Principal's Message

School Philosophy

Orchard Grove Primary School is committed to providing a safe, nurturing environment that engages curiosity, promotes learning, personal growth and wellbeing for all students. We strive to develop adaptability and resilience so students can become valued members of the local and global communities and be prepared for future life experiences.

From the Principal

Well, here we are again at the end of another term - hard to believe. However, as I am writing this, I can hear the sound of birds chirping, and the sunny view from my office window is a beautiful reminder that Spring, and the long-awaited warmer weather, is at our door step. We have had another great term of teaching and learning opportunities and some terrific achievements around the school. It is marvellous to see our little Foundation students kicking on with their reading. Our Year Three and Five students have once again achieved well above state and national benchmarks in NAPLAN, making us one of the highest achieving schools in the state. ICAS testing is finally finished. The Year Six pantomimes for the Foundation-Year Two students have been performed to thrilled audiences, camps are all over for the year and they were a huge success and created wonderful memories for the staff and children, and tomorrow we have our annual Footy Day. So much to celebrate.

Hot off the Press

It gives me great pleasure to announce that, today, our amazing hip-hop dance crew won the

2019 Victorian Primary School Dance Competition. They are now carrying around the most fabulous trophy and great big smiles.  Congratulations to all the team. It is certainly a marvellous achievement which shows how much hard work you have all been doing, practising your routine in preparation for the competition. Well done!

2020 Important Information 

As you all know, planning for 2020 is well under way. If you have a child in Foundation in 2020 and have not yet enrolled, please do so immediately. If you know that you will be leaving our community in 2020, please let us know. We have started staff recruitment for next year and this is contingent on student numbers, so to have accurate figures is imperative.  Over-staffing is a disaster for the school financially, as we would go into deficit and have to cover extra wages, putting us under pressure and taking money away from other programs, and under-staffing is problematic when we are wanting to make sure we find the best teachers and the best fit for our wonderful school. We like to recruit as early as we can to secure the best.

Parent Requests 2020

I am now calling for any parent requests for classes for 2020. Only requests on educational grounds will be considered. The cut off date for these letters is the end of the first week back of Term Four, which is Friday October 11th.  Please note all letters must be addressed to me and sent to the office.  No requests will be accepted after that date as the process of class allocation will have started and it is a huge job, with many considerations and, as we start our transition process much earlier than other schools, we are on a strict timeline. Please remember, letters must be sent to the office, not the class teacher, to guarantee that requests will be considered.

Taking holidays out of school holiday time.

We have again been contacted by the Department regarding our absence data. Currently we have 17% of our student population that have missed more than 20 days of school this year; that equates to more than four weeks. Missing school matters and can really impact on a students progress and friendship networks.  Children regularly missing school is very problematic for the teachers as they often can not help them sufficiently to catch up on work missed.

Taking holidays outside of the school holidays is not encouraged and we would appreciate if families would refrain from doing so.  Some families are leaving the school regularly to return to home countries for months at a time and, with our new zoning regulations, we will not necessarily be guaranteeing that we will hold a place for your child if this is a continual pattern.  Orchard Grove is a school of choice; our  academic results are outstanding and our school community and culture is second to none. Our overall community satisfaction data for OGPS is one of the highest in the state.  As a result, there is greater pressure on our enrolments  and we are now having to refuse entry on a regular basis. Therefore, it is not fair to hold positions open for families who are regularly taking their children out of school. Please consider this when planning your next family holiday, and be aware that parents are required to notify the school in writing if you are taking your child out of school for any reason.

FIESTA

Have you seen the billboards around Blackburn South promoting our Fiesta on Friday October 25th?

Excitement is definitely building and the wrist bands for the fabulous rides are now available for purchase. At the moment, you have the chance to win Golden Tickets which will enable the lucky recipients to go to the front of the line for any of our exciting rides - how good is that? Two lucky people will win three Golden Tickets each. You could share these with your friends or use them all yourself. Early-bird purchasers are the only ones that will be eligible for the Golden Tickets, but they must be bought by Friday 18th October. Good luck.

This year, for the first time, there will be Dodgem Cars among the wonderful rides organised. Dodgem Cars have always been a personal favourite of mine.  Please rally as many of your friends and family to come on the night to have a great time, enjoy the fireworks and support the school. All money raised is going towards the projects in the Meadow, to make this an outstanding teaching, learning and play space.  These kinds of projects are never funded by the government so, if we want our spaces to be exceptional, school-raised funds are how we do it. 

If you are able to assist on the night, it would be greatly appreciated and will help share the load. The class rosters on iVolunteer are all up and running, so sign your self up and help us out.

NAPLAN

As many of you know our Year Three and Five NAPLAN results have now been received and parents of children in those year levels will now have their child's results. Overall, we had very pleasing results. We had 94% of students in Year Five reading at standard or above, with OGPS being 26% above the State average. Other highlights were in Numeracy; our Year Three results had 99% of students at standard or above, which was 31% above the State average. An outstanding result. In Year Three, our reading results put us 25% above the State average with 99% of our students at standard or above.  Congratulations to students and teachers on such wonderful results. 

School Surveys

We have now received the results of all the Department's surveys for students, parents and teachers.

Thank you to all the parents who went online and filled out the survey. These surveys, together with NAPLAN and our students' grades on semester reports, form the basis of the Department's grading of our school, so all these data points are very important. Once again, our student survey results were excellent. The student survey covers areas such as effective teaching, student-teacher relationships, learner characteristics, social engagement, student safety and bullying, and we had outstanding results with all categories coming in at above 90%. The parent survey covers similar categories and the responses were again very high, with the exception of our physical grounds, which some parents felt we needed to improve. Overall, there was very positive feedback around our reporting and communication, and general satisfaction of the school was at 96%, which was very pleasing.

Orchard Grove's Got Talent

We had a brilliant concert yesterday afternoon; what a great opportunity it was to celebrate the talented students we have in our school. It truly was an absolute delight and was a huge success.  Unfortunately, there were two acts that didn't get to perform due to time constraints, however both the choir and Linka will be able to sing and perform tomorrow before the footy parade. A huge thank you to Ms Mets and the whole crew who put on such a fabulous event for us to all enjoy.

Year Two Sleepover

Tonight is once again our most exciting night at OGPS. It is none other than the Year Two sleepover.  There are many very excited children all ready to have a terrific time staying overnight at school.  We will look forward to hearing all about it tomorrow. Thank you to all the staff who make this event a reality, giving up their time to create such fun experiences and memories for the children.

Study Tour

Next Thursday, I am heading off to Canada for two weeks, on a Victorian Principal Association Study tour. I am very excited to be visiting schools and Education Department officials in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, to learn about the excellent improvements that the Canadian Education System has made over the last ten years. Canada is the Victorian Education Department's critical friend, and educators from Canada have been acting as mentors for our Education Department over the past couple of years.  This trip will give me the opportunity to investigate their progress and see what they are doing to achieve their results.

Seven Principals from across the state have been chosen to attend the study tour, so I am feeling very privileged indeed. I will return for the second week of term and, hopefully, with lots to share with our team at OGPS and beyond.

End of Term

Well, that's all from me for this term. If you do see any inappropriate activities around the school during the holidays, please ring 000. School holidays are our danger time for vandalism and it costs us dearly, so vigilance is much appreciated.  Have a terrific break with your families and see you next term.

PS Don't forget Footy Day tomorrow and remember it is an early finish at 2:30pm.

Glenda Harry

Principal