Principal's Report

STUDENT FREE DAY ON TUESDAY 9th JUNE

A reminder that Tuesday 9th June is a student-free day. All staff will be involved in professional learning on that day.

Empowering the Leader Within

I am excited that our school is embarking on its Empowering the Leader Within project. I am looking forward to our Professional Learning Day on Tuesday. The entire staff of Gladesville, Pembroke and Kilsyth Primary Schools will be meeting here to undertake a workshop with Rod Dungan of Thriving Youth Australia. Rod will present a session looking at the types of "assets" resilient young people have and how we as a school can help them to develop these. We have already completed some work on this as a staff and have recognised that an effective way for us to help our students to build these assets is through "empowerment" and promoting the development of leadership skills. Rod will spend some of the day focussing on this and introduce staff to an approach known as The Leader in Me.

The Leader In Me is an approach based on the work Stephen Covey (Author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) and is specifically tailored for implementation in a primary school setting. Mrs Kate Thomson (our Student Wellbeing Officer) and I have already attended some sessions about The Leader in Me and see strong links between it and our Tribes approach. As a school we will continue to work with Rod over coming months as we explore the possibilities. We are looking forward to opportunities this will provide our students.

In conjunction with The Leader in Me, and our work with Thriving Youth Australia, we are also teaming up with the YMCA. The YMCA EXPAND team are working with our Senior students, helping them to build their social and leadership skills in readiness for a big project late in Term 3. This will involve our Senior students leading their Tribes in community based projects. All students in the school will be participating in these projects.

Exciting times ahead!!

Lunch Ordering

As I mentioned in the last newsletter, School Council has decided to cease using Miss Peppercorn as our lunch order provider at the end of this term. Based on the feedback we have received from parents, we have sought out a source of healthy, low cost lunches that will allow parents to order on the day, using a cash and envelope system, on Fridays.

I am pleased to announce that from the beginning of next term our orders will be provided by SubWay Kilsyth. For more information, please see the School Council page of the newsletter.

CSEF now available

Last week we sent a notice home announcing the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund, an initiative from the Department of Education to support eligible families in meeting the cost of participating in school events.

Available to families who hold a valid means-tested concession card, the allowance will be paid to the school to use towards expenses relating to camps, excursions, or sporting activities for the benefit of your child. The annual CSEF amount per student will be $125 for primary school students

You can read more information here:

csefflyer.pdf

A copy of the notice and application form that was sent home last week is available on the What's Happening @ KPS page of this newsletter

SchoolMate App

The Department of Education & Training, with the help of Victoria’s teaching associations, has created an app for parents to help them better understand the key components of the school curriculum.

SchoolMate aims to help parents become more involved in their children’s education and is available for free download now. Click here to watch an explanatory video, or read more here

Thumbs Up

to this year's SRC who have done a fantastic job in developing protocols for their meetings and setting up a great leadership structure.
to Allen Cook (Father of Kaden, Junior D) for repairing the fence near the cricket nets. We really appreciate your help Allen. What a champ!
to Sarah K and Rhiannon B for sharing a wonderful narrative with me about the adventures of a panda.
to Brodie D for taking on my challenge in his spelling task this week.
to all of our Middle School students who represented us so well during their excursion to Mont De Lancey last week. I received an email from the principal of a nearby school congratulating me on your terrific attitude. Well done everyone.
to our Junior students who shared with me just how much they learnt at the Museum on Wednesday. Sounds like it was a highly valuable learning experience.
to Kyla C, Alyssa H, Riley M, Jack C, Caleb G, Jasna K and Josh R who will be representing our school at District Cross Country on Tuesday. May the track be smooth and your feet be swift.
to Jodee C and Darren (mother and step-father of Mia C in Middle S) for their great work in creating a fun and colourful speed limit sign for our rear car park. It was installed at our recent working bee and we just love it. Such fantastic creativity Jodee, thank you!

to Sharon B (mother of Payton B in Junior B) and our Senior students for their efforts in rasing funds for Joshie's Heroes. Sharon co-ordinated a fundraising dinner recently and raised over $8500 for the family of a young person in our community to receive the therapy that he needs. Our Senior students decorated table cloths for the event. You can see more on their Facebook page