Principal's Report 

Welcome back to Rangeview for 2024! 

We are so pleased to be back with all of our wonderful Rangeview Families including welcoming our new Foundation Families as they start their Rangeview journey. As a parent myself, who has just seen a child right through the levels at Rangeview, it is indeed a journey. The growth, development, and depth of experience that occurs throughout Primary School is nothing short of remarkable. As a team of educators, we see this as both a responsibility and a privilege to have such influence over this time. 

We welcomed 87 new Foundation students to the school and 14 students from other levels across the school. We begin the year with 694 students from Foundation to Level 6. 

We were very lucky to have a number of new staff join our school for 2024 and it has been wonderful to see them settle in over the last two weeks and start to develop relationships with their students and teams. 

Nathalia Amato - Level 6 Classroom Teacher

Sam O'Bryan - Level 5 Classroom Teacher

Kiah Allen - Level 3 Classroom Teacher

Meg Elkin-Smith - Level 1 Classroom Teacher

Aimee McKenzie - Foundation Classroom Teacher

Ian Barr - Groundsman

We also welcomed back two of our staff from leave;

Sam Carter - Level 6 Classroom teacher and Specialist Mathematics

Rebecca Gordon - Specialist Mathematics

Our school leadership team is also excited to be welcoming our two new school captains - Lucas Xing and Edie Williamson to their roles for 2024. 

This Term at Rangeview we have a wide variety of programs, events and special celebrations that will take place. We began last week with the Start Up Program across the school. This is designed to help our students settle into their new grades and get to know their teachers and their new classmates. We welcomed back our Level 1 - 6 students on Tuesday 30th January and our newest learners began on Thursday 1st February with the commencement of Foundation for the year. 

In the first week our new Grade 6 Peer Mediators had their training with Natalie Powell the school Social Worker, and they are now out in the playground each lunch break helping students with friendship issues and small problems/concerns. On Monday 5th we held our first Rangeview Swimming Carnival. See more details below. Our Student Leaders have begun their before school meetings on Friday mornings with Mr Sommers, Ms Balderston and myself. They will learn more about leadership and will have roles and responsibilities across the school. Our staff have met together in teams to ensure that there is a good handover of learning and engagement information from one level's teachers to the next. We want the transition time to be as smooth and positive as possible for all of our students. 

Term One Curriculum and Events

Throughout this term we will have District Swimming, Safer Internet Day, Getting to Know you Parent / Teacher Interviews, Welcome Twilight Picnic, Whole School Photo Day, Level 3 & 5 NAPLAN, Whole School Harmony Day, and a Pupil Free Day on 1st March. Our Foundation and Level 1 students will be continuing our new phonics program ‘Little Learners Love Literacy’ and the teaching of phonological knowledge and phonological awareness will be structured and strengthened across the school from Level 2 – 6. Our Professional Learning Communities continue this year with teachers meeting fortnightly to look at student data, identify areas for learning improvement, and implement change to modify and improve our teaching practice. We will have a focus on phonics in Term 1. Our school continues as a Lead School in the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships and we will be running workshops for other schools in the network on areas of this model. Rangeview will also continue to deepen our focus on the Resilience Project (TRP). We will be teaching all students the tenants of Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness (GEM) and will be this year reaching out to families and encouraging you all to become involved in this evidence based work with your children.  We have a lot to be grateful for in our beautiful community. 

Mathematics Specialist & STEM Specialist

We have two new specialist programs at Rangeview this year - Mathematics and STEM. Students will work with these specialist teachers once a week to advance their skills in these areas. Please look to the Teaching and Learning page of this addition for more information. 

Foundation Start to School

On Thursday 1st February Rangeview welcomed our littlest learners - the Foundation 2024 students! This was a momentous event and although there were some tears (all parents) it was a beautiful day. 

We are so proud of our new Foundation cohort who have begun at Rangeview so smoothly and have settled into their learning so well. 

Rangeview Swimming Carnival

On Monday 5th February Rangeview held our first ever Swimming Carnival! Students from Level 4 - 6 - and some swimmers from Level 3 - all attended Croydon Memorial Pool to take part in swimming races for their House. 

In addition to the official races, there were novelty swimming games in the wading pool throughout the day - so every child had the opportunity to have some fun and get wet. 

Thanks to the ridiculous Melbourne weather, all of the adults also had the opportunity to get wet. 

A huge thank you to Mitch Clark and Meg Hubbard for organising and running the day, thanks to all of the staff who took on roles across the event, and finally thanks to all of the parent volunteers who gave up their time to ensure it was a success. 

Parent / Teacher Getting to Know You Interviews

The ‘Getting to Know You Interviews’ will be held on Monday, 12th February from 3:40pm to 5:30pm and Wednesday, 14th February from 3:40pm to 7:30pm. 

Foundation Families - Please note: there will be no Foundation interviews due to the interviews undertaken at the beginning of the term.  

Please look to the Teaching and Learning page of this addition for more information. 

Rangeview Welcome Mixer

New Playground

We are so pleased with our new Foundation Playground which was completed in December and over the Summer break. We congratulate Matt and the team from Rocket Box for an excellent playground design. 

We express our thanks to Their Care and to our schools P & F committee who jointly funded this new resource for our Rangeview students. It was been so lovely to see them all enjoying the space. 

Car Parking

Please be aware of the various parking restrictions and drop off zones around the school. The local council do enforce restrictions with infringement notices. The 5 minute drop off zone does not allow you to walk your child into the school, so please do not leave your car parked in this zone, it can cause traffic congestion. Please do not attempt 3 point turns in the roads around the school at pick up and drop off times. 

The school car park off Churinga Ave, is for staff only, except for Their Care usage before 8am and after 4pm. The boom gate has been installed for traffic management and as a safety measure as children and cars don’t mix.

Nude Food

We are asking for a collective effort to reduce the litter in our school yard and directing students to eat inside and only take nude food outside. We encourage parents – wherever possible – to send the students with a packed lunch that is nude! 

School Council Elections

Notice of Elections and Call for Nominations 2024- 2025

Friday 9th February 2024

Closing date for Nominations Friday 16th February 2024

I am announcing the annual elections for our School Council. School council members are elected (or co-opted in the case of community members) for approximately a two year term. Usually half the membership expires each year creating vacancies for the annual school council election. We have 3 Parent vacancies and 3 DET employee vacancy. 

Process:

1. The principal arranges and conducts the election. The principal will issue a notice and call for nominations for parent and Department employee members in February or early March. The notice will include a nomination form or way to reply and the date to submit the nomination. The election process must be completed by the end of March.

2. Return the nomination form to the principal through the office within the time frame stated on the notice of election. Those who nominate will receive a receipt. Ask at the school for help if you would like to stand for election and are not sure what to do.

3. If there are more nominations than there are vacant positions on council, a ballot (vote) will be conducted after the call for nominations has closed.

4. If you decide to stand for election, you can arrange for someone to nominate you or you can nominate yourself in the appropriate category.

5. Forms are available at the office.

Annual Privacy Reminder for 2024

Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website. For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also linked from our School Website, and is available in nine community languages:

• Amharic
• Arabic
• Dari
• Gujarati
• Mandarin
• Somali
• Sudanese
• Turkish
• Urdu
• Vietnamese

This will be a wonderful year - we are so pleased to be back! 

Marika Ferguson

Principal