School Council
School Council Update - July
Hello – please see an update from the July school council meeting below:
- New Chaplain – after only a week into her role, Hollie was good enough to come along and introduce herself to school council. It was lovely to hear more about Hollie’s background and the impact she is already having on our school.
- Family and Friends – school council really appreciates the role our fantastic Family and Friends group is having on the school, in terms of building community spirit and helping to raise funds for the benefit of our children. The next few months are action packed with two big events being a band night for the parents (24-Aug) and a movie and fireworks night (7-Sep) for the whole family. Both events are exciting new additions to our social calendar and have the capacity to bring in thousands of dollars – we just need you our community to come along, help out and enjoy yourselves! In addition planning work for our returning festival in November is well underway, and the team are looking for help, particularly in arranging the food and organising vouchers or gifts for our wheel of fortune. Please help out where you can!
- Website is live! After a lot of work our new look school website has been launched. We will continue to expand content, but you can already see much more information on our Preschool and OSHC services. It is also designed to be both computer and mobile compatible - have a look and let us know your thoughts. And a belated thanks to Justin Wealands, who gave so much of his knowledge and time in building and maintaining our prior website over the last six years!
- Student growth and infrastructure challenges – council discussed projections for student numbers based on latest data. You will be aware that the school has grown quite substantially from around 140 to 250 students over the last seven years, which has provided some funding benefits as well as some infrastructure challenges. Whilst forecasting is always uncertain, it now expected that the student population will stabilise at around 250 as the increase of students has worked its way through to this year’s graduating class. This should mean that over the next five years, our graduating class sizes of 35-40 students are replaced by similar Foundation cohorts.
- Australian Anthem discussion school council spent further time discussing sensitivities on the wording of our Anthem this month, with a letter from a community member a very helpful starting point. There was an open forum with views shared both for and against this type of change being made at a local level, as well as many council members who could see both sides and felt somewhat torn on the issue. At this stage we acknowledge the community voice, but believe that the discussion needs more time to play out in the wider national community. We remain open to community discussion and input on the topic.
- School review – family input session – this is scheduled for Monday August 26th from 6:30-7:30pm. Please come along to tell us what matters to you as we develop our strategy for the next four years. This event is run by the parent members of school council to ensure your voice is heard. Menzies Creek PS has always had great attendance at these sessions. Initiatives such as Plot to Pot and establishing our own Pre-School are successes that came from prior reviews. The evening will run as 4 x 15 minute break-out discussions on different topics, with babysitting provided. Please put it in your diary and come along!
As always please let myself or your other school councillors know if you would like to raise an issue or ask a question about School Council.
Kind regards, Rowan
0418 160 546