Thursday 4th March

School Council announcements and thank you

On Monday 22nd February we held our AGM where we reflected on the year that was 2020, said goodbye and thank you to some outgoing members and then held our first meeting for 2021. In this meeting we welcomed new members and had some changes to some roles.

Our School Council for 2021 is:

Name	Role	Committee
Sarah Wicking	President	Finance
Hayley Coviello	Vice President / Preschool Convenor	Preschool
Rowan Coxhead	Treasurer	Finance
Kate Keys	Secretary	Finance
Jessie Evans	Education Convenor	Education
Jonno Neilson	Facilities Convenor	Facilities
Anna Benjamin	Community Relations co-convenor	Community Relations
Eric Thrane	Community Relations co-convenor	Community Relations
Sandra Beldman		Preschool
Angus McGuckian		Preschool / Facilities
Tracey Woodhead		Community Relations
Anne Matheson	DET staff member	Education
Justin Benne	DET staff member	Education
Matt Cody	DET staff member	Facilities
Dale McInerney	DET Principal

Thank you

On behalf of our school community we acknowledged and thanked Kelly Verwey, Florence Lindhaus and Annwen Kirby for their efforts and contributions over many years serving on School Council.

We also acknowledged the incredible and tireless efforts of our outgoing President Rowan Coxhead. Rowan’s contribution and commitment to our school community is nothing short of outstanding and I can’t thank him enough personally for being so supportive in my first year at Menzies Creek.

Welcome

We welcomed Sandra Beldman, Tracey Woodhead and Angus McGuckian to our School Council and look forward to working with them this year and beyond.

Staffing update

I would like to welcome Monica Moulday to our Preschool team.

Monica will be taking over from Sara Hall who finishes with us tomorrow. Please see Compass for details around tomorrow’s picnic farewell for Sara. As mentioned last newsletter, this is a great opportunity for Sara to further her career and we thank her for everything she has done for our Preschool over the years.

Working Bee

There was a buzz of excitement when the students arrived on Monday and saw the grounds looking fantastic. It had been 12 months since our last working bee and there was plenty to do!! Thanks to Matt Cody and Jonno Neilson for their coordination and to everyone who came along to shovel, sand, mulch, tow bogged delivery trucks, whipper snip, prune, trim, cook sausages, weed, sweep, rake or blow. The sandpits are fresh and the playground looks much better too. The grounds look wonderful and we even discovered lost gardens!

Thanks to the Neilson, Coxhead, Laing, Carr, Coy/Cannell, Thuys, Surwald, Cunico, Woodhead, Moulday, McGuckian, Wall, Murphy/Benton families who were joined by our staff Matt, Hollie, Anne, Kate, Jade, Shelley (and her daughter Teagan).

Preschool working bee will be Sunday, March 14 from 10:30 – 2:30.

Junior School BBQ – next Friday 12th 3:30pm – 5:00pm

Usually we have a ‘Welcome to MCPS’ BBQ for our Foundation families in the first term of each school year. This clearly didn’t happen last year. Therefore, we are opening up the welcome to include our Foundation, Year 1 and 2 families. Feel free to bring some snacks if you wish and will have a BBQ up and running.

This will be a nice chance to connect and reconnect with other school community families and informally chat with teachers and School Council. As we will be outside we are within current guidelines.

International Women's Day

Next Monday is International Women's Day. As Monday is a Public Holiday, we will be holding a fundraiser on Tuesday 9th of March. In addition to our normal classroom learning, we are asking staff and students to wear something purple (IWD colour) and bring a gold coin donation for the "100 Bikes for 100 Girls" Project.

The Screaming Spiral

https://happyfamiliesfamilyeducation.ac-page.com/the-screaming-spiral

Dr Justin Coulson is presenting a webinar on Thursday, March 11 at 8pm for anyone interested. Please access the link for more information.

Attendance

We are noticing many students arriving late or having many days of unexplained absence. Going to school every day is the single most important part of your child’s education. Students learn new things at school every day – missing school puts them behind.

Please read the Everyday counts attached and read the tables to see what increased absence adds up to.

DET School Privacy policy

The Department is committed to protecting the privacy of individuals when handling their personal and health information. Please see the attached policy for further information.

We do have Assembly tomorrow at 2:50pm. We will invite families to join us online by accessing https://eduvic.webex.com/meet/mcinerney.dale.j.

At this stage only parents of Foundation students receiving their first award are invited to assemblies.

Enjoy the long weekend

Regards,

Dale McInerney

Foundation Wonderings