Principal's Report

Dear Parents,

Mobile Phones and Smart Watches

We have a mobile phone policy in place to protect the safety of everyone, and to encourage prosocial and face to face engagement with each other.  If you child is bringing a mobile phone into school or if you are considering sending your child with a phone, please be aware that your child will need to sign it in at the front office in the morning and sign it out again at the end of the day.

As the technology advances, we’re seeing smart watches that have the same or similar technology capacity to mobile phones.  We’re also seeing a slow but steady increase in the number of smart watches being worn to school.  It is important that these watches are turned to safe mode while at school.  We are monitoring the use of the watches at school. If incidents of them being used inappropriately increase, we will need to make changes to our stance of allowing them to be worn in class.  Our definition of inappropriate use includes where the phone or smart watch:

• in any way disrupts the learning of others
• is used to make calls during the school day
• is used to send inappropriate, harassing or threatening messages or phone calls
• is used to engage in inappropriate social media use including cyber bullying
• is used to capture video or images of people, including students, teachers and members of the school community without their permission
• is used to capture video or images in the school toilets, changing rooms, swimming pools and gyms
• is used during exams and assessments.

Your support with this is appreciated.  If you are sending your child to school wearing a smart watch, please discuss appropriate use with them.  I have raised this with the students at assembly recently, and I hope you can support your child by sharing this message with them.

Parent Payment Policy

Last week you should have received your parent payment letter from the school in hard copy. The school voluntary contributions can now be found on Xuno.  The percentage of fees that we collect each year from parents supports the teaching and learning program in each year level.  If you are in a position to make these voluntary contributions, we would greatly appreciate the support. 

Other than paying your voluntary contributions, there are many other ways that you can support our school to provide the best possible opportunities for your child.  These include volunteering to attend a working bee (we hope to reinstate these in 2023), volunteering to attend and support one of our fundraising events (more information from the PFA will be advertised throughout the newsletter) or donating time to support our in-class activities or camps and excursions.  All the small gestures of support for our school go a long way and help us to build the connections and strong community that support our children and each other to flourish.

If you are interested in supporting the school in any of these ways, please contact me at matthew.forrest@education.vc.gov.au .

Head Lice Checks

As a part of the parent payment letter there you will notice that there is an opportunity to opt into the head lice check program.  This is an opt-in program with a cost $20 per student.  A registered nurse will be employed by the school to check the hair of students where we have obtained parent permission.  The program is set to begin on March the 9th with families who have paid given us their permission and payment.

Free Bike Safety Checks – Friday 3rd March 

We have many avid cyclists as parents here and Hayden Kerr is one and would like to support all the students at Macedon PS with bike maintenance in preparation for Ride to School Day.

Hayden is going to come in again this Friday 3rd March to do bike checks, as the wet weather on Monday kept a few away.  If your child brings their bike to school, Hayden has offered to do a quick safety check of each bike and, if required, make a list of parts needed for each bike. We are hoping to engage a local bike shop to supply the parts and then Hayden has offered to support us to make all the necessary repairs later for the price of the parts.

Ride to School Day is Friday 24th of March, a week before Ride to School Day the students who have agreed to have their bikes fixed will be invited to bring their bikes in and the team will repair the bikes and add the new parts if they're required.

Please bring your child's bike along on Friday 3rd of March if you would like to take advantage of this generous offer from Hayden.

Kind regards and Sampai jumpa (until next time),

Matt