From the Principal 

Dear Families,

COVID: 2.5 years into this pandemic and it finally got me! Unfortunately, I tested positive on Saturday night and won’t be at school this week. We have had several families and staff impacted not only by COVID but the flu, gastro and other illness. I wish all those unwell, a speedy recovery.

Friday: Remember the 6 + 1 writing traits we wrote about earlier this year? Staff have been fortunate to have had literacy expert and ex-principal, Riss Leung join us in person to help us enhance our teaching of writing and identify where we can help students in the various traits enhance their writing. Thanks to Kerryn McKeon for organising this terrific learning experience for staff. 

Thursday’s Common Professional Practice Day: The day was devoted to assessment and reporting. Staff are well underway writing reports and collating final assessment data to provide families with a report on student progress and achievement. Please look back through Seesaw posts and the curriculum trackers on Sentral to gain a broader understanding of your child progress. The trackers will be open in the last week of this term, over the holidays and then the first week of term 3. 

Reports and Family conferences: Assessment and reporting is well underway, and we are scheduling conferences (or parent teacher meetings) for week 3 in term 3. As this is only a 9-week term we felt it would be too busy for all involved. This enables ample time for families to review the written report, Seesaw for work examples and student reflection and Sentral to check on the curriculum trackers. My instruction to staff about writing reports is to show you as parents that the teacher knows your child. As a parent I want to know about my child’s attitude to learning, their social interactions, resilience and how they are as a person. The curriculum achievements can be seen in the trackers and what is shared via Seesaw. 

Principals Conference: Monday and Tuesday of last week was a great opportunity for me to reconnect with many of my principal colleagues at the State Principals Conference. Over 1500 delegates attended and Andy and I joined the three other nearby schools to present the Mental Health in Primary Schools initiative we are a part of. The 4 MHAWC’s presented so well. Congrats to Andy!

Child Safe Standards 2022: The new and revised Child Safe Standards begin on July 1, 2022. Kristy and I have worked hard over the last week to have all our policies linked in the new Child Safe and Wellbeing policy (draft for consultation) and another document entitled “How OGPS meets the child safe standards”. We are asking for your feedback on both of these documents which can be found at https://www.ogps.vic.edu.au/index.php/child-safe-standards/ Please email the school with any feedback and ideas so we can collate and redistribute to School Council for ratification on 21st June and be ready for July 1. A special thanks to all School Councillors who have helped reviewing and ratifying the connected policies too. 

Anxiety: Thanks to Andy McNeilly for hosting two parent information sessions around anxiety and thanks to those families who attended and engaged. Andy hopes to run more of these sessions throughout the year to upskill us as parents and as people. Like with much professional learning, we take away a few ides to try and implement. I do wonder how much time do we put into developing ourselves as parents and care givers? I know Andy is preparing a high quality speaker for families to meet and engage in about week 5 of term 3, so stay tuned and sign up for this one! 

Apple Fair Survey: Thanks to the 62 respondents for engaging in the survey and putting their thought and ideas across. It will remain open for 1 more week, then School Council will synthesise the information and let you know the next steps soon. Please join in and have your say. 

2023: As we settle into our routines for 2022, some of us are planning 2023 already! We welcomed our prospective parents to an information evening hosted by the fabulous Foundation team with Kristy, Andy and James all supporting. We also had Matt Menheere as a special parent guest too, who highlighted the school and his family’s experiences at OGPS. Thanks Matt. We appreciate your words and apologise you had to skip footy training! 

Parent Helper Course: Thank you to all of the parents/carers that have attended or will be attending the parent helper course this week. We really value the support and assistance you will offer to your child's classroom. 

Have a great week everyone and I look forward to being back on deck next week.

Scott McCumber

Principal

Ocean Grove Primary School