From the Assistant Principal 

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to the 2022 school year. I sincerely hope all families had a restful break and are refreshed and ready for the new school year. 

At Rowville Primary School, all our actions and programs are grounded in research. My work as Assistant Principal is influenced by the research around health promoting schools. A health promoting school is defined as one that constantly strengthens its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning, and working. A range of practices in our school support the implementation of this goal.

We encourage students to actively choose nutritious foods, and a healthy lifestyle, through our Health and Physical Education, and Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. Each classroom teacher will develop a way of celebrating birthdays, that does not involve the sharing of bags of sweets, cakes, cookies or other food with the class. We respectfully ask that parents not bring sweet treat items to school to be shared with the class for birthdays.

Our SunSmart Policy outlines our commitment to ensure that all students wear the Rowville Primary School approved hat when they are outside from 1st September – 30th April. We also provide time during fruit snack and lunch eating time for students to apply sunscreen before they go outside to play.

We have a number of students who have been diagnosed as being at risk of suffering from anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis is a severe, rapidly progressive allergic reaction that is life threatening. Our classroom teachers have informed parents of affected classes, and outlined the foods that may cause allergic reactions for a student at risk of anaphylaxis and request that these foods not be placed in the school lunchbox. 

A reminder that all Victorian schools have a Mobile Phone Student Use Policy in place. This policy relates to students using mobile phones during school hours. Students who choose to bring mobile phones to school must have them switched off and securely stored by the classroom teacher during school hours. A mobile phone is a telephone with access to a cellular (telecommunication) system, with or without a physical connection to a network. For the purpose of this policy, “mobile phone” refers to mobile phones and any device that may connect to or have a similar functionality to a mobile phone such as smart watches.

The Department does not provide personal accident insurance or ambulance cover for students. Parents/carers of students, who do not have student accident insurance or ambulance cover, are responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for injured students, including the cost of ambulance attendance or transport as well as any other transport costs. The Department does not hold insurance for personal property brought to schools, and it has no capacity to pay for any loss or damage to such property.

I encourage all parents to be active participants in their child’s learning journey. I encourage all parents to participate in the year level information sessions that our happening this week.

Speaking of birthdays, they can also be celebrated with beautiful words, which was demonstrated by one student this week for Ms Babich’s special occasion.

Have a great fortnight.

Kind regards,

Tiffany Bamford

Assistant Principal