From the Principal

Welcome back

A very warm welcome back to everyone in our school community! We hope you all had a relaxing break and enjoyed some quality family time. This is our first newsletter for the term as both Mr Heys and I have been on leave. We would like to thank Mrs Tennille Giannopoulos for standing in as Acting Principal during this time.

Education Week and Open Night - Move, Make, Motivate!

Education Week is an annual celebration of education in Victoria.

This year’s theme is ‘Active Learners: Move, Make, Motivate’, which celebrates physical activity, hands-on learning and student voice in education.

Our Open Day / Night will be held on Tuesday, 23rd May during the following times:

Open Morning: Tuesday 23rd May (9:00am to 10:30am)
Open Night: Tuesday 23rd May (5:00pm to 6:30pm)

We have planned a very special Open Night / Learning Expo where will celebrate hands on active learning in the curriculum area of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

Thanks to Mrs Lorna McKellar, our talented STEM teacher who has organised a variety of STEM related activities that students and family members can participate in during the night session.

Families will be invited to collect stamps as they go around the school completing the activities and then solving the STEM puzzle. Once you have completed the puzzle you can then go to the library to collect your prize!

Families can only participate in the STEM activities during the Night session between 5.00pm – 6.30pm. Students can collect an 'Open Night Passport' from the hall from 5.00pm. From there families can collect stamps as they visit all the different class and specialist rooms across the school completing the different activities.

During our Open Day / Night times parents/grandparents/friends/community members will be encouraged to visit their child’s classroom and talk to their child/children about their learning and look at the work they have been completing at school.

Parents and students will have the opportunity to visit all classrooms, our STEM Room, the hall and our Green Screen Room.

We look forward to seeing as many people as possible on Tuesday, 23rd May.

Thanks to Mrs McKellar for leading this event and to the staff who will be attending this significant community event.

Facilities Update

Over the school holidays, we had new synthetic grass installed on our basketball and netball courts. It looks fantastic and will provide a great place our students to participate in various sporting activities and during our Physical Education lessons. This area is also used by community members over the weekend and we know that they will enjoy the new surface that not only looks better but it is also flatter!

During the holidays we also had four split systems heating and air conditioning installed in the hall. This will make our hall more comfortable during the colder winter months and the warm summer days. Mr Stillman is very happy with his new improved hall!

Mother's Day High Tea

Our Mother’s Day High Tea will be held on Thursday, 18th May at 4.00pm – 5.30pm. We

look forward to seeing as many mums, aunties, grandparents and special people attend this event. The Junior School Council members have been planning this event and we are sure that this will be a fantastic occasion.

Please refer to the Compass feeds for information about this event.

Attitudes to school survey for all Year 4-6 students

We value student voice as a means to improving student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction and are conducting a survey to find out what your child thinks of our school. The Attitudes to School Survey is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education and Training to assist schools to gain an understanding of students' perceptions and experience of school. Our school will use the survey results to plan programs and activities to improve your child's schooling experience.

Over the next few weeks all students from Years 4 -6 will participate in the annual Attitudes to Schooling Survey. Your child will complete the survey online during school hours using a purpose built secure online survey tool. It is important to note that we are not in any way “testing” your child. All responses to the survey are kept anonymous. Personal identification data will not be recorded in the survey response file. This ensures that the confidentiality of your child’s responses is protected at all times. If you do not want your child to participate in this survey, you can choose for your child to ‘opt out’. Please refer to an upcoming Compass feed with information about how to do this.

In order to maintain consistency across the school, Ben Heys and I will administer this questionnaire to the children and results will be presented to the school community once they have been analysed and returned by the Department of Education and Training.

If you would like more information, please speak to Ben or myself.

Year 6-7 Transition (Relevant for Year 6 families)

A reminder that the State-wide year 6-7 transition process has begun, with all Grade 6 students in Victoria receiving a transition information pack. Thank you to the families who have already returned the form to school. For those Year 6 families who have not returned the form, please do so before Friday, 12 May. This is the state-wide cut off. If your child is attending a private school for Year 7, this form still needs to be filled out and returned to school.

Matthew Coney and Ben Heys