Principal's Report

Welcome back for Term 2!

I hope that over the Easter /ANZAC Day long weekends and holidays, you all enjoyed some quality family time and perhaps a little chocolate as well. This term whilst short in length (nine weeks) brings with it no shortage of events to ensure it flies by. We have two camps, NAPLAN Assessments, Education Week (22-29th May), Inter-School Sport weekly, Semester One Reports and much more. 

We start the term with our annual Wonderful Women’s Day celebration on Friday morning for Foundation – Grade 2 families with a concurrent Mother’s Day Stall hosted by our magnificent Parents’ Association. I’m thrilled that after a year or so of not having parents in classes, this will be a wonderful experience with which to welcome you back and celebrate your contribution to your children’s development and growth. 

With so much on (as evidenced by the number of items in this edition), I strongly encourage you to continue to engage with our newsletter, which pleasingly since its refresh has had over 700 readers fortnightly. We are also updating the Compass calendar to ensure it reflects current events and activities. Alongside notifications on Compass, these form an integral communication tool with which almost all questions can be referred back to. 

COVID-Related Information

REMOTE LEARNING

With isolation requirements changing for household close contacts, we have subsequently made some adjustments to the Remote Learning program going forward. For students who are COVID-positive, a week’s worth of tasks will continue to be posted on Compass for them to access should they be well enough to engage; there is no expectation that students do this if not feeling well. The morning Circle Time sessions will not continue. 

HEPAs

Throughout the holidays we took delivery of 23 more HEPA filters for placement around our school. We now have at least one of these filters in every learning space in the school. This includes specialists, tutor learning rooms and shared spaces such as the hall. These added layers of protection all contribute to us staying healthy and staying open!

Additional Curriculum Day

For Term 2, 2022, the Department of Education and Training is requiring schools to hold a ‘coordinated Professional Practise Day’ as our new EBA gradually comes into effect. This is essentially a curriculum day for all intents and purposes and will be held on Friday 10th June. This date has been selected by many schools in our area as it is adjacent to the Queen’s Birthday Holiday and whilst it is not the sort of notice we would like to provide for these sorts of days, hopefully, it provides some families with the opportunity to extend a weekend away. Team Kids will be providing a Holiday Program style day for families who still wish to send your child to school, which can be booked in the same way that before and after care are. 

CELEBRATIONS

GOLDSTEIN MEDAL 

Congratulations to Alex White who was awarded the Goldstein medal for 2022. Freedom, Service and Respect are the attributes that must be demonstrated for students to be considered for this medal, as are our school norms of Collaboration, Aspiration, Integrity and Resilience. Alex has demonstrated these throughout his primary schooling both within and outside of the classroom and we congratulate him on receiving this award as an acknowledgement of this.

ANZAC SERVICE & GOLDSTEIN POETRY WINNERS

On Tuesday 26th of April our Grade 6 students and Hampton Harmonies attended an ANZAC Day Service at the Hampton RSL. Our students performed and participated in the service, representing our school brilliantly. 

Jenson G and Izzy B in Grade 6 were also both shortlisted for the Goldstein ANZAC Poetry Competition. Their poems were shared at a service hosted by Tim Wilson MP and they are to be congratulated on the powerful messages they conveyed in such a creative way through their poems. 

CROSS COUNTRY

Congratulations to all of our Grade 3-6 students who participated in our House Cross Country on Friday. Students showed great resilience throughout, particularly on the final hill of the course. To each of our students heading off to represent the school at the District Championships this week, we wish you well and know that you will do us proud.  Thank you to Nick for his organisation of this event, and to all the teachers and parents who were present and helped or simply cheered loudly on the day. 

NAPLAN

NAPLAN (National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy) begins next week on the 10th of May. Our Grade 3 and 5 students will be participating in these assessments each morning throughout the week and we ask all parents and visitors to please avoid entering these areas at all during the week. We wish them all the best for their assessments and are confident that their results will evidence the wonderful teaching and learning that has occurred thus far in their primary schooling. 

Lost Property

Our new Lost Property process is now fully operational with all items being placed in locked ‘named’ or ‘unnamed’ bins. There is no opportunity for parents or students to sift through these to locate lost items. Weekly the named items will be distributed back to students. The unnamed will be donated to the Second Hand Uniform Shop. Currently, the re-distribution of items is being supported by staff and students, if would like to help out (can be at any time during the week) please contact the office. 

Term 2 Extracurricular Offerings

As previously mentioned, our extra-curricular offerings are expanding which is exciting. You will see advertised in this and future newsletters the opportunity to have your children participate in these and I encourage you to keep viewing this section to see what else is offered as it arises. Currently (or in the coming weeks) we have opportunities in Music (group and individual instrumental), Art, Digital Systems, Science, Engineering, Tennis, Chess and Soccer. 

Snack Shack

The Snack Shack has reopened this term, much to many students' and families' joy and is fully operational twice-weekly. As with any new venture, and this is a new venture from some current parents running it as their business, there have been some challenges as they establish efficiency measures and identify what works and what doesn’t. I thank you and your children for your patience. 

Canteen Garden

With an intent to use more fresh produce and integrate this into students' learning, our garden beds outside the Snack Shack area are ready for planting out. A huge thanks to Yueling Li for her work in organising this and also shovelling copious amounts of sand and soil over previous months. We are calling out for donations of plants, seedlings or seeds for any of the below to help our Green Warriors and Yueling plant out these patches and hope that for those who do donate, your children will enjoy seeing their plants grow and be harvested in the coming months/years. 

Any donations of the following are greatly appreciated and can be brought directly to the classroom or office: 

• Citrus trees: lemon, lime, orange or mandarin orange...
• Herbs: basil, spring onion, sage, dill, rosemary, parsley and mint...
• Vegetables: anything that suits winter weather.