Principal's Message

Dear OLA Families

Term 2 has begun with sunshine, rain and wind and has left us wondering each day which uniform is best to wear!! With all this rain and wind, thank goodness we officially move from Summer to Winter Uniform as of this Monday 8 May.

It has been a great first two weeks of term, beginning with amazing Inquiry Professional Learning for staff by Kate Korber, ANZAC Day prayer service, our Easter Celebration being led by Prep students, talks with our architects Smith & Tracey about developing a new Master Plan, School Tours, Mathematics Professional Learning for Grade 1/2 teachers, IT & Digital Technologies for our Grade 1/2s with the talented Tserlin Heatherton, Kilbreda Principal and past students visiting our Grade 5 girls, Parents and Friends meeting to plan exciting events for our community, Opening of Term Mass and commissioning of our Minnie Vinnies, the Peaceful Kids Program has begun, Grade 5/6 Camp Info Night (not many sleeps now!!) and it all finishes with the coronation of the King!

You are invited...

On Friday 19 May we invite you to Mass at 10.00am with Bishop Tony Ireland, our Parish Priest Fr Alan Fox, the Executive Director of Melbourne Archdiocese of Catholic Schools Dr Edward Simons and our local Member of Parliament Nick Staikos. Past, present and future families of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish Primary School are coming together to celebrate 70 years of education as well as participating in the official opening of our two million dollar building project. Following Mass at 10.00am, we will walk through to the heart of the school for the official cutting of the ribbon and blessing followed by morning tea and refreshements. This is a great opportunity to come together as a community and to view these new state of the art facilities as well as mingle and take in some of the memories shared with us.

Working Bee

We are looking forward to welcoming families to the Term 2 OLA Working Bee TOMORROW, Saturday 6 May from 10.00am-12.00pm.  Please dress warmly!

We especially welcome the following families who are rostered on:

Kirunyu                                 Drever                                   Fenwick

Landgraf                               Freeman                               Frukhtman

Movavcik                              Grose                                     Gamble

O’Connor                              Hel                                          Gleeson

Declase                                 Dunlevie                               Fedrick

Gouel                                     Gray                                       Giacobello

Joseph                                  Kandel                                   Hansen

Kintakas                               Killeen                                   Ipsaros

D’Silva                                   Monotti                                  Bardon                                 

Foster                                    Moore. X                               Etienne

Kustura                                 Murphy                                  Ferrari

Mee                                        Natilli                                      Giles

Daviotis                                 Peker                                     Famelos

Fraser                                    Mhanna                                 Paynter

Pinzone                                 Polino                                    Rutkowski

Asgari     

Please bring along your tools such as wheelbarrows, blowers/blowervacs, whipper snippers, rakes, shovels, brooms, hedge trimmers, secateurs and other gardening tools.  Our main aim is to spread soft fall on the playground and top up sand in the sand pits (think some may have come home in the shoes of our children!), sweep up pathways, weed and trim garden beds and help make the school feel and look great just in time for our Opening on 19 May.

We ask parents to sign in at the desk outside the roller door garage on arrival and to sign out when you depart.  Toilets will be open at the end of the administration building. Water is available for all.

Professional Learning

To kick start Term 2, our Professional Learning day at OLA was led by Kate Korber and focussed on Inquiry. The staff loved Kate's passion and her ability to bring learning to life through her sharing of knowledge and experiences. Kate worked with us particularly on student agency in Inquiry.  Kate commented on how good it was to work with such a motivated staff and how lucky we all are to teach and learn in such beautiful spaces.  We look forward to continuing to work with Kate at OLA. 

ANZAC DAY

Our School Captains led our OLA ANZAC Day Service at school and also laid a wreath at the Cheltenham RSL Cenotaph on behalf of the OLA community. We thank them for thier reverant and resepectful way in which they lead such special occasions.

Extra Curricular Opportunities

We are proud of the extra curricular opportunities that are offered at OLA. Please refer to the Clubs at OLA section of this newsletter for more information about OSHClub, Music, Art4Schools, STEM Monsters, Netball, Chess and Soccer Clubs.

We love to see our students taking advantage of the many extracurricular opportunities offered here at OLA.  With a new term we have a new club and the children are loving Stike Soccer! 

OLA Parish - 'From the Heart' Workshop

The Care for our Common Home Group is very pleased to invite the OLA Parish Primary School community to join other members of the parish community in a 'From the Heart' Workshop on Sunday afternoon, 21 May, 2.00 - 3.45pm. 

We are looking forward to the Workshop as an opportunity to discuss the 'Statement from the Heart' and constitutional recognition of First Nations peoples in a supportive gathering. 

Guided Learning Walk for Parents

On Thursday 11 May at 8.40-10.00am we will be hosting our first Learning Walk for parents at OLA. We will visit a Junior, Middle and Senior class (3 classes in all) with each of the classes focussing on Mathematics.  Our Principal, Mathematics Leader and Learning & Teaching Leader will be joined by Family Partnerships Consultant Tony Dalton. For this first walk we have secured approximately ten parents join us.  We can't wait to share in all things learning and Mathematics with you and thank you for joining us on this tour.

HAVE YOU ENROLLED YOUR CHILD FOR PREP 2024? 

If you have a child ready for Prep 2024, we encourage you to please put in an enrolment form. This will help us with organisation purposes. To access an enrolment form:

• Drop into the school office to collect one
• Email office@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au and ask for a form to be sent home
• Visit the enrolment section of our school website and download a form

School Tours for Enrolments 2024

Our families are our greatest advocates, so please keep spreading the good word about our amazing school to your friends and family. If you have a child or you know someone wanting to tour schools for their child, please encourage them to call Sharan in our front office to organise a time that works for you. With enrolments for Prep 2024 now due, we encourage all families to submit their applications as soon as possible. 

Policies and procedures

As you can imagine we receive feedback from time to time that there can be so many forms to sign and Operoos to receive!  In addition to moving the majority of Operoos to be posted at 4pm or after, we have spoken with the legal team in at Melbourne Archdiocese of Catholic Schools and we will be honouring enrolment forms from the start to completion of your child's primary schooling rather than resigning each year. If you have any changes to make on these forms during your child's years of enrolment at OLA we ask that you be in touch with our Admin Team to update the specific form/s. These forms include:

• Photo/Video/Social Media Permissions
• Child Safety Code of Conduct
• Volunteer Duty Statement 
• OLA Student IT & Digital TechnologiesUser Agreement

Please note that the Privacy Policy, Standard Collection Notice, Child Safety Policy, Visitor and Vounteer Policy and Cybersafety/Information Communication Technology (ICT) Acceptable Usage Policy are avaibale on our School Website.

Kilbreda Visit                                                         

On Monday 1 May we welcomed to OLA the Principal of Kilbreda, Ms Nicole Mangelsdorf, together with past students Zara S (sister of Ben 5/6SP) and Emily G (sister of Jess 3/4TR). This was a wonderful opportunity for Kilbreda to speak with our Grade 5 students about life and learning in secondary school. We were excited to welcome Emily and Zara back into the corridors of OLA and we were proud to hear about all they have achieved and continue to become.

Painting of Senior Building                                                     

We hope you have spotted the freshly painted Senior Building.  This external paint job was completed in the holidays and not only blends in with our new Community Hub, Library and STEM Room, but it also ensures that all panels have been secured and sealed to be able to take all weathers!

New Master Plan                                                    

With Stage 3 - the final stage of our current Master Plan having been completed, we begin the process of developing a new Master Plan for the school so that we can continue to enjoy state of the art facilities at OLA. If you would like to be part of the intial discussions and input around our new Master Plan please email me at  rjacques@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au

Calendar

Please open the ‘Key Dates and Events’ tab in this newsletter for important dates or access the OLA Calendar here.

Key dates for the next 2 weeks...

Congratulations

Past Student apponted MGSC School Captain

We are proud of all of our students past and present and this week is no exception. Mentone Girls Secondary College reached out to us to celebrate the achievements of Georgie Grubb. Georgie is School Captain at Mentone Girls Secondary College for 2023.  We hope that this year is an awesome year for Georgie in terms of her learning and  leadership. It is lovely to see OLA students shining. 

Celebrations 

Swimming

Congratulations to Matthew who recently swam at the State Championships on Friday.

His results were 3rd in Backstroke (PB time) and 4th in both Freestyle and Breaststroke. On top of all these great swims he finished the day with an interview on the livestream which was linked to his School Sports Victoria (SSV) leaders involvement!

Chess Champions

We are super proud of all our classes participating in the Chess lessons throughout last term.  We thank Boris Rudoy for sharing his passion and skills with our students. The results of chess competitions in Term 1:

5/6 GO 

1st                          Luke R  

2nd                        Mason G 

3rd                         Noah M

5/6 SP 

1st -2nd                Willian K and Sara T

3rd                         Max J 

5/6 NC 

1st                          Sam G 

2nd                        Oliver M and Blake S

3rd                         Kiara M, Tynan P, Vincent R

3/4 TR 

1st -2nd               Jack S & Alfie W 

3rd                        Noah C, Cruz W, Lachlan R

3/4 ST 

1st                          Alexander M

2nd                        Noah W

3rd                         Oliver W

Principal's Award

We are always so proud of children giving their best in Mathematics and improving their counting skills.  Chiara received a Principal's Award this week for all the additional counting by 2s and 5s.  Congratulations to Chiara and thank you for giving your absolute best with your Maths work.

Well Wishes

On Monday we say thank you and farewell to Maria Loxos (right) as the Services Coordinator for OLA OSHClub.  Maria has given her absolute all to improving the opportunities for our students and she is always so friendly and professional. We welcome Michela (left) who steps up from being Maria's assistant to the coordinator role. Congratulations to Michela.

Gratitude

Thank you to all in our community who support and partner with us to give the best possible primary education and opporunities to the children in our care.  The recent Google Reviews are very much appreciated and prospective families do read these and comment to us how they are so warm and leaves them wanting to visit our great school.

Thank you all for a great start to Term 2.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Richard Jacques

Principal