Important Notices
Foster Care Week
This week is Foster Care Week.
Today, around 46,000 Australian kids are in foster care. Many of these kids are deemed to be at risk of violence, neglect or abuse in their family environments. Sadly there aren’t enough carers to look after them and hence we end up with children living in residential care homes or moving from home to home.
Foster Care Week 2023 runs from Sunday 10 to Saturday 16 September and is an annual week of celebration of Victorian foster carers and the contribution they make to the lives of children, young people and families in our community.
I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank the Foster Carers in our school community who have been able to provide a safe home for the most vulnerable children in our society and to help them overcome the challenges they have faced so early in their lives.
More details about fostering can be found at Foster Care Association of Victoria (fcav.org.au)
Basketball coordinator
As you would be aware, basketball plays a huge role at SKiPPS and the Playball teams and before and after school training are a great way for our students to stay active, have fun with competitive sport and for our families to connect.
There is a key person who keeps the system going - our Basketball Coordinator. Currently Nikita Jain has been doing this role but she will soon need to step back.
This means we are looking for a willing volunteer to take this job on.
This coordinator manages the distribution of the SKiPPS basketball kits, oversees the training roster and acts as a first point of call for families with questions about basketball at SKiPPS.
Whilst this sounds complicated, it is only a few hours work each month and Nikita is happy to provide a full handover to the new coordinator and walk them through each part of the role.
If you think you can help the school and enable basketball to continue to be such a big part of SKiPPS life, please reach out to Nikita on nikitajain86@gmail.com
Roof Upgrade
As some of you may be aware, whilst we love the beautiful gothic architecture of our school building, there are parts of it that have seen better days.
When it was designed, ease of access for maintenance was low on the list of priorities and so, over the years, the slate roof has deteriorated to the point that is has been in urgent need of replacement for a few years.
Missing tiles, leaking ceilings and water damage are all now sadly visible in some areas of our upstairs classrooms.
We are therefore delighted to share the news that the Victorian School Building Authority have approved the funding to undertake a full replacement of the slate roof on our main school building.
As you can imagine, a job like this is complicated and expensive and so we are thrilled to have secured external funding for this work.
We are still in the process of locking in timelines and logistics but we anticipate that the work will start towards the end of this year and continue for 12-16 weeks. This means that there is likely to be some disruption to school operations for the first term of 2024 but we are confident that we can manage this with no major disruption to student learning or wellbeing.
Lost Property
Please remember to check the collection of winter clothing and other items in the Lost Property area - located near the piano in the Quadrangle. All items that remain in Week 10, will be donated to a local charity.
Let us know if you are leaving
As we are now at the end of term 3, we have started the process of employing teachers and setting budgets for 2024.
It is really important that we have an accurate idea of student numbers so we can plan ahead with confidence.
If you know that your child will not be attending SKiPPS in 2024 we would really appreciate you letting us know as soon as possible.
Please email the school on st.kilda.park.ps@education.vic.gov.au to let us know.
Enrolments for Chess in Term 4 are now open!
