New School Councillors

Following our recent call for nominations for parent members of School Council, I am happy to confirm that four parents put their hands up to fill the four parent Councillor vacancies.

As the number of nominations matched the number of vacancies, we have been able to confirm these appointments without the need for a ballot of all parents.

I am very happy to welcome Hannah Lawson, (Beatrix 1/2S and Madeline 5/6L), Matthew Saliba, (Chloe 1/2A), Rachael O'Connor, (Camilla FM) and Sonya Stephen, (Molly FM) to the SKiPPS School Council.

These new Councillors bring a wide range of experience and skills to our Council, complementing our continuing parent members to support the strong governance of our school.

School Council AGM and Presentation of Annual Report

Our new Councillors first taste of action will be the Council AGM and Presentation of our Annual report which takes place on Wednesday the 18th March.

This meeting starts with the presentation of our Annual Report to Parents which allows us to look back, take stock and celebrate the successes of the past 12 months.

We invite all of our school community to attend this meeting to share this 20-30 minute presentation and to ask any questions about our Annual Report and progress made over the last 12 months.

The meeting will start at 6pm in the Performing Arts room - we would love to see as many of you there as possible to celebrate another great year for SKiPPS.

Message from Catherine Sharples

The current councils last meeting will be the AGM on the 18th March. We encourage everyone to come along and hear about the schools achievements and plans.

It is also an opportunity to thank the outgoing council and welcome the new.

Sub committee members who have worked hard all year are especially encouraged to come along.

A huge shout out to the fete committee who did such a superb job in preparing for, then putting on a wonderful event last Saturday. Alana Kelly, Jo Gibbs, Ilaria Miglioranza, Robbie Cappuccio, John Ahern, Lucy Saliba, Steve Chambers, Anna Bongiorno, Eleanor Bryant, Stella Borland and Kristy Ayre. The school is lucky to have you.

I would like to thank the 2019 council for their efforts. For those leaving, Malcolm Shiel who has served as Treasurer and Kirstin Donaldson who has served as Vice President a special thank you for your dedication to the school community. It has been a pleasure working with such a wonderful group of people and I know the wonderful school my family is now leaving will continue to achieve great things

Basketball uniforms and Out of School Hours Sports Policy

Basketball is something which plays a key role in our school - from the before and after school training sessions to the Monday assembly sports results to the Friday evening games at MSAC.

For many years the Playball teams organised by parents but representing SKiPPS have provided sporting opportunities and social connections for our students.

The black basketball uniforms, rented by families from the school are an important part of this and it is great to see how proud our students are of receiving these and wearing them throughout their time at SKiPPS.

Many years ago, when families hired the basketball uniforms, it was understood that these were only to be worn during the Playball games. They were not to be worn at other times, especially to school during the school day.

There were a number of reasons for this but the main three were;

As the uniforms are rented and belong to the school we wanted to reduce wear and tear by limiting them to basketball games.
The basketball singlets do not conform to the school's sun smart policy which states that all shoulders should be fully covered.
For some students not part of a basketball team, the uniforms can appear exclusive.

Over the years, this rule has slowly been forgotten and we are now regularly seeing many students coming to school all day in their full basketball uniforms.

Whilst we do not want to take away the pride and excitement felt by these students in getting their uniforms, we are again now asking that students no longer wear them to school. If teams have an after school game, they are welcome to bring them in their school bags to change into straight after the 3:30pm bell.

This issue and many others around SKiPPS basketball are being discussed as our 'Out of Hours School Sports' policy is currently being reviewed by Education sub-committee. If any parents would like input into this conversation they are invited to attend the next meeting. Interested parents should contact Michelle on bove.michelle.m@edumail.vic.gov.au

Curriculum Day Friday 13th March

A reminder that next Friday (13th March) is the school's third student-free curriculum day of the year. As this is the Grand Prix weekend, we find that it makes sense to take this day as a student-free day each year due to the noise and disruption from the event.

We are taking full advantage of this situation and are looking forward as a staff to continuing our work with George Telford from Challenging Learning. His particular focus for the day will be on feedback and the use of Learning intentions and Success Criteria.

Their Care availability for Curriculum Day Friday 13th March

Their Care will be available for bookings for the full day on Friday 13th March.

Please contact 1300 072 410 or 0429 095 435

Enrol at www.theircare.com.au

Local Schools Community Fund Grant

Many of you would have seen our local Federal Member for Macnamara, Josh Burns, at our School Assembly a couple of weeks ago.

This is the second time that Josh has come to our school and, as well as appearing at assembly, took the time to talk about Canberra to our Year 5/6 students in preparation for their upcoming camp.

Josh was very happy to confirm that SKiPPS was the recipient of a $20,000 Federal 'Local Schools' Community Fund' grant awarded at the end of last year.

Alongside a large amount of locally raised fundraising money, this grant has been used already to support the purchase of our shiny new interactive whiteboards in spaces. Further details of the scheme can be found at https://www.education.gov.au/local-schools-community-fund

We are incredibly thankful for this grant and have already seen the impact of this money on the engagement and learning of our students.

SKiPPS newsletter 2021

Welcome to the SKiPPS Newsletter. Our newsletter is released fortnightly and is our primary source of communication to our community. Please take five minutes to stay up to date with what is going on at our fantastic school.

Issue 3 · 03 Mar 2020

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