A Message from David & Cam...

The weeks are running out! Please make sure you have entered all the important dates from the 'Date to Remember' page of this newsletter to keep up with all that is happening before the end of the school year!

Class Lists for 2024

We have begun the lengthy process of developing class lists for 2024. Our staff are incredibly committed to setting up all students for success and take considerable time working through this process to get the lists as right as possible. When developing the class lists we need to balance many priorities such as friendship groups, academic and social/emotional needs, balancing behavioural needs as well as considering parental requests - I am sure you can appreciate that this can be quite the challenge!

I understand that changing year levels and classes can be quite overwhelming and many students (and parents/teachers) can feel quite anxious about what the changes may bring. Whilst we try our very best to accommodate requests for class lists, not all can be fulfilled and this may contribute to those feelings of anxiety. If this is the case and your child is no longer with one of their friends, I encourage you to talk to your child and encourage them to approach the new year and new class with optimism and consider the possibilities that a new group of students can bring - chances are their friendship group is just going to grow in 2024.

Grade One Dinner

A couple of weeks ago our Year 1 students had the opportunity to come to school after hours for dinner, dancing and fun with their friends. The grade one dinner is part of our overall camping program at AGPS and is a nice way for the students to celebrate the year together with the whole cohort. Here is a sample of one of the student's writing to show the highlights of the event:

A special thank you to Hannah, Vera, Cam and Amy who helped to organise and run the event. The kids had a great time!

The Arts

It has been a busy term in the art room. It is always a hive of activity with amazing projects produced by all grade levels.

• The preps have enjoyed experimenting with modelling clay and created their own clay animal. They also examined Howard Arkley’s paintings depicting houses and created their own house collages and sculptures. 
• The ones have been very busy creating performances. They enthusiastically made props and puppets for their plays. They have also investigated Kente paper weaving and created their own weaving mats.
• The two/threes have also been recreating puppet plays of an indigenous story titled ‘How the birds got their colours’. 
• The four/fives were involved in creating their own coral reef biome inspired by the indigenous artist Melanie Hava. This included creating their own paint tints for the sea and designing their own patterns for the coral shapes.
• The sixes have been designing and painting their own clay heads based on David Shillinglaw’s work. They also experimented with lines and patterns by using zentangle art to create crazy hair people.

As you can tell by the photos, the students at Altona Green are very talented and creative!

-Deb McKenna

Prep Transition

It was such an exciting time on Tuesday when we welcomed our newest members of the AGPS community to our school. Our 2024 preps have had the first of their 5 transition sessions and got a small taste of school life. This process is such an important step to ensuring the students have the best possible beginning to their schooling journey. The students are able to become familiar with the people, classrooms and playgrounds as well as get to know the other students that will potentially be their classmates next year. 

All the students, no matter if they bounded into the classroom or needed a little extra TLC at the beginning, left at the end of their sessions with huge smiles and confident walks as they ran to their parents to share their stories.

Lunchtime Clubs

It has been great to see the student-run clubs continue to thrive this term. These clubs have been created and run by the students and is an excellent example of our students having an idea and implementing it for the enjoyment of our community. We have been really impressed by how well the clubs have been organised and run and we are looking forward to continuing to grow our lunchtime offerings next year.

This term's clubs are:

• Music & Motion (dance)
• Drawing
• Let's Get Physical (indoor games)
• Netball

Thank you to all the students for creating and running these clubs. You help to make school even more fun for so many other students!

The Resilience Project

This week we sent out a communication from The Resilience Project in relation to mindfulness. Mindfulness is about purposely paying attention to the present moment in ways that are helpful for you. Looking after our mind can have great positive benefits, both physically and mentally, such as a reduction in anxiety and stress. This is particularly relevant as we head towards the very busy end of the year at school and in our family's personal lives. 

We encourage you to have a go at some of the mindfulness activities in the below link (this link was on the Compass note) with your child(ren) 

Ed-5-Project-Parents-Carers-Mindfulness.pdf (theresilienceproject.com.au)

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Take care,

Dave & Cam