Thursday 14 December

Dear Parents, Students and Friends,

This will be the final newsletter for 2023. Thank you all for your contribution to our wonderful school throughout the year. I hope you are all able to take a break at some stage and find some time to relax with your children.

A friendly reminder that students will be dismissed from their classrooms on Wednesday 20th December at 1.30pm. This will be immediately after our traditional ‘Cheers and Tears’ Assembly where we will farewell and dismiss our 2023 Year 6 Graduates and departing staff. Parents are welcome to attend. The start time for assembly will be advised via School Stream on Friday 15th December.

The school office will close at 1.45pm on Wednesday 20th December.

Please note that teaching staff will officially return to school on Monday 29th January for two days of induction and professional learning.

Students in Years 1-6 commence classes on Wednesday 31st January.

2024 Prep students begin on Thursday 1st February @ 9.15am – as English & Maths Interviews take place for the first 5 Wednesdays in Term 1.

Carols

Carols is always one of my favourite school events of the year. It’s great to have the school community come together to celebrate the school year and this year was no exception. Thanks to Ms. Stoddart and the staff for supporting our wonderful students who performed beautifully on the night – absolute stars!

Thanks to Sue McKinnon and her brilliant HPCG team, as well as Rebecca Foot, for their work in organising the raffle and refreshments. I am pleased to announce that, in total, we raised $3,482.90. The raffle made $2,995 and the snacks and drinks made $487.90. Thanks to everyone who purchased tickets and congratulations to those 20 winners who took home some marvellous prizes! And finally, a big thank you to our prize donors. See the Events & Special lunches section for the full list.

Carols Recycling

Thanks to everyone who used our recycling bins at Carols. From the collection we got a refund of $41.00. This consisted of:

311 x cans
47 x plastic bottles
49 x Juice boxes

Not only is recycling good for the environment, we also raised money for the Green Team in 2024! Thanks to those who used the bins last Thursday.

Swimming

Our swimming program finishes up at the end of this week and I think it's safe to say it was a success. From all reports, the teaching was of a very high quality and it was a great opportunity for students to strengthen their swimming skills just before the summer break. Thanks to parents/carers for preparing their child for the swimming program. The behaviour and effort of our students was excellent and the support from home was a big contributor to this!

Thank You - Year 6 Graduates 2023

Thank you to our wonderful 2023 Year 6 students for their dedication and commitment to their learning this year. Led by our School Captains, Bhuvi and Jai, our Year 6s will be holding their Graduation this evening and their ‘Celebration Day’ on Monday 18th December. A sincere thanks to our amazing Year 5/6 team, consisting of Ms. Dvorscek, Mr. Latta, Mrs. Scully and Ms. Giakoumis, for their efforts in preparing these events.

I look forward to this evening’s festivities.

We will farewell our Year 6s on Wednesday at our annual ‘Cheers and Tears’ Assembly. While we will miss them next year, we look forward to hearing about their transition to secondary school and any future adventures. Enjoy your final week of primary school graduating class of 2023!

Forest Hill School Endeavour Award 2023

Each year for the past 10+ years at Highvale, we have presented the Forest Hill School Endeavour Award. For 2023, this will be presented at Graduation as the ‘Jan Kennedy Award’ by our local member of parliament, John Mullahy. This award is a citizenship award and a very significant award at our school. It is presented to the student who has made the most of their abilities and opportunities - a student who has made a difference at our school in the role he or she has undertaken as a Year 6 student. Tonight John will have the privilege of presenting this award. We will also acknowledge this student at our final assembly.

2023 School Captains

Congratulations to Wey En Seow and Aryan Zaveri who were selected as our 2023 School Captains. I know they will be excellent role models for our school community. I would also like to acknowledge all Year 5 students who applied for the role of school captain. The panel had a very difficult job as there were many worthy candidates.

With our student leadership structure, all 2024 Year 6 students will get the opportunity to develop their leadership skills at assemblies and activities throughout the year.

2023 Class Placements

Class placement is a complex process, which aims to support individual needs as best as possible within the context of the needs of each cohort of students, utilising a range of information.

Classes are formed to provide a balanced approach and are final. For this reason, requests for changes to classes are not possible. We ask that this is respected and discussions with your child focus on the positive aspects of change.

Below is advice from Dr Judith Locke (clinical psychologist and former teacher) to assist parents whose children may be anxious about their new class.

Tips for Parents of Anxious Students

If your child is anxious about starting a new class with unfamiliar people, do listen to them talk about their fears, but normalise them (‘A lot of people feel worried about starting something new’), and then talk about their past strengths in facing tricky things and your confidence that they will cope with this challenge.
When they come home from their first transition day, keep your questions broad, ‘How was it?’ not, ‘Did you make a friend today?’ or ‘Is Sam in your class?’ This won’t put unnecessary pressure on them or suggest things in which they should be disappointed.
Keep your and your child’s expectations realistic. It is highly unlikely that they will form close friendships in the early days of a new school year, particularly in early primary. How often have you started a new job and come home from your first day to announce, ‘I made my new best friend today’?
There are things you can say if your child is not in a class they want to be in:

Listen to them. Then reflect back what you hear. ‘You’re upset because some of your friends are not in your class. That is a completely understandable feeling’. Or ‘Sounds like you are upset because you didn’t get the teacher that you wanted.’
Then state the potential benefits of facing this challenge, i.e. making extra, new friends, learning skills to make new acquaintances, being able to focus more on schoolwork in class than talking to their current best friend, learning how to work with a different type of teacher than the one they had last year.
Maybe tell them a story about how you learned a lot from a teacher you had who was a bit tougher but taught you a lot, or a time you went somewhere where you didn’t know anyone but learnt how to get on in unfamiliar environments.
Let your child know that they can still see their other friend/s at lunchtime or at play dates or parties.

2024 Staffing

The following is from a recent School Stream notification:

Thank you to the following teachers who will depart HPS next year. Ms. Giakoumis (Year 5&6) is leaving to explore teaching opportunities in a more rural setting and Ms. Rodriguez (1R) is joining Brandon Park Primary School. Both have been excellent teachers and will be missed. We wish them well on the next part of their teaching career and thank them for their contributions throughout 2023.

Julia Lee (ES Staff) has increased her workload at Amsleigh Park Primary School where she currently works two days a week. Julia has been a kind and caring member of our ES team and she will be missed. We thank Julia for her compassion and commitment to our students in 2023.

Ashton Duke also took leave recently with Baby #2 due in the very near future. Ashton is a highly experienced teacher and we wish her all the best in the next step of her family journey.

Mandy Goldsworthy (instrumental) has secured herself a teaching role and we are in the process of seeking a replacement for her.

I am excited to announce that we welcome some great teachers to fill these positions in 2024. We welcome Lilly Ji, Adrian Cresswell and Jo Fellowes officially to HPS. While Lilly is new to HPS, Adrian and Jo have all worked here with us before as CRTs and have a wealth of experience. Rachel Drew and Teagan Wood also return from leave to take up part-time positions and we are looking forward to them joining the Year 5/6 team.

2024 Staff

Class Teachers

Prep – Jess Kelaart

Prep – Michelle Cheong

Year 1 – Sharon Ebinger

Year 1 – Chloe Bellotti

Year 2 – Lilly Ji

Year 2 – Mark Usai

Year 2 – Natalie Yencken (0.4)

Year 3 – Emily Hine

Year 3 – Imogen Nightingale

Year 4 – Nick Dempsey

Year 4 – Stephanie Quarrier

Year 5 – Steve Smith (0.6) / Teagan Wood (0.4)

Year 5 – Ben Latta

Year 6 – Tamara Scully

Year 6 – Emily Dvorscek

Year 6 – Rachel Drew (0.6)

Specialist Teachers

Response To Individual Needs (RTI)

English & Mathematics Intervention, Enrichment & Extension– Megan Fegan
English as an Additional Language (EAL) Prep to Year 6 – Pereena Sinclair & Jo Fellowes

STEAM Visual & Media Arts – Pereena Sinclair & Jo Fellowes

STEAM Science & Technologies – Caisha Williamson

Performing Arts – Erin Stoddart

Physical Education – Brooke Scott

Mental Health & Wellbeing Leader – Adrian Cresswell

Languages – Mandarin – Robin Miao & Han Guo

Languages – German – Helena Salles & Susanne Heine

Instrumental – Doug Lewis, Erin Stoddart & TBC

Education Support Staff

Program for Students with Disabilities, Classroom Learning Aides & Learning Support –Allison McNamara, Trish Neilson, Dot Tang, Yan Li, Bridie Williams

Student Wellbeing Officer – Natalie Deacon

Multicultural Education Aides – English as an Additional Language – Candy Luk & Shu Wong

Administration, Enrolments & Reception – Andrea Gill

School Business Manager – Rebecca Foot

Assistant Principal – Josh Crozier

Principal – Steve Richardson

I look forward to seeing everyone next year when students resume school in 2024!

Take care,

Josh Crozier

Assistant Principal

joshua.crozier@education.vic.gov.au

Community

Term 1 lunchtime extra-curricular activities

Activities and services in the community