Message from the Principal 

THANK YOU TO OUR 2022 STAFF TEAM

Welcome to the final newsletter of the year.

In the final newsletter for this year I would like to acknowledge the professionalism, commitment, initiative and flexibility of our staff over the course of this year and also express my deep gratitude, respect and appreciation for them. I thank them for their ingenuity, resilience, passion and energy, as we navigated a full year return to school, significant staff and student absence and got our school back to being what Greenhills is all about.  

I thank all our staff for giving above and beyond, stepping up and supporting each other, our leadership team and me personally. I acknowledge the extra hours they commit each week spent focused on our school. Many of which are hours well outside the normal school day at home of an evening and over weekends. Our State system relies on the good will of our staff to do this, and it is one of the elements as to why our system is continuing to move from strength to strength and why our school’s data is so strong and growing even stronger.

Thank you to our teachers: Lynsey Barrett, Kristine Charles, Jo Ciancio, Brooke Connane, Gemma Correzzola, Jordan Daley, Sharon Draper, Ashley Dunne, Nigel Dunne, Jen Ellis, Rachel Emmerling, Betty Hajichristou, Megan Hattenfels, Suzie Hussein, Roberta Iebbiano-Rosa, Jess Johnston, Bonnie Jones, Alex Katsogiannis, Sarah Leach, Ros Mackie, Sam Marmo, Jon McFarland, Cara McLean, Sam Mothersole, Lauren O’Connell, Krysten O’Leary, Lauren Richardson, Brad Ryan, Tegan Smith, Becc Stephens, Kate Stewart, David Symeonidis, Tracey Watts, Gillian Anderson, Andrea Williams, Amanda Oakley, Steph O’Donnell, Jake Rowley, & Janine Hough.

Thank you to our Education Support team. Our classroom based ES's do an incredible job. They are out every day supporting students in their classes and at recess and lunchtimes. The work they do is vital for us. Thank you Raelene Turner, Sheryl Munks-Callahan, Libby Egan, Ashlee MacKinven, Karen Porter & Nathan Di Guiseppe, Isabelle Hall, Rhoanne Salazar and Emily Kandell.

Thank you to Max Smith for working so hard to keep our school looking so great, Miriam Pekolj for running our canteen so effectively and for doing so many other things to help during remote learning and Karen Heitzmann for providing outstanding care in Fist Aid.

Thank you to our Education Support Admin team. Our office is such a dynamic and busy place to be and this even more so in 2022. Our office team help the school to function so that we can balance the DET requirements and processes we must complete and also support the link with our parent community. Thank you Nicole Pearson, Kiera Roberts, Libby Egan & Victoria Harris.

A special thank you to our Executive Leadership Team. They do so many things each day that the school relies on. Many of these things go unseen. The leadership team have been vital in developing, managing and leading all of our improvements and key actions this year right across the whole school. Thank you Janine Hough, Brad Ryan, Becc Stephens, Nigel Dunne & Victoria Harris.

THANK YOU RACHEL EMMERLING & BONNIE JONES

On behalf of the school community, we wish Rachel Emmerling and Bonnie Jones all the very best. As announced in previous newsletters, Rachel is retiring after a significant service to our school community and Bonnie is moving to a school closer to home. Thank you Rachel and Bonnie for everything you have done for us during your time at Greenhills. We will all miss you.

WELCOME ABBY, ISABELLE, BEC, EMILY, KATE, EMILY & LYNSEY

We are excited to welcome Abby Drapper, Isabelle Hall, Bec Zappia and Emily Kandell to our staff team for 2023. Emily joins our Education Support team on a permanent basis after doing this role in a casual basis this year.  We have also recently completed a recruitment process for three part time positions at our school. These positions have only recently been required based on the exciting news that our school has been selected by DET to become a Professional Learning Communities (PLC) Link School next year.

This means that Krysten O’Leary, David Symeonidis and Andrea Williams will be released for one day each week to support the implementation of this program across other DET schools and of course our own school as well which is a great result for our Greenhills.

We welcome Kate Ellis who will be the classroom teacher for 1KO each Thursday and Emily Thompson who will be the classroom teacher for 2JM each Thursday. Lynsey Barrett will also continue neat year to support the Career Start Program.

YEAR 6 GRADUATION

Yesterday, we hosted our Year 6 Graduation Ceremony. The event was held at Eltham High School and overall, it was a wonderful evening where we had the opportunity to congratulate all our Year 6 students and acknowledge all their achievements over the past 7 years at our school. 

As a school community, we can take pride knowing that through participation in the learning opportunities provided over seven years of primary education, our Greenhills Graduates will leave our school being able to:

• hold strong their principles and be able to think for themselves
• be well balanced individuals who care for others and the world around them
• be literate, numerate and curious
• apply their knowledge and share it with others
• listen to others perspectives and make responsible and confident choices, and
• at times take risks which may indeed step them out of their comfort zone.

Well done and congratulations to each of our Graduates – you can feel very proud on all you have achieved throughout your learning journey so far.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the parents of our graduating students for placing the trust and confidence in our school to teach and guide your most precious children. 

During the ceremony, we also recognised all those families who with the departure of their Year 6 child this year, will be leaving our school community. This year represents a very large group with 37 families in total. I thank all of these families for their contribution to our school over these years.

YEAR 6 GRADUATION AWARDS 2022

A special part of our Graduation Ceremony was the presentation of awards. Here is a list of the students who were presented with an award:

We have also established a new award this year – the Emmerling Award. This is in recognition of the significant service that Rachel Emmerling has made to our school community. In fact, between her mother Mary Murrell and herself, there has been a direct member of their family teaching at this school since 1974! The award is presented to a family who has made Greenhills G.R.E.A.T. by strengthening the culture of our school through significant whole family commitment and contribution over the time they have been a part of our school community.

The first annual Emmerling awards was presented to the Kitchen Family.

SEMESTER TWO REPORTS

These are available via Compass now. For me the best part of our school reports are the student self-reflections. The ability for students to be able to understand and take responsibility for their learning is critical. This student agency is something we have been working on over the past few years and will again be a major focus in 2023. I think these parts of just three reflections from across the school really demonstrates how far we have come and just how far we could go. 

“A learning goal I’d like to achieve next year is putting more effort into spelling. I don’t enjoy it as much as other subjects, so I go into it with a negative mindset. I need to show more grit and not give up just because I find it hard. I also need to use more effort because I sometimes rush through it and don’t show my full potential”.

“The most memorable thing about Year 3 is Maths teams because I think I stepped out of my comfort zone and coped really well with difficult challenges, and it was so fun working with other people. An achievement that I am proud of is that when I’m struggling or have something tricky. I give it my best shot and I love challenges. I’m proud that I can give it an amazing go. I’m proud of learning division worded problems because I had no clue about division worded problems and I have come so far. The things that help me to learn in the classroom are my classmates and putting my hand up to ask for help. Using iPads helps as well with my learning, and I love working with a partner. I think these working tools are amazing because all of them help me in learning and help me to understand tricky challenges”.

“After I leave primary school, I want to be remembered as a thoughtful, kind and funny person, but more importantly a person who mad a big difference on the school and the way people think. For my whole school life, I have been determined to make the world a better place, no matter how small the change is and I am proud I have. I’ve always had a heart for the earth’s future, and I want other people to think how I think. I will never forget how I was treated at Greenhills, the compassion, helpfulness and kindness really made me the person I am today”.

START UP 2023 DATES & TIMES

School will begin for all students other than our Preps on Tuesday 31st January at 8.50am. 

Prep students will commence via a staggered start on either Tuesday 7th February or Wednesday 8th February. They will then attend each school day as normal from Thursday 9th February as we have combined all our allocated prep entry assessment days into the first week of the school year.

The first two weeks of school in 2023 will be a time where all classes participate in our “GREAT START” Program. I like to use a picture story book with a theme for the school year. This is a GREAT way to build connection, collaboration and curiosity with all of our students, staff and community. Next year our book is “I Hate Maths” which has been written by our very own Executive Leadership Team…. wait until you read it!

THANK YOU EVERYONE 

I wish to pay special tribute and thanks to our parents and carers. Your dedication, involvement and support this year was enormous. Especially when you think back about the impact of the last couple of years. We certainly appreciate the partnership we have with you, and you make our school such a wonderful and positive place to work each day.

Thank you and well done to all of our students. It has been awesome having our students back at school for the whole year. Hearing the laughter, seeing the smiles, participating in all the learning and extra-curricular activities we have on offer is simply the best. We are so proud of you.

We continued to learn a lot about ourselves and the strengths of our school. This means we have a very exciting 2023 planned and I am jumping out of my skin to get into it all…but yes first a holiday!  

In all my years in education I have never worked with a team that is so prepared for the next school year. We have very strong alignment and cohesion around our improvement strategies and our vision of ensuring our students are curious, challenged and connected is the driving force in all our plans for 2023. We are very excited to see where this can take us. We look forward to working with you in partnership, sharing more of what we do and how we do it and above all focus our energies on the learning and wellbeing of our students.  

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays! See you back in 2023.       

James Penson

Principal