Well what an incredible couple of weeks we have all had. Our community like all others continues to be affected with COVID cases both with students, parents and our teaching staff. On average we have anywhere between 3-6 staff absent per day. On average it costs about $2100 for 1 relief teacher for a week. Our School recently spent around $11,000 to ensure classes were covered, programs continued to run and classes were not split.

It’s not even the end of term 1 and a huge portion of our casual relief budget has been spent and we know that as the winter months come we will have to be creative! Once that budget is spent the school will have to rethink how classes can be covered and perhaps what programs we can put on hold/ redirect to ensure absences are covered. Contrary to media hype there is no “big bucket of money” that schools have to use for this purpose.

Let’s continue to be vigilant around sickness, symptoms and RAT tests to keep our community as safe as we can.

AROUND THE SCHOOL

It’s always a joy to visit the Foundation classes and this week they were learning about the vowel sounds so I set them a challenge to see if they could identify how many vowel sounds I had in my surname. FT were thrilled to accept and learnt that there were 4 vowel sounds!!!

Story Dogs- Website https://www.storydogs.org.au/school-information

Ms Wood will be introducing this program into our Year 4 cohort. We had the pleasure of meeting Oscar Thursday afternoon, who will join our team next week for the remainder of term 1 and come back and work with year 4 students in term 2. We can’t wait to welcome Oscar and his carers into our classrooms.

NEW STRATEGIC PLAN

2021-2025 After an extensive review process in 2021, we used the feedback captured throughout this review process to forge a new Strategic Plan for the school at the end of last year. This plan clearly captures the school’s Vision & Values, as well as the school’s challenges and plans for improvement over the next four years. The Strategic Plan is based upon three overarching goals, with each goal having three distinct Key Improvement Strategies, as summarised in the table:

UPCOMING EVENTS IN OUR COMMUNITY

HARMONY DAY – 21st March

On the 21st March, it is Harmony Day. We are celebrating this special day where inclusion and diversity are the important messages, by participating in classroom activities that have been organised by each classroom teacher.

Students are encouraged to wear a splash of orange on the day and asked to bring a gold coin to support the recent devastation from the floods in our neighbouring states.

PARENT CLASS REPS FOR 2022

Please see the attached list for the parent reps for each class. The parent reps now have each class’s details to commence updating/ communicating and hopefully organise some much needed catch ups with students and families. We still have no reps for 3G, 56O and 56T. There is still only 1 rep for 1D, 3M 4T, 4W, 56K and 56Y. Please contact MPS PandF via this link mpspandf@gmail.com if you would like to help out your classroom rep or be a rep

MR KOVAL GETTING MARRIED

This Thursday we celebrated the pending wedding of Mr Koval, The school had a special morning tea and our year 5-6 students held an honours walk at the end of the day to wish him all the best as he will be absent on Friday 18th for his wedding to his beautiful fiancé Nicole. Congratulations Mr Koval!

NAPLAN REMINDER

A reminder that this year our school like all DET school will be transitioning to online NAPLAN testing. The students will have a Practice session for our Year 3 and Year 5 cohorts Thursday 17th March @10am. We will then have another state-wide practice on the 24th March and then complete the actual tests in early May. A flyer went home to all families last week and a compass message outlining the new format. If any parents are concerned or would like to discuss this further please do so with your child’s teacher, the sooner the better.

STUDENT LEADERSHIP EXCURSION

Thursday 24th March the student leadership team will be attending a GRIP leadership conference with Mr Koval and then Monday 28th March year 6 students will partake in "an amazing race" transition session at Sandringham college

WHOLE SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY EVENT AND MPS P&F BBQ

Friday 1st April the School will hold an MPS CROSS COUNTRY event. ALL PARENTS ARE WELCOME to attend and be part of the fun. Mrs Kelly will send out a compass message next week with more information and times of each year level event. Children are to dress in their sports colours. This information can be found on your child's compass profile or please ask your child's teacher if you are unsure. Houses and colours below:

Lowden House- Green
Dendy House- Yellow
Sadgrove House- Red
Hawker House- Blue

The cross country will be followed by a P&F BBQ picnic and Easter raffle fundraiser... helpers needed please refer to compass message that went out earlier this week

The Parent and Friends Committee invites you to the End of Term BBQ. Bring a picnic rug and enjoy the school grounds after school on Friday the 1st of April.

We will be selling sausages, icy poles and drinks. As well as Keep Cups, Celebration Cards and we are having an Easter Raffle.Please see full details attached regarding the Easter Raffle - all tickets sales are via QKR. If you would like to volunteer your time for the BBQ please click on the link below: https://signup.com/go/vZYOKNU

LAST DAY OF TERM 1

Last day of term 1 Friday 8th April finish time 2:30pm

PARENT WORKSHOPS

We are pleased to announce the reinstatement of our popular and informative parent workshop sessions with one of our Learning Specialist Mrs Wilmot.

Parents and carers are invited to attend our Mathematics and English Workshops. These sessions are designed to help families understand the MPS approach to teaching and learning, providing an overview of a lesson and giving parents strategies to support learning at home.

Bookings are essential as places are limited. Please book via TryBooking link below:

https://www.trybooking.com/BYBTQ

The workshop sessions in week 8 will repeated again in week 9. All parents must be double vaccinated and masks to be worn at all times. (These are DET mandates)

Sessions / Session times

Week 8

Tues 22 March Maths 9.15am

Wed 23 March - English 9.15am

Week 9

Tues 29 March- Maths 9.15am

Wed 30 Mar- English 9 .15am

https://www.trybooking.com/BYBTQ

Sessions to be held in Additional Assistance room (next to Mr Leeden’s room). The sessions will be one hour with time for questions at the end.

Noxia Angelides

Principal

COMPASS