From the Principal's desk

Dear Monty South Community,       

Welcome back to the new school year to all our families and students and in particular a warm welcome to our new families and students who have joined us across the school. 

Firstly, a special welcome to our new Foundation (Prep) students and their families: 

Prep/Foundation – Maisy Borczuch, Pearl Burton, Sophie Deloffre-Amor, David Di Pasquale, Matejo Dunn Jerkovic, Celestine Iliff, Ella Lambert, Archie Lockett, Olivia Lozanovski, Levene Lyons, Max McLean, Zoe Price, Aidan Qin, Zander Rangasamy, Wilbur Renwick, Jaylon, Russell, Zachary Sharp, Brooklyn Smith,  Magdalen Stewart, Reef Wheatley, Harvey Zhou, Joshua Bell, Luke Brown, Marli Cantwell, Ryan Coulson, Sienna Crupi, Charlie Domingue, Sullivan Evans, Miles Francois, Franklin Gardam, Leo Grinter, Piper Jenkin, Macie Lamers-Janes, Evan Loboda, Jarvis Marke Meldrum, Jaks McNeill, Mason Rapp, Flynn Sullivan, Bonnie Tresider, Elka Wells, Lara Akhtarkhavari, Charlie Allen, Emma Boyarovsky, Alexander Bunic, Marlee Burnett, Benjamin Emerson, Soren Haagensen, Hugh Kamolins, Blair Lawry, Benji Lee, Harry Marks, Darcy Mitchener, Noah Mohr, Rayner Ogilvie, Margo Smith, Natalie Tran, Lachlan Watkins, Evangeline Weller, Zack Williams, Alice Ball, Dilhan Baskan, Lucas Curcio, Hazel Everett, James Holloway, Angus Howie, Xander Johns, Jessica Jubb, Dusty Lauber, Christina Nguyen, Ben Palma, Jude Poliness, Amelia Redrup, Sean Wang and Anthony Xiao

We have also welcomed 26 new students in Years 1-6. It has been a pleasure greeting all of our new additions to MSPS and I wish you many happy years ahead as part of our school community. 

Year 1 -  Vidit Kumar, Carter Robertson, Manny Watson, Edith Thomas and Ahvin Bahmani

Year 2 – Lily Redrup, Miranda Holloway, Jude McFarlane and Evelyn Marchioro

Year 3 – Elijah Wong, Frances Overend, Grace Overend, Finn Steven, Mae Donaldson, Isis Fallon, Tillanty Thomas, Aarshya Rahul and Irlene Kaur

Year 4 – Inigo Argonza, Kaedyn Robertson, Xander Fallon and Kyrillos Ywakem

Year 5 – Darcy Rooks, Zoe Katsaras, Eve Donaldson and Zander Lozanovski

The students have settled well into their new learning communities, their confidence, ability to build new friendships and develop a positive relationship with their peers and teachers is highly commended and particularly pleasing considering the disrupted school years in 2020 and 2021.  

Congratulations to the teaching staff, integration aides, cleaners and our magnificent administration team in preparing for the start of the new school year. It is clearly evident that their hard work has ensured a well prepared and calm environment – thankyou.

News from NT

The Tobias Family; Lily, Ebony and Angus have had an exciting start to their school year. Having gone on a road trip over the summer break, they have not been able to return home from outback South Australia due to excessive rains causing the roads to be blocked.  They are currently stuck in Oodnadatta where they have been enrolled in the local school until they can return home.  We wish them the best for their time there and hope they can return home soon. 

Monty South Achievers

Congratulations and a big shout out to Paddy Everett 4B for raising $500 for charity by cutting his hair and donating it to Sustainable Salons.  Paddy, like many of us had let his locks grow long last year and over the holidays decided to donate it for a great cause.  The donation also supports the Leukaemia Foundation’s World’s Greatest Shave campaign. Well done on such a terrific fundraising effort!

New Garden 

Our new garden is now complete and it has been a pleasure to watch the students exploring and playing there this week.  We are greatly appreciative of the team of volunteers who helped to water the garden over the holidays.  Thank so much to Ailie Connell, Elisha Whyley, Elishia Harding, Kadar Tanuwidiaia, Jenny Vergers, Katherine Hamilton, Kellie Watson, Leonie McDonald, Margot Smith, Maria Alba, Melody Zhao, Myfanwy Bostock, Sophie Guo and Steve Gartner.  Thanks to Extendahand Property Services for creating this playground for us. 

Important change to car parking 

Many of you may have noticed that the car park on Mitchell Ave (near Panorama Heights kinder) has had a change of traffic direction. It is a more logical traffic direction and the Council hopes this will help ease the traffic congestion at peak times and increase safety.  Please be careful parking here as some people are still unaware and may drive the wrong way. 

Banyule Council is currently working on Reichelt Ave to create indented parking and a foot path.  We expect this to be completed in a couple of weeks. When done, this area will look fantastic with the new garden and parking. 

Mural

Tara De Bondi has almost completed her mural in the undercroft. This six metre long mural incorporates designs from Indigenous artist Lisa Kennedy, who has kindly  given us permission to replicate her images within the artwork. The scene depicted represents Wurundjeri Country both past and present, and invites viewers to think about the future of this land we now share.  This artwork is formed out of thousands of pieces of coloured plastic rubbish.  Thank you Tara for creating this amazing artwork for us, it looks fantastic!

Tara is still seeking donations of clean brown hard plastic bottle tops, small toys/trickets etc. They can be left in the tub provided at the front of the office.

Data conferences 

Please be aware that we will have our first Data reporting conferences next week (Week 3) beginning Monday 14th February.  We are conducting our meetings via WebEx and these will go live for parents to book in this week.  If you have recently changed your email, please contact the school office to update your details.

Masks

Please ensure students come to school with a mask each day if they are required to wear one. We suggest that a spare mask be packed in school bags as we are getting many requests each day for replacement masks due to them breaking.  It is mandatory for students in years 3 -6 to wear a mask indoors and is highly recommended for students in the younger years. 

Privacy Collection Statement All government schools value the privacy of every person and adhere to this statement. 

As with every year, if you have any concerns or matters you wish to discuss please contact your child’s class teacher or Naomi Ivers and me.  We will be very happy to assist you all in 2022. 

Leanne Sheean 

Principal

Kitchen volunteers – Years 3-6

The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program relies on the generosity of parent volunteers. A message requesting parent volunteers has gone out via Compass to each year level. If you are interested in helping out in the kitchen of your child’s class, please contact Cathryn Hulme on 0419 322 782 or cathryn.hulme@education.vic.gov.au. You are also welcome to speak to your child’s class teacher.

Garden volunteers - Years 3-6

Please see this attachment from Jenny Farrelly, our garden specialist teacher about assisting in our school garden. 

Jenny.Farrelly@education.vic.gov.au

Library – Scholastic Book Club

One of the best gifts a parent can give a child is the love of reading. Each year at Montmorency South Primary School we participate in Scholastic Book Club. There are eight issues that Scholastic provide however we choose to run five issues over the year. We run issues 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8.

As a parent, you can go on the Scholastic website www.scholastic.com.au at any time and browse each issue when it’s available online. If we are not running that particular issue and you wish to buy, you can organise for your order to be delivered to your home. Scholastics charge a delivery fee of $5.00 to do this.

The attachment below includes all the information on Book Club and how to register for the LOOP payment platform that you will need to order books.  Ordering must be done online. No money will be accepted at the office. The books will take approximately two weeks to arrive at school after the closed due date. Each order helps earn free books for our school, however there is never any obligation to buy.

If you are buying books for a present, please email me on clare.iob@education.vic.gov.au if you would like me to hold them temporarily in my office for you. If I am not advised, the books will go straight to your child’s classroom. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to email me on the above address.

Reading is awesome!

Clare Bear

Parents & Friends Annual General Meeting & Invitation to join

The Parents & Friends (P&F) Committee is an essential part of Montmorency South Primary School and is primarily responsible for fundraising to better improve the facilities at school for our children.  Being a part of the P&F Committee is fun, social and rewarding. ALL parents are welcome whether you have been at MSPS for a few years or are new to the school in 2022. 

Your involvement is warmly welcome and based on the level of involvement that suits you. Feel free to join our monthly meeting - the more people who attend the meetings the better the forum for discussion of fundraising ideas. 

AGM - Wednesday 23rd of February 2022 at 7.30pm

Please find information on our AGM in the attachment below. This includes more information on our work. 

Please check on Compass for more info regarding events and also updates via the Montmorency South Primary School Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/montysouthps/  or the P&F Page https://www.facebook.com/MSPSParentsandFriends 

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Montmorency South Primary School acknowledges traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to elders both past, present and future.

‘Montmorency South is an inclusive learning community where students are inspired to be respectful, creative, curious and independent learners.’ 

Our Belief: 

We believe that every person in our Montmorency South school community has the capacity to assist each student in attaining our vision. 

Motto - Together we learn, lead and achieve