Dear parents and members of the Essex Heights community,

Welcome back to the new school year and I believe that it will provide many great opportunities for children and families to join together in a wide range of learning and fun experiences.

As I walked around the school on Tuesday, I was so pleased to see the children settled, happy and working so well. They were sharing so many great stories about their holidays, trips overseas and interstate, their many adventures as well as all the other things they had done since leaving school in December.

In the week before returning to school it was fantastic to see so many children accessing the Outside School Hours Care Vacation program. The children were having so much fun with their activities and excursions. A big thanks to Paul Davis and his staff for once again running an outstanding holiday experience for our children.

This year we welcome several new staff to our great team at Essex Heights – Amber Hardy (Prep H), Emily Zajc (Prep Z), Alicia Boles (Year 2 & PE), Grace John (Indonesian & Year 3), Rowena Lin (5RL), Amanda Tait (Indonesian & Year 6), Monique Hocking (PE), Goretti Cheuk (Support) and Karen O’Neill (PSD Aide). The school is so fortunate to have such high calibre staff joining our school. We wish all our new staff well in their various roles at our school and look forward to their contribution to the children’s learning and enjoyment at EHPS.

A number of new children and their families have also joined our community this year. We hope that their time with us will be enjoyable, productive and worthwhile. If you see new faces in the school yard please make sure that we live up to the Essex Heights value of ‘Friendliness’ and make them feel welcome and part of our great community.

Staff have started the year with their classes by focusing on our ‘Starting up and Starting Out Program’ which incorporates School Wide Positive Behaviours and a number of wellbeing activities and school procedures in order to develop a positive working environment in each classroom and throughout the school.

There has been a change to our specialist program for 2023. This year each specialist session will be conducted for one hour per week, compared to 40 minutes in past years. This will mean that children are experiencing a much richer program in our four specialist subjects of Health and PE, Indonesian, Music and Art/ArtSEL.

Parent – School Partnership

An effective partnership with families is a very important ingredient to enable all children to reach their highest potential. In order to be successful at school, our children need support from both home and school.

I encourage all families to support the school and assist your child’s learning by ensuring that they:

Attend school every day and arrives on time, ready for the day’s learning
Completes all homework activities given by teachers
Reads daily to develop a love for reading and to improve literacy skills
Shares school experiences, ‘what went well today’, with you so that you are aware of the many good things in their school life.

Communication

Good communication between home and school is very important so that we all know what is happening in our school community. It also ensures that students benefit the most from all opportunities offered at Essex Heights. All EHPS families are reminded that we will communicate with you using:

Compass; and
Contact, our online school newsletter.

All families have been provided with their own unique login to access Compass. If your Compass access is no longer working, please contact Jo in our School Office to reset your password.

Compass will be the main avenue for communication between home and school. All important messages for parents and carers will be sent through our Compass News Feed. It is essential that you check Compass regularly for information from school. When you receive a notification requiring your response, please ensure that you action this not later than the specified due date. If you access Compass on a smart device, ensure that you have turned your notifications on so that you receive an alert when information is published.

At Essex Heights we value the communication between parents and the school, however a few things must be kept in mind so that we have a common understanding of the procedures and expectations:

Staff are in class and teaching throughout the school day, as well as attending meetings after school. Therefore, sending an email or Compass post during the day is not the most effective way to communicate with a classroom teacher if the matter is urgent.
For matters requiring a rapid response, families should ring the School Office on 9807 4944 and a message will be passed to the teacher.
We encourage our staff to have a healthy work life balance and we have agreed that their workday should be between 8.30am and 5pm. I have therefore asked staff to only reply to written correspondence during those hours. It would therefore be fair to expect a reply to a written communication within two business days.
All too often, staff receive texts or messages late into the evening. Staff will not reply to such correspondence until they are able. Please refrain from messaging at these times and please be assured that staff will respond to your message in due course.

Meet & Greet Discussions

We are conducting Meet & Greet Discussions for families of all students in week 3 beginning 13 February. These discussions DO NOT have a reporting focus about student progress but are a first and important step for classroom teachers to get to know your child, and an opportunity for families to share their knowledge of their child with the teacher. Every student was provided with a feedback form to take home this week; a copy is also attached to the Getting to know you at EHPS email from Elisha Cotterell. I encourage you to complete and return the feedback form to help facilitate your conversation.

Bookings for these discussions will open on Compass next week. Each teacher has sufficient bookings available for each family in their class to have a conversation about their child. Please note that the discussions are scheduled for 10 minutes duration. If a longer conversation is required, we ask that you arrange an alternative date and time with your child’s teacher.

I strongly encourage all families to take this opportunity to meet your child's classroom teacher. You can meet in person at school on Monday or online via WebEx on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Hats

In accordance with our SunSmart Policy, I would like to remind all families that the children are required to wear hats throughout Term 1. These should be in the school uniform dark green, legionnaire, bucket or wide brimmed style for maximum sun protection. I would ask parents to ensure that children are bringing the appropriate headwear to school each day. On hot days we also suggest that students seek shade and drink plenty of water.

School Times, Late or Absent?

At this time of the school year it is timely to remind all families that children are expected to be in class by 8.50am. This will allow for brief chats or small organisational matters to be completed so that all classes are able to start their learning promptly at 9am.

As mentioned above, our Compass portal is the school’s communication tool between school and home and can be used to send emails to a teacher, add attendance notes or approve lateness or absence. Please make sure that you regularly log into the Compass portal. If you need any assistance please check the Parent Guide on our website or speak to the staff at the Office.

If your child will be absent on any particular day, please enter an attendance note on Compass or contact the school by 9am to report the absence verbally or in writing.

Please note that students arriving at school at or after 9am must be signed in at the Office by a parent or guardian.

If there are changed plans for the end of the school day, or pick up arrangements for your children, please advise the school as soon as you know about it. Our Office staff will always pass on messages to students; however this requires time and lack of interruptions. Please ensure that messages are communicated by phoning the Office (do not email). Ideally, all arrangements should be made and communicated clearly to your child before the start of the school day.

Thank you for your cooperation and support in these matters.

Student Illness and Accidents

At this time early in the school year it is a good idea to remind parents about the necessity to keep us up to date with phone numbers and emergency contact details. If your child is ill at school, or suffers an accident, then staff will give immediate care and appropriate first aid. However, it is necessary on occasions to contact parents and we are often frustrated by out of date information that delays this process. Please make sure you notify the Office of any changes to yours or your Emergency Contact details. Obviously in extreme cases we may also deem it necessary to call an Ambulance before consulting parents and you need to be aware of this. Please also keep the Office informed of any change in medical issues faced by your children as this helps us to make the best choices for their welfare.

Parents and guardians should also be aware that they are generally responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for injured students, including any Ambulance transport costs. Most medical costs will be refundable by Medicare. If you are a member of an ambulance or health insurance fund, you may also be able to claim transport or other expenses from the fund. The Department of Education does not hold accident insurance for school students.

Is other Insurance available? Yes.

There are commercial providers of insurance for students and they can be found online or through your Insurance Broker.

Students, Parents & Staff Personal Property

On a similar topic, students, staff and visitors often bring personal property to school. This can include mobile phones, calculators, toys, sporting equipment and cars parked on school premises.

Please note the Department of Education does not hold insurance for personal property brought to schools and it will generally not pay for any loss or damage to such property.

The Department of Education mobile phone ban also comes into effect this year. Mobile phones are not to be used at school. Any device brought to school must be handed into the School Office or class teacher before school starts and can be collected at the end of the day.

Please refer to the mobile phone policy on the EHPS website - click here.

On a final note please refer to the Privacy statement attached later in the newsletter for information related to data collection.

Well done Parineeti!

I was delighted to hear of the generosity of Parineeti P from Year 3 who decided to donate her hair and raise funds for cancer patients.

If you would like to support the cause and encourage Parineeti in her generosity, please click here. Well done Parineeti - we are proud of you!

Student-Free Day on 27 February

On Monday 27 February, all the staff will be involved in a curriculum day related to the teaching of Mathematics. Michael Ymer, a worldwide consultant and expert in numeracy, will be working with the staff, as part of our ongoing numeracy priority in our School Strategic Plan.

Our OSHC program will provide care from 7am to 6pm for students enrolled in their program; book on Xplor Home app.

School Photos

School photos will be taken on Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 March by The School Photographer. Every student will have their photo taken over these two days. In addition to individual student photos, you may order a sibling photo of your children attending EHPS this year; this must be booked prior to the first photo day on 20 March so it can be included in the schedule. Further details will be published soon, including how to place your online order.

Congratulations!

We were delighted to receive the news of the safe arrival of Olivia May, first child of Lauren Davies and Josh. Congratulations to you both!

Happy Year of the Rabbit

The Lunar New Year on the Chinese calendar commenced on Sunday 22 January, and was the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit. Happy Lunar New Year to all those in our community celebrating.

I look forward to seeing you all around the school and at the Welcome Event that our Parents & Friends Club are hosting on Friday 24 February.

Kindest regards,

George Perini

Principal