have been rehearsing in Music in front of the whole school. 

Our final school assembly will be held this Friday 15th December at 2.30pm. 

There is no school for students on Tuesday 19th December and then the last day of school is Wednesday 20th with a 1pm dismissal. 

START UP 2024 DATES & TIMES

School will begin for all students other than our Preps on Wednesday 31st January at 8.55am. 

Prep students will commence via a staggered start on either Wednesday 7th February or Thursday 8th February. They will then attend each school day as normal from Friday 9th February as we have combined all our allocated prep entry assessment days into the first week of the school year.

James Penson

Principal