From the Principal

Dear Families,

Colour Run: This Friday will be one of the best days of the year! With temperatures expected to hit 20 degrees, it will be a perfect day for the colour run! Megan King and her team have been busily preparing the event and want to make it another great day! There will be some important reminders in the newsletter from Megan, Emily and Jess.

Weather: The weather continues to cause various issues with Ocean Grove PS playground with erosion. We also have had significant soft fall being carted away in the runoff from below the playgrounds, making them unsafe. These areas will be cordoned off and out of bounds until we have replaced it and made sure it is safe. This is scheduled to occur next week. 

Prep 2023: We welcomed our new additions to the school yesterday and saw some very excited children and parents. We welcome our new families and to our current ones with their second or third child too. Congratulations to the Prep Team – Megan King, Jake Roberts, Emily Merrett and Mel Matherson on their organisation and making everyone welcome.

DCS Clothing: We had our uniform supplier, DCS, onsite to meet the new families yesterday too. It was a great opportunity for them to purchase uniforms and see the sizes. Thanks to our families for engaging with them.

Camp Australia: Jo was also onsite yesterday to welcome new families and inform them about the program they offer out of school hours. Thanks to Jo and her team for their great work. We are also working towards various dates for 2023 that will be dedicated to Curriculum Days, Parent teacher meetings etc where you may require support from Camp Australia. They do have a minimum number of students required to make the day viable and if it is not viable by a certain day, they will cancel the program. We hope to finalise dates early in December.

School Council: Our second last meeting of the year was conducted last night. The main topic of discussion was Fundraising and the Apple Fair. We have a terrific team working so hard to make this a success and they would appreciate our community chipping in with support too. It may be a skill set you have or volunteering for a few hours on the day. Let’s support this team, pull together and make a fantastic Apple Fair in 2023.

Uniform Policy: Last night some slight amendments were made to the Uniform Policy. We have moved away from the language of “boys and girls” to “students”, changes around nail polish and fake nails have been included and at the end of the day, we want our Ocean Grove Primary School team, looking great in our uniform. Please check out the policy in the next few days as we publish it on the website.

Playground: You may notice that we have several areas cordoned off at the moment. We have a few projects on the go and want our students and families to be safe. We appreciate your patience and can’t wait for the entire playground to reopen and stay open! Kristy and I are currently working on designs and solutions with Architects and Civil engineers to prevent the flood damage and run off caused by the more than frequent rain events we are experiencing. It is such a complex site to work on with over 9m of fall from Draper St to the Northern boundary. 

Explain Unexplained Absences: As there are a number of unexplained absences on Sentral we ask that your please go onto the Sentral app and update the your child/ren absences if necessary. Please see in 'Parent Information' a step by step process. 

Staff Vs Students Cricket: Depending on who you ask, will depend on who won the staff V Students game last Friday at lunch time. There was some great cricket played by all and all in good fun with each other. I think some of the students may have been surprised by the talent on staff and I think some of the staff may have been surprised how sore they were on Saturday from a few overs! Thanks to the Year 6 kids for organising and making it happen and congrats to the teachers involved on your win!!!

2023: Just a reminder that if you have any educational reasoning for a request for 2023, it should be emailed to the school for my consideration. In 99% of cases, the request has already been factored into the class development by staff and in the rare circumstances where it hasn’t, I make a call to the family and discuss the situation. Please don’t request a ‘teacher by name’ as that teacher may be in a different role for 2023. Thanks in advance.

Have a great week everyone.

Scott McCumber

Principal