Good Afternoon Parents Students, Staff and Friends of Derinya,

We have had the most wonderful start to 2025. The school was absolutely buzzing as the children returned, reuniting with friends and sharing stories from the summer holidays. I would like to offer a very warm welcome to our 97 foundation students who commenced school today with confidence and enthusiasm. Welcome also to the 24 students who also started at Derinya across the rest of the school.

SunSmart

As you will know, there are strong guidelines and directives from the Department of Education around sun protection. More importantly to keep children safe and well whilst outdoors, wearing a hat is essential. Please ensure your child has a school hat and leaves this at school daily. If your child has lost their hat, please purchase a new one from our uniform provider Primary School Wear in Mornington. Teachers will be checking all children are wearing a hat at all transitions.

Community Connect

The Community Connect team will be meeting next Wednesday 5th February at 9am in the staff room. We would love to welcome new members to the team. Please feel free to come along if you are interested. This is a great group of volunteers who coordinate and help with all of our fundraising and social events. Any time or support you can give is appreciated. We look forward to welcoming some new faces for 2025.

Communication

A reminder that if you are needing to get a message to your child throughout the school day to please call the office directly and they will pass on a message. Please do not email or call teachers directly for a message of this type. It may not be acknowledged in time as teachers will be teaching throughout the day. Your cooperation with this is appreciated.

You will have recently received a request to fill in a form with information about your child. Filling this in prior to our Connecting Your Class sessions next week is appreciated.

Connecting your class and sausage sizzle

Next week we will be welcoming parents and carers into classrooms to connect with their teacher and other families. Sessions will be held as follows:

Years 3&6 – Tuesday 4th Feb 5:00-5:45

Year 5 – Tuesday 4th Feb 6:00-6:45pm

Years 1 & 2 Wednesday 5th Feb 5:00pm-5:45pm

Year 4 Wednesday 5th Feb 6:00-6:45pm

For year 4 families we will also be holding an information session around our Chromebook program at 5:00pm on Wednesday 5th February in the Staff Room. It is essential that each family is represented as we will be sharing important information around Chromebook use and online safety. For those families with a clash with the year 1 & 2 session, we will re run the presentation online in week 3. Please stand by for further details.

A sausage sizzle will also be provided between 4:30 and 6:30pm giving families an opportunity to chat to each other or touch base with our specialist and administration teams. Please note that students are not required on these afternoons. If you do need to bring them along, they are welcome but will need to be supervised.

School council election

Each year the school embarks upon the process of establishing a core group of parents and department representatives to form our School Council. This formal process commences today with a ‘Call for Nominations’. School Councils directly influence the quality of education that the school provides for its students. Parents viewpoints and valuable skills can help shape the direction of the school maintaining high performance, success, safety and most importantly a positive culture. Please find attached information about being a school council member, the election process and the Call for Nominations.

We are looking forward to an incredible year ahead, full of great learning and wonderful experiences.

Kind Regards,

Nadine Pye on behalf of the Derinya team.