Principal's Message
WORLD TEACHER'S DAY 2019 - THANK YOU
We were truly humbled by the lovely sentiments shared with staff last Tuesday for World Teacher’s Day. Children and families went out of their way to communicate their appreciation for all the things our staff do. Teachers and Education Support staff were supplied with the most amazing smorgasbord of delicious treats, the quality of which would honestly rival some of Melbourne’s top eateries!
So thank you so much to all the lovely parents and families who contributed to our beautiful feast – it made us feel so special and we are ever grateful for the support our families show us on a daily basis.
We would also like to acknowledge Alfred Calleja and Zoe Keystone for preparing lovely mementos from the children for each teacher and integration aide: a finger-printed tree for their teachers who ‘plant the seeds of knowledge that last a lifetime’.
Thank you all for making us feel like education rockstars for the day!
HALLOWEEN DISCO
All things 'scary', 'creepy', but 'fun' came to RPS last Friday to allow our junior school students to strut their spooky stuff at the Halloween Disco. We were so impressed by the creativity of our parents who transformed the Barrbunin into a dungeon of doom and darkness and assisted their children with some amazing costumes to totally get into the spirit of the occasion. Student ate lots of delicious goodies, played games, danced their little legs right until the end, competed in dance offs and much more. We thank our parent committee led by Tarryn Holland. This was a wonderful experience to remember for years to come.
STUDENT COUNCIL HALLOWEEN DRESS UP DAY
A friendly reminder from our Year 5 Student Council... Students, please don’t forget to dress up for our very own Halloween dress up day tomorrow 31st October. Students still need to bring their school hats, even if this is a dress up day. If your child brings any weapon like props for the parade, these will need to be collected after the parade by parents or left in the office to be collected at the end of the school day.
Our whole school parade will commence at 9:10 am on the basketball court. Parents are invited to come along and dress up as well.
We also hope that in the evening, you all have a great time trick or treating in your streets and demonstrate our school values with beautiful manners and some spooky humour within our local community.
FOUNDATION 2020 - STEPPING UP PROGRAM
We cannot believe that we have reached this time again, where we begin to welcome our 2020 families and their kinder children to RPS. On Thursday 31st October the very first Foundation – Stepping Up session begins at 2:00pm. We have 63 Foundation students enrolled. This is a very exciting time for our Foundation teachers – Ms Dominque Wimpole, Ms Lucy Clover and Ms Rebecca Skinner.
Kinder children will spend the afternoon with our teachers, whilst parents experience a series of workshops designed to help inform them about our programs, practices, community and prepare them for starting primary school education. Our program has received very positive feedback from our current Foundation families and we have considered their feedback when preparing for the current program.
RPS NEEDS YOUR VOICE
RPS’s Student Engagement and Wellbeing team has prepared a draft for consultation of the Student Engagement and Wellbeing policy. This policy is perhaps one of the most important documents for our school as it describes the expectations and aspirations of the school community in relation to student engagement and wellbeing. It also explains the school’s strategies for managing behaviour and attendance.
To gain a true representation from our community it is very important to us that before we present this policy for ratification at School Council, we ask for your input.
Please read the draft for consultation and consider the following:
- Is the draft policy an accurate reflection of the approaches taken at RPS?
- What aspects might be missing in the draft policy (and require adding)?
- Are there any elements of concern in the draft policy?
Please share your feedback with Jess by 15 November either in person, by phone or by emailing grey.jessica.j@edumail.vic.gov.au.
PARENT OPINION SURVEYS
At the end of last term we received results from ORIMA, the agency that collects survey data from our 2019 Parent Opinion Survey. It is very pleasing to see that many parents within our community are taking notice of the significant changes occurring at Ripponlea.
This includes how we work in partnership to support your child, your involvement in our community, our communication with you, the learning environment we are creating for your child, how we help them to develop life skills and how we are improving the quality of the education we are delivering to your child.
Our parent feedback helps us to evaluate the strategies and practices we have started to adopt, change or improve in the last few years. We randomly invited 80 parents to respond to the survey, receiving 48 responses in return and, based on our size and demographic, had to have 42 surveys completed. Below we have provided comparison charts from 2017-2019. We thank all parents who completed these surveys and hope that in 2020 more parents take the opportunity to respond. If you would like to comment and send further feedback about this survey and help us improve even further in 2020, please do not hesitate to email Natalie Rose on rose.natalie.m@edumail.vic.gov.au
SCHOOL COUNCIL UPDATE
At last night’s School Council meeting we all had the opportunity to discuss a number of important factors when planning for the 2020 school year. Firstly we were all pleased that our enrolments have steadily increased and it seems at this stage we have 313 students enrolled. This number might drop or might increase as we commence in January. We are increasing enrolments in the junior years, which highlighted that we need to increase an additional class in Year 1/2. This additional class will be created by moving one class upstairs to the mezzanine level and turning our empty orange room into a new classroom.
Indicative Class Numbers & Sizes
Parent Payments & Contributions
We discussed the department’s Parent Payment Policy and that family charges would need to increase in 2020 as advised last year. School Council is always mindful of not overcharging families but at the same time recognises that we have not increased our fees over a number of years and that the costs of providers, consumables and optional activities have all increased. The Consumer Price Index in Australia averaged 45.45 Index Points from 1950 until 2019, reaching an all-time high of 114.80 Index Points in the second quarter of 2019.
Our teachers are finding that booking excursions and incursions has proven difficult with increased associated costs and that $100 no longer covers a number of activities dependent on the year level and the number of students. Venues have raised entry fees and bus costs continue to increase. In 2020, our teachers are requesting an increase to the excursion/incursion levy as an optional education item. We are once again trying to save costs and bulk purchase all stationery requisites for our students. All curriculum related consumables help us continue to provide high quality teaching programs as well as the incredible specialist programs that we offer. Just this year alone, you have witnessed the calibre of our Performing Arts – Production, Visual Arts – Ripper Art, LOTE – Multilingualism, and Physical Education – unique programming for each year level.
COMPASS ATTENDENCE REMINDERS
We kindly remind all families to log all student absences with an explanation on the COMPASS communication portal before the school day commences. We are sending many alerts and trying to chase up regular absences. Please assist us with this information as this is a legal requirement being monitored by school authorities.
Please have a quick look at your child’s attendance data per term and compare with the following chart for yourself.
SUSTAINABILITY SUBCOMMITTEE
To quote Bob Dylan’s eternal wisdom, “The Times They Are A-Changin.”
As part of the School Council's core function, we recognise that the school values, vision and philosophy is ever evolving. It has therefore been agreed that a Sustainability subcommittee will be formed to support Ripponlea Primary's broad direction to become more environmentally aware, active and sustainable.
We are making a call out to parents and carers who want to help us champion this direction and start us on our journey to embed sustainability in everything our wonderful school does.
If you want to express interest in joining this subcommittee please contact Julie Pearce on juliepearcepitt@gmail.com
Until next fortnight ...
Natalie Rose Jess Grey
Principal Assistant Principal