Principals notes 

Dear families and friends, 

We are now heading towards the end of the term and it’s wonderful to reflect on how well things are going. Our students are showing great effort and enthusiasm in their learning. Our staff continue to provide engaging and supportive classrooms. The strong partnership with families and our wider community makes a real difference, and together we’re creating a positive environment for everyone. Thank you for your ongoing support – we look forward to a strong finish to the term. 

Each month, our School Council meet to go over all details of school management, school improvement and maintenance. At our August meeting, the council approved the following polices - First Aid, Health Care Policy, Duty of Care and Code of conduct.  All school polices are available on our website or by contacting the office for a hard copy.

https://merinocs.vic.edu.au/reports/

I advised the council that I had applied for and received a $5000 grant to help maintain our playground equipment, this allowed us to purchase a new slide and repair some parts that needed fixing that was identified by our annual playground inspection.  

I have also attended a Glenelg Principals Meeting in Heywood and the Wimmera-South West Zone Forum for principals in Dunkeld. These meetings focus on updates from the department and professional learning. Our big focus this year has been the implementation of the Disability and Inclusion profiles and the Victorian Teaching and Learning Models. These two new initiates by the department require extensive professional learning by the staff. 

Horsham Professional Learning Day 

The teachers focus this term is explicit teaching and the Victorian Teaching Learning Model 2.0.  The staff travelled to Horsham on August 11th to attend a day learning about responsive teaching, which is how teachers explaining new concepts and demonstrating how to apply them. This also involves checking for understanding throughout the lesson, using techniques such as quick questions, 'think-pair-share' or exit tickets and responding to student needs based on the assessment data. This might also involve reteaching, provide differentiated support or moving on to more challenging material. 

Child Safe Review 

On Tuesday the 7th October, our school will have its Child Safe review with an auditor/senior advisor from the School Compliance Unit from Melbourne. Our advisor will be visiting the school for the morning.  As we are a child-safe organisation this requires ongoing effort and assessing that we meet the standards required to be a registered school. This four yearly review allows us to review policies, procedures and practices to put child safety and wellbeing at the centre of the school’s activities. In this review, the senior advisor will check our procedures and practices:

• makes sure they are adequate, up-to-date and effective, fully implemented and followed by everyone
• helps schools maintain the best approach to child safety and wellbeing and minimise the risk of harm

Fantastic Fridays 

Fridays are always the highlight of the week with so much amazing learning happening! Our afternoons art lessons this term with Miss Bailey have a textile and sewing focus. The students are learning to thread a needle, tie a knot, use a simple running stitch, cutting, choosing colours, planning or using a template to follow, making simple clothes for a doll using different techniques etc. 

Knitting with the Digby and Merino ladies is busy creating different woollen projects with pompoms and knitting on the go. I try to even sneak out my crochet projects at times.

Ms Brown has been working with the students on our mural for the Merino Progress Association – it is nearing completion and it is stunning! We are so proud and we cannot wait to have its official unveiling! We are just waiting for some warmer weather to finish the top coats to make it weatherproof. 

We have also planted more vegetables in our garden, ready for a spring harvest. There has been a big load of new soil delivered and the vegetable beds look better already. Glenda and our students have made a frame put in the garden for peas to grow up on and ensuring each plant was planted at the required distance. When the plants have settled into soil they will be loosely tied up onto the frame. Ms Brown always tries to use as much produce as we can in our cooking. The big focus this term has been on using knives safely and increasing our vegetable intake! 

Kind regards,

Lisa Ferrier