Principal's Message

WELCOME BACK EVERYONE

The return of our students and staff has injected much needed joy and laughter throughout our school and we feel like a family reunited once again. It has been an extremely difficult time for everyone but our students continue to amaze us with their ability to adapt to yet another change. 

The transition last week and over the last few days has been a very smooth one with students reconnecting with their class peers, closest friends and teachers, adjusting to school routines and building stamina for learning again during longer school days than experienced in remote learning.  It was no surprise to find some of our younger students napping in reading corners from sheer exhaustion. 

Our teachers continue to place emphasis on the students' wellbeing and revising those important school expectations and social skills of kindness, friendship, respect, gratitude and continued engagement in learning.  

We look forward to the possible lifting of further restrictions and the continuation of our state heading in a positive direction. 

WHAT DID OUR STUDENTS THINK OF REMOTE LEARNING @ RPS?

We surveyed all of our Year 3-6 students on the last week of remote learning and this is what they shared:

CONGRATULATIONS – MS LUCY CLOVER

Ms Lucy Clover and her partner Daniel are expecting their first baby in March of 2021. 

This well kept secret was revealed to staff last term and we couldn't be happier for her. Ms Clover was very excited to tell her students last week and is delighted to be sharing this news with the community. Her students were thrilled by the news and even began to excitedly chant "Ms Clover's pregnant!"

We look forward to meeting the newest member of the RPS community in the new year.  

BOOK WEEK

A costume dress up day always puts everyone in good spirits and Monday was no different as many of our students and staff dressed up as their favourite book characters. Although we couldn’t hold our whole school parade, classes still enjoyed the opportunity to partake in a range of activities linked to the celebrated CBCA shortlist winning title 'I Need A Parrot' and this year's theme of 'Curious Creatures, Wild Minds'. In a most timely manner, all CBCA shortlisted 2020 titles have been purchased for the school’s library. 

Take a look at some of the wonderful costumes: 

SCHOOL LIBRARY UPGRADE

With donations received through the Library Fund this year, Jess Grey our Assistant Principal purchased soft furnishings and new seating for the library, including new shelving for all picture story books. The library is fully operational and we are excited to have students begin borrowing some of the new titles purchased over the last few months.

INTRODUCTION OF TUTORS IN SCHOOLS 2021

The Victorian Government has committed $250 million to enable pre-service teachers, teachers on leave, teachers working part-time who are looking for more hours, recently retired teachers and casual relief teachers to become a tutor to support every student who has missed learning due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

This is the largest initiative to support individual student learning in the history of the state.

More than 4100 tutors will be recruited to partner with schools.

Victorian teachers have done a remarkable job this year and with the additional support of on-site tutors, these teaching teams can ensure that students have dedicated and individualised support throughout 2021. Schools are yet to receive advice on how this will be facilitated next year. 

PLANNING & PREPARATION FOR 2021

In any year despite COVID-19 circumstances, Term 4 is always a term full of forward planning and preparation. There are so many considerations and our school’s leadership team and members of School Council will have a busy term ahead. This term we expect to finalise our Parent Payment Schedule for 2021 and review and establish our new Annual Implementation Plan. 

We anticipate a number of changes to occur in our staffing structures and we have advertised a number of positions to begin a thorough recruitment process which will ensure our staffing profile best caters for the needs of the students across the school after such a challenging year. 

To ensure we have accurate numbers for planning purposes, please email Meagan if you know your child will be leaving Ripponlea in 2021. 

In 2021 the school will have the following number of grades in each year level, based on predicted enrolment numbers:

Across the school we anticipate an enrolment of 300 – 310 students. 

CLASS PLACEMENTS – PARENT INPUT

At Ripponlea we take this process seriously in order to create balanced classes for our students. Please know this is a challenging process with many variables to consider. We must always try and consider gender balance, academic needs, social and emotional needs, personality and learning styles of our students, peer relationships, class size, additional needs, learning difficulty and teacher and student relationships just to name a few. 

The objective is to place all students with a teacher in a balanced class that will support their learning and overall growth as a whole child. This is an important process that needs to be fair, consistent and student focused.  Our staff will work hard to ensure every child is placed appropriately. Requests for teachers will not be considered in this process. All information will be detailed in a special letter sent via COMPASS. Please read the notification carefully and respond as soon as possible. 

PARENT OPINION SURVEY 2020

Our school is conducting a survey to find out what parents think of our school. The Parent Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education and Training that is conducted amongst all parents. It is designed to assist all schools in gaining an understanding of parents’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, student engagement and experiences of remote and flexible learning. 

Our school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies. We really value parent opinion and have demonstrated how well we take on your feedback. 

                                    WE WANT OUR PARENTS TO TELL US WHAT THEY THINK! 

All parents will be invited to participate in this year’s survey. All responses to the survey are anonymous. This year, the Parent Opinion Survey will be conducted from Monday 12th October to Friday 13th November.Please be on the lookout for a Compass alert. 

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the fieldwork period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. The online survey will be available in a range of languages other than English. These include: Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Chin (Hakha), Hindi, Japanese, Somali, Turkish, Punjabi and Greek. An email with a special PIN will be distributed to all families via Compass. We thank all families in advance for completing this survey. 

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

Every student must attend school in Term 4 unless deemed medically vulnerable. The Acting Deputy Chief Health Officer has advised that an individual assessment is always recommended and decisions regarding school attendance should be informed by the nature of a child or young person’s condition, its severity and intensity of required treatment. In most cases, the presence of common conditions of childhood, such as asthma, epilepsy or Type 1 diabetes, should not preclude a student from attending face-to-face learning. 

In keeping with expert public health advice, some students may be at higher risk for severe outcomes or complications of coronavirus (COVID-19), for example those with chronic medical conditions. Any student with a chronic medical condition should seek advice from their medical practitioner about attending school on site at different stages in the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Given most of these conditions are rare in children, it should be an uncommon event for a child to be determined by a medical practitioner to be unable to return to school due to an ongoing medical reason raising concerns about coronavirus (COVID-19), outside of an acute illness.

Assessments should be reviewed alongside notable changes to coronavirus (COVID-19) transmission in Victoria. 

STUDENT ATTITUDES TO SCHOOL SURVEY

We value student voice as a means to improving student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction and are conducting a survey to find out what our Year 4-6 students think of our school. 

The AtoSS is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education and Training to assist schools in gaining an understanding of students' perceptions and experience of school. 

This year, the survey also includes some questions about student health and wellbeing and student perceptions of COVID-19. Understanding health and wellbeing needs has always been important, but especially so this year, and the Department is providing this survey to allow schools to capture this information to support students. Students will be asked about their thoughts and feelings in relation to their school, family, friends, health (including mental health) and wellbeing, and bullying.

The health and wellbeing questions are taken from another Department survey called the Victorian Student Health and Wellbeing Survey (VSHAWS) that has been conducted with a sample of schools in Victoria since 2014. The questions about COVID-19 have been developed by or recommended by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. 

This year, the AtoSS will be conducted at school in the last week of October.  

PUBLIC HOLIDAY – FRIDAY 23rd OCTOBER

Victoria's AFL Grand Final eve public holiday will this year be named 'Thank You Day' to show gratitude to Victorians for making sacrifices to help contain the spread of COVID-19 as the game is moved interstate. Despite this, Victorians will still be able to enjoy their annual public holiday on October 23, which occurs on the Friday before the state's biggest sporting event each year. 

Can any of you guess who is more excited for this year’s grand final? 

THANK YOU TO OUR COMMUNITY FOR ALL REQUESTED COVID SAFE PRACTICES

REMEMBER: 1.5M PHYSICAL DISTANCING – DISPERSE QUICKLY WHEN DROPPING OFF OR COLLECTING YOUR CHILD – NO CONGREGATING AT OUR SCHOOL GATES - WEAR FACE MASKS AT ALL TIMES – BE KIND & PATIENT – KEEP EVERYONE SAFE IN OUR COMMUNITY – STAY HOME IF UNWELL.

We would like to thank every member of our community for following our current Term 4 procedures for both school arrivals and collection of all students. Our students are adjusting to the appropriate entry points and departure gates across Carrington Grove. 

We have a new crossing lady by the name of Tina who is there to assist with all safe crossings of our children and families. We kindly remind all families that children should not arrive at school before 8:45am unless booked into (OSHC) service at TheirCare. Students are unable to enter the school gates as no teachers are on duty before this time and there is no supervision. 

We greatly appreciate your understanding on these matters. Like you we want to keep our school open and do everything we can to avoid and eliminate the spread of COVID-19 across our community. We understand that many families are eager to re-connect and chat outside the school gate, but this social gathering must be avoided at all times. Please disperse quickly and carefully and take all social activities to large open spaces away from the school gates in a COVID safe manner. 

Until next fortnight...

                                                Natalie Rose                              Jess Grey

                                                   Principal                         Assistant Principal