Principal's Report

By Frank Catalano

Dear Members of the Glen Waverley Primary School Community,

I trust all is well with you and your family and welcome to another edition of our school newsletter where so much is shared about our wonderful school.

As per usual, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to see me at school or contact me on 9802 9938 or via email at frank.catalano@education.vic.gov.au

Chess Team Update

Throughout the year, we have celebrated the remarkable progress and achievements of our school chess teams, and their ongoing development continues to make us incredibly proud. Yesterday, our Junior Team (Years Prep to Three) competed in the Northern Star Grand Final, and I am thrilled to share that they achieved an outstanding second place in the state! This is an incredible accomplishment and a testament to their dedication and hard work.

Well done, congratulations and thank you to the following children:

Year 3: Agastya, Ethan, Jahnavi, Manish, Naveen, Samuel, Senoli, Senon, Thehan, Jamie, Lucas, Reyansh and Sandaru

Year 2: Reyashi

As we are all very, very proud of your achievement and look forward to your continued growth and development!

Congratulations to Mr McCormick

I am extremely pleased to report that Mr McCormick and his wife Allie, have announced the safe arrival of baby Audrey who entered the world at 11am on the 25th November. Everyone is doing fine and Allie is absolutely beautiful! Congratulations Allie and Jason!

Congratulations to the following children for receiving or being nominated to receive the following awards beyond our school

Ethan (Year 3) Australian Maths Competition – Ethan received this award for being the ‘Best in School’ in the 2024 Australian Mathematics Competition across the Years 3 to 6. Ethan and his family attended a celebratory event on Monday 18 November at Wesley College. Well done, congratulations Ethan and keep up the fabulous attitude towards your learning!

Ayaan (Year 4) The Rotary Club of Waverley, Sporting Attitudes Award for 2024. Ayaan has an amazing attitude and work ethic towards sport which culminated in representing our school in the State Cross-Country and Athletics competitions. The award will be presented on Monday 9th December at the Main Hall, Monash Community Centre and we look forward to providing some photographs as soon as possible.

Shaya (Year 6) - 2024 Community Spirit and Leadership Award. Since Year 3, Shaya has been using her own time to design and create Christmas cards and ornaments, which she sells to fellow students to raise funds for our school community. In recognition of her incredible initiative and dedication, Shaya has been nominated to attend a special celebratory event on Friday, 13th December, at Avila College. I look forward to sharing some photos of this wonderful occasion soon.

Klarissa (Year 3) – entered a few of the competitions for the Australian Air League state review, one being the 8-11yo 1/48 plastic plane scale modelling category, and I am extremely proud to report that her model placed 1st, and she was awarded a beautiful trophy. A few months ago, Klarissa became a "junior member" of the Waverley Scale Modelling Club, and she has really profited by listening to the advice provided by the older members. Well done and congratulations Klarissa and keep up the wonderful attitude.

Below is a summary from Klarissa and Oli about Australian Air League and the weekend event.

On the 24th of November, we went to Point Cook Secondary College for the Australian Air League state review, and it was a long day! Our squadron took part in many competitions, including junior section drill, air recognition/identifying planes, flag party drill (only some people), and flight drill Unfortunately, we did not get to do it because there were too many people, so being the newest they asked us to sit out.

There were also different competitions such as plastic scale modelling, an aviation photography competition, and an essay competition about Australian Aviation Pioneers, but these were optional. I won the scale modelling and received a trophy for it, we are really pleased because we were the overall winners of the whole day. My model was a Hurricane of scale 1:48. The British in WW2 used it and because we were the overall winners, we received some very generous rewards.

AAL is the short name for the Australian Air League and is a chance for people who like engineering or planes so people can learn more about it. It's very structured and the first squadron opened in 1935 in Manly NSW.

When we come together, we practice marching which is where we have to get split up into the junior section or senior section. Ananya, Johfrit, and both of us, are in the junior section along with others from different schools and Johfrit is the junior section leader. Thenugi from 6D is in the senior section and was the junior cadet of the year last year.

We also get to go to Air shows, Moorabbin Air Tower and the Police Air Wing.

Volunteering at AAL, we volunteer for pin selling for Anzac and Remembrance Days, for the RSL, we also help out for the citizenship ceremonies and march on Anzac Day. We also volunteer at the sausage sizzle at Bunnings to raise money for the activities we do.

We also earn badges for our learning, which is a bit like Scouts and Girl Guides, so it's good recognition. This year:

Klarissa I have earned General Proficiency classes 6, 5 and 4 as well as Space Flight Class 4, General Knowledge Class 4, Astronomy Class 4, Meteorology class 4, Navigation Class 4.

Oli being new, is still working towards General Proficiency 6.

Thank you for reading about our interesting story and we hope to see some people check out our squadron!

By Klarissa and Oli

2024 Yearbook

A heartfelt thank you to all the staff and students for their hard work on this year’s Yearbook. I had the privilege of previewing the final draft, and I am thrilled with its exceptional quality. The 2024 Yearbook is shaping up to be a wonderful keepsake — something the children will treasure and reflect upon with fondness for many years to come.

I would also like to extend special thanks to Ms. Lyczba for her leadership in overseeing the designing the front covers, as well as to Mr. Sugihara and the TSL Team for their outstanding guidance throughout the process. We eagerly look forward to distributing the 2024 Yearbook in early December.

Below is a message from Ms. Lyczba, our art teacher:

Each year, our Year 6 students enthusiastically participate in the GWPS Yearbook cover competition. This year, we were delighted by an extraordinary range of entries, each showcasing vibrant, creative designs that reflect the depth of learning at Glen Waverley Primary School. The quality of submissions was so impressive that we selected 16 exceptional covers to feature on the 2024 Yearbook. Each book will proudly display one of these stunning designs. Congratulations to our amazing 2024 Yearbook cover designers and congratulations to the following students:

Seeret, Hansiga, Gianna, Izzy, Vinudi, Sachi, Marius, Sayumi, Emily, Naysa, Hasee, Navya, Yashvi, Eman, Yuna and Shaya.

Library books donations

A heartfelt thank you to Diyon (Year 4) and Riaan (Year 4) and their families for their generous donation of books to our school library. Acts of kindness like this make a meaningful difference to our school community. Diyon and Riaan, we truly appreciate your generosity and thoughtfulness in supporting our school.

End of Year Celebrations

The end of the school year is always a fabulous opportunity to acknowledge what has occurred throughout the year and the wonderful contribution of the children, staff and families. In the next few weeks, we have 3 very special events:

Year 6 Graduation – This year’s graduation will be held on Thursday 5th December and it promises to be a very memorable event for all involved.
Prep Prom – is being held on Friday 6th December. The Prep Team, some of the staff and numerous parents have been extremely busy preparing the children and costumes. I am very confident that it will be another wonderful Glen Waverley PS event and a resounding success and the
Chess Team – end of year celebratory lunch and presentation of awards will be held on Wednesday 4th December.

I look forward to sharing more about the above events in our next newsletter.

Congratulations to the following students for receiving a Principal Awards recently:

Prep A

⁃ Ashley, Elaine and Sohana for writing amazing sentences!

Prep D

⁃ Kowsigan for being a really responsible member of our school community

- Siana and Eric for writing very persuasive pieces about playing video games at school

- Abisshna and Reyashi for learning all about how to make a cube

- Amasha for reciting a rhyming story about Mr. White who had a fright in the middle of the night!

- Jithu for making amazing progress with her gymnastic skills. She attends the Knox gymnastics club and recently received lots of ribbons for her effort.

⁃ Thenura and Jackson for writing an amazing narrative about Super Pig who gets struck by lightening and turns into Flash Piggy the superhero as featured in the Kids Corner of this newsletter

⁃ Kevin for being an awesome friend

⁃ Iman, Aislyn and Dev for making amazing progress with their writing

- Evin and Nikhil for completing a very detailed project outlining what they do throughout the day in Mandarin

⁃ Advait and Marvika for learning how to change consonant y words from singular to plural

- Prayag and Zaiden for learning all about OU words and then using them in sentences

⁃ Sanvi and Riddota for writing a very detailed report about tsunamis

⁃ Aneel, Shanaya, Gowrie, Devanshi, Ashley and Jayrene for exploring how to create sizzling starts in their writing to ensure the reader is ‘hooked into the piece’

⁃ Alex and Noah for being really responsible and respectful members of our school community

⁃ Jayrene and Shanaya for writing really exciting narratives that are featured in the kids corner section of this newsletter

⁃ Marvika and Prayag for learning all about Dipthongs which are words that contain sounds made up of two seperate vowels within the same syllable such as language, earthquake and seagull

⁃ Siyona and Emily for being outstanding members of our school community

Wishing everyone a safe fortnight.

Frank Catalano

Principal