The Principal's Report
Whole School Information Night
We look forward to seeing you all tonight at 6.30 pm in the Stadium for our Whole School Information Night. This is an opportunity to hear all about the school and then spend time in the classrooms.
You will have the opportunity to hear about the classroom and specialist learning programs as well as:
- well being,
- attendance,
- home learning,
- reporting,
- digital learning,
- communication,
- camps,
- Ride2School,
- War on Waste,
- student leadership,
- parental involvement,
- uniform shop
- Canteen.
Our presentation will be made available on the school website after tomorrow evening.
There will be an opportunity to ask questions live throughout the evening using Slido, some questions will be answered on the night and others will form part of our newsletter in coming weeks.
Class Reps and Class Directories
A huge thank you to Nicky O'Keefe who has been our Class Rep coordinator for a number of years. We appreciate all that you have undertaken in this role, supporting class teachers and offering support to those who volunteer to be the Class Rep each year.
This year Linda Pezzano and Anna Raftopoulos will be our Class Rep Coordinators. We thank them for taking on this important role.
Everyone will have received a message through Sentral inviting them to join their Class Directory for this year. By filling in the Google Form you will be part of the class and level directory for 2020. The links are also included below.
Inquiry Learning
On Tuesday February 18th our staff participated in a professional learning day with Kath Murdoch. Sitting in a room of engaged teachers, asking questions and inviting new learning for themselves was exciting. Our day focused on nurturing student agency in their learning, how we can support students to be brave learners. Building brave is a vital part of our role, ensuring our students are willing to take risks, try things and learn from their mistakes.
We explored the building of a learning toolkit for our students - essential for them to be active learners who can use their skills across many different learning environments. We explored students as:
- researcher
- thinker
- collaborator
- communicator
- self-manager
- inquirer
The importance of a shared language across the school, a language of learning supports our students to approach a problem and ask themselves what learning assets or dispositions do they need to use to begin solving the problem. By asking what am I going to learn to do or be to solve this students are challenged to use their skills across many different learning situations.
Part of our day empasised the importance of the capabilities within the Victorian Curriculum -
- Ethical capability
- Critical and creative thinking capability
- Personal and social capability
- Intercultural capability
Following this day Shannon Reeve our Leading Teacher - Curriculum Development will work with our Curriculum Leaders to explore how we can use our new learning to support our students across the school.
If you would like ot know more about Kath Murdoch and her work here is a link to her website - Kath Murdoch
Coronavirus
The current coronavirus advice remains the same. The Commonwealth Government has announced that the travel restrictions for foreign nationals travelling to Australia from mainland China have been extended for a further week, and will now remain in place until 22 February.
The following staff and students should self-isolate and are advised to stay at home and avoid public settings including attendance at schools and early learning centres:
- People who were in Hubei Province until 14 days after they were last in Hubei Province;
- People who were in mainland China on or after 1 February 2020 until 14 days after they were last in mainland China;
- Close contacts of confirmed cases until 14 days after last close contact with the confirmed case
Children and staff who are well and have travelled to any other areas where there have been reported cases, are NOT recommended to be excluded from schools and child care services unless the following applies:
- The person is a confirmed case of novel coronavirus
- The person is a close contact with a confirmed case of novel coronavirus in the past 14 days
School Council Elections
Our annual School Council Elections process is progressing. At the close of nominations on Monday February 17th at 4 pm we had two nominations for the Department of Education and Training positions - therefore Ray Owens and Shannon Reeve were duly elected to School Council.
We had two nominations for the Parent positions - therefore Sarah Hasslinger and Flora Bourdopoulos are duly elected to School Council.
We have called for further nominations for the other two Parent category positions - these nominations should be to the office on Thursday February 20th at 4 pm.
The school council has particular functions in setting and monitoring the school’s direction.
School councils have three main responsibilities:
- finance: overseeing the development of the school’s annual budget and ensuring proper records are kept of the school’s financial operation
- strategic planning: participating in the development and monitoring of the school strategic plan
- policy development and review: developing, reviewing and updating policies that reflect a school’s values and support the school’s broad direction outlined in its strategic plan.
Other key functions of school councils include:
- raising funds for school related purposes
- maintaining school grounds and facilities
- entering into contracts
- reporting annually to the school community and the Department
- creating interest in the school in the wider community
- representing and taking the views of the community into account
- regulating and facilitating after-hours use of school premises and grounds
- operating a children’s service at the school.
Susanne Lowe
Principal