Teaching & Learning Update

Hello MEPS families,

Mrs Hille here – I'm lucky enough to be adding to our newsletter this term whilst Mrs Merritt is off enjoying her holiday. She is spending time with her family and their caravan to explore the East Coast of Australia. I hope you enjoy a special treat today Mrs Merritt (Friday, 7th August), as it is National Principals Day! The staff treated Mr Kent and Mr Thresher to some delicious donuts during their morning tea. I'd like to say a huge thank you to our wonderful Principal team – Mr Kent, Mr Thresher and Mrs Merritt – for all of the hard work and effort they put in every day at MEPS. We have a wonderful community and we appreciate your leadership and all that you do for us.

A quick reminder that our Premier's Reading Challenge is still well and truly underway! It has been amazing to see just how many books our students are getting through, whether they're reading independently or curling up with a family member at home. A big thank you to Miss Brennan & Miss Nevin for organising this wonderful event for our students. Don't forget, we also have our book costume parade coming up — I am trying very hard to think of a costume that isn't related to Hogwarts and Harry Potter for this year... watch this space!

This week I hosted 112 students from Years 3-6 whilst they put their mathematical skills to the test in the Australian Maths Competition. This competition is held nationally over a three-day period. Students demonstrated our values of Challenge, Resilience and Respect by trying their best and answering questions, staying positive when questions became tricky and maintained a quiet and calm testing environment – I was impressed. Our results for this competition can take up to three months to arrive, but I'll give families and students notice once they do.

In more Mathematics at MEPS, we have three Year 6 students who were selected for the Victorian High Ability Program in Mathematics – these students complete online lessons with Virtual School Victoria and extra homework as part of this program throughout the whole of Term 3. Congratulations to Will H, Toby C and Jack H for their participation and selection in the program. Maths Olympiad and Maths Explorer students had their third round of competition last week, with Adam L and Dexter C achieving the highest scores for Explorer and Olympiad respectively. We have our final round of these problem-solving challenges in September. I can't wait to see what the last round of problems presents, and to see how our students and Team MEPS go with their final results!

Finally, over the past few weeks I have been lucky enough to help share our amazing school with the wider community on many occasions. Our Year 6 student leaders assisted Mr Kent, Mr Thresher and I in sharing the many highlights of MEPS to Principal Class members from schools across the Peninsula at our network meeting. We had so much positive feedback about our classrooms and our Year 6 student leaders from our network schools - we thank all staff, students and our student leaders for their efforts. We've also welcomed local Mt Eliza schools with some mathematical investigations and I've had the pleasure of welcoming some potential new families through a school tour. Every time I walk through each classroom, I am always blown away by the learning I see in action, the connections between students and staff and the care each classroom member shows towards one another. We really show 'Together We Grow' every day at MEPS.

I look forward to hearing about all the learning experiences our students will have over the coming weeks with excursions, incursions and Science Week all coming up!

Amy Hille

Leading Teacher

Mount Eliza Primary School