Message from the Principal 

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Our Greenhills Primary School Choir performed at the Montsalvat Choral Festival last Sunday and were a shining example of all the things that make Greenhills a GREAT school. Other choirs performing on the day included the Melbourne Chamber Choir, Melbourne Women’s Choir, Canterbury Girls Secondary College, Majellan Singers, The Casey Choir to name a few. This is always a very special and prestigious event to be part of. 

Thank you to Kate Stewart for her dedication and commitment to our choral program and continuing to advocate and support our students learning, experience and joy of music. Thank you also to Bec Zappia, Jenny Cranston and all those that assisted and attended. We look forward to their next performance at the Salvation Army Church in Briar Hill on 26th May.

PREP WRITING ON THE MOVE

This term, all our teams have been working through a professional learning cycle (PLC) focused on writing. This is a process where teachers have a deep investigation into student learning needs and develop a sequence of lessons designed to have direct impact on student achievement. School use this PLC process to drill down to find a “crumb” and then investigate through professional learning conversations and reading, ways to ensure students can achieve a curriculum outcome. It is a bit like a doctor making a diagnosis and then setting up a course of treatment based on the best evidence possible. 

These photos highlight just how effective this process is. The first photo is taken late February and the second photo just last week. With explicit teaching, using high impact strategies like worked examples and feedback, our teachers have ensured that students have made some awesome progress. Check out the finger spacing, capital letters, full stops, high frequency words and the GREAT sounding out of the word “wizard”. Well done and great effort Preps!

PRINCIPAL’S MATHS CHALLENGE NO. 2

This is the final call for entries into our Principal’s Maths Challenge No. 2. The link is in each student’s Seesaw account and this challenge links in all the maths that is involved with cooking. The Principal team will be cooking the winner’s recipe so stay tuned to see what we end up making!

EXCURSIONS & INCURSIONS PERMISSION FORMS

Excursions and incursions certainly offer our students rich and engaging learning opportunities. They are also often some of the most memorable events and experiences students remember during their time at our school. They are also a significant load for our staff to organise and run. 

As such we need your support in finalising permissions and any associated payments 48 hours prior to the event.

This allows time for staff to make final checks on numbers and print out all the required paperwork and handbooks. These include the emergency contact details of those that attend so that in the case of an emergency we can ensure we have everything we need. These handbooks are printed and distributed to all staff attending and a copy is also left at the school office. Our staff need to complete this on the day before the event to minimise all the other requirements needed to do on the day itself.

This process will be strictly enforced. We will be unable to make telephone calls home on the morning of an event to follow up any missing permissions. If you are having trouble accessing Compass, need a hard copy of a permission form or require support to make a payment please let the office team know. We do not want any students to miss out on these opportunities and will do everything to support you prior to the day to ensure that everything is organized as it should be. 

MICHAEL YMER PARENT NIGHT 

7pm Wednesday 17th May in the Library 

Each term we host parent partnership events that hope to support our strong bond between school and home. This term’s event is a maths parents’ night with Michael Ymer. Michael is an experienced maths teacher and consultant who has been involved in numerous Victorian State initiatives in mathematics. He continues to support our staff professional learning program with classroom demonstrations and modelling. A bonus is that he also provides a terrific insight for parents about how we teach maths and the things you can do at home to support this. He is a very enthusiastic and entertaining presenter and I know you will find the evening both information and engaging. 

HAPPY MOTHERS & SPECIAL PEOPLE DAY

Happy Mother’s & Special People Day this Sunday. I know our Parent Association stall on Friday is always a special part of the day and seeing our students taking their time to shop and find something special to purchase as a gift is a real highlight. 

On behalf of our whole Greenhills school community, we wish our mums and special people a very happy day. We hope that you know how much you mean to us and how grateful we are for everything you do for us. 

James Penson

Principal