Dear Families,

I trust all our families are continuing to do well. I write this newsletter after our 3 Way Conferences and Parent/Teacher Interviews feeling very proud of our students, teachers, and parents/carers for the way in which we have shared the responsibility of educating and supporting our children’s wellbeing. It was clear to me, as I took in the interactions last week during the conferences/interviews, that our community is a caring, responsible, and respectful community. I thank you all for the ways in which you support our children to be the very best versions of themselves.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our teachers for the ways in which they worked to prepare our students to be in a position to be able to share their work and progress with our parents/carers. In addition to our Education Support staff who work in classrooms alongside students and teachers – thank you for the supports that you provided for students to have the confidence to discuss their work and achievements with parents/carers. To our office staff, I thank them for their flexibility, care and responsiveness throughout these past weeks.

These first three weeks have been challenging for us in terms of illnesses and staff absences due to illness. I thank the staff and community for your collective understanding and continued support as we continue to work to ensure our children receive the highest quality care and education.

I take this opportunity to reiterate, that I continue to be committed to serving our students, staff and community and should you need to reach out please do so. I am committed to working with parents/carers in a respectful and proactive manner reflective of our school values of being Responsible, Respectful, Safe and a Learner. As your principal (acting) and lead learner I take my position of responsibility with great care and passion.

Prep Enrolment 2023

We are now at the beginning stages of planning for our 2023 school year. It would be fantastic if all of our current families, with siblings due to start school next year, could please see our front office or you can download the enrolment pack from our website https://www.kismetparkps.vic.edu.au/ . This way we can begin to plan for our classes, student numbers and programs. In addition, if you know of any friends, family who are due to start prep in 2023 please pass on this message to them and ask them to call our school on 9744-4566 to book in a tour with us.

We start our Transition Program in November and it would be fantastic for all our 2023 preps to be enrolled and in the program so that the start of school is a positive experience for our new prep students and their families.

School Review and Parent Forum – August 15TH - Update

All Victorian State Government schools undertake a review every 4 years. Kismet Park Primary School’s last school review was in 2018, making 2022 our year of school review.

We have completed our Pre-Review Self-Evaluation (PRSE) this is done through SPOT (Strategic Planning Online Tool) and our school council president, Sean Bassett, has endorsed the document. Next Thursday, August 4th, we begin the active onsite part of our School Review.

On Monday 15th of August there is an opportunity for our parents/carers to be part of a Parent/Carers forum at 2:30pm on our school site. The school reviewer, Kim Ryan, will lead the forum and parents/carers will have an opportunity to reflect on the past 4 years and identify what is working well, our school’s challenges and ideas for moving forward. If you would like to be part of this process please phone our friendly office staff, or drop in and leave your name and contact details.

The school review supports each school to differentiate its improvement journey by building on current strengths and responding to unique challenges to achieve continuous improvement. The school review:

provides opportunities to engage with the whole school community about how they feel the school is going
delves deeply into an independent view into the school’s performance through the analysis of performance data, focus group discussions, and observations of teaching and learning practices
triangulates evidence-based findings to propose goals, targets and key improvement strategies for the new four-year School Strategic Plan.

3 Way Conferences Parent/Teacher Interviews

Thank-you to all our families for making the time and efforts to attend our 3 Way Conferences and Parent Teacher Interviews last week. Your partnership with us is critical and highly valued.

Please find a direct survey link to a feedback survey regarding the 3 Way Conferences and Parent Teacher Interviews https://forms.gle/7T7JakSaq5zntY1o6

Your feedback will ensure that we take into consideration your views when planning for our next 3 Way Conferences and Parent Teacher Interviews. The survey will remain open until Friday August 5th, 2022.

Girls Netball – Through to Regional Finals

A huge congratulations to our Girls Netball team who are through to the regional finals. Our Netball team will compete at regional level on Tuesday 16th August at Darebin Community Sports Stadium, Reservoir. We wish the team well and I am sure they will feel all our support as they compete. Go Team A!!!

Congratulations to our Mixed Team who competed last week and came second. A job well done!!! We are extremely proud of both teams.

Social Media Platforms – Monitoring Your Child’s Online Activities

This week I placed a message on COMPASS to all our families regarding social media platforms and tips on how parents/carers can monitor children’s activities on social media. I sincerely hope our families found these tips helpful. Please find below a summary of those tips.

Keep It in the Open: Computers, laptops and phones should be placed in a public area of the home such as the living room or the kitchen. This way, not only will the parents be able to keep track of their child's activities while making dinner or doing other chores, but the child will also be well aware of a parent's presence and therefore, less inclined to investigate Internet areas that are prohibited.

Set Ground Rules: Before allowing access to social media sites, have a discussion with your child about what is expected of their behavior online and inform them that it is not safe to share everything with everyone online.

Educate Yourself: If parents don't understand the world of social media, they won't be able to properly monitor their child's online activities. Therefore, it is time to embrace the technology and learn more about it. One can easily find out more about the particular social media site by visiting the site itself, searching for related news about it, reading online reviews or by discussing the site with friends and other parents.

Follow Activity: Tracking the child's activity is possible by checking the browser history, cookies and cache on the computer, in order to find out the sites that the child has been visiting. By entering the child's name in a search engine, the parents can easily find out if the child has public profiles on social media sites. Just as it is important for the parents to know the friends their children hang out at school, it is necessary to know their online friends. A random check will let parents know the type of people and sites the child is interacting with.

Communicate Often: It is easy to stay informed about your child's online activities by making a habit out of sitting down with them while they are online and discussing the sites they are visiting and their online behaviours.

COVID_19 - Update

A reminder to all our families that we have rapid antigen tests available for you to pick up from our front office if you or your child shows symptoms. If you wish to continue testing twice a week for peace of mind then you can collect rapid antigen tests from our front office.

Current advice from the Victorian government on the wearing of face masks is available here: http://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/face-masks

Household contacts attending school who are over 8 years of age are required to wear face masks indoors unless they have valid exception.

Thank-you to all our families for your continued patience and understanding. It is greatly appreciated.

Warmest Regards,

Kathy Cvitkovic

Principal (Acting)

‘Building the foundations for success and happiness’.

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