Principal's Report

By Frank Catalano

Dear Members of the Glen Waverley Primary School Community,

I trust all is well with you and your family and welcome to this fortnight’s newsletter where so much is shared about our fabulous school.

As per usual, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me on 9802 9938 or via email at frank.catalano@education.vic.gov.au.

Education Week

As everyone would be aware, this week our school community is celebrating Education Week where the children have been privy to several different learning tasks and experiences. Some of the highlights for me were:

The children teaching one another and sharing the games they created as part of their home learning and
Dr Gihan Jayaweera’s presentation at Monday’s assembly. Gihan is an ex-student and he spoke about the link between memory, learning and happiness. He mentioned that the key to happiness are:

Exercising regularly
Eating well
Sleep – getting enough sleep
Nature – getting out into nature and
Relationships – having great relationships.

Dr Gihan also wrote the following post in LinkedIn which outlines the impact he has on the children:

A phone call from my nephew last night made my day.

"Hi Mama (Uncle), I still remember what you taught today."

"Pop quiz. What are 5 things that are guaranteed to make you happy?"

"The bright pink shoes on my right hand represents EXERCISE. The 10kg apple on my right elbow represents EATING WELL. The king size bed on my head represents SLEEPING WELL. The enormous tree growing out of my left elbow represents getting out in NATURE. The image of me hugging my mum on my left hand represents investing in GREAT RELATIONSHIPS."

Yesterday, as I have done for quite a few years, I spoke to nearly 1000 children at Glen Waverley Primary Schoolabout health and happiness. We covered the "5 things that are guaranteed to make you happy" and how to tap into "unlimited memory" by using things like memory palaces and our imagination. It was a hit!

It always blows me away how incredible these children are. They are kind, enthusiastic and extremely COOL. They can sing, dance, play electric guitar and lead.

When I grow up, I want to be like them. Thanks to Frank Catalano for our ongoing collaboration and friendship.

Thank you to the families who were able to attend our Education Week Opening Morning earlier today. It was fabulous to see so many mums, dads and grandparents in our school as the children showcased and engaged their families in their Inquiry learning (hands-on learning and student voice) and participated in active brain breaks together.

The feedback was extremely positive and exemplified a deep knowledge of what our school stands for. Below are some photographs for your enjoyment!

I encourage you to read Mrs. Garzberg-Grant’s piece (in this newsletter) where she provides a detailed overview.

Chess Team

Our school chess teams continue to do an amazing job representing our school, their family and themselves. Last week the Girls team participated in a tournament and once again placed in the top three as per the following report which was written by Amaya, Saheli and Shayana (Year 2):

Last Thursday our school came second in a chess tournament. Our school scored 25 points, half a point away from PLC. We would like to thank our coach, our parents and Mr Catalano for supporting us. We played at PLC and there were about 7 other schools playing as well. We feel really proud, learnt a lot and next time we will try to come 1st.

The team consisted of:

Year 6: Vidushi
Year 5: Thenugi
Year 4: Yehara and Swara
Year 3: Amaya, Saheli, Lesara and Shayana
Year 1: Reyashi

Well done, thank you and congratulations children! We are all very proud of you and can’t wait to see how you go at the next tournament.

Student Led Conferences and Reports

As we head towards the last few weeks of a very short Term Two, please ensure you keep an eye on Compass as information pertaining to the children’s Student Led Conferences will be provided. The conferences are a fabulous opportunity for the children to share what they have learnt, how they learnt it and just as importantly, how they plan to transfer their learning.

Please be aware that the semester one reports will be distributed on Friday 23rd June.

Music Day

Congratulations and well done to Deneth, Mica, Shaun and Vinu, our 2023 Music Captains, for the way they led and implemented our very successful Music Day recently. Below is a report written by the children for your enjoyment.

On the 23rd of May, the music captains and Miss Cecconello organised a fundraiser called: Music Day. We organised Music Day in order to raise funds for a new drum kit for our school and so we can also have some fun dressing up. We are very glad to announce that we have raised a whopping amount of approximately $600!

We were amazed by the effort our students had put into their costumes which looked fabulous and creative. The students who donated a gold coin received a chance to obtain great prizes by going into the raffle draw.

We thank the students and their families for contributing to this fund. Mr Catalano has kindly offered to donate the rest of the money for the drum kit. We would also like to congratulate the 3 lucky winners of the raffle ticket draw:

In third place was Max from 1C

Second place Meenu from 4A and

In first place we have Japnoor from 2B. Congratulations!

Overall, we would once again like to thank the students and their families for contributing to this fun day and for supporting our school!

Kind regards your music captains and the music teacher,

Deneth, Mica, Shaun, Vinu and Miss Cecconello

Congratulations to the following children for their achievements outside of school

Swara P (Year 4) participates in Ikebana which is the Japanese style of floral arrangement. She has been learning this art form for approximately 12 months and recently Swara participated in the Ikebana exhibition at the Box Hill Town Hall.

5 different schools of Ikebana participated and Swara represented the Sogetsu school.

Included are some photos of Swanya’s display – well done and congratulations Swanya as it is fantastic to see you participate in the creative arts. Keep it up and we look forward to seeing further creations in the future.

Kivain (Year 2) and Tevin (Year 3) created a documentary about their visit to Sri Lanka. The children have done an amazing job representing and describing all there is to know about Sri Lanka. I trust you enjoy viewing the documentary as much as I did!

Beautiful Sri Lanka By Tevin and Kivain

Well done and congratulations Kivain and Tevin as your documentary is outstanding!

Another exciting project for our school – remodelling and renaming the Sick Bay!

Recently Helen Hassiotis approached me with the idea of remodelling and renaming the Sick Bay. I then asked Siyona, Anika, Aishani and Siana (Year 5) if they would like to lead this process in conjunction with Nurse Emma, Helen and myself. The children were thrilled and commenced asking the children and staff for their ideas in terms of a theme and names.

Five themes and three names were shortlisted with the following results:

Themes:

Camping – 88
All around the world – also with 88 votes
Jungle – 195
Disney – 262 and
Music – 92.

A new name:

The Health Hub
The Wellbeing Centre and
The Wellness Centre.

In terms of the new name, we took a different approach and voted at Monday’s assembly. I am thrilled to report that the vast majority of the children chose, The Health Hub!

Well done everyone and I look forward to sharing progress reports as soon as possible!

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FOLLOWING STUDENTS WHO RECEIVED A PRINCIPAL’S AWARD RECENTLY:

Arjun, Samuel and Hansen for learning lots about Area in Maths
Pavika for writing a terrific mind map about how dangerous toxins can be

Dhrisha, Divanshi, Shanaya, Gowri, Navesha and Teju for making a text to self connection once reading the text “Destructasaurus”

Dhrisha, Shanaya and Hasiru for working so hard to improve their persuasive writing skills

Sakthi, Saakhi, Dehan, Javis and Sandi for being very proactive in gathering data for an information report about our school

Veer for placing 3rd in the Goju Karate competition where he competed against 15 opponents in the under 8-9 section

Ometh for writing an amazing report about Vesak as featured in the Kids Corner section of this newsletter

Akeesha, April and Eyren for creating a very informative poster about lip balms with a focus on those that do not contain harmful chemicals such as alcohol, menthol and phenol.

Meshavi for receiving a gold medal in karate

Allegra and Yehara for being wonderful friends

Deeya for writing a narrative which is featured in the kids Corner section of the newsletter

Aseli, Neha, Sanuri and Dinal for working exceptionally hard on their writing skills as featured in the kids Corner section of this newsletter

Vivaan for completing the Grade 4 AMEB classical guitar assessment - well done and keep it up Vivaan!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy fortnight,

Frank Catalano

Principal