Greenhills Primary School Newsletter

Message from the Principal 

James Penson 

 

NAIDOC WEEK 2023

 

The 2023 National NAIDOC Week theme is For Our Elders. Across every generation, our Elders have played, and continue to play, an important role and hold a prominent place in our communities and families. You can read more about NAIDOC Week at Greenhills Primary School in the Wellbeing section of this newsletter. 

I also thought that it would be appropriate during NAIDOC Week to include the full Uluru Statement from the Heart.

 

In 2017, Indigenous people from all around the country as part of the National Constitutional Convention wrote this Statement:

 

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.

 

This sovereignty is a spiritual notion; the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’ and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.

 

How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years. 

 

With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.

 

Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are alienated from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.

 

These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.

 

We all for the establishment of a First Nations Voice in the Constitution.

 

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.

 

We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.

 

In 1967 we were counter, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of Australian people for a better future.

 

WORKING BEE THANK YOU

 

Thank you to our amazing team of working bee legends. This team of parents, carers, grandparents and students took on a couple of gardens beds and won! Together we filled a 6m skip full of weeds and green waste and we moved 2m of topsoil, 3m of mulch and 2m sand to top up Curiosity Creek. Now we are ready for National Tree Day next term where the garden bed will be planted out.  All of students who attended have enjoyed a $5 canteen voucher.

THANK YOU SEMESTER 1

Wow – we made it through to the end of a long and challenging term. Looking at our staff and students we only just made it and the holidays have come at the perfect time. 

 

I have been really pleased with our first half of the year, especially given the hurdles of staff and student absence, shortage of casual relief teachers and other things beyond our control that our school community has had to deal with. As always, our staff, students and parents have worked together and remained as connected as possible and we can look forward to GREAT things continuing in the second half of the year. 

 

There have been many highlights to celebrate this semester:

  • Smoking Ceremony & Welcome to Country
  • Launch of S.T.E.A.M as a specialist subject
  • Launch of Gazillions as a whole school positive reward system
  • House Swimming, Athletics & Cross Country
  • Grandparents & Special Person’s Day
  • Choir performances
  • Working Bees
  • Breakfast Club every Monday morning 
  • Our school becoming a PLC (Professional Learning Communities) Link School and our Greenhills team working collaboratively to track student achievement data, focusing on the impact their teaching is making and then developing curriculum around the needs of our students.
  • The camps, excursions and events organised as part of our extensive extra- curricular programs across our school.
  • Terrific support from our PA with our End of Term BBQ’s, Mother’s Day Stall, 5 Cent Frenzy & Bunnings BBQ.
  • School Review
  • Gazillions Day
  • Zones of Regulation
  • Inducting so many parent helpers and having so much parental involvement and support across all year levels.

 

We also continued our commitment to our 3 x 15-minute focus sessions each day. These Reading, Numeracy & Agency sessions are starting to have a real impact. This is evidenced by the feedback we are getting from students and in particular their self-reflections in the Semester 1 reports. On top of that we also implemented a 50 min session each week dedicated to student agency. This is an opportunity for students to work on their goals and conference with their teacher. We set this up based on feedback from our students after they completed the Attitudes to School Survey. In follow up discussions and focus groups with our students, we understand that they want more time with their teacher and more time to consolidate and build knowledge and skills as opposed to rushing through everything that is listed in the curriculum to teach.   

SOME IMPORTANT DATES FOR TERM 3:

With the newsletter this week, I have included a Term 3 calendar. This provides families with a list of dates for the different activities we have organised next term. Our Compass Calendar is also up to date, and this is always a central place to keep in touch and informed with everything going on.

 

Two of the most important dates to remember are:

 

16th August – Curriculum Day – on this pupil free day our staff will be developing our new School Strategic Plan based on our recent School Review and spending time enhancing our whole school curriculum documentation and instructional model.

 

6th September – Student Agency Conferences – on this day students just attend for the duration of their 15-minute conference. 

LAST DAY OF TERM – FINISH AT 2.30PM

A reminder that on our last day this term, Friday 23rd June we will finish at 2.30pm. Our assembly will be outdoors from 1.50pm (weather permitting).

SIBLING ENROLMENT FORMS

This is the final call for any sibling enrolments for Prep in 2024. We have sent out confirmations of enrolments to families on our waiting list and are now beginning to organise the grade structure for preps next year. It is vital that if you have a student starting school next year that you put in an enrolment form.

ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS!

I hope that all our families get some time together to enjoy life away from the school routines and can come back refreshed for Term 3!

 

Finally, thank you for your continuous support of our school. I am so grateful the work of our dedicated staff, the engagement of our students each day and the home school partnership our school has built over such a long period of time. Working in our school each day is an absolute privilege because I see so many good things happening, and our students always have smiles on their faces. Greenhills is a GREAT place to be.

 

James Penson

Principal