Important Notices
Welcome to our new Performing Arts teacher
We are excited to announce a new arrival to our teaching team at SKiPPS.
Tanya Sleeman has been appointed as our new Performing Arts teacher and is already well into her second week of classes.
Tanya brings a wealth of amazing experiences with her to SKiPPS as a dance and drama specialist, including work at a range of schools in Victoria and the UK, managing large-scale productions, working as a professional dancer and even running her own dance and performance production company in London.
We have already seen wonderful things happening in the Performing Arts space since Tanya's arrival and her enthusiasm and sense of humour are great to see. The feedback from the students has been excellent and we look forward to her working on our Celebration of the Arts event later in the school year.
I am sure all of our community with join me in welcoming Tanya to SKiPPS and ensuring she feels welcome at our school.
Mother's Day thanks yous
We hope that all of our SKiPPS mums and carers had a wonderful day on Sunday and were deservedly treated by your families!
Last Friday was a wonderful day that really showcased our incredible parent community at their best.
Mothers' Day Breakfast
Before school, Lyndon Galvin and a team of dads ran their now-annual Mother's Day Breakfast in the school grounds. A coffee cart and croissants provided a delicious start to the day and music allowed our students to treat their mums before the big day.
We would like to thank Lyndon and his team, our Parents Association SKiPPA and SKiPPS mum and wonderful baker Immy and her company 'Baked for Sofia' for doing a great deal on the beautiful croissants.
Mothers' Day Lunch
Later in the day, another great SKiPPS event and emerging favourite tradition took place.
The Mothers' Day lunch took place at the Deck @ The Prince and well over a hundred mums took the time and bought a ticket to attend.
The event this year was co-ordinated by Sophie Maguire, very capably taking the reins from Terri-Ann Stynes for the first time and doing an amazing job alongside her team of organisers.
As well as being a chance for our mums to dress-up, treat themselves and have a lot of fun, the lunch also serves a really important purpose. Through the ticket sales and a silent auction, the event raised $5049.74.
This money is donated to the school to be used to financially support families to send their children on camps and excursions. With current cost of living pressures, this generous gesture allows many children to attend camps who otherwise would have missed out.
I would like to thank Sophie, her team and all of the parents who attended and supported this event for the huge impact this donation will have for our students.
A special guest visitor
You may remember that, in 2023, a very generous SKiPPS family made a substantial donation to allow us to take every class in the school to the Arts Centre to enjoy performances, tours, workshops and other amazing activities linked to performance and the Arts.
We are really excited (and incredibly thankful) that the same family have made another donation to allow us to do the same this year.
Our teachers (led by Chantel Jose) are currently working hard to lock-in this year's visits and we are looking forward to these excursions and the wonderful opportunities they will present to our students that would otherwise not have happened. Further details to follow.
Having booked the Arts Centre excursions and transport, we found that we had some donated funds left over and so started to explore how we could use these to provide a further performance opportunity for our students.
Imagine our excitement when Chantel discovered that legend of Australian music Peter Combe is visiting Melbourne in the coming weeks and had a free afternoon. Peter visits many schools each year to perform his famous and incredibly catchy songs such as Spaghetti Bolognese, Newspaper Mama and Toffee Apple.
We jumped at this opportunity and have booked for Peter to perform to our school at 2pm on Friday 7th June.
Peter will perform in the quadrangle and we warmly invite parents (who may have grown up listening to his songs in the 1980s and 1990s) to join us on the afternoon.
Until then, we recommend that you get his songs playing at home and ensure your child is ready to sing along on the day https://open.spotify.com/artist/0UrDI2pvxUUaSgkaSkcpjb
A huge thank you to the generous donation that has allowed us to invite actual Australian music royalty into our school!
Year 6 Market Day
On Friday 24th May our Year 6 students will be holding their annual Market Day at the school.
Market Day is a project that the Year Six students work on that has four aims;
- to develop their leadership and organisation skills
- to learn about financial literacy and build authentic concepts of supply and demand, profit, overheads and other entrepreneurial ideas.
- to raise money for their yearbook and graduation
- to help the rest of the school have fun
The students will work in groups and will each run a stall or activity on the day.
Students from other year levels are invited to attend Market Day and spend small amounts of money at the various market stalls. All of the money raised will go towards funding the Year 6 Graduation at the end of the year.
On the day, the students will attend the market day at two separate times to reduce crowding and general chaos;
- Foundation students (with their Year 5 buddies) and Year 1/2 students will attend between 11:45 - 12:45 (before Pranzo)
- Year 3, 4 and 5 students will attend after Pranzo between 2-3pm.
Each market stall will cost a student $1 - $3. Next week, a notice will go home with further details about Market Day including the logistics of sending amount of gold coins to school to allow your child to participate.
In the meantime, the groups are asking for donations and support for their stalls - more details to follow in next week's newsletter.
Interschool Snowsport Championships
Keen for your child to ski or snowboard and represent SKIPPS this year?
Coming up at Mt Buller August 19th - 21st August is the Victorian Interschool Snowsport Championships.
There are events for children in Foundation up to Grade 6.
Entry fees apply and all costs associated with attending, including travel, accommodation, lift tickets etc will be at families’ personal expense. This is not an organised school event and the school has no liability for any loss or injury associated with attending.
If your child is keen on snow sports and you are interested in them participating please email Hayley Morris hayley@morrisgroup.com.au