Principal's News

Staff Conference: Our Pupil Free Days last week were devoted to our staff conference, with all staff attending the conference centre in Belgrave. Thursday was devoted to the formal introduction of VCOP and we were all extremely impressed and engaged with the presentation. You will already have been seeing or hearing of elements of the VCOP approach with ‘Penny Punctuation’ prominent in all classrooms and our students excited about learning and using various forms of punctuation. Day 2 of our conference involved the presentation of our School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) framework and learning matrix – further detailed information about this program will be disseminated throughout the year. The conference also provided staff with an opportunity to undertake some preliminary work in preparation for our School Review later this year.

Education Committee – Parent Forum: On Wednesday of this week we held a special parent forum on Learning Difficulties and how to support children with additional needs, specifically Dyspraxia, Dysgraphia and Dyslexia. The forum was well attended with 15 parents and 15 staff members taking advantage of the opportunity to expand their knowledge in this area. Our thanks to Education Department staff, Christa Carey and Laura Anderson who presented on the evening and to Rachel Barnes for facilitating the event.

Prep Discovery Evening: Thank-you to the staff who attended our Prep Discovery Evening on Thursday evening. This event is an important one in providing information to our future school families about Old Orchard and we always enjoy the opportunity to show off our amazing school. School tours have been extremely well attended this year and we look forward to a strong Prep intake for 2019.

Mothers’ Day Stall: Thank-you to Lee Yelland, Tina Droutsas and Robyn Busuttil for their organisation of this week’s Mothers’ Day Stall and to the many helpers (Helen Yaacoub, Trudi Gumley, Jacqui Fulton, Eunmi Kim, Andy & Wendy Yeong, Michelle Lee, Deb Gray, Tammy Efstathiou, Carolyn Karafilowski, Lisa Harrick, Kiri Armstrong, Angela Koutsapalis) for their invaluable assistance.

Our very best wishes to all school mums, grandmas and the other special people in our children’s lives – thank-you for all that you do in supporting our students.

NAPLAN: Next week our Year 3 and Year 5 students will undertake NAPLAN (National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy). The students have been well prepared for the testing format, learning to respond to multiple-choice questions, work to a strict time limit and work in total silence. There are four separate tests covering Reading, Writing, Language Conventions and Mathematics. NAPLAN results including individual student reports and school level reports provide valuable data that support our teachers and which complement school based assessment. In addition to other data, NAPLAN results provide an opportunity to measure student growth from Year 3 to Year 5. Old Orchard performs particularly well in this area with high growth across the 2-year period.

Education Week & Bookfair: Education Week at Old Orchard is an opportunity for us to showcase and celebrate the achievements of our students and for parents to visit classrooms and other special activities. Once again this year we will align our Bookfair with Education Week – the Bookfair is undoubtedly one of the most popular features of Open Evening. More details will be provided next week and we look forward to welcoming you to our school during Education Week.

Sports News: Our students have been active in the sporting arena in recent weeks.

Grace Jacobs competed in the Australian Age Diving Championships recently with one of her outstanding performances being a fourth place in the Under 11 – 3 metre springboard event.
Finn Castor has been selected in the School Sport Victoria Hockey team to represent Victoria at the School Sport Australia Hockey Championships in Newcastle later this year. To be selected to represent your state in any competition is an incredible achievement and Finn is to be commended on his efforts.
George Saristavros (soccer), Marc Petheriotis (soccer), Finn Castor (soccer) and Lachie Bell (football) have also trialled for their respective sports with George, Marc and Finn through to the next round of selection.
Mark Petheriotis, James Shacklock and Curtis Rajoo were successful in progressing to the next stage of the Cross Country competition – please see the Sports Report later in the newsletter.
On Tuesday the 8th of May 60 Old Orchard students from years 3-6 competed in the District Cross Country at Ruffy Lake Park. The students had to run 2-3km across the hilly cross country track and compete against 7 other schools adding up to 80 competitors in each race. All of the Old Orchard students did a fantastic job pushing themselves to represent their school with pride. In particular congratulations to Marc (3rd) , James (8th) and Curtis (10th) who finished in the top 10 in their race which means they progress to the next round in the Whitehorse Division. Well done everyone!

In keeping with the sporting theme, our Year 5 and 6 students were fortunate to attend a presentation by Olympic Men’s Aerial Skier and Olympic Silver medallist, David Morris. David shared his experiences and had some powerful messages for our students about attitude, preparation, perseverance and doing your best. David also spoke with our Sports Academy students.

P.F.A. We have a few P.F.A. activities on the calendar at the moment. The Mothers’ Day Stall has already been mentioned; the Wine Tour (tickets still available) is scheduled for May 19th; our Comedy Night for Saturday June 23rd and the Bunnings Sausage Sizzle for Sunday July 1st. Please watch this space for further information.

Student Absence notifications: In line with new guidelines, schools are now required to notify parents on the morning of any unexplained absence. In practical terms, this means that if your child is absent from school and you have not advised the school of this, you should receive a text message by approximately 10 am advising you of this.

If your child is absent on a given day, please advise the school as early as possible – ideally this should be to the office staff. If your child arrives late to school, they will need to complete the late arrival procedure at the office.

Warm regards

Duncan