Message from the Principal 

Friday the 8th March is International Women’s Day. This is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. It is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge the role of women across our school and education more broadly. We are fortunate to have so many strong women at Greenhills leading from the front to ensure we are all playing our role to “inspire inclusion” which is this year’s theme for the day.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE – THANK YOU WORKING BEE LEGENDS!

As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. Well, we can report that our village turned out in force at our Term 1 Working Bee last Sunday. It was simply awesome to have so many families helping out to make our grounds look great. A highlight was seeing so many students working together and joining in.

We were able to weed and get a new garden bed ready for planting, cleaned up Curiosity Creek, cleaned all of our drain and pits and just a good old general tidy up. We have set the date for our Term 2 Working Bee so please put Sunday 19th May 8.30am – 11.30am in your calendars now! 

MID-TERM MEET WITH THE PRINCIPAL TEAM

Don’t forget that tonight we have our first Mid-Term Meet with the Principal Team. This will be via Webex from 7.30pm. The sessions are held at the midpoint of each term which we introduced last year to help keep you in the loop with things that are happening across our school. They are also another forum to ask questions, provide feedback and suggestions and continue our strong home school partnership. 

Here is the link:

https://eduvic.webex.com/eduvic/j.php?MTID=mf78dac96c13fa848cfabaf5648454f26

STUDENT AGENCY CONFERENCES

Have you logged onto Compass to book your child’s Student Agency Conference? 

These are being held on Tuesday 28th March from 9am through to 6.45pm. Each conference is for 15 minutes and students only attend on that day for the time of their conference. Our Student Agency Conferences are one of the key ways that we are building and enabling our students to have agency and voice in their learning and the more we research about this it is becoming clear that there is an argument that this is just about the most important thing schools need to do. They are also a key way in which we communicate with you about your child’s progress. We continue to work to do this is a regular, meaningful and manageable way.

SCHOOL COUNCIL NEWS

This week we held our first School Council meeting. I am pleased to announce that during the meeting Sam Redman was re-elected as School Council President, Adam Laws as Vice President and Caroline Bennett as Treasurer. 

At the meeting we also confirmed our sub-committee structure for 2024. These are:

• Finance - convened by Caroline Bennett
• Parents Association (PA) – convened by Mel Lucas with Sarah Ahsan as the PA Rep on School Council
• Health & Wellbeing (which will include Canteen)- convened by Jess Barden
• Environment & Facilities – convened by Brad Ryan
• TeamKids - convened by James Penson
• School Uniform Tender Process Working Party – convened by Irina Fainberg

Our sub-committees are where the actual work of School Council takes place. All school councillors serve on at least one sub-committee and we also welcome other parents, carers and staff to join these. It would be GREAT to have lots of parent and carer involvement across all of these groups.  I will publish the meeting dates and times for these committees over the next few weeks once they have been confirmed. You can also flag your interest in joining one or more of these teams by sending an email to the school and we will link you in with the convenor of the group.

GOOD LUCK YEAR 6 CAMPERS

Only 6 more sleeps until our Year 6’s travel to Anglesea for their camp. I know this group of students is very excited and our staff team have put significant planning in place to ensure that the camp runs smoothly. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the staff that will be attending. 

SCHOOL ENROLMENTS 2025

Believe it or not we are now starting to forward plan for 2025! Next week I will send a letter home to all families with younger siblings that may be starting school next year. It will be important for you to indicate to me that you have a child starting in 2025 and complete an enrolment form as early as possible. 

We also have regular school tours each week on Tuesdays at 9.30am, or by appointment. I am also hosting an evening tour on Tuesday 19th March at 6.15pm. If you know of any families that are interested in coming to our school, please let them know about these tours. 

James Penson 

Principal