Aaron Cox

Principal

Dear parents and carers,

I would like to say thank you to the whole school community for supporting the school through a most difficult term. There were occasions over the past 10 weeks when we were on our knees and requests were sent out to support our crippled office. Everyone responded accordingly and our skeleton staff were able to keep basic functions going. From everyone in the administration team, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Building Update

The Victorian Schools Building Authority (VSBA) will shortly be in contact with the school community to promote their building project at Kingswood Primary School. As they are the clients, I will allow them to promote their own project.

From our perspective, School Council has, for safety reasons, voted to restrict access to all of the oval and the Year 2/3 playground from the beginning of Term 4. By doing this now we hope to regain access to these important resources earlier. We are currently devising new timetables for Prep to Year 3 and Year 4 to Year 6 for the remainder of the year and beyond as we will need to have two separate break times throughout the day to accommodate safe play times. Our commencement time and end of day times will remain the same.

Entry to the school moving forward along Plaza Crescent will be only via the main gate and the junior gate near the sandpit. All gates near the oval will remain closed indefinitely during construction. Lord Ave will function as normal.

Colour Fun Run

Our main school activity this year will be the Colour Fun Run. In other years we have had school fetes or other community activities. Funds raised from this event will go towards purchasing, training and maintaining a therapy dog associated with the school. We anticipate over time Kingswood might need upwards of three dogs when our current student population is taken into consideration. Each dog initially costs approximately $20,000 to have them reach the standard to be a certified as a therapy dog.

This year the kids will have a ball running around getting blasted with all the colours of the rainbow. I was even offered up to be slimed if we pass the $30,000 mark. This is an amazing cause that will support and benefit our children right across the school. We hope you choose to get involved in this very worthy cause.

Please refer to this video from Kara, our therapy dog handler, and our new staff member “Leo”.

Parking and traffic movements before and after school

During Term 4 and into next year there is going to be significant disruption to the front of the school with numerous construction trucks and tradie vehicles being consistently present between 7.30am-5pm Monday to Friday. I would strongly recommend families investigate alternative drop off and pick up arrangements to reduce wasted time and unwarranted stress. There are crossing guards to support families on Plaza Cres, Timms Cres and Howard Rd. This might be a wise time to either meet your children on other local roads like Howard Rd or you will need to park further away and walk. Ignoring the obvious health benefits of such actions, traffic in front of the school will be nothing less than horrendous. Making plans now to avoid this unnecessary bottle neck are highly recommended.

Nevon Year 6 Athlete News

Nevon has been selected to School Sports Victoria (SSV) 12 & Under AFL team and the 12 & Under Cricket team to play for Victoria representing Kingswood Primary School.

There have been only a handful of students that have ever achieved playing for 2 team sports. The last person to achieve this was Jason Daniels (AFL & Basketball in 2015) and has been selected to play for the NBA.

Nevon played for Victoria at the AFL National Carnival in Adelaide and won the bronze medal. He will also be going to the Cricket Carnival to be held in Shepparton this November.

Nevon also made it to the last 40 player squad for the SSV Basketball selections as well.

And to top-up a great year, Nevon has been offered a scholarship by Trinity Grammar school in Kew for the year 7 entry in 2023.

Congratulations Nevon. You have done yourself, your family and Kingswood proud.

School Events Term 4

All parents will notice a reduction in the number of night time events we hold for children. Simply, the latest Enterprise Bargaining Agreement makes it almost impossible for us to hold events outside the 38 hour work week for staff. Whilst we continue to work our way through this very complex mess, we just can’t be unnecessarily creating staffing bills that will negatively impact on our ability to deliver programs for now and into the future. We believe the most important programs for our students outside of the school day are camps and our priority is going to the continuation of our camping program. Moving forward, events like graduation, carols, art shows, performances, parent meetings all need to finish before 4.45pm. This new approach to events will be consistent with other local schools.

Stir Crazy Kids