Principal's Message

Dear OLA Families,

Thank you to all our OLA Families for your support over the last couple of busy weeks.

Your smiles, positive presence and encouragement have been greatly appreciated.  Your commitment to having your children at school on time, attending Working Bees, preparing for the Amazing OLA Fete, dressing your children up as 100 year olds, transporting and supporting children to District Basketball, attending Parent/Teacher Meetings or Parent Workshops after a busy day at work and after cooking dinner has been amazing. 

Thank you.

Cancer Council Afternoon Tea

This afternoon Kane, Harper and Kiara Morris together with Danielle and Eloise Rigoni hosted an OLA's Australia's Biggest Afternoon Tea to raise money for the Cancer Council.  It was lovely way of honouring Cass.  Cass would be so proud of her family and OLA.

100 Days of Prep

Congratulations to all our Prep children who completed their first 100 days of school on Tuesday. We hope that all of our children enjoyed a fabulous day as they all arrived dressed as 100 year olds!  Our thanks to our Prep team for providing the children with such an enjoyable day and to all classes, and to the many of our most elderly looking staff, for sharing in the fun!   The whole school assembly was such a great celebration.  We even received reports that some children went to sleep in the car on their way home after such a massive and great day!  We are blessed to have welcomed such a fabulous cohort of Preps throughout the past 100 days.

OLA Parish Fete

A big thank you to Claire Melican and the Fete Committee for their wonderful organisation of this great event.  Please make sure you have Saturday 26 November in your diaries.  You will soon be able to book your ride wristbands for your family and friends. We will also be calling on volunteers to help out on the day so we hope each family can have a representative or two involved on the day.  Many hands make light work.  All donations are welcome with a particular focus this month on stocking up the Lucky Bottle Stall. Please refer to the OLA Fete tab in this newsletter.

Working Bee

Thank you to our families who participated in last Saturday’s Working Bee!  The staff are always most appreciative of the efforts of our parent community as we enter the school site on a Monday morning after a Working Bee.  I received an email from our Parish Maintenance Team thanking us for all our work too. How lovely that everyone is noticing the great work achieved. It's a collective effort and it's this work that taps into the deep sense of pride we enjoy here at OLA.

Next Working Bee

Please note the next Working Bee date:

Term 4  Saturday 19 November 10.00am-12.00pm 

(Please note change of date in Term 4 to beautify the school the week before our Parish Fete)

Grade 1/2 Parent and Child Workshop

Thank you to the families who attended and participated in the Grade 1/2 Parent and Child Workshop last night.  The children’s wonderings and questions were beautiful. We also thank Caitlan and our staff for their thoughtful preparation and organisation of the evening.

About Real Life 

Thank you to all families who attended the About Real Life Sexuality Program here at OLA over the last couple of weeks. This was such an important opportunity for our families to talk about the topics covered. Thank you to Sue Pain from About Real Life for being so supportive and clear in her conversations with us.  These parent and child workshops are so important as we partner together to educate the whole child. 

Building Project

This last fortnight has seen us signing off on new furniture and fittings for our OLA Community Hub which includes a new STEM Room, Library, Teacher Resource Room, Community Space and outdoor learning spaces.  As the momentum continues to increase, nothing seems to be slowing the project down.  This is such wonderful news in our current market.  We are grateful for the partnership we enjoy with Jardon Builders and Smith + Tracey Architects.

Help Wanted

Following our Grade 5/6s Camp to Camp Weekaway last term, the children have rallied together to request the installation of our very own GaGa Ball Pit.  One of our senior student’s Dads has measured the pit up in the best location that we could find and we have written to Bunnings to consider donating some of the materials needed.  What we are looking for is a team of parents to deliver this project by helping our lead designer and builder Nick Hollier later on this term (hoping to hear back from Bunnings very soon). We have four volunteers already - more the merrier!  Please email me if you are willing to support Nick with this amazing project, principal@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au

Collectors Cards Reminder

It was brought to our attention that children are trading footy cards, pokemon cards etc in the tyres on the adventure playground during lunch and snack times. As you can imagine this causes issues amongst friends and children from other grades at school.  We are keen not to ban such an exciting interest so we wanted to clarify for everyone that you can bring the cards to school (at own risk) but we do not trade cards at school. Seeing the children interact and show each other their cards is really quite precious and this provides a positive outlet for the children who want a break from the day to day playing on the playground.   Please support the school by talking to your child about this and creating possibilities outside of the school grounds and buildings for swapping.

Revised Child Safety Statement

With the new Child Safe Standards now in place, CECV has updated Catholic School’s Commitment Statement to ensure a safe, nurturing and empowering culture for all children and young people in Catholic schools.  To view the Commitment Statement please click here and as always our policies and important documents are available on our School Website.

COVID Safety & Sick Children

We request that any children who show signs of being unwell must remain at home.  Parents please note that children will be isolated in the sick bay and we will call parents if we identify that your child is unwell. This protocol is in place for the safety of all children and members of our community.  

2023 Plans

We politely ask all families to notify the school should your child/children not be returning to OLA in 2023.  We have had a number of enquiries in recent weeks across various levels. Having an accurate indication of our enrolment numbers ensures we are able to plan accordingly for the following school year and access appropriate funding i.e. staffing and resourcing. We thank you for your cooperation.

Congratulations 

Congratulations to Bella K in Grade 3/4ST.  Bella recently played in the grand final for Mentone Mustangs and the very next morning she received an email from the Southern Basketball Association offering her a place to finish off the VJBL season playing with the Sandringham Sabres.  What an exciting opportunity for you Bella - we are proud of you. 

Congratulations 

Congratulations to the OLA students who were selected and took up the opportunities of the GATEWAYS Ignite Program and the Australian Mathematics Competition this week.  These moments in life can be super challenging and they can be quite nerve wracking but we believe they help make us stronger.  

Celebrating different languages at OLA

At OLA we are creating a welcome sign for our new building (Shhh! it's a surprise!!) to celebrate the cultural diversity of OLA. The sign will say welcome in all the different languages that our families are connected to here at OLA.  Please email me at principal@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au with any additions.  We currently have noted the following languages spoken by families at OLA: 

Chinese, Croatian, Czech, First Nations, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Mandarin, Nepalese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Shona, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, Vietnamese.

How good is it to see the highlights from the Commonwealth Games!!

We are so proud of our Australian athletes and we might very well have a few in the making here at OLA! We are especially looking out for Brodie Chapman (Alicia Robertson's partners sister) who is representing Australia in the Cycling Road Race. Go Brodie!

 Enjoy the weekend.

Richard Jacques

Principal

Richard Jacques

Principal