Principal's Message

Dear OLA Families,

Thank you to our wonderful OLA P&F for providing a delicious spread for all our staff here at OLA on World Teacher’s Day! It is that one day in the year we stop to celebrate our teachers, Learning Support Officers (LSOs), Admin Team and Leaders and thank them for all the work they do to educate, inspire, empower and care for our students at OLA.

Not only did our P&F provide a beautiful morning tea but many students wrote very special thank you letters to each and every staff member. These have been pinned to the up in our rooms and they bring a smile to our faces. We do have one of the most amazing jobs in the world.

2025 Class Formation

We are so excited to see how word of mouth, the work of our teachers and the deep sense of community at OLA have all assisted in building the reputation of our school over the last 5 years.  We have grown from 18 children coming into Prep to 36 to now approximately 54 children in 2025! This growth is very exciting and very positive for OLA.

The staff, Leadership Team, Consultative Committee and School Advisory Council have been in consultation over class structures and numbers for 2025 and beyond. We are researching and speaking with experienced educationalists and parents, and are determining a grade structure that will best support the needs of students and the school over the coming years.  We are working with the following numbers to come up with the best class structures:

2025 Enrolments per level:  (as at 1.11.24)

Multi-level Classrooms

When enrolling families at OLA we always talk about class structures and its that time of year when we believe it is timely to once again share some of our work and research around our multi-level classrooms.  In 2020 we worked as a staff and with the students and community to grow our understanding of multi-level classrooms. Karilyn Gumley who is a passionate leader in learning and teaching worked as a consultant with OLA to create a shared understanding of the pros and cons of multi-level classrooms. At OLA we believe in making the best decisions for our students and our community.  We believe multi-level learning environments can…

• Strengthen Confidence - Multi-level grouping provides younger students with the opportunity to observe, emulate, and imitate a wide range of behaviours; older students have the opportunity to assume responsibility for less mature and less knowledgeable students.
• Offer wider Friendship opportunities - In a smaller school a multi-level setting offers children greater opportunities to build relationships across age levels and within levels. Research indicates that this builds resilience and the ability to form friendships across the school learning community.
• Support academic success - Students in the lower grades can enrich their learning by attending to the material designed for the higher grades, while students in the higher grades can profit from opportunities to review the material designed for lower grades. Research also demonstrates that learning is reinforced when a peer is able to share and articulate their learning with others.
• Balance diverse learning needs - A  multi-level construct offers the opportunity for greater ability to balance out the demands of various learning needs if a particular cohort is challenged.
• Enhance the Teaching and Learning environment by providing greater access for the zone of proximal development - Current concepts of cognitive development (for example, the zone of proximal development and cognitive conflict) imply that children whose knowledge or abilities are similar but not identical can stimulate each other’s thinking and cognitive growth.
• Strengthens community - We see a positive flow on from the mixed classes within the community feel of school, with families across year levels having friendships and then able to work as a team on school wide initiatives and socially.

 As a staff we have developed our vision for what we understand and believe that multi-level learning environments offer for our students: At OLA, children are at the heart of everything we do. We believe a multi-level learning environment allows for flexibility and differentiation in learning and teaching. We are committed to embedding the pedagogical practices that will support a range of learning results. We provide opportunities to build relationships, resilience and develop a range of social connections.

Please feel free to contact me at any time and I will happily discuss this further with you. I have attached a couple of articles that supported us in this process:

 Multi-age Learning and Teaching QLD 

Why Multi-Age classrooms aren’t something to dread

OLA Fete

Not long now!! We are so grateful for everyone's generosity. Our storage rooms have been bulging at the sides so we have moved all Fete donations to Brigid Hall with the books remaining in Exodus Hall.  Thank you to everyone who has donated toys, books, clothes, bottles, gold coins – and in every other way to contribute to our fundraising drives. We couldn’t do it without everyone’s support. Please keep good quality books, toys and clothes coming in.

Ride Tickets

We hope you are able to take up the early bird special to buy all day wrist bands for the rides at our OLA Fete. Please use the QR code on the flyer above to purchase now or go to our website and drop down on the Fete tab.

 OLA Raffle

We’ve got 3 weeks until our amazing Fete! The raffle ticket booklets were sent home this week with your eldest child, and we ask that you help us sell at least one (or more).

Each and every ticket sold supports our fundraising efforts and you have got to be in it to win it! 

There are 3 major prizes available, all generously donated by members of our school community and supporters of OLA in our local area.

Please support them as they support us:

1st Prize - $500 voucher Pt Leo Estate and a $500 voucher at Alba Thermal Hot Springs  generously donated by APT Advanced Manufacturing

2nd Prize - Weber Family Q 

generously donated by Lewin Real Estate

3rd Prize - Apple iPad Air and gaming headphones 

generously donated by Park Lane Advice Group

Please return money and booklets to the front office. Make sure you write name and phone number on the space provided and return to the office, you keep the ticket stub. You’ve got until 22nd November to sell them and if you are a whiz and need more – there are more at the office. A big shout out to Melissa, Peter, Xavier and Christian for organising the raffle and the many many raffle booklets.

OLA School Advisory Council                                               and Parents and Friends AGM

We invite our parents to attend our AGM on Monday 2 December at 7.00pm. This will be a relaxed event, where we will share our school, P&F and School Advisory Council achievements for 2024. Light refreshments will be provided on the night. 

Christmas Carols

We look forward to hosting our OLA Christmas Carols on Thursday 5 December 6.30pm. Please come wearing a touch of Christmas and be ready to singalong with some traditional carols as well as some fun new ones too!

Working Bee

We are looking forward to welcoming families to the Term 4 OLA Working Bee , Saturday 9 November from 10.00am-12.00pm.  This Working Bee will help us to have our school looking amazing for the OLA Fete.

We especially welcome the following families who are rostered on:

All families rostered for the Term 3 Working Bee which was postponed are more than welcome to come along to this one. We hope you can make it.

If you are not able to make it you are welcome to make a donation to the school. 

Please bring along your tools such as wheelbarrows, blowers/blower vacs, whipper snippers, rakes, shovels, brooms, hedge trimmers, secateurs and other gardening tools.  

2025 & 2026 Enrolments Welcome

Please note our new School Tour Dates from now until the end of the year. Please note that our next school tour is at 9.15am on Friday 15 November. If these dates do not work for you please call the office to arrange a time that suits you and your family. It has been so lovely to meet with each Prep child for 2025 - we thank all families for joining us at OLA and for helping your child make the best transition possible.

Prep 2025 Transition Dates & Times

We are excitedly preparing to welcome our 2025 Prep families and students for the Prep Orientation program. The orientation program is an exciting and enriching experience, as the children transition from a small Kindergarten setting to a larger, more vibrant school setting. 

For our new (and not so new) Prep parents, we look forward to welcoming you on Thursday 7 November at 7.30pm. This information evening is a wonderful opportunity to meet new families, teachers and key staff who will work with your children next year. Our orientation sessions are as follows: 

Calling for new OLA Parents & Friends members

If you would like to be part of helping our school next year and adding to our wonderful sense of community, please consider joining the 2025 P&F Team. It is a great way to contribute to the development of the school and meet other parents.

We are looking for two parent representatives from each year level, who are responsible for updating the parents in their year level with important information/reminders, and organising a couple of events throughout the year. For example, the Grade 1 P&F representatives host the Morning Tea for new and current families on the first day of school.

Feel free to chat to this year's P&F members if you would like some more information or, better still, if you would like to get involved. You can also speak with me in person or email any questions or ideas to principal@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au

Summer Uniform

As of Week 3, all students need to be wearing their full (correct) summer uniform. A school hat must be worn at break times, with a strict 'no hat, no play' rule applying. Students are required to apply their own sunscreen, as staff are not permitted to do so. We encourage families to please apply sunscreen before school and if you would like your child to apply sunscreen again during the day to have a roll on sunscreen in their school bags. 

School Shoes

Correct school shoes and socks must be worn and we remind students and families, when purchasing new school shoes for next year, black sneaker Asics or Nike runners are not part of the regular school uniform. If the sport shoes are black leather and black soled then they are welcome to be worn as school uniform.We thank you in advance for your understanding. 

Calendar

Please open the ‘Key Dates and Events’ tab in this newsletter for important dates or access the OLA Calendar here. Key dates for the coming weeks.

Pupil Free Days for 2024

• Monday 4 November Assessment & Reporting
• Friday 6 December 2025 Planning and Preparation 

Please note on the following dates school finish early at 1pm:

OLA Fete on Friday 22 November

Last day of school Tuesday 17 December

School Term Dates - 2025

Term 1, 2025

Friday 31 January (Grade 1-6) - Friday April 4th (10 weeks)

Prep start school on Monday 3 February

Term 2, 2025

Tuesday 22nd April - Friday 4th July (11 weeks)

Term 3, 2025

Tuesday 22 July - Friday 19th September (9 weeks) 

Term 4, 2025

Tuesday 7 October - Tuesday 16th December (11 weeks)

Congratulations

Real Life Learning!

It has been wonderful to see our Grade 3/4's start their 'Classroom Economy' in Mathematics this week. I think this will be contagious and the children will be asking their parents to handle the cash instead of using the credit cards!

Student Work

Congratulations to Ty and Oscar for their amazing project work.

Geography is always a student favourite, with its exciting facts about the world that seem to stick for the long term. Fantastic teamwork and project work on Europe here!

OLA students up in lights

Look who popped up on Instagram! Harry and Charlie are the best kind of supporters the Melbourne Stars could have.

We remind our families that there is no school on Monday 4 November, giving our students a 4-day long weekend. It is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to recharge our batteries and be ready for an action packed end to our 2024 school year.

Richard Jacques

Principal