Kismet Park Newsletter

Principal's Report

Dear Families,

 

It is with a sense of accomplishment and great optimism that we end this second term of the 2022 school year. Thank-you to our gorgeous children for their continued resilience and adaptability throughout this term. To our dedicated staff for ploughing through another challenging term and placing our students’ needs at the centre of all that we did throughout the term. Despite the continued challenges of COVID_19 and illnesses we provided a safe, happy, and engaging learning environment for our students. 

 

Thank-you to all our families, parents and carers for your continued partnership and support of our wonderful school. Your continued support of our fabulous school is noted and greatly appreciated by us all. 

 

LAST DAY TERM 2 - TODAY

 

Today is our final day for Term 2. Students will finish at 2:30pm and will be dismissed from their classrooms. There will be NO assembly today. Extend will operate from 2:30pm today for all children who require the service.

 

STUDENT REPORTS TO OUR PARENTS/CARERS

 

All student reports will go out LIVE via COMPASS this afternoon.  In addition, Student Learning Portfolios will go home with all students this afternoon for parents/carers to view. I trust our students will proudly share their Student Learning Portfolios and achievements with their parents/carers and families. Please remember to complete the Parent/Carer Feedback form and return your child’s portfolios along with the feedback form no later than Friday July 15th. This is in time for our scheduled Term 3, 3 Way Conferences (Years 1-6) and Parent Teacher Interviews (Year Prep).

 

The dates for our 3 Way Conferences (1-6) and Parent Teacher Interviews (Year Prep) are as follows:

 

  • Tuesday 19th of July 3:30pm – 8:00pm
  • Wednesday 20th of July 3:30pm – 6pm

**Year 4 cohort will begin their 3 Way Conferences from 1:45pm and go through to 8pm, this is to accommodate the larger numbers)

 

Each booking will be for 15minutes and there will be an opportunity for parents/carers to book in a time with our specialist teachers, including our Tutor Learning Initiative (TLI) teachers. Please look out on COMPASS this afternoon to begin making your bookings.

 

RESTORATIVE PRACTICES

 

We held our whole staff Professional Practice Day on Tuesday 14th June focussing on Restorative Practices. Some of our key take aways from the day included:

  • Focussing on Strength based approaches to build connectedness
  • Neurodiverse children and the way in which we support and respond to meet their needs is different as they require more time to process
  • Understanding the brain and emotions is critical when responding to behaviours
  • People and relationships are the most important aspect of school communities
  • Connectedness increases engagement and supports learning
  • Follow up conversations with students is critical to maintaining positive and supportive relationships
  • Schools that focus on managing conflict and tensions by repairing harm and building relationships have high student engagement, sense of community and belonging reported by students

We will continue to build on this work with our students in the second half of the school year.

 

STAFFING

 

The recruitment process to replace Vanessa Leetch, our Business Manager was finalised in the first half of Term 2. Vanessa is retiring and her last day with us is today. 

 

The successful applicant was Kylie Carter from Eynesbury Primary School. Kylie was the business manager who supported the principal in setting up Eynesbury Primary School processes, from its inception. Kylie began with us on Wednesday 22nd June and has worked closely with Vanessa Leetch for a thorough handover in readiness for Term 3. I trust our community will welcome Kylie to our wonderful school. 

 

I would like to take this opportunity to lead in thanking Vanessa for all her contributions, efforts, care, and work over the years at Kismet Park Primary School. Vanessa has been with us for the past 18 and a half years. In that time, she has worked diligently to oversee the administration area of our school. Our school is in a better place for having her expertise and we wish her all the very best in this new phase of her life.

 

Michelle Anderson returns to us beginning Term 3 for 3 days a week, Monday, Thursday and Friday. She will share the Japanese role with Kelli Gemmola, Kelli will work 2 days the Tuesday and Wednesday. We extend our warmest welcome to Michelle as she adjusts as a working mum.

 

GLENN McCONNELL

 

I have been informed by the region that Glenn will continue his extended leave for the remainder of the 2022 school year and that I will return to Kismet Park as the Acting Principal for the remainder of this year. 

 

I wanted to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude for the position that I continue to hold as your Acting Principal. I thank all in our community for your continued support and care throughout this first six months. I look forward to continuing the journey with our students, families, and staff. I remain committed to strengthening our communications and home/school partnership, so that our school remains a highly respected school within the Sunbury community, and a school that our students and families are proud to be a part of. 

 

PLANNING WEEKS FOR TERM 2 – WEEK 8 AND 9

 

Teams have completed planning for Term 3 this past week. All teams had access to our school based coaches Caitriona Goldsworthy for English and Louisa Beckenham for Mathematics. In addition our teams were supported by their Professional Learning Team leaders. Louisa Beckenham – Prep, Brodie Lane – Year 1. Michelle Tabone – Year 2. Meagan O’Sullivan Year 3, Donna Matthews – Year 4, Caitriona Goldsworthy – Year 5 and David Bigger – Year 6. 

 

Our teachers are now in a strong position to continue to deliver high quality instruction and assessment in Term 3.

 

STATE-WIDE PRINCIPAL’S CONFERENCE – STRONGER TOGETHER, EVERY STUDENT, EVERY SCHOOL

 

The Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership held a two-day conference on 30-31st May for all school principals in the state. I attended both days of the conference which was held face-face at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. John Hattie was a keynote speaker who presented his key findings on school belonging and the essential purpose of schooling in the current context.

 

Key findings were:

  1. Student learning – a given but more nuanced.
  2. Student well-being – increasingly challenging.
  3. Socialisation and belonging to the fabric of community and society

In addition, I attended a few Theory and Practice workshops focussed on School Belonging, Formative Assessment and Using Data to drive continuous improvement. I will bring my learnings back to our leadership team in Term 3.

 

COVID_19 UPDATE

 

This month we hired a maintenance person to come into our school and clean the air filters of our air purifiers in readiness for the winter months. All our classrooms and spaces that have students and staff working in have an operational air purifier to ensure clean air. Rapid Antigen Tests are still available from our school, and I continue to encourage parents/carers to test children if children are feeling unwell. The advice from DET is to keep children at home if they experience cold/flu like symptoms.

 

OVAL WORKS

 

Our oval works continue, and what excitement as the synthetic grass was put down this week!!!!!!!! I am meeting with the architects on Tuesday 28th of June for an inspection of the works to date. The architects have communicated to me this past week that their goal is to complete the works by the first day back Term 3 – 11th July. This is ahead of the original schedule, and I am sure our students will be thrilled. This means that our grade 6 students will get the full 6 months to enjoy our new oval.

 

SCHOOL DISCO 

 

A HUGE thank you to our PCA volunteers who worked tirelessly to make our Winter Wonderland disco a truly special occasion.

 

Thank you goes to:

 

Kate Topp

Felicity Dobson

Tara Chandrasegran

Louise Cashen

Kylie and Damien Hodor 

Katherine Thorn

Nadya Williams

Ashleigh Elliott

Scott Cordon

Danielle Carroll

Susan Aldridge

Karen Kenadjian

Elise Bottrell

Tanya Sheehan

Kim Roberts

Adele Gibbs

Jacqueline Lincoln

 

Thank you to Tara for her leadership and drive of our PCA. We appreciate your efforts so very much.

 

In addition thank you to Felicity Dobson, our staff representative who has worked tirelessly in collaboration with the PCA to make our Winter Wonderland disco last Friday an outstanding success.

 

Loving your work PCA!

 

MASTER CHEF – KEYMA VASQUEZ MONTERO

 

It was with great pride that I together with many of our staff and community watched Master Chef on Wednesday night. It was wonderful to watch the family reunited and supporting Keyma. I hope that Eugenio, Bella and Osvaldo felt our community’s support.  We wish our Master Chef, Keyma all the very best.

 

Finally thank-you all for a tremendous term 2 please take time to rest, refresh and reconnect with your children these winter holidays. See you back at our fabulous school in Term 3.

 

 

Warmest Regards,

Kathy Cvitkovic

Principal (Acting)

‘Building the foundations for success and happiness’.