Welcome back everyone.

I hope you all enjoyed some quality family time together to enjoy life’s simple pleasures and the students are ready to dive into what we all hope will be an uninterrupted term of learning.

During the holidays a number of projects were occurring:

BUILDING UPDATE

Each year we ask parents to make a voluntary contribution to the Building Maintenance Fund which helps the school plan for, and carry out, a range of building and maintenance jobs. Using these funds, a number of jobs were undertaken during the holidays.

Junior Playground – drainage installed to carry away excess rain water in the junior playground area and installation of more soft fall.
A concrete slab was installed in readiness for the bike shed
A concrete slab was installed in readiness for the outdoor BBQ area (near the decking in the SAKG)
Painting of the downstairs and upstairs foyer areas in the southern and northern ends of the school
Resurfacing of the gym floor (being done this Friday)
Asphalt at the front of the school re-done to ensure an even surface

Term 3 projects include:

Shade sails replaced over the sandpits
New shade structure installed over the new playground
New bike shed constructed
Outdoor kitchen area to be completed with new pizza oven
Gymnasium floor to be sanded and resurfaced
Open learning spaces (outside prep rooms, the year 5/6 rooms and admin foyer) to be furnished as student working spaces.

GOVERNMENT FUNDED BUILDING WORKS

The school was provided with 1.1 million dollars to repair damage caused by the moisture in the soil, which resulted in the footings sinking.

Over the past 12 months, the building has now been underpinned, stormwater systems all reviewed repaired or replaced) and foundations strengthened.

Cracks in the walls have now been stitched, walls rendered and painted, and rotten windows replaced. The attic rooms in the north and south towers which were previously unusable have now been completely repaired (rendered, painted, carpeted, windows). The Japanese room has been widened and completely renovated with a new bathroom installed and finally Room 9 (prep) and room 20 (year 6) have been rendered, painted, windows repaired and new carpet laid.

We hope that you are able to book a tour on the school’s ‘Open Day’ to see how wonderful the school is now looking (booking details on school website).

SCHOOL INTERIOR DESIGN TEAM

Our school has a team of Year 5 and 6 students who will be working with interior design students from Holmesglen TAFE to design the outdoor kitchen area and the open area learning spaces in the northern and southern towers. The large group of students have broken up into smaller teams and this week, each team will be given their design budget. Students have already discussed ideas for:

Communication and social areas
Technology hubs
Creative thinking spaces
Relaxation and play

These open area spaces won’t be completed by the school Open Day, but the student design plans and ideas boards will be on display.

WORKING BEE

We are holding a working bee this Saturday from 9:30am to 12:30pm.

We urge families from Years 3 to 6 to attend even if it’s for an hour to lend a hand. Don’t worry if your child is in Prep to Year 2 as your working bee will be held later in the year.

Saturday’s working bee will include a range of maintenance tasks such as:

Raking and weeding garden beds
Preparing the butterfly garden habitat area
Sweeping
Cleaning out the Tech Shed and installing new shelving
painting
sanding and painting the SAKG deck area

As you can see, there is a lot to be done and many hands make light work. With a wonderful morning team being served, you won’t want to miss helping out.

In the event of rain, a newsfeed will be sent to postpone the working bee to Saturday 31st July.

OPEN DAY- Saturday 14 August (11:00am – 1:00pm)

We are holding an Open Day to enable our current families to come and see the newly refurbished areas around the school and to show prospective new families what a top class school we have.

Due to restrictions, bookings to tour the school can be made through ‘Try Booking’ on our school website. https://murrumbeenaps.vic.edu.au/enrolments/#tour

NEW ENROLMENTS

If you have a child commencing prep in 2022, or know of someone who hasn’t yet enrolled their child, please do so as soon as possible. We are fortunate to have a lot of interest in our school but we need to ensure we are reserving enough places for our current families.

SCHOOL CONCERT

We will be dancing and singing our way through Term 3 as we prepare for the annual school concert. This year it will be held on Thursday 9 September at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda.

INTERSCHOOL SNOW SPORT CHAMPIONSHIP

The Interschool Snowsport Championships provides an opportunity for Australian school students of all ages to experience competitive snowsports and to participate at either a recreational or competitive level.

Competitors from all ability levels are encouraged to enter, with an emphasis on fun and participation.

Event disciplines are Alpine, Ski Cross, Moguls, Snowboard GS, Snowboard Cross, Cross Country, and Ski and Snowboard Slopestyle. Students compete in divisions based on their year at school.

Parents are responsible for the care of their own child during the competition.

It is $62 per event entry. Lift tickets for participants are $50 per day. Event entries close on August 9. The primary school competition runs over Monday 23 August – Wednesday 25 August.

If you have any questions or are interested in entering your child into the competition, please notify the office and the team co-ordinator, Lisa Rogers, will get in touch.

https://www.interschools.com.au/info-hub/about-interschools/

PROMOTING ACTIVE KIDS

Miss Seares was successful in obtaining a grant from the ‘Active Schools’ program with the Glen Eira Council. We have used this grant to purchase ‘Tag On’.

What Does ‘Tag On’ do?

When students arrive at school, they use their coloured fob to swipe the machine and press the method by which they came to school (walk, scoot/ ride, see image below)

Students are encouraged to walk, ride or scoot to school and it also acknowledges those who caught public transport or came by car. Each day the child earns a house point for checking in and an extra house point if they arrived by an active method (eg. walk/ ride), hence encouraging active travel.

If parents choose, they can receive an automatic email which lets the parents know their child arrived at school and states the time the child checked in and by which transport method.

Parents can also choose to receive a daily, weekly or monthly report which indicates the child’s activity progress.

House Captains are being trained in how the system works, so that they can encourage participation from members of their House.

We are hoping to have this up and running next week. We will provide further information to families via a compass newsfeed and a consent form.

Why we want to increase active travel.

Keeps us healthy
Fewer cars means less traffic and parking congestion on the roads around our school
Good for the environment
Allows us to be independent, socialise with friends
Develops our knowledge of road safety and our local neighbourhood

Chellee Plumb

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