Who would believe that we are only three weeks away from the next school holidays and with so many more school-based activities and celebrations to come, including Easter?

We know that last week some of our families and neighbours celebrated the Jewish festival of Purim. We saw many dressed in various costumes, singing and music was heard throughout the day. This festival serves as the hallmark of the holiday that's all about unity, family and togetherness.

It's a wonderful reminder of how important it is to appreciate and celebrate the multicultural society we live in and ensure racism has no place in our communities. This week RPS celebrates Cultural Diversity week, until the 26th of March. This invites us to reconnect and share, and express ourselves creatively through this year’s theme, ‘Connecting Through Culture’.

We invite students to bring a little culture into their classrooms and perhaps during circle time share something about their family backgrounds, bring an artefact or detail a celebration that has a special cultural significance in their lives.

RIPPERS TAKE ACTION AGAINST BULLYING & VIOLENCE

What a special day we all spent focusing on building awareness on prevention against bullying and violence. We thank our Student Wellbeing leaders for organising activities for the day.

Through your generosity, we raised $257.50 which will be donated to the Alannah and Madeleine Foundation and Dolly's Dream, two important institutions which work to address bullying and supporting the wellbeing of young people.

The school was a sea of orange but it's the significance of this day that symbolizes so much more in the lives of our children.

As a Respectful Relationships school we especially promote opportunities to build respect, positive attitudes and behaviours. Our Respectful Relationships team is still looking for a parent representative; if you would like to help out, please contact the school office.

CYBERSAFETY - LIVE SESSIONS TERMLY F-6

All students across the school will undertake a termly live Cyber Safety awareness course conducted by Inform and Empower. Each term we will post special tips for parents to support this learning. Our Foundation to Year 2 students will meet Ollie. Ollie has three very important messages to teach your children.

The biggest factor in keeping young people safe online is their communication and relationships with the adults in their lives. Ollie reinforces the importance of checking and speaking with a trusted adult when challenges arise online.
In order to establish good habits from an early age, Ollie explores what information is considered private and how important it is to keep this information offline.
A growing challenge for children and families is the excessive use of screens. Ollie introduces the concept of ‘green time’ and how important it is to balance your screen time with green time.

Our Year 3 to Year 6 students will be introduced to the 5 Thrive Online concepts - Smart, Strong, Alert, Kind and Brave to be internet awesome. Sessions will include Kahoot quizzes and the use of a range of fantastic resources. Please refer to the COMPASS/QKR notification which will be released on Monday.

WELCOME PICNIC - TONIGHT

We are looking forward to seeing you at the Welcome Picnic tonight from 5pm. We are very excited to let you know that there is going to be a Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony by local Yalukit Willam man of the Boonwurrung, Jaeden Williams.

The ceremony will commence at 5.15pm. Please note that the Welcome Picnic is a minimal waste event. Please be mindful of not bringing waste onsite, there will be green bin collections for food scraps and the Student Sustainability Leaders will be collecting soft plastics for RedCycle collection. Single use cutlery and crockery is discouraged and all waste generated onsite is expected to be taken home with you.

The event will be held on the back oval, entry will be through the Foundation gates. Pack a picnic dinner, rug or chairs. There will be delicious sausages, home made cupcakes by Lee Brennan and icy-poles.

TheirCare, the school's OSHC provider, has sponsored this event by supplying all the sausages. Jeffery Michaels-Choo, our area manager, will be at the event and would love to meet our Ripper families.

COVIDsafe Procedures:

On arrival, you will be greeted by a number of COVIDSafe marshals (parent and teacher volunteers in fluro vests) who will request to see a copy of your vaccination status. Please ensure you have this ready for entry and note that we have the right to refuse entry if evidence is not provided, as this is a school council event on the school's site.

This event is solely for the families of the school, siblings are welcome of course. We continue to encourage community members to physically distance where appropriate or wear a mask if this is difficult to achieve.

Students of the school will NOT be required to present their vaccination status on arrival. Please do not attend the event if any member of your family is exhibiting any COVID-19 like symptoms.

WORLD MATHS DAY BEGINS TODAY

World Maths Day is an online international mathematics competition powered by Mathletics, an online maths learning platform our school subscribes to. The first World Maths Day started in 2007, so it has been running now for 15 years.

Our Mathematics specialists, Braden Leech and Stef Hoffner, are ready to see which of our mathematicians can get the highest score and compete against children across the globe.

All students can enter this competition using their Mathletics login details. Please use the special symbol above to enter the competition.

Students can log in and complete 20 x 60-second live maths games, earning 1 point for each question they answer correctly. The event lasts for 48 hours and officially started today!

Until next fortnight!

Natalie Rose Principal

Jess Grey Assistant Principal

Sustainability Corner