Principal Message
Dear Families,
2025 Foundation Students: Our Foundation enrolments for 2025 are looking great. We currently have 81 students enrolled for next year. We have been working with the kindergartens to put in place a transition program that will enable our new Foundation students to have a smooth journey into school next year. Thank you to Megan King, our Foundation coordinator and her Foundation team for their excellent organisation during this process. I am pleased to announce that Mat Hebbard, Jess Chadwick, Amy Wright and Ash Morphet will be in the Prep team for 2025 and thankyou to Jake Roberts for his significant contribution in this space for the last 4 years.
Resource Smart: Jo Earle continues to lead us in this space, and we recently achieved another star. It is a timely observation as it has also coincided with a number of increased species of birds and wildlife around the school grounds. We have had a Tawny Frogmouth, a family of ducks and their ducklings, increased rosella and parrot numbers, and a significant decrease of pigeons.
BIS BUS: This week we have had the Barwon Infant Study bus onsite following up with children involved in the longitudinal study. My own children have been part of the study and we hope the data they are gathering is able to help make informed decisions into the future. Thanks to those families who have been involved.
Smile Squad: Another bus onsite helping us out to ensure our children’s dental hygiene is great! Again, thanks to those families using this resource.
Drawing Us Together: Last week, Mrs H and I attended a ceremony at Leopold Plaza where OGPS students entered work in a drawing competition. The winners were included in a story, and they are now published illustrators. We had several OGPS students who received prizes and were winners. Congratulations to Adele M, Pepper A, Eddie O, Harry T (Year 2), Everly T, Harry T (Year 4).
Swimming Years 3, 4 and 5: Students completed their swimming program recently at BSC. We appreciate the support from families who supervised and helped out on buses. We can’t do these things without you!
Wearable Technology: With the increased frequency of wearable technology, watches in particular, we are asking families to ensure all notifications are switched off during the school day. This also includes making calls from the watch, sending messages or taking photos. This is in line with DE’s Policy… https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/students-using-mobile-phones/policy
We appreciate your support in this ever-evolving area of life and we are all navigating uncharted waters as schools and families. I often wonder what the next ‘thing’ will be we have to adapt to and manage.
Athletics: Congratulations to all our amazing Athletes who headed off yesterday morning to represent OGPS. We hope you had a great day and look forward to hearing about the results.
Reading: Congratulations to all the students who participated in this year’s Premier’s Reading Challenge. 304 students completed the challenge by reading a whopping 22,216 books!! AMAZING!! Great work Ocean Grove readers! It’s no surprise that our reading data from Teacher Judgements and NAPLAN are often well above expected levels. Thanks to Sally in the library, families and teachers for inspiring the love of reading in our children.
Parent Opinion Survey: And families, don’t forget that the Department have sent you an email with a survey (this happens annually) about the school year. We value your feedback and review it carefully to make improvements where we can. At the moment we only have a 10% response rate.
Have a great week.
Scott McCumber
Principal
