From staff and the Office 

Planet Ark's National Tree Day

Planet Ark’s National Tree Day is fast approaching and here at Kalinda we are planting our very own gum trees at the start of August! Some students will get an opportunity to be part of planting and maintaining new gum trees to enhance our green wedge and improve our biodiversity.

We need volunteers from the community to help facilitate this day. We are asking if any families have adult gloves, wheelbarrows, shovels and specifically a post hole digger. 

If you are able to supply any of the equipment or volunteer on the day (TBC), please email Claire Todeschini on Claire.Todeschini@education.vic.gov.au

DET Scholarships

Scholarships support students and families to assist with the cost of education and engagement in further study at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.

Scholarships are available for students:

• studying in Victoria and who are citizens or permanent residents of Australia
• enrolled in Years 4-11
• enrolled in Year 12 who plan on undertaking tertiary studies.

Scholarships are awarded to students who can demonstrate:

• excellent academic achievement
• participation in school and local community activities
• financial need as determined by the parent or carer receiving a Centrelink income support payment, or the student themselves receiving the Youth Allowance.

For more information including how to apply please go to this link: https://www.vic.gov.au/student-scholarships

DET Information Policy 

Our school collects, uses, discloses, and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website For more information about privacy, refer to the Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in nine community languages:

* Amharic

* Arabic

* Dari

* Gujarati

* Mandarin

* Somali

* Sudanese

* Turkish

* Urdu

* Vietnamese

2022 SCHOOLS COMPETITION

National Tree Planting Day is at the end of July (specifically the 31st of July) and we are hopefully going to be able to get some trees/ seedlings to plant. In the lead-up to this date, Planet Ark is holding a competition to award schools with money to go towards creating a biodiverse environment. 

Students are asked to create a plan of their ideal school grounds that highlight the biodiversity in the environment in whichever way suits them. Eg. Drawing, video, photo etc. 

National Tree Day

This year we’re asking students to share green garden designs with us! 

Tell us how and why you want to bring nature to your school and show us your plans for your chance to win a garden makeover. 

We want to help students like Jimmy. Little Jimmy had a dream to green his school. He went to school at a really hot place with no trees and he was surrounded by concrete. At lunch, the cement would get so hot he couldn't play in the playground. Jimmy's dream was to create shade, attract native birds and grow food for the students. He banded together with his classmates and drew up a plan to make his dream a reality. 

Details: Do you have a plan like Jimmy’s to incorporate nature at your school? It could be a pollinator patch, bush tucker garden or wildlife corridor – share your plans with us and we’ll help the winning school make this dream a reality.

 How to enter: Submit a drawing, poster, written story, video, or whatever other form your plans take, via our website. One entry per class. 

ENTER COMPETITION HERE

Change of parent or student details

Student Resource Funding is determined by parent codes taken from the self-nominated category on student enrolment forms. This means that funds from the Government are taken from the Parent Occupations. We take this opportunity to remind families to advise the school of any changes to employment. As always, any information is confidential.

In the case of an emergency, we will attempt to contact parents, and if there is no response, then we move to the emergency contacts.

It is important that the office has the most current and correct contact details for any parent, to help ensure this will happen.

Please take this time to check your details on Compass, and if you find them incorrect, email the office at kalinda.ps@education.vic.gov.au and we can amend these for you.

Swimming lessons

There will be a large number of classes attending swimming lessons in the future. Here are some tips that we have found to help students.

• Name everything. Shoes, socks, towels, goggles, jocks, undies, and swimmers. 
• Put a spare plastic bag in their bag for the wet items to go into.
• Pack extra snacks. Swimming and getting changed out of wet clothing is hard work.
• Ensure they have enough fluids. Remember a drink bottle as well. 
• Be prepared for them to be tired. It is tiring work. It is also a different type of learning.
• Help them practice dressing, undressing, and putting things away. We cannot help every child in the class. 
• Help them repack their bags every night, ready for the lessons the next day. Towel - tick, jocks, undies tick, goggles tick. 
• If your child doesn't like/ has reactions to/ gets sore eyes - PLEASE pack goggles or eye drops ( with the appropriate medication form attached ) It is a lot of swimming.
• Encourage them to have fun! What an opportunity! They will react to your reactions.