The Acknowledgement of Country is read by students or staff prior to significant events or gatherings such as assemblies, School Council meetings, the beginning of each school week and more. Understanding, recognising and appreciating the place and importance of the Aboriginal people in our history is incredibly important and this is one small way in which we can help to facilitate this understanding.

Wawa, Wominjika.

Here at Old Orchard Primary School, we acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we visit each day, the Wurrunguri and Woiwurrung people of the Kulin nation.We acknowledge and respect the elders and leaders past and present and the elders and leaders of all of the cultures and nationalities that are part of the Old Orchard Primary School community.We express our gratitude towards the orchards that were kept in place by the peoples on this land before us.We thank the traditional owners for sharing this beautiful land that we all love, and for keeping the land, sky, waterways and animals all in great condition for thousands of years, not only for themselves but for all the generations to come.

Welcome back

Welcome back to all members of the Old Orchard community and a very warm and special welcome to those who have joined us for the first time, whether they are students, parents or staff. I trust that you all enjoyed a safe and relaxing break over Christmas and January. In particular, we welcome our prep students and their families. We always get a great deal of enjoyment from observing our new Preps come into the school and seeing the excitement on their faces as they meet their teachers and classmates, meet the ‘Specialist Superheroes’ (see photo below!) and much more.

We are all looking forward with great optimism and enthusiasm to a year of strong learning and engagement from all our students. Staff enjoyed a very productive couple of days on Monday and Tuesday as we focussed on our priorities for 2024 and did a deeper dive into our approaches to the teaching of reading and writing, mathematics, student wellbeing and the importance of embedding a deeper understanding of aboriginal culture in our school community.

It has been terrific moving around the school this week, seeing how positively our students have reconnected with their teachers and peers and how they have engaged with their learning, establishing class norms and routines. The tone in classrooms and the playground is very positive and our students are to be commended on their endeavours. Please take some time to chat with your children talking about our Learning Launch, class norms and expectations, as well as the other exciting things they have and will be doing.

Important Information for Parents

The commencement of the school year is incredibly busy for many reasons, not least the dissemination of important information and updates to the community. I/we are very mindful that you have already been somewhat inundated with emails and information and we are working on streamlining this process as much as possible. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this and we do appreciate your patience and understanding.

You will soon receive an important email containing information about school policies, procedures and other events and activities. We ask that you take some time to read through the information and familiarise yourself with the content. Copies will also be available on the Sentral Parent Portal for your future reference.

Staff

Our staff have been extremely busy over the past week or so preparing their classrooms and planning for the school year. We are excited to welcome the following new and returning staff members:

Tom Rogers & Charlotte Read (new)

Meg McKinley & Laura Feltham (returning)

Ellen Hurley will be continuing her personal leave during Term 1 and will return at the start of Term 2. 6EH will be taught by Meg McKinley and James Roche during Term 1.

A complete staff list is included with this newsletter.

Thank You

A very big thank you to the Cranston, Brown, Varasso and Vogel families for looking after our school chickens over the holidays. The chickens looked very happy and healthy upon our return.

Thank you also to parent Rob Simpson and his team at Noel Jones Blackburn for kindly supplying a coffee van for the first day back at school.

COVID-19 Update

We continue to hear of positive COVID cases in our broader community and our Old Orchard community is not immune to this. As a school, we will continue to implement practices to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, as well as other airborne illnesses. These include:

the use of air purifiers
maximising external ventilation and outdoor learning as appropriate
encouraging and reinforcing good personal hygiene including the use of sanitiser
making face masks available for staff, students and visitors who wish to wear them
encouraging the use of RATs for students / staff who are symptomatic
staying away from school when unwell or symptomatic

Upcoming Events

Term 1 includes a number of school events & activities. Please refer to the SENTRAL Community calendar for specific details and updates. Some key events include:

Badge Presentation: February 9th

Year 6 Camp: February 19th - 23rd

School Photos: March 20th & 22nd

NAPLAN testing: March (Year 3 & 5 students)

Parent - Teacher Chats: March 18th - 22nd

House Cross Country: March 28th

Separate communications will be sent in relation to these activities.

Modified Daily Timetable

Just a reminder that there has been a slight change to the daily timetable.

8.50am Students are able to enter classrooms

9.00am Students to be in class ready to commence learning

9.00am Session 1

11.30am Lunch eating (this was previously at 12.10pm)

11.40am Lunch play (1)

12.20pm Session 2

2.00pm Lunch play (2)

2.40pm Session 3

3.30pm End of school day

School Council Elections

Information relating to the 2024 School Council Elections will be distributed in the coming weeks.

Student Leaders

Congratulations to our Student Leaders who are being presented with their badges at assembly next Friday. Former student, Sean Harris will be a special guest to assist with the badge presentation. Our Peer Mediator and SRC badges will be presented in due course.

Sentral

Parents & carers are reminded that Sentral is the primary form of communication between school and home. Please ensure that you have the updated Sentral Parent Portal app on your phone/device and ideally, have the notifications settings ‘on’ to ensure that important messages are delivered and received in a timely manner.

Victorian Parents Council

For those parents who enjoy accessing great information on social media, you may like to consider following the Victorian Parents Council page. The VPC provides regular information on topics that are relevant to all parents and I always find their posts / articles to be extremely insightful and informative.

Facilities Update

Thank-you to Pip Carriss for the great work she did in preparing our school facilities and grounds for the start of the school year. Students and parents may have also noticed that new goal post padding has been installed on the multi-purpose courts next to Drayton Hall. Special thanks to the Old Orchard Netball Club for funding and organsing the installation.

I wish all our school community a very happy, successful and productive 2024. As always, we encourage open communication with school staff and I look forward to engaging with you as the year progresses. Please don’t hesitate to remind me of your name and which child(ren) you ‘belong’ to.

As always, please feel free to touch base with me or one of our Assistant Principals at any stage, either formally or informally. Our Assistant Principals are:

Clare Murray
Jen McCann (Monday to Wednesday)

Kind regards

Duncan

Staff List 2024

The Harvest

2024/1 · 01 Feb 2024

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