Out and about with Mr Walsh

Welcome Back Surfside 

It has been a pleasure to welcome back our school community for the start of the 2024 school year. We hope that our families have managed to have a restful holiday break and spend some quality time together with family and friends. It has been pleasing to see our students settle in well and participating in our STARTING RIGHT program which is supported by our Teaching & Learning Program, School Values, Berry Street Program, Respectful Relationships, Zones of Regulation and Social and Emotional Learning. It has been fantastic to see students working towards, discussing and exhibiting our school values of Respect, Honesty, Teamwork and Achievement.

We would like to send a warm welcome to our new Foundation students and families and it has been amazing to see them settle so well into their class and school based routines. 

We would also like to welcome our new families to the Surfside community and we hope that you have all settled in well.

We would like to welcome a few new staff members to the Surfside team. We would like to welcome Jack Havis, Harriette O'Keefe and Ash Coghlan as part of our Education Support team. They have settled in nicely and the kids have made them feel very welcome.

We have some exciting news to share with our communty following the summer break. Mrs Diana Wright and Mrs Kayla Betts were very pleased to announce on day 1 that they will both be expecting a child in term 2. This is great news and we wish them all the best.

We look forward to formally welcoming our students (especially our Foundation students) as a school community at our assembly next Friday. Below are some snaps from week 1. 

What can our newsletter provide you with?

We value parent/carer engagement at Surfside and compass and our newsletter are great communication tools to know what is happening at Surfside. Please engage with these avenues and we continue to work towards making these user friendly and easily accessible for you.

COMPASS - compass will be used for events, payments, reports, daily communication from teachersor school, etc. If you need any assistance regarding logging on, passwords or technical support please come up the office and we can support you. The following presentation is what we use for our new prep families and might help you out as well.

NEWSLETTER - Our newsletter is a fortnightly electronic publication that is released on a Friday during weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and the end of each term. We have areas that are continued to help regarding logistics, dates, celebrations, etc. The following pages will help support your time here at Surfside:

• Dates for your diary - here you can access our term and yearly calendar. Currently we have all of our known major events and milestones up for 2024 but check in on this calendar regularly. These dates are also available on your calendar in Compass.
• Administration News - logistics around school supports such as CSEF, Working with Children Checks, Student Absences, Parent Payment arrangements, school uniform, etc
• Out and About with Mr Walsh - an overview of the fortnight at Surfside, celebration news, school based updates, etc
• Teaching & Learning Page - This is a new addition for 2024 that will highlight work that is happening in the classrooms, methods of teaching, literacy and numeracy supports, etc. This will include videos, pictures, links, etc.
• Wellbeing Page - This will include really valuable supports, strategies, links to a range of different supports, etc. It also explains work that is happening in the classrooms around our mental health and wellbeing strategies.
• What is Happening in our Classrooms - This page includes our fortnightly learning statements and outlines what our students are learning in each year level. This is a great conversation starter for your child about what they have been up to.
• Student Achievements - This will include our fortnightly award winners and a group photo following our assembly.
• Kitchen and Garden and Sustainability News - This helps to support our kitchen and garden program and includes what is happening, recipes, volunteer rosters, etc. A great place to visit if you are looking for a meal for the weekend - they are AMAZING!
• Camp Australia - This page outlines a fortnightly newsletter from our Camp Australia crew as well as links for bookings or holiday programs.
• Canteen - Here you can find the menu for the term, onlide ordering links and volunteer supports
• Sick Bay & 1st Aid News - medications, asthma, alergies and policies can all be found here
• Local Community News - music lessons, sporting organisations, art classes or anything that is going on around the Bellarine or Geelong will be available here.
• School Policies - As updated school policies can be found here and on our school website
• School Sponsors - it would be great if you could support our school sponsors who support our kids and school community. If you would like to have your business here please come in and see our admin team at the office.

Our newsletter showcases how busy a week is at Surfside so keep in touch and check in regularly!

Student Attendance

Regular attendance at school is very important for your child's learning and social development. Very good attendance for a child is 95% and above.

It is important that children are at school as much as possible to ensure the BEST opportunity for learning growth. Following the last few years we need to utilise every available minute to ensure student growth academically, socially and emotionally, in and out of the classroom. 

If early collection for a shopping trip or to beat the traffic happens on a regular basis this can take away from valuable learning time throughout their schooling life. Please take the time to read the graphic below and to understand the long term affect this can have on student development. We understand that students are impacted by illness, injury or other ailments. If your child is going to be absent you are required by legislation to notify the school by:

• Logging onto Compass  and
• Enter the absence for full days only 
• If your child/children arrive late or are being collected early, the office staff will enter this onto Compass for you.

Student Leadership Team 2024

We look forward to presenting our student leaders with their badges at our assembly next Friday and more importantly we are excited to be working with a fantastic group of role models throughout 2024. You will hear more from our student leaders at different stages throughout the year but well done to all of the below students:

School Council 2024

Our first school council meeting  for 2023 will take place on Tuesday 20th February. This will be our final full meeting with our current school council. We look forward to welcoming our new school council following our upcoming Annual General Meeting and returning members for 2024. Nominations will be communicated in the coming weeks and elections will take place if required.