Welcome Back Melton SS!

Welcome back from the holidays and happy new year! I hope you had a wonderful time with your families and friends, and that you are ready to start the new school year with enthusiasm and optimism. It has been wonderful to see smiling faces and laughter fill our classrooms once again and I have really enjoyed hearing all about your adventures!

To our new students and parents, I hope that I get to know you a little better over the coming weeks and look forward to watching you thrive in our caring and supportive school environment. We are so excited to have you join us and look forward to the amazing contributions that you will make to our school community.

I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the parents of our incredible new preppies. You have chosen to entrust us with the care and education of your remarkable little ones, and we look forward to embarking on this wonderful new chapter with you.

As the principal of this school, I am very proud of the achievements and progress we made last year, despite the challenges and difficulties we faced. I’d like to thank you for your support and cooperation, and for being part of our school community.

This year, we have many exciting plans and opportunities for our community. We will continue to provide high-quality education and a safe and nurturing environment for our students and staff. We will also enhance our communication and collaboration with you, as we value your feedback and involvement.

Please remember to keep up to date via COMPASS, SEESAW and Facebook for important dates and information. You can also contact your classroom teacher, Sub School Leader or Section leader if you have any questions or concerns.

I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events and activities, and to working together to make this year a great one for our school.

New School Captains

We are so excited to announce our 2024 school captains and especially excited to new leadership roles. Congrats to Julia as our School Captain, Tahnee Lee as MSS's First Indigenous Leader, Yuraj as MSS's first Sports Leader and Tori and Sonny as our Well Being Leaders. We can’t wait to see the impact you have as leaders!

New Staff Members

This year we welcome:

- New Teaching Staff: Sinead P01, Shantelle P14, Ranjeev S09, Naseema S06, Ranjani S02, Ranjeev S09

- New Teacher Aides: Salma, Diem, Stephanie, Brie, Nicole, Elizabeth, Anakin

Sub Schools and Leadership support

This year the Sub Schools have remained the same – if you are having trouble remembering your child’s class name – check COMPASS it will have it next to your child’s name and will start with a P, M or S. Please don’t hesitate to contact your Sub School Leader or Section Leader for extra support.

Primary Section - Craig Thompson

P1-P10 Sub School 1 – Leader- Stephanie Champion

P11-P17 Sub School 2 – Leader – Kerri Oldfield

Middles Section - Phil Nolan

M01- M06 Sub School 3 – Leader Kristy Hallam

M07-M13 Sub School 4 – Leader Teegan Baker

Secondary Section - Joan Cummings

S01-S06 Sub School 5 – Leader – Megan Oldfield

S07-S09 Sub School 6 – Leader – Joan Cummings

Senior Assistant Principal – Alice Harris

Meet the Teaching Team Week!

We are excited to have our first Family/Teacher discussion in week 4 (February 20-22nd) this term. This is a chance to discuss how the year has started and potential goals for your child. It is important that every family attends to ensure the best possible start to the year. Bookings will be through Compass and conducted Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 3.30-4.30 for a 20-minute conversation. Our preference is face to face; however, alternatives can be arranged.

6 Week Trial

Each year we take the first six weeks to observe the classes which we designed at the end of the previous year. Leaders observe social and academic groupings and meet with classroom staff, allied health and student engagement teams to gather feedback and possible solutions. If there are groups which are impacting student learning, we will make changes. We will contact you to explain these trials and will trial these changes. We hope to have all classes confirmed by the end of week 6 to allow teachers to prepare for SSG week at the end of the term.

Parent pick up & drop off

Please remember not to line up and double park outside Gate 1. We understand that at times this is frustrating, and you may have to do a loop – this is why we ask that parents and carers do not arrive before 8.55 am or 2:55pm

If you miss the school bus, please drop your child off through the loop in Gate 1 after 9am.

To ensure safety of your children if you are unable to collect your child or a carer is collecting them, please make sure you let your child's teacher via SEESAW, home schoolbook or let the office know on 97434966. If your child has a new carer, please make sure they arrive early enough to park and register their details at the office. New carers need their Working with Children Check, their agency ID and their driver's licence. if we do not have any notification that your child is to leave with a person other than the usual pick-up, we will call families for permission which will delay their departure.

Community Connection Sessions:

This year we are continuing our Community Connection sessions. These sessions were a great success last year. The idea is to have a range of topics discussed from our professionals to support families at school and at home. We have attached a flyer for the first session for this year, which will be a face-to-face session in our new staffroom. We will also be conducting a walkthrough of our new Outdoor Learning Space area.

School Council- Elections held in March

We are actively seeking new members for our School Council. The School Council is a great opportunity to be involved in the governance, policy making and decision making of the school.

Our School Council is comprised of 6 members – 2 staff, 3 parents and 1 Community members. We generally meet twice per term for about an hour and a half. In the next week, forms will be available at the office for nominations.

If you are interested, please feel free to give me a call for more information.

School councils play a key role in Victorian government schools. The school council supports the principal to provide the best possible educational outcomes for students, and have three main responsibilities:

Finance overseeing the development of the school’s annual budget and ensuring proper records are kept of the school’s financial operation.

Strategic Planning participating in the development and monitoring of the school strategic plan.

Policy Development and Review and developing, reviewing and updating policies that reflect school values and support the school’s broad direction outlined in its strategic plan.

Other key functions of school councils include:

raising funds for school-related purposes
maintaining school grounds and facilities
entering into contracts
reporting annually to the school community and the Department
representing and taking the views of the community into account

Mobile phone policy

Just a reminder of the Department of Education Victoria’s Mobile Phones at school policy. This policy states all phones will always be locked away and not able to be accessed during lunch or break times. We have made exemptions for students involved in Community access or travel training programs.

Bluetooth speakers are not permitted at school, if brought to school they will also need to be locked away. If students have personal devices like watches and tablets, these need to have the data switched off and the school does not take any responsibility for them.

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 https://meltonss.vic.edu.au/our-school/#policies For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages:

* Amharic

* Arabic

* Dari

* Gujarati

* Mandarin

* Somali

* Sudanese

* Turkish

* Urdu

* Vietnamese.

Once again, I welcome you all to the new school year and look forward to the exciting things that we will accomplish together.

Melton Specialist School

Be Responsible Be Safe Be Respectful

Edition 1 · 09 Feb 2024

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