From the Office 

Education Week - What a wonderful week of celebrating all things learning this week at Raywood PS! We enjoyed having our Playgroup friends visit us on Monday, our Grand Parents and Special Friends visit on Wednesday morning and having more of a focus on time spent with our buddies throughout classroom activities this week.

Student Learning Reports - Teachers will soon begin compiling this semester's Student Learning Reports and these will be sent home with students in the last week of term. Whilst we will provide Student Learning Reports as usual, written comments will not be included due to industrial action taken earlier this term by the Australian Education Union which instructed members of the AEU to not write student specific comments on upcoming reports. Whilst an in-principle agreement has been reached between the AEU and the Department of Education; this ban remains in place. Whilst teachers will not be providing written comments this term, reports will continue to provide important details about student learning attainment and your child's progress. If families would like to seek further feedback about student progress and achievement, I would encourage them to reach out to our teachers. We will also be holding Student Learning Catch Ups again in Term 3 which will support these conversations.

GaGa Pit - This week we have had our new GaGa Pit installed by the Hands On Learning Team from Rushworth P-12 College. The team designed and built our GaGa Pit at school, took it apart and then joined us on Monday to put it all together again at our school ready to be enjoyed. Safe to say it has already proved a hit with the kids and we look forward to it living in our school yard for many years to come. A big thank you to the team from Rushworth P-12 and also to our local community as we used funds raised from last year's Christmas Raffle to pay for this project.

Extra-Curricular Activity Payments - At our recent School Council meeting, council discussed parent co-payment for student activities, excursions and camps that are not supported with other types of special funding. An example of an activity that has not required a payment this year would be Swimming in Term 1 where we utilised a combination of Sporting Schools funding and Department of Education School Swimming funding to be able to provide 5 lessons at no cost. At the meeting, council decided to trial that for the remainder of the year, where activity costs are not covered by a specific type of additional funding, the school would look to subsidise the cost of the activity by 60%, leaving a 40% student payment to be made. An example of this is our upcoming Grade 3-6 Winter Sports excursion to Colbinabbin which will cost approximately $25 per student; school will be subsiding the excursion by $15 per student with families contributing $10 per student. 

Grade 3-6 Winter Sports - Next week we have our Grade 3-6 students heading over to Colbinabbin on Wednesday to participate in Cluster Winter Sports. Students have selected a sport to participate in on the day from a choice of Netball, Soccer or Football. We will be departing school at about 10am ready for an 11am start in Colbinabbin and will be back at school prior to the end of the school day ready for a normal end of day pick up. There is a $10 per student cost for this excursion which will go towards covering bus travel costs for the day. Please ensure you have provided permission for your child to attend on uEducateUs and also completed payment before Wednesday.

Simultaneous Story Time - National Simultaneous Storytime will also be held next Wednesday at 12.00 pm and our P-2 students will be eagerly joining in. Millions of children, parents, teachers, and library lovers across Australia and beyond will come together to read the book” Luna Roo: The Kangaroo Baller “written by Adam Jackson and Adrian Lloyd and illustrated by Jake Minton. Now in its 26th year, NSS stands as one of Australia’s biggest collective reading events, with over 2.2 million participants joining from more than 16,600 locations last year.

Sporting Schools Bowling - Not long now until our 10 Pin Bowling sessions begin in Bendigo. On the 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th of June (last 4 Wednesdays of term), we will be going 10 Pin Bowling as our Sporting Schools activity for the term. Students will travel by bus to the Bendigo Bowling Centre, leaving school at 1.15pm and returning for a normal end of day dismissal. As this P.E activity is supported with Sporting Schools Funding, there will be no cost for this activity. Please ensure you have provided consent via uEducateUs.

Upcoming Curriculum Day - Tuesday 9th June will be a Pupil Free Day for students whilst our staff engage in Professional Learning with other teachers from across our Bendigo Small School's Community of Practice. 

Student Awards - Congratulations to our recent Friday award winners; Ruby & Eleanor and Lachlan & Siennah. Well Done! 

2027 Prep Transition - Our first transition session for next year's Prep students will be on Tuesday 2nd June 10am-11.30am, with a second session on Tuesday 16th June 10am-11.30am.

2027 Prep Enrolments - If you are considering sending your little one along to Raywood PS next year and haven't been in to visit us at school yet, please give our office a call to arrange a tour and to see how our school can support the learning, wellbeing and acheivement of your child.

Thanks Everyone, 

James