Wellbeing and Community Engagement

Patrick Halpin 

Wellbeing and Community Engagement

Kingswood Family Night

Congratulations to the Parent Club on organising a fantastic Family Fun Night last Friday evening.  It was great to see so many families in attendance.  Everybody looked happy, relaxed and comfortable and each person helped to build the sense of community.  Thank you to all of the people who came to celebrate our outstanding school. 

PLAY Leaders

This week the PLAY Leaders began their role, working on the Prep/Year 1 playground every day at lunchtime.  They are fully responsible for running the program including, setting up the space, organising what games they will play, engaging the students, adjusting the level of difficulty depending on their observations and tidying up afterwards.  I am very proud of each of our leaders and look forward to our program developing further as the year progresses.

Kingswood Kids Challenge

On Thursday the oval was a sea of colour as the students participated in the Kingswood Kids Challenge. It was great to see so many parents come along to cheer their children on. The Kingswood Kids Challenge is one of our largest fundraising events and we greatly appreciate all the parents who volunteered to help on the day. Thank you to the Parent Club who created the name cards and coordinated the entire event. The commitment by all students was very impressive and we look forward to tallying up the results.

Snapshot Surveys

This fortnight’s survey was based on the Parent Helper Sessions.  We had 21 responses to this one, which is just over half the number we had for the Information Nights.  This is to be expected given that a much smaller group of people attended the sessions. 

76% of respondents had attended one of the sessions this year and 100% of the 16 people who answered the question, “Will the information provided help you when volunteering in the school?” reported that it would.  One of the suggestions made regarding what the school could have done to make it possible for more people to attend was with regard to the sessions being held after working hours.  I am interested in pursuing this issue further because there were four sessions offered – 2 during the school day (9:15am) and 2 in the evenings (7:15pm).  The sessions were advertised on Compass, mentioned at the Parent Information Nights and displayed on posters around the school.  If anybody would like to explore this with me, I would greatly appreciate it – please send me an email or call in to speak to me. 

Another important point that was identified is that, it was not made clear to parents that they must attend a session before they can volunteer in classrooms.  I will endeavour to improve our communication in order to ensure that all facts are presented.  I have met with several parents since the official sessions to go through the presentation so if anybody did miss out, feel free to contact me.  I will also hold two more sessions in Term 2 – one during the school day and one in the evening for anybody else who is interested but missed out the first time.

There is still time to provide feedback if you haven’t yet.   Click here or use the QR code. 

The new survey for this fortnight is seeking feedback on the Family Fun Night run by the Parent Club. 

I would like to emphasise the impact that this feedback has on future programs and initiatives at Kingswood Primary School.  Your input is greatly appreciated because we can’t improve if we don’t know what people are thinking. 

Staff Announcements:

Jen Bray (Integration Aide) began her maternity leave this week so we are happy to welcome Alba Galban to the Inclusion Team.  Alba will also continue to run the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden 2 days per week.

 

As this is our last newsletter of Term 1, I would like to thank the Kingswood Primary School Community for making me feel so welcome.  It is really nice to be part of such a supportive school environment.  I wish you all a very safe, restful and enjoyable term break and look forward to seeing you all when we return in April for Term 2. 

Please feel free to contact me by phoning the school office or by emailing halpin.patrick.p@edumail.vic.gov.au if you have any concerns, queries, questions or ideas regarding wellbeing and/or community engagement.