Principal News

As the community has grappled with losing normal access to schools over the past 12 months, the value of school as a uniting community force has been abundantly clear.

The challenges of 2020 showed the importance of education continuity in maintaining community cohesion, while also putting a sharp focus on how far the value and purpose of schooling extends beyond academic learning alone.

School shapes lives, in every sense. It is a vital support network for families and a place where students should feel safe, empowered and welcome.

• How would you like to be more involved in your child's education?
• Do you have a skill set that the school could maximise on?
• How would you like to connect with the school?

I would love to hear from you.

Monique Corcoran

PRINCIPAL

Please find attached an important letter from the Victorian Chief Health Officer.  

The key messages are:

• the importance of all of us remaining vigilant cannot be stressed enough
• how vital it is that we all continue to stay home when unwell
• to get tested when symptoms arise eg. runny nose, sore throat etc..

Continued vigilance to prevent the spread of COVID-19 ensures that schools and early childhood education centres remain safe for students and staff.

Staff absence

We are currently experiencing some staff absence due to abiding by the above rules. This is occurring in all schools across our network and system.  As a result, there is an extreme shortage of relief teachers at present.  When a staff notifies the school of their absence, a range of strategies are put in place to ensure that the best teacher is in front of every class, every day.  Sometimes this may necessitate a class split and leadership members covering classes, including the Principal and Assistant Principal.  Please be assured that we continue to consult and discuss different options to ensure high quality teaching and learning everyday.

As a sustainable school, we are setting ourselves a weird and wonderful 2021 school goal to have NO school lost property.

In 2020, we worked diligently on drastically minimising the amount of lost property in the school. As a result, a number of unnamed pieces were sold, with the proceeds contributing to the Year 6 Graduation fundraising. 

Staff have been asked to NOT set up a random box or area of the school for lost property eg. at the end of the main corridor or in the Gallery. The office will NOT be a place where items are sent to or stored.

Note:  Please ensure that any toys eg. beyblades and poppets are clearly named. 

At the end of each term, the Year 6 leaders will gather any unnamed items in the school (hopefully very few), which will be bagged, washed and sold to the community.

Note:  All unnamed drink bottles and plastic containers will be thrown out.  All toys will be donated to classrooms or a local charity. 

Overtime, we know that families will support the school in strengthening practice in naming their child’s items and regularly checking that names have not worn off.

School Council has requested that explicit information is shared with parents to ask for their assistance on matters of importance.  As such, we ask all parents to discuss with their child/ren the importance of making positive choices and behaving in a way that would make everyone proud.  

Can all families please discuss the following with their child/dren.

Student toilets

• On all levels, the bathrooms are much better than they were in the past but a few areas are ‘not inviting’.
• Overuse of toilet paper (by girls) with a little bit being thrown on the roof by both girls and boys.
• In the boys toilets, it has been reported that boys are slamming the cubicle doors, intentionally causing a loud shake and ricochet with the others doors, which is scaring other students.
• Some 'smaller' students are going underneath the door and locking the lock.
• Some junior students are not closing and locking the cubicle when conducting toilet business.
• When drinking from the fountains in the breeze way, some students are collecting water in their mouth, spitting on the ground, making the walkway wet and dangerous.

Bike racks

There has been some reports of misbehaviour by students tampering with bikes during school hours. Examples of such are:

• sitting on handle bars during the day, causing a change in performance later by the bike rider
• switching bikes from one spot to another
• removing bike locks and throwing onto the roof

Cubbies

It is terrific to hear and watch students having fun building cubbies on the outer skirts of the oval, with natural materials eg. twigs, bark, leaves etc...  during school hours.

Unfortunately it has been reported that some visitors to our school grounds after hours have been vandalising the cubbies.  It is astonishing to know that this could include some ex students and/or older siblings of current students.