Principal's Report

By Frank Catalano

Dear Members of the Glen Waverley Primary School Community,

I trust all is well with you and your family and welcome to this fortnight’s newsletter where so much is shared about our fabulous school.

As per usual, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me on 9802 9938 or via email at frank.catalano@education.vic.gov.au.

Novel Coronavirus Update

It has been very pleasing to note that the number of confirmed cases throughout our school has continued to be quite minimal with only a few cases spread throughout the school. Naturally this is a result of everyone being vigilant by ensuring the children remain at home if they are feeling unwell and also utilising the Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT’s). Once again, thank you everyone for the manner in which the entire school community continues to support one another.

Visitors to our school during school hours

Our school takes great care ensuring your child’s safety whilst at school. This also includes all visitors to our school during school hours. When it is necessary for you to come onsite to collect or drop off an item for your child, for any reason, you will need to first come to the office and sign in under the visitor register. Please do not go straight to your child’s classroom. This allows us to account for every visitor onsite in case of the unforeseen event of an emergency. This is also a requirement as per the School Operations Guide issued by the Department of Education and Training (DET) and our School Visitors Policy. We appreciate your understanding in this matter.

Education Week

Thank you to the families who were able to attend our Education Week Opening Morning on Tuesday 24th May. It was fabulous to see so many mums, dads and grandparents in our school as the children described what and why they are learning as part of their Science units.

The feedback was extremely positive and exemplified a deep knowledge of what our school stands for. Below are some photographs for your enjoyment along with some comments from our parents.

“The school is doing a fantastic job in creating future leaders. I was impressed that all learners were actively participating in lessons.”

“It was a great please being here today. I couldn’t go to any of the classes in grade 4, 5 & 6 as I got stuck in Prep. The whole experience was amazing. All the students were participating, not only spectators. Looking forward to 2023 education week.”

“Impressive! Our kids at Glen Waverley Primary School are taught to be conscious about our environment and well prepared for future studies, success and a happy life. Thank you.”

“Best observations: Working together, confident and curious students, active teacher support, students know their purpose and why they are learning, students showing all the school values.”

District Cross Country

Congratulations to the children who attended the District Cross Country recently. As usual their sportsmanship and behaviour were exemplary, please refer to Vedanshi (6F) and Sakshi's (6F) post in this newsletter for further information.

Early Learning Centre Line Marking

There was certainly additional excitement last Monday morning as the trades people were able to come in over the weekend and complete the line marking. Once again, thank you to the entire school community for your ongoing support as we continue to update and improve the learning and recreational facilities for the children.

Authors and Illustrators Within our School

I often mention that the children at our school make me enormously proud ‘every single day’ and recently the level of pride and joy was enormous when not one, but 3 of our students presented me with real books that they have been involved in creating!

Dilu (Year 5) and her sister Saseni (a GWPS alumni) presented me with a copy of a picture story book that at they have just had published. In fact, Dilu wrote the book and Saseni illustrated it. The book is titled “The Fairy and the Goblin Giant” and it is available through the online bookstore Xilbris.

Below is how the book and author are described:

About the Book

Sofia is a lonely orphan in Fairy Town. She lives peacefully, watching the course of the sun perform its spectacular rituals day and night from her orphanage window. When an evil goblin-giant stomps into view, he takes Sofia away. She must find a way out and face a series of challenges and problems. Will Sofia make it out, or will the goblin-giant feed on fairy chops for dinner?

About the Author

Dilu is a quirky ten-year-old kid from Melbourne. She lives with her humorous sister and loving parents. Dilu loves to read, write, play violin, and muck around with her sister. Her sister also happens to be the book’s illustrator.

I asked the children to write an inscription and they wrote:

Dilu and Saseni, I cannot express how proud I am of you and look forward to seeing more of your creative achievements in the future. Well done and congratulations!

Abhanya (Year 4) has also been involved in the development of a book which is titled, “She Never Knocks”, below is an email from Abhanya:

Dear Mr Catalano,

I had a great privilege of getting to be part of a book called ‘She never knocks’ it is a bi-lingual story and the two languages are English and Chinese. I got the chance to illustrate in the book, I got the opportunity from ‘Kerrie Road Neighbourhood House.’

This project has been going on for more than a year (since 2021) due to Covid and lockdown. My-self and other students from many different schools have participated for about three sessions.

After a few long lessons we finally got through it. I have done about three pages in the book.

This book is about a young Chinese boy who lives in Melbourne, Australia. He has trouble relating to his grandma.

Have fun reading!!!

From lots of love sincerely Abhanya 4C.

P.S -Below is my drawings in the book, ‘She Never Knocks’

P.S.S-I will be giving 2 copies of the book to our school library!

Mandarin Speaking Families Meeting

A sincere thank you to numerous Mandarin Speaking families who were able to attend the recent information session. As a multicultural and international school, we are constantly aware of the need to communicate school expectations to all families in order to ensure clarity and a sense of purpose. Also thank you to Mrs. Guo, Mrs. Wang and Ms. Li for leading the session.

Girls Chess Team

Our school’s Girls Chess team participated in the Chess Victoria Primary Girls Zonal tournament at PLC recently I am so proud to report that even though the children are so young, they still managed to place second and also qualify for the State Finals. Below is an email from Himath, one of our parents who organises our school teams and also supports the children.

Hi Mr. Catalano,

It was a great performance by the team coming second only behind PLC. The top 5 teams qualified to play in the state finals. Winner of the state finals will qualify to play in the national finals later in the year in Cairns.

Top placings:

PLC Team A - 25

Glen Waverley Primary School - 23

Lauriston CC - 21

Ours is a very young team compared to other teams with 4 of the 5 players from Prep to Grade 2. Most other teams comprised players from grades 5 and 6 and the age gap (height gap as well) between our team and other teams was so obvious that even the organizers made a special mention of that during the presentation.

Although it was a primary girls event, it was a strong event with 4 of the country's top 100 women among the girls who played.

Vidushi won the event with 6.5/7 and received a trophy. On her way to victory, she beat Darline who was the under 10 Australian Champion in 2020, and drew with Deethya who is currently rated 56th among women.

Amaya scored 5/7 losing only against the two top players.

Everyone else including Reyashi (Prep) scored 4 or above which was beyond expectations. The whole team got silver medals and the school received a trophy.

The organizers added the points of the top 5 players of each team. It was great that we could field 5 players this year.

Once I receive the official results, I will share them with you.

Thank you for all your support and encouragement for the players.

Regards,

Himath

Wow, what ana amazing achievement girls, I cannot express how proud the entire school community are of you!! Well done, keep it up and we look forward to hearing how you go for the rest of the year.

Also a sincere thank you to the parents of the children who assisted in various ways, as none of this would be possible if it were not for your commitment and endeavours. Well done and thank you everyone.

Principal Awards

Congratulations to the following students for receiving a Principal Awards recently:

Prep A

Saaral, Max and Ray for making the most amazing progress with their writing skills

Prep D

Eric for completing so much extra learning at home

Cian, Aaron, Sam and Kisal for learning so much about bees and then writing descriptive reports about a bees appearance, habitat and diet. Well done boys and keep up the great learning!

Eesa for writing the reflection about how he helped me take our school assembly recently:

This week was Education Week so we celebrated our learning.

I was the helper for Mr Catalano at Monday’s assembly.

I held the microphone and made announcements. I felt really excited!

Riddota, Yenchi and Jamie for learning all about length and the ability to record their findings

Ometh for demonstrating a high level of curiosity during his science lessons and for being able to articulate his learning extremely well

Anya for creating a very detailed poster about her culture and also for writing a persuasive text about a new playground

Amaya, Dehan, Isa and Kalana for continuing to make excellent progress with their writing

Avyukt for making amazing progress with his writing
Rohith for being an awesome friend

Mahaan for receiving a certificate from the Kando Martial Arts club for being found efficient in 6th Kyu
Jason and Agam for being great friends

Kyra for completing fabulous home learning

The whole class for working collaboratively to decipher which products are better at cleaning than others
Vivaan for successfully passing the AMEB assessment for Level One guitar

Aleesha, Niyati, Miranda and Isabel for working exceptionally hard to create a poster about the Tang Dynasty

Raavi for writing an amazing story about deadly and ghostly spirits with many people in a small town going missing. What a mysterious story. Raavi was working towards looking for new and exciting adjectives.
Mathushaa wrote a superb persuasive text in the form of a letter which was designed to convince her parents to buy 4 plants. She has been working towards chunking her beginning, middle and end sounds in unfamiliar words.
Hirun wrote an interesting and scary story about ghosts, wizards and witches. He has been working towards using different words to start his sentences.

Austin and Neil for completing a comparing and contrasting learning task about Chinese cuisines and for developing a very comprehensive PowerPoint in order to share their learning
Sean for creating a diorama about how to prevent and survive natural disasters which is linked his classroom’s inquiry question

Cody for building an amazing Lego car in his own time – well done and thanks very much Cody!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy fortnight,

Frank Catalano

Principal