Welcome to AGPS!

A huge welcome to all of our new students that have joined the AGPS community this year. We have a number of students across Years 1-6 and 3 very keen prep classes join us this year and they have all settled in beautifully and have made many friends across the school. I am always so proud of how well our school community welcomes new people and have loved seeing our existing students supporting the new students in class and in the playgrounds.

I would also like to extend a warm welcome our new staff members to our school. Welcome to Hannah (2/3H), Fiona (4/5F), Ainsley (4/5A & Learning Specialist), Clare (6C) and Saman (Education Support). We are also really excited to welcome back Jovana (PB) to AGPS.

A Great Start

All classes have started the year with our AGPS start-up program. In this program, we focus on ensuring that everyone in the school understands what it means to BE LIKE KEFAR. We prioritise the building of relationships, expectations, routines and dispositions that are essential to ensuring that 2021 is a highly successful year. Lessons during the program have included developing an understanding of the importance of having a growth mindset and understanding that learning can feel difficult and it takes effort. All the classroom routines and expectations have been established to ensure that learning time is maximised in every lesson, every day.

Term 1 Events

Family Night - On the 16th March we will be having a STEM-themed Family Night. This annual event is a great way to get our community together and we hope to have as many families as possible attend
Colour Explosion! - The Colour Explosion is back this year. The last Colour Explosion was such a fun event and a highlight for many of our students that participated. Please see the Parents and Friends section of this newsletter for further information.
Meet and Greet - Our Meet and Greet was held this week and was a great way for all families to meet the teachers and further strengthen the home/school partnership
Information Evenings - We are having two information evenings this term. One for our current prep parents focused on how to support your child with early literacy development (25th Feb) and the other information evening for prospective prep enrolments for 2022 (23rd Mar).
Altona Meadows Farmers Market - AGPS will have a stall at the April market. We will be selling a range of different items from our kitchen garden program
Running Club - Running Club is back starting next Monday. We look forward to seeing everyone rack up those kms!

Toilet Upgrade

Last year our school council applied for a grant to upgrade the toilet blocks across the school. We have recently found out that we were successful in our application and all of the toilet blocks will be renovated this year. This is very welcome news as the toilet blocks at our school are in need of an upgrade and an area that students often comment on as something that needs to be improved to make our school better. I will keep you updated with news regarding the construction throughout the year.

A huge thank you to Dan Robson who led the grant application. Thanks, Dan!

Working Bee

Trish (our gardener) is really keen to get as many people as possible to help out at our planned working bee on Saturday, 13th March. This working bee will be focused on projects in our garden and any help would be appreciated. Further information about the event will be posted via Compass and the newsletter in the future.

School Council

School council is a great way for parents to get involved in helping to shape the direction of our school. Each year we have 4 vacancies in the parent category and we are currently calling for nominations. If you would like to be part of school council, please look at the Compass notification published on 12th February.

Communication

Here is an overview of the different communication methods of our school community:

Compass - Our main form of communication. This includes consent and payment for excursions/incursions/camps, bookings for parent/teacher interviews, student reports, important school dates and fundraising activities
Upcoming Dates - Important upcoming events are published via the newsletter and as a stickied Compass notification (stays at the top of your Compass newsfeed)
Newsletter - Published fortnightly on Friday (alternate week to assembly)
Facebook - We primarily use Facebook to celebrate events and achievements and to share images and videos
Seesaw - Parents and carers can access their child's Seesaw learning journal to gain insights into the classroom. This includes student work and learning goals. This can also be used to communicate with the classroom teacher
Curriculum Newsletter - Each teaching team publishes a curriculum newsletter early in the term. This provides information about different curriculum areas that your child(ren) will be focusing on for the term
Contacting your child's teacher - If you would like to discuss a matter related to your child please arrange a time to meet with your child's teacher. This can be arranged by sending an email, sending a message via Seesaw or contacting the office.

Annual Privacy Reminder

Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Please take time to remind yourself of the school’s collection statement, found on our website here

For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in nine community languages:

Amharic
Arabic
Dari
Mandarin
Somali
Sudanese
Turkish
Urdu
Vietnamese.

Reminders

As we begin a new year, it’s a good chance for some reminders:

Please make sure all of your child’s belongings are labelled clearly with their name.
We are a ‘nude food’ school. Please don’t send food with wrappers to school. We have crates outside all classrooms so children can put their named containers in them to avoid getting lost.
The staff car park is only for staff during the hours of 8am - 4pm. Students are not permitted to walk through this area as it’s not safe.
Any visitors to the school must come through the main front gate and report to the office. Anyone staying longer than 15 minutes must also check-in using the QR code. At this stage, face masks are compulsory when indoors or when 1.5 m physical distancing cannot be maintained
We very much value support from families. If you or a family member would like to assist please apply for a working with children check (this is free). Once you receive your card, please bring it to the office so that we can photocopy it and keep it on file. Further information about how you can help at school will be published in the future
Terms 1 and 4 are hats on terms. All students are required to wear a sunsmart hat during sport and break times. Hats (as well as other uniform items) can be purchased from the uniform shop.
The uniform shop is located in the building where the prep rooms are and is open on Tuesdays 8:30 – 9:00am and Thursdays 3:00 – 3:30pm.
All students needs to be in full school uniform. Please note that sports skirts and leggings are not part of our uniform policy. Students are required to wear shorts, tracksuit pants or the summer/winter school dress.
Any students who arrive after 9:00am must sign in at the office and collect a late pass. Students arriving at school late must be accompanied by an adult or the parent needs to call the office to explain the reason for being late.
Parents are reminded that playground supervision (teacher on duty) is provided before school from 8.45am and after school until 3.30pm. Students should not be in the school grounds before or after these times unless supervised by their parents or an adult

Thank you all for a wonderful start to the year. I look forward to the remainder of what will be a really exciting year.

Take care,

David

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