Acting Principal's Report

It’s been another very busy fortnight- excursions to Myuna Farm (Foundation) and the Melbourne Zoo (Year 1), NAPLAN (Years 3 & 5), Mother’s Day Morning Tea, school photos and hosting lots of visitors- Deakin pre-service teachers, Melbourne University Students and school tours.

Curriculum Day- Change of Date to Friday 28 July 2017

At last night’s meeting, School Council approved a change in our Term 3 Curriculum Day. It was previously approved as Monday July 17 and it has now changed to Friday 28 July 2017. The focus of our Curriculum Day is Bilingual Teaching and Learning. Our keynote presenter for the day was unable to attend our original date, therefore we renegotiated a new date. If you have any questions about this please come and see me.

School Council Sub Committees

At our meeting last night we confirmed our school council sub committees below:

Play is the Way Parent Session

On Monday May 8 around 30 parents attended our parent session on ‘Play is the Way’. Wilson McCaskill and his wife Julie were ‘over the moon’ with the attendance!

Wilson, founder of ‘Play is the Way’, the social and emotional framework we implement at Huntingdale, explained to parents how the framework is linked to the personal and social capabilities in the Victorian Curriculum.

In his engaging manner Wilson explained the philosophy of ‘Play is the Way’, linking each of the virtues posters to real life examples that parents could relate to. He talked about behaviour education versus behaviour management and our obligation as teachers and parents to prepare children to live and learn well in an ever-changing society.

We hope the sessions gave parents background and understanding of why we have chosen this philosophy at HPS and the research behind it. We hope to have Wilson return in the future and to provide opportunities for our families to gain insight into ‘Play is the Way’.

MLTAV Celebration Dinner

On Friday 5 May, a group of our staff attended the Modern Language Teachers Association of Victoria (MLTAV) annual dinner. It was a celebration of 70 years of the association and 20 years of the DET Bilingual School’s Program in Victoria. It was a lovely night for the staff who attended- Naomi Mori-Hanazono, Eiji Nishikubo, Keiko Harada, Nick Tolliday, Maria Perrella, Maria Mathews and myself.

HPS is one of the flagship schools in the DET Bilingual Program. It was wonderful to see Kylie Farmer (who now works for the MLTAV) and Naomi Wilks-Smith (now a language lecturer at RMIT) who were founding members of the program along with Keiko Harada and Maria Perrella and listening to their stories of how the program has evolved. We are in the process of organising a school based event to celebrate the 20 year Bilingual Program at Huntingdale. The program started in Term 3 1997 and we are looking at a date during this time. Please look out in future newsletters for information.

Staff Achievements

Two of our graduate teachers- Caitlin Webb and Monika Herrman were awarded last week Monash University's Dean's Award for Academic Excellence. This is awarded to the top graduating student of their respective courses for 2016, based on their final Weighted Average Mark (WAM).

They were also both awarded the Dean's Award for Academic Achievement, awarded to the top twenty graduates from an undergraduate degree with a High Distinction average in 2016.

Student Achievements

Elektra entered the design your own tea mug competition at T2 and she was announced the winner for Victoria just before the end of term 1. What an achievement! The tea mug with her design arrived at her house and she was very excited!

A reminder that we ask that any parents who have a child who has achieved something special at any time to please take a photograph and write a short sentence or two about what the child did, when it happened and what it means to the child and send this through to the school account at huntingdale.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au Achievements could be getting an award from the local footy team or ballet performance or library book club or gaining their Grey Wolf Award at Scouts or any other hobby your child pursues we’re here to celebrate Personal Best in whatever form that takes.

Parents and Friends Group

The Parents & Friends Transition School Council sub-committee are working on plans to have a Parent Group in the school. Look out in future newsletters for this exciting initiative and we hope you will get involved!

Amendments to the Working with Children Act 2005

From 1 August 2017 a number of important amendments to the Working with Children Act 2005 will come into effect. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse made several recommendations aimed at strengthening the protection children receive through Working with Children Checks. The following amendments to the Act implement these recommendations:

Expand the definition of ‘direct contact’ in the Act. The definition of direct contact now includes oral, written or electronic communication as well as face-to-face and physical contact.
Remove references to ‘supervision’ from the Act. This means that even if a person’s contact with children as part of their child-related work is supervised by another person, they will still need to apply for a Working with Children Check (Check).
Create a new occupational category of ‘child-related work’, known as ‘kinship care’. Family members or other persons of significance caring for a child placed by Child Protection under the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 are required to obtain a Check.
Ensure that non-conviction charges (charges that have been finally dealt with other than by a conviction or finding of guilt) for serious sexual, violent or drug offences are considered as part of Check assessments and re-assessments.
Enable the Secretary to the Department of Justice and Regulation to compel the production of certain information for the purposes of compliance monitoring.

Please note that points 1 and 2 are of particular importance as they broaden the scope of people required to hold a Check and will affect schools that recruit volunteers and staff to child related work.

We require all parents who come and volunteer in our school, either working in classrooms, helping out with the Book Fair, going on excursions or helping/watching swimming to have a current WWCC.

Please ensure that you take your WWCC to Gill in the office so she has a copy.

Homework

Huntingdale Primary School is embarking on a review of its homework policy during the 2017 school year.

The school recognises that homework can ‘spark’ many different ideas and emotions. We are a very culturally diverse school population, with many of our parents educated in different education systems all over the world. Therefore our experiences and values of homework can be different. Some parents expect academic based homework each night, while other parents see homework as a more holistic approach of reading and attending extra-curricular activities such as dancing, scouts, music lessons and sports. Students also have differing views around homework; while some relish it, others find it difficult to complete.

The Value of Homework

There are many ‘schools of thought’ on homework. While much research has been completed in the USA and Europe, there are few Australian studies. The results of studies are also inconsistent. The Department of Education and Training’s (DET) homework guidelines state:

The current evidence and research shows that the quality of homework assigned is likely to be more important than the quantity. Research has established that homework has a positive effect on learning, particularly at the middle and secondary school levels (Xu, 2010; Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 2005). Although homework’s effectiveness has been challenged by educators, parents, and students (Kohn, 2006), it continues to be an important educational supplement used by most teachers to enhance the learning experience of their students (Patall, Cooper, & Wynn, 2010). Overall, the effectiveness of homework is enhanced by providing students with choices among homework tasks, which will result in higher motivational and performance outcomes, students’ autonomy and intrinsic motivation (Patall et al., 2010).

An inquiry into the approaches of school homework in Victoria was completed and a summary of the findings can be found in this article:

https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/artic

Acting Assistant Principal's Report

I hope you all had a lovely Mother’s Day with your family.

Winter will arrive very soon. I enjoy coming through the school gate with the smell of autumn leaves on a foggy and misty morning. It is so beautiful with colorful leaves on the ground. Please enjoy the moment and appreciate the season.

Mother’s Day Morning Tea

Thank you very much for all of our parents who joined the Morning Tea. It was so nice to see the hall full of mothers enjoying reading cards and chatting with each other. This year our Student Leadership Group brought the idea to create giant hearts with their individual heart with their message on it. Our Community captains (Ariel, Duncan, Nathan and Gauri) did a wonderful job serving the morning tea and cleaning up. Our School Captains did their speech in English and Japanese in front of all the mothers. It is important for students have their voice and take ownership for their learning. It is a true testament to our student leaders that they were able to contribute in a major way for this event.

A special thank you to Mrs Gill Penfold who helped to organize and prepare the morning tea.

I hope everyone enjoyed the special occasion.

Japanese Festival on Sunday 21st May

The annual Japan Festival in Box Hill will be held on Sunday 21st May from 10:00-am to 5pm.

We will have our school’s booth in the Town Hall as usual. In addition, we will have the activity booth in the TAFE building this year. Children can enjoy making bookmarks, colouring Japanese writing scripts and Origami. We are seeking parent helpers for the information booth and activity booth. If you would like to help and need to have your children with you, we would love for you to help in the TAFE Activity booth.

You can enjoy Japanese performances throughout the day and also enjoy eating a variety of Japanese food. Our Japanese Taiko Group will also perform on the day. Please come along and enjoy the day with our community.

If you are keen to help out in our booths, and haven’t put your name down, please click here and quote code 4jw3p to register your interest.

Education Week

We are going to celebrate Education Week next week. Children will enjoy the lunchtime activities such as reading and Mindfulness activities. Grade1-4 will have “World of Math Roadshow” Incursion next Friday. Foundation children will enjoy the Math activities with their buddies (Grade5/6 students). Our next newsletter will have a lot of information about the activities that took place.

Our annual Open Morning for Prospective Parents is on Tuesday 23rd May. If you know someone who is interested in having a look at our school, please let them know to book the school tour by phoning the school.

Kelly Sports Dance

All of our children were invited to join in with the trial dance session held last Monday. If your child is keen to attend the Hip-Hop Dance classes to be held during lunch time every Monday, please register your child by registering online at Kelly Sports Website or phoning Kelly Sports on 0408 379 543.

Parent Workshop for Artists in Schools Project

We have a very exciting project starting in Term 3 - a whole school art project around the concept of SUSTAINABILITY. As part of this project, we want to create a sustainable connection with our wider school community - which includes our FAMILIES!

We would like to invite you all to a workshop facilitated by artists, Dylan Martorell and Chaco Kato, who will be collaborating with students and teachers next term for the art project. In the workshop, you will learn and experience a glimpse of what the students will be exploring - techniques of weaving, macramé pattering, and creating a large scale Archi-Loom that generates sound from organic materials.

Date: Tuesday 23 May

Time: 6.00-7.00pm

Venue: Gillian Penfold Hall

RSVP: By 19 May at huntingdale.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au

HPS is very fortunate to be part of the Artists in Schools Project - A Victorian Government Initiative, and we hope that you can come and join the first step of our collaborative project!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to talk to Hanazono sensei or Miss Koyama.

It is getting colder in the mornings, so please make you’re your children are wearing their school jumper to keep themselves warm. Let’s keep up with healthy routine to go through this weather.

Naomi Mori-Hanazono

Acting Assistant Principal

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