From the Acting Principal
WHOLE SCHOOL TRANSITION DAY- STEP UP
On Tuesday 8 December, the Year 6 students will be involved in transition programs with their secondary schools. Even though many high schools are conducting sessions online, the students will still have the opportunity to engage with, and find out more about, their chosen secondary schools. Students are expected to be at home for their online sessions.
Whole School ‘Step Up’
With the year six students involved with high schools, the rest of the school will ‘Step Up’ to the next year level. Teachers will prepare activities that allow students to learn more about the programs and events to look forward to in the next year level. Step Up activities will take place on Tuesday 8 December 1:30 – 3:30pm. The groups students are placed in for the afternoon are NOT necessarily their grades for next year. Mixing students from across the grades provides them with an opportunity to reconnect with peers from other classes and meet potential new classmates.
Parent Requests
Over the past month, parents have been invited to place any special requests in writing to the school. These requests are taken into consideration when developing new classes. Due to the complexity of matching various criteria when considering which class to place a student in, it is not possible to accept further parent requests, as this has a roll on effect which impacts on a range of students. Our class Placement Policy is listed on our website for parent perusal.
Parents will be informed of their child’s class placement and 2021 teacher in the final week of school.
STAFFING NEWS FOR 2021
Miss Tracey Nelson commenced family leave at the end of Term 3. We congratulate her on the safe arrival of Jagger John.
We look forward to another MPS baby when Miss Hannah Vesikko starts her family leave in February.
Year 6 teacher Alexandra Saxton and Year 4 teacher Erin Green will be pursuing new opportunities in 2021.
LOTE teacher Miss Shin Maki, is taking a year’s leave to travel and hopefully fulfil her dream of volunteering at the Olympics.
Mrs Julie Tarrant, a much loved and long term staff member has decided to take a well-earned year of long service leave and Miss Katrina Hall who was on a temporary transfer is returning to her substantive position at Hartwell Primary School.
We have a number of new staff who will join us at Murrumbeena next year. After interviews this
month, we welcome the following teachers to our team:
Josie Briggs (LOTE), Alicia Oliver-Cook, Laura Bainbridge, Meagan Atkins, Radhika Perera and Chelsea Quirk.
We are sure they will enjoy being a part of our Murrumbeena Primary School community as much as we do. They will meet their new teaching teams in planning week and join us on our Transition ‘Step Up’ day to meet our students.
END OF YEAR ORGANISATION
Staff are currently busy finalising student reports. These will be sent home on Tuesday 15 December via Compass.
Class allocations will also be distributed on the same day via a hard copy.
SCHOOL CAPTAINS
Over the past week, many of our Year 5 students have prepared and delivered high calibre speeches showcasing their skills and capability to become School Captain. It was evident from the high standard presented that we have a group of exceptionally capable students all of whom display leadership in different ways. Students and staff placed their votes and, from these, students were shortlisted for an interview. We will finalise the process over the coming week. We would like to thank all of the candidates for putting in the time and effort to take part in this process and congratulate them on representing themselves and the school with pride. With so many outstanding students, 2021 will be a year to look forward to.
WHOLE SCHOOL INCURSION- Kaboom Sports Friday 4 December
Kaboom Sports is back by popular demand. Students from prep to year 5 will be dancing and actively engaged in a range of fun filled novelty activities with music pumping to enhance the mood. The cost of this is incorporated into the incursion levy.
FREE DRESS DAY-
Friday 4 December
Usually on the last day of the term, students enjoy a free dress day and bring a gold coin donation. Instead, the Kaboom Sport Day will be a free dress day with the gold coin donations going to a charity chosen by the Student Representative Council.
CAMPS
The year 6 students have certainly had a different year to the one they were expecting, but there’s no way they were going to miss out on camp. This morning, our year 6’s set off for Phillip Island Adventure Camp to participate in a range of fun filled adventure-based activities.
The Year 5’s will go to Log Cabin Camp in Creswick in the final week of school (16 – 18 December) to also finish the year on a positive note.
EASING OF RESTRICTIONS AND SUDDEN CHANGES
The staff and I, would like to say a HUGE thank you to our parent community for the wonderful way you have supported the school and students in adjusting to new routines. The smiles on children’s faces have been priceless when they heard that they have excursions and incursions to look forward to, and can even have a play before going into class in the morning!
We really are blessed to have such a positive and strong community.
Thank you.
Chellee Plumb