From Last Week

Voluntary Curriculum Contributions

Our school aims to provide a high-quality learning environment catering for the needs of all students. Our wide and varied curriculum incorporating a number of specialist areas supports a whole-child approach to education. We also aim to maintain and improve our facilities which support our goals of having a vibrant and active school community.

Each year we ask for our families to make a voluntary contribution to the curriculum costs of your child’s learning. The money received helps us pay for the books and stationery in classrooms, resources for lessons, updating our ICT equipment and resourcing our incredible Enviro Science subject.

Due to the increased cost of living, our School Council last year approved a small increase ($50) to the contributions we will be asking families to make this year. We have a long history of keeping our voluntary contributions very low; in recent years we have even delayed increasing the contributions to reflect the challenges people were facing in the world at the time. Our new contribution amount remains lower than the majority of schools in our area. The PDF attached below outlines how the contributions are allocated by the school. 

With an understanding that families have multiple financial commitments, partial payments of voluntary contributions are welcome at any time.

School Council Elections

Each year School Council elections take place in Term 1 with the process reaching completion by the end of March. Principals are responsible for conducting the election in accordance with Departmental Guidelines. School Council Elections are part of Ministerial Order No 52.

Nominations for elections will open Monday 13 February, with information on the nomination/election process and how you can get involved in our School Council and its Sub Committees regularly included in the newsletters throughout term 1.

While we try to be paper-free where possible, nominations must be made on paper -  forms can be found at the school office. If you are unable to attend the office during nominations, you can ask someone to nominate on your behalf. If you are keen to find out more information on our school council elections, please read the PDF below. 

Classroom Representatives

The school is looking for at least one adult representative from each class to become the Class Representative. These representatives will create a WhatsApp group and invite all parents and carers of the class to join the group.

The Class Representatives will be a point of contact for members of staff or council (Classroom Teacher, Specialist Teacher or CET, etc) who may be looking for volunteers for a specific task. The Class Representative will be responsible for sharing that information to the group.

Each group of parents and carers can also use this platform to contact each other for organisational and social purposes outside school. 

The purpose of the Class Representatives is to help foster connections between parents and carers within each class. It provides another means of uniting the community at school and beyond after a few years of disruptions and isolation. We also hope this will enhance the quality of relationships within the school between students, families and teachers. 

The Class Representative does not replace the parent/carer & teacher relationship or any existing communication channels. If parents and carers choose not to join the group, they will not miss out on any vital information, which will continue to be provided through formal channels.

Families should continue to communicate directly with their child’s teacher or the school leadership in relation to their child’s education and school experience. We will only communicate about individual children directly with families.

Class Representatives will be invited to come together with Hannah and Keir for an informal chat twice a term on the Sprout deck, one during the morning and one after school hours. This will be an opportunity to laugh, share experiences, seek information and ensure we are all on the same page. 

Dates for Term 1 2023 are: Friday 17th February @ 3.45pm and Monday 6th March @ 9.00am

We are encouraging everyone who is interested to join each Class Group, however we are seeking at least one Class Representative for each class to be the point of contact for the school or committees to disseminate information. If there are more representatives, the role can be shared.

If you are interested in volunteering to be a class representative, please fill out this google form as soon as possible. 

Design Competition

We have had quite a few visitors to the front office who were coming just to check out the finished renovations and honestly, we don’t blame them - it looks fantastic! One of the most popular elements of the office is our school motto “Deeds not Words”, which has been painted on a very large scale on one of the walls. The font chosen was designed by one of our students and has brought much joy to those in the space.

We are now calling all student artists to help us with our next school design - thank you cards! As a school community, we always have people we are thanking and would love to include the magic spark only our students bring. We want the designs to represent what makes our school and its community so special, but the rest is up to you - what would you include?

All design submissions should be dropped off at the front office by Friday 24/02/23, with winning designs shared in the following newsletter.