From the Principal 

Dear Parents and Carers,

Today the Acting Premier advised schools will be moving to remote and flexible learning to help curtail the current number of cases of Corona virus in the community. 

Friday 28th May: Pupil Free Day

Monday 31st May -Thursday 3rd June: Home Learning

It’s hard to believe we are more than half way through the term.  This week is Education week, with a focus on developing connections; we have had our students working with students from Somerville Secondary and Somerville Kinder. Our students have attended Somerville Secondary for incursions and sports and their students working with ours here on Literacy, Numeracy and Sports activities. Our School Captains have visited Somerville Kindergarten to share their favourite picture story books and the Kindergarten have visited our school to read a story in our library. I wanted to remind everyone about our Curriculum Day on the 11th of June, our Staff will continue their excellent work on Professional Learning Communities. 

All of our Years 3 and 5 students completed NAPLAN over the last 2 weeks, our Year 5 students completed all of their NAPLAN Online and our Year 3 students completed their writing by hand and the rest of their assessments online.  We look forward to getting our students results and sharing them with our community. 

• At this stage, we will be postponing our Foundation-2 Literacy Information session. 
• We will provide advise closer to the date in regards to if the Foundation 2022 Information Session on the 16th of June at 6:30 in the hall can still go ahead.

Our Somerville Kiss and Go zone has been the recent source of frustration for many parents. Can I please remind all parents, the Kiss and Go Zone on the East side of the main gate is for 2 minute parking only, parents should not be getting out of the cars, this zone is for just dropping children off. If parents need to come into the school or park for longer, please use the other side of Eramosa Road East, opposite the school or down some of the side streets. Please do not park in the staff carpark as having cars going in and out of the carpark can be very dangerous for our students as they come to school. We appreciate that not all parents park and leave their cars but we need to be considerate and mindful of everyone. The Mornington Shire have also been patrolling with cars fitted with cameras monitoring how long cars are parked, if you are there longer than 2 minutes, there is a high possibility you will receive a parking infringement.

As part of the Victorian School Building Authority Somerville School’s Upgrade all three state schools in Somerville are receiving new fences and gates. This is to ensure we can keep your children safe by restricting access outside school hours. We know that this will have an impact on families who visit during the weekend, however these fences will stop vandalism and youths damaging our school grounds, facilities and leaving broken bottles in their wake. The money spent on cleaning up after these youths, will instead be spent on resources for our children. Over the next few weeks the fencing contractors will be putting up temporary fencing as they start work. This will not impact student and parent access to the school or kinder. 

I am very pleased to let the community know that our Basketball Towers and rings are currently being installed, it has been a very long wait for our superstars to have new rings and backboards. We now have 2 full sized basketball courts, the coloured surface will be completed in Term 4 once we have consistent weather. 

Last night at School Council we voted to agree to new prices for Camp Australia’s Before and After School Care Program. We have negotiated lower prices for our community. These prices will start at the beginning of Term 3. We also have the holiday program starting for Term 2 holidays. We are pleased to be partnering to provide this service to our community. 

Student Excellence Program

Congratulations to Aidan and Chloe from SS who have been selected to participate in the Victorian High-Ability Program in Numeracy for Term Three. 

The Victorian High-Ability program provides the opportunity for selected students to participate in a 10-week online extension and enrichment program in Numeracy. The Department centrally manages the selection process for the program based on student academic performance. The program is delivered by Virtual School Victoria and focuses on extending and developing students' Numeracy abilities by offering them the opportunity to work with like-minded peers from other schools within our local area. 

Our High-Abilities Practice Leader at Somerville is Rebecca Mioduszewski. If you would like any further information regarding the Student Excellence Program, please feel free to contact Rebecca via the office or by email. rebecca.mioduszewski@education.vic.gov.au 

Kind Regards,

David Tapp

Acting Principal