Principal's Message

Dear OLA Families,

What a wonderful time it is in our school calendar. We have been so proud of our student's engagement and involvement in special events such as: Book Week, Prep Community Walk, Prep JM Class Prayer Service, Parent's Guided Learning Walk. Thank you to all in our community for helping make these events so memorable and fun.

Book Week

Book Week at OLA is always a highlight! Our yard was bursting with colour and creativity as students and staff brought their favourite characters to life. Thank you to our amazing community for making the parade such a special memory and for nurturing a lifelong love of reading.

What a magical Book Week here at OLA. Everything from the Book Week Parade to the Spelling Bees, author visits, class activities and lunchtime Kahoots - they have all been amazing. Last Friday was also extra special with a Genre Picnic for the whole school. The love of reading is alive and well at OLA. 

The Genre Picnic at the end of the week was a lovely way to ‘book end’ the week - such beautiful moments with children reading with their friends, buddies, teachers and even brothers and sisters!  

Thank you to our staff for the amazing spirit that they turned up with for our Book Week Parade. Dr Seuss was a great theme and we thank everyone for joining in and bringing their love of reading energy. Thank you to everyone for helping make this week a very memorable and special week in our calendar. A big shout out and thank you to Miss Turner for coordinating and making this week such a success.

Guided Learning Walk for Parents - Spelling

This morning we hosted a Guided Learning Walk for parents at OLA. We visited a Prep, Junior and Senior class (3 classes in all) with each of the classes focussing on Spelling in Literacy. We were also joined by the Deputy Principal, Literacy Leader and Learning & Teaching Leader in hosting this Family Learning Walk. We had ten parents join us, and we thank them for their interest, support and feedback.  If you were not able to make this one but would like the opportunity next time please let me know.  We are so proud of the students and the staff for their engagement, focus, positive learning environments and excellent behaviour. Thank you to our teachers Mrs Montebruno, Miss Summers and Mrs Lee and Literacy & Intervention Leader Miss Turner for making today so memorable for all involved. Thank you also to our School Improvement Team for organising and hosting this powerful 

Our parents' reflections and feedback was very much appreciated:

Today I attended the guided literacy learning walk and was truly impressed with the way our teachers and students are engaging in learning across the school. Key highlights included the consistency of teaching across all year levels, the effective use of streamed learning groups to support students at their individual ability, the immediate positive feedback and reinforcement provided to students, and the visible dedication of OLA in providing best-in-class programs. I would highly recommend this learning tour for all parents - especially if, like my son, your child doesn’t tend to share much about their day! It’s a great way to see firsthand the learning that is taking place and to appreciate the commitment of our teachers and students.

I really enjoyed the learning walk as it gave me a clearer picture of how my child learns in the classroom. I appreciated seeing the explicit teaching approach and how engaged the students were in their learning across all year levels. I’d highly recommend other parents attend as it’s such a valuable experience. 

Thank you so much for the wonderful experience this morning. The students and teachers were all so dedicated, calm, focussed and harmoniously in the zone.  It was an honour to see and beautiful to watch. There is a strong focus on the children's integrity and self-esteem esteem which is protected and supported through strategic teaching practices which resonated with me. Today we also saw the children take on accountability and responsibility themselves, towards their own learning by being honest with themselves, embracing mistakes to strengthen their own learning journey. The teachers, students and parents are all invested in the children and todays visit was a testimony to the dedication the school has for our children.  Thank you so much for your time in supporting parents understanding of our children's learning space. 

Thank you for the opportunity to come along and attend the family engagement opportunity around spelling and learning across the school. It was great to see all the students so engaged and focussed. I loved seeing the consistency in learning across all year levels and have full confidence in the program and structure in play for the students.

Thanks again for the chance to come through and see the kids in their classroom setting!  As a parent, you see your kids thriving and the growth in confidence and literacy, but to parents often the teaching process that goes into it is invisible other than the little insights the kids often give you at the dinner table. Seeing all the children and the process behind how they learn was so good to see as well as the engagement, the energy in the room from the kids, and the way the teachers connect with the students.  A really fun experience, and good to know our kids' learning is in such great hands!

This morning I was invited to participate in the Parents Guided Learning Walk, where a small group of us went to three different classrooms to experience the 'explicit' learning style - with a focus on spelling. We observed Preps undertake the Heggerty Program, the Grade 1/2's Little Learners Love Literacy Program and the Grade 3-6's Spelling Masters program. It was lovely to see the students so engaged with each learning program and the way the teachers were delivering the lessons. I especially loved the 'chin it and bin it' where the Grade 1/2's wrote down the learnt word on their whiteboard, flipped it round to show the teacher, then rubbed it off for the next word. It looked like a lot of fun! Thank you Richard, Caitlan, Shelby and Josy for facilitating the tour and answering all our questions. I would highly recommend other parents take the tour and find out how our children are learning at OLA, and to learn more about providing the right support at home.

Prep 2026 Info Night

Last week we had the great Carley McGauran join us at OLA for our first 2026 Prep Parent Information Night, 'How your family can thrive and not just survive'. Carley is a highly regarded psychologist who partners with Inform and Empower. Lovely to see everyone and such wonderful messages like, 'get curious, not furious', take a breath and wait instead of diving in to help and helping children learn to cope when things don't go their way. Carley invited us to think about what we might start, pause and keep going following our session. One of our Prep parents for next year reflected: 

“We attended the Prep 2026 Parent Workshop last week and thought it was such a fantastic event. Carley McGauren blew us away with her excellent presentation. It was delivered so thoughtfully and had the perfect balance of lived experience and evidence based information. We feel so lucky to have chosen a school that aligns so closely with our values of raising supported, confident and happy kids, and that you support us as parents in working to achieve this. Thank you so much again, we can’t wait for our child  to start next year and for the events to come later in the year.”

Indigenous Mural

We are grateful for this bright and beautiful Indigenous mural in our playground. This was made possible by the kind donations made by OLA families towards the 2024 P&F Fundraising events and fete. We thank the P&F for providing the story behind the mural so that we can pass on the stories for years to come. Please take a moment to pop by the mural and learn more about this colourful and thoughtful story.

OLA  Language Program - Staffing Update 

Please be advised that Cecilia Moya (Spanish teacher) has resigned from her position at OLA school. School leadership will gather to negotiate our language program staffing for the remainder of the school year. We will also commence dialogue on the school's options for the focus of our Language Program for the 2026 school year. These options will be presented to the OLA School Advisory Committee. We thank Cecilia for her contributions to the school's learning program during her time at OLA this year. 

MACSSIS Survey for OLA Families

Between 1-19 September we pause to listen to our families, students and staff through the anonymous MACSSIS Survey and we would like as many families to complete this survey as possible. Please look out for an Operoo with more information and your unique family pin and answer the questions so we can learn more about what you think is working well at OLA and what we can improve. Please check Josy's Learning & Teaching section of the newsletter for more information and for the opportunity to possibly win a $50 book voucher.

Community Illness

Over the past month or two, various viruses and respiratory issues have been sweeping through our classrooms, leading to a spike in absences and numerous calls for children to be picked up from school. This is a fitting reminder for everyone to remain vigilant during this challenging period. Please ensure that children stay home if they exhibit high temperatures or cold like symptoms, to ensure this does not impact the wider class or staffing group. 

2026 Plans

We politely ask all families to notify the school should your child/children not be returning to OLA in 2026.  We have had a number of enquiries in recent weeks across various levels. Having an accurate indication of our enrolment numbers ensures we are able to plan accordingly for the following school year and access appropriate funding i.e. staffing and resourcing. We thank you for your cooperation.

OLA Second Hand Uniform Shop

Calendar

Please open the ‘Key Dates and Events’ tab in this newsletter for important dates or access the OLA Calendar here.  

School Term Dates - 2025

Term 3, 2025

Monday 21 July - Friday 19th September (9 weeks) 

Term 4, 2025

Tuesday 7 October - Tuesday 16th December (11 weeks)

Congratulations

Tee Ball

Congratulations to the awesome OLA Tee Ballers! We came second out of 370 odd schools in the region to bring home the Runners Up pennant. OLA was represented confidently by our Grade 6 boys team. Great to see the boys in action. We loved your focus for the whole day and your team spirit, not to mention the home run specials and the beautiful sunny day.

Music Concert

What a delight to have a lunchtime music concert where some of our Music students were able to perform for their parents and friends. We had our very own band, students on keyboard, recorder and vocals. Congratulations to the children, their families and the Music teachers.

Preps Walking Cheltenham

What a fun Wednesday morning for our Preps being outside the four walls of their classrooms and learning so much about their local community and the special people who help to make our community a better place. 

Nothing like a little tap on the window to say we are back, we are safe and we didn’t get too wet on our morning walk around Cheltenham. The children, teachers and volunteers were inside at the time of the huge down pour visiting Cheltenham Library, Terry White Chemist, the Fruit Men Foodstore, Bakers Delight, Sacred Heart Opp Shop and the McKenzie-Smith Butchers. Thanks you to these wonderful humans for welcoming us and teaching the children so much about where they live. 

Thank you to our local policemen, David, David and Neal. We are so blessed to have such great humans supporting our school and local community. When we rang to ask for support with our Prep local community walk these boys jumped at the opportunity to not only help but walk with our Prep students around Cheltenham. Thank you Cheltenham Police. 

Principal Awards

Look who made our day this week! We had some of our Grade 1 students come and share with us that they are working hard on learning their times tables facts and solving real life problems using multiplication strategies. Congratulations Florence, Dasher and Amelia. We also had Anthony as proud as punch coming to see us to celebrate his focus, positive attitude and improvement in Spelling Mastery. Congratulations Anthony - we loved your joy.

Wonderful News

Mason made our day - our week - our year!

Yesterday Mason G (OLA graduate 2023) and his Mum Julie popped in to share the news that he is cancer free. Mason still has 6 weeks of radiation and then he gets to ring the bell! Please continue to keep Mason and his family in your prayers. We thank Julie and Mason for visiting and for sharing this wonderful news with us.

Exciting Baby News

A big congratulations to Mr Michael Glennon (Grade 5/6 Classroom Teacher) who is looking forward to becoming a Dad for the first time in late October. Mr Glennon will take 4 weeks Parental Leave during Term 4 to support his partner Fumi. Once again we congratulate you Michael and Fumi - enjoy this precious and exciting ti.

Can you believe its the end of August and we begin September on Monday!

We have completed 6 weeks of a 9 week term! Only three weeks of Term 3 to go.

Please encourage your children to chill out and rest a little this weekend.

Take care and thank you for an amazing couple of weeks at OLA.

Richard Jacques

Principal