Principal's Report

WELCOME BACK

Welcome back to everyone and hope you enjoyed the break.  The weather over easter wasn’t too flash, but at least we had lovely weather in the second week of the break to get outdoors.

We’ve had a very smooth return to school, with a settled feel at both campuses.

As always, we have plenty to look forward to in the term ahead.  Events of note this term include:

• School photos were taken last week and we look forward to the delivery of photo packs in the near future.
• We have Kinder visits & a Book Fair this week.
• In week 3 we have the Mother’s Day Stall and quite a few students competing at the District Cross Country event.
• The usual suite of inter-school winter sporting competitions will take place across the term, which will be a highlight for lots of our grade 5-6 students.
• Our Victorian State School Spectacular Team have more rehearsals in the lead up to performing in Melbourne in term 3.
• We’ll celebrating Naidoc Week in the final week of term.

An Activities Calendar is attached to this newsletter to help you keep track of what’s happening and when in term 2.

RIDE TO SCHOOL DAY

After a false start due to bad weather, we had loads of students bring their bikes to school on the last day of term 1.  A large crew of students, parents and staff went for a cruise around the block before school and then students took up the opportunity to ride or scoot around the basketball court and oval during break times.  Given the popularity of the day, I think we might have a new addition to the annual calendar.

SCHOOL COUNCIL

Last week we had our AGM (Annual General Meeting) for 2023.

It was the first opportunity for newly elected school councillors to attend, those being Adrian Liston and Linda Wight.  We welcome Adrian and Linda to the team and know they’ll make a strong contribution as parent representatives. 

At the AGM we elect office bearers and thank Graeme Benn and Kartya De Graff, who will serve another year as President and Vice President and Paula Dekok as Secretary.  As always, we spent some time at the meeting reminding ourselves of the role of School Council and revisited the Standing Orders that guide the way we operate. 

The AGM is also the time for School Council to formally endorse the Annual Report.  All schools are required to develop an Annual Report for the previous year and to make this make this available to the school community. 

To read the Annual Report, click on the link below.

Student Attitude to School Surveys

We value student voice as a means to improving student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction and are conducting the annual AtoSS survey to find out what your child thinks of their school over the coming months. The survey involves our grade 4-6 students.

The AtoSS is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education to assist schools to gain an understanding of students' perceptions and experience of school. Students will be asked about their thoughts and feelings in relation to their school, their learning, peer relationships, resilience, bullying, health and wellbeing, physical activity, and life in general. 

The results of these surveys help us understand students’ perceptions and experience at school, which helps build a picture of how we are tracking….what is going well and where do opportunities for improvement exist?It usually takes a few months for the results to come back to us, but when they do, we will use the reports generated as the basis for discussion with staff and at School Council.

All parents/carers with a child in grades 4-6 will soon receive a letter explaining the process.

COMMUNICATION OF POLICIES

As you’d understand, all schools are required to have a range of policies to ensure well thought through plans are in place to meet the learning and wellbeing needs of students. 

It’s good practice for schools to communicate their policies with staff and parents, providing the opportunity for everyone to be on the same page.  Rather than do this randomly, we thought it could be good to share a few policies on a dedicated page of the newsletter throughout term 2. You’ll see the first of these in this edition of the newsletter. 

As most of you would be aware, parents can also access up to date copies of the various policies on the school website.