Hello everyone and welcome!

All our students are settling in to their 2023 grades with our Foundation students doing an exceptional job! A very big thank you to our fabulous staff for all the work they did to be ready before Monday and the care they are taking to get to know their students and to develop positive classroom routines, expectations and relationships.

School communication.

Our newsletter is available at the end of each week, please take the time to read it as it helps you to keep up with what is happening at our school. You will receive a link via email, it is also available from our website and via our Sentral app using the

'Links' button. Sentral is our school management system and each family will have an access key to be able to use it. You can send us absence notifications using the Sentral app, receive notifications from us, book interview times, see your child's attendance rate and more.

2023 Teachers, grades and their room numbers.

F/1Q= Rachel Quarrier room 10.

F/1T= Laura Trembath room 9.

F/1L= Nicole Lowe room 8.

2/3D= Soniajit Dubb room 1.

2/3K= Di Kennedy room 2.

2/3MB= David Morrison-Blunck room 4.

4/5WP= Danielle Wadley & Cos Perley room 7.

4/5B= Jason Bentley & Lisa Fasham room 6.

5/6C= Jacinta Condon room 3.

Our school day.

YMCA Before School Care operates from 7am-8:30am.

8:30am – 8:45am there is a teacher on yard duty, students are arriving for the learning day.

8:45am First bell.

8:45am -10:45am Learning sessions 1 and 2

10:45am -11:10am Recess (including 10 minutes eating time outside)

11:10am End of recess bell.

11:10am - 1:10pm Learning sessions 3 and 4

1:10pm – 2:10pm Lunch (including 15 minutes eating time outside)

2:10pm End of lunch bell.

2:10pm – 3:10pm Learning session 5. (Assemblies will be Fridays from 2:55pm – 3:10pm.)

3:10pm End of the school day bell.

There is a teacher on yard duty at the front of the school and at our Nettle St entrance.

YMCA after school care will operate from 3:10pm-6pm.

Pick up and drop off.

Please be aware of parking restrictions and speed zones when dropping off and collecting your child/ren. We have a school crossing at the front of our school in Webster st, if you park across the road from the school, please walk your child, or make sure your child walks, across the crossing. The school crossing is there to help keep all our students and their families safe so please use it correctly. Danni Ferrari is currently our School Crossing supervisor and she always greets everyone with a cheerful "Good morning" or "See you tomorrow".

Please take care to park at the legal distance from the crossing, so children can be seen clearly. There must be no exceptions to this, as accidents can occur in seconds. Never drop off or pick up too close to the crossing.

The rules are as follows: When a children's crossing is in operation (ie. when the flags are displayed), you must not stop:

• on the school crossing

• within 20 metres of the crossing on the approach side

• within 20 metres of the crossing on the departure side You are not permitted to do a U-turn over the solid lines beside the crossing.

When parking in Webster st, the disabled parking space is ONLY for vehicles displaying an appropriate permit with the person in the car that the permit applies to. DO NOT pull into the disabled parking space if you do not have a permit.

There are plenty of parking spaces near the school. If you 'prop' on the corner or park where there isn't a proper parking space, you are potentially putting our students in danger as they try to navigate around cars stopped in the wrong places. You might like to park a little further away from the school and enjoy the short walk with your children.

At our Nettle St entrance, there is a teacher on duty after school and they will check that the road is safe so that students can cross.

Arrival time at school is from 8:30am. This gives our students time to drop their bag at their classroom and have a play with their friends before the bell goes.

Late arrivals and early departures.

If your child arrives after the bell, you need to come to the office and 'sign them in', older students can come to the office themselves. They will receive a late pass to give to their teacher.

If a student needs to leave early, you must come to the office to 'sign them out' and office staff will collect the child or call them up to the office. Early departures should only be for an important appointment, such as a medical appointment that cannot be made outside of school hours.

Do we have your correct contact information?

Please make sure we have your current email address, home address and best contact number.

Welcome to Country.

I am looking forward to welcoming Troy Firebrace to our school Monday morning. Troy will be conducting our welcome to country. I hope to see lots of you here for this special start to the year. Thank you to Jimmy for the drawing I used for the invitation- a Poke-ball moon, clouds, ships on waves out at sea and a deep sea squid!

Code Red Days.

Our school is a Bushfire At Risk school which means we will be closed on days that are forecast to be 'Catastrophic'. Our OSHC will also be closed on these days. Bendigo is in the Northern Country fire district.

Term 1 Parent/Student/Teacher goals setting meetings.

The week beginning 13 February we will be holding goal setting meetings. You will be able to book a time using the Sentral app from 8th Feb. Keep an eye out for the notification.

Breakfast Club.

This year, Breakfast Club will be open Tuesday and Thursday mornings, 8:25am - 8:45am. All students are welcome to come along for some first, or second breakfast. Our 'Brekkie Cafe' will operate outside the Multi-purpose room in the undercover area near the canteen roller door. We will need your help to make it happen! Please let me know if you will be able to help. You will need a current Working with Children Check and complete our Volunteer OHS induction before you start.

Student Accident Insurance.

Parents need to be aware that neither Department of Education nor the school provide personal accident insurance or ambulance cover for students. Parents/guardians of students, who do not have student accident insurance, are responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for injured students, including the cost of ambulance attendance/transport and any other transport costs. Insurance policies can be purchased from commercial insurers.

Privacy Policy.

Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website [INSERT LINK to your school’s collection notice].

For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages:

Amharic
Arabic
Dari
Gujarati
Mandarin
Somali
Sudanese
Turkish
Urdu
Vietnamese.

Warmest regards,

Carolyn.

Here are our grades!

(Grade F/1T and 2/3D will be in next week's newsletter)