Principal

Aaron Cox 

Principal

I send you this edition of the Newsletter from the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’. Our students are a little awe struck at the moment but already they’ve experienced some Japanese cuisine and Japan’s famous Bullet Train past Mt Fuji. In my absence, Tracy Skiba will be the Acting Principal from the 17th-25th May. Please support Tracy as she will also be missing Patrick Halpin who is with me in Japan, supporting our students.

I would like to thank the Parent Club and their helpers who provided a well-balanced breakfast, for what seemed like, nearly half our school community of mothers, with some grandmothers and even a sprinkling of dads!

There were heaps of smiles and lots of people wanting to take happy-snaps with our giant photo frame celebrating Mother’s Day. We were also treated to performances by our Senior choir and Year 2 students.

We need to send out a gentle reminder to existing families with siblings starting Prep in 2020, to please put in your enrolments forms now, so as we can adequately cater for numbers next year. Kingswood is a school in high demand and we would love to know how many siblings we can expect, sooner rather than later.

We are looking forward to more families contributing to the Quadrangle Project this year. It will make a difference to the whole area and the students are very excited about improving their play space. Your $100 contribution per family will help us raise the $30,000 required to complete the project.

In a few weeks time we will be having an Open Week, run by our Link School Leader - Verity Sheppard, where a number of schools will be viewing our teachers Professional Learning Community meetings. This is yet another accolade for the great work your teachers do here at Kingswood. This week our Prep and Year 4 PLCs were filmed by the Department of Education to create resources for other schools across the state. Well done to everyone involved and a big congratulations to all our staff.

Kingswood will be open on Election Day for polling. If you are in the area pop in for a snag in bread, as our Early Act families and The Rotary Club of Dingley Village will be manning the BBQ. A portion of the funds raised will be donated to our Early Act Team to buy resources.

CCTV

A number of surveillance cameras were strategically installed throughout the school last week in an attempt to identify a small number of undesirable people coming to the school after hours and causing damage. These are now active and live. I would like to make it clear to the school community that we have no intention of using these cameras during school hours. Only Principal Class officers and the Department have access to footage from a closed network and it is not a student monitoring tool. School Council has approved a CCTV policy to support the school in terms of use, privacy and procedures. This policy is available on the school website.

Workforce Planning

Maddison Rowles 6S will take Family Leave early in Term 3. Stefanie Rossiter and Julia Clemente will share 6S for the remainder of the year, commencing Week 2 in Term 3. Jack O’Brien and Bree Morgan will also share 5S until the end of the year commencing at the beginning of Term 3. I would like to thank our teaching staff for being flexible in their work arrangements.

My next instalment for the newsletter will also be written from Japan. I look forward to sharing some of my observations with you.