Walk Safely to School Day

This morning we participated in the National Walk Safely to School Day.

Walk Safely to School Day asks that we all consider our transport habits and try to incorporate more walking as part of a healthy, active way to get around. And although walking all the way to school isn’t realistic for many of us, today was an opportunity to look at how you may be able to build a walk into your family’s daily routine.

A number of staff members met our students and families at Anello Way Playground and Railway Road Reserve Playground at 8:25 am. At 8:30 am we began the walk to school. Once everyone arrived at school they had the opportunity to receive breakfast at the breakfast club and collect a certificate and temporary tattoo for participating.

Education Week at Clyde Primary School

We will celebrating Education Week next week, with some community events and several in school learning activities with our students. See below for some of the ways we will be celebrating.

Tuesday 24th May – Open Morning (9-10am)

During this time, parents will be invited into classrooms to work with students. Students and families will have the opportunity to join in with a Literacy based activity. This may be a craft based activity based on a picture story book.

Wednesday 25th May – Simultaneous Story Time

This will be an opportunity for students to listen to a story at the same time as other students across Australia. This will be via a video link. The story is called Family Tree by Josh Pyke and Ronojoy Ghosh.

Thursday 26th May – Education Week Trail (3.30-4.30pm)

The trail will consist of 15 Literacy and Numeracy questions for our families to work together to solve. These questions will be problem solving based, and will cater for a variety of year levels (to challenge all members of your family!) The trail instructions and stamp sheet you will need for this community event will be sent out via Compass and attached to this newsletter. On the afternoon of the trail, the instructions and stamp sheet will be also be available to collect from your child’s teacher.

Writing Competition – entries due by 3pm Friday 27th of May

Students will be encouraged to enter a whole school writing competition, with a winner announced for each year level. Entries will be completed at home.

Glow Art Room- Tuesday 9:00- 10:00am and Thursday 3:30- 4:40pm

Families will be welcome to visit the Glow Art Room to see the neon art created by students over the past few weeks.

We look forward to seeing you all at our Education Week events!

New Build Update

The first of our 2 new buildings are getting nearer to completion. How amazing do they look? Our builders have been working hard over the past few months to get ready for the completion of this first stage of our major building works, expected to be completed in late June, ready for Term 3.

Building 1 is the new Gymnasium and the floors have recently been laid. At one end of the gym is the new music room and a large stage that will be perfect for our assemblies and other performances. At the other end of the gym is change rooms, toilets and storage, as well as a brand new canteen, with window servery (as you can see by my photo above!)

Building 2 is the new Administration building. It will be the main entrance to the school with a larger foyer and reception area. This building also has 3 brand new classrooms at the back, along side a new STEM and Art room. There is a new first aid room, and staff room, as well as new offices for the Principal and other leadership staff.

Once this stage is complete, the builders will begin Stage 2 of the works. To make this happen there will be a decanting process, where some classes will have to relocate until the end of the year, to make way for the construction of more new buildings, play spaces, outdoor learning spaces and landscaped gardens. We are currently working through this strategy with the building team to ensure our children are safe and to minimise as much disruption as we can, while these works take place. I will update you as soon as I can.

School Review

Every Victorian government schools undertake a School Review, every four years. Last term, we completed a comprehensive self-evaluation which involved students, teachers and community members. Our School review consists of 4 days in total, where the panel (see below) meet to review our school's performance against the four year goals and targets that are in our current school strategic plan. Our School Review officially began last Thursday with our Validation Day. This week, the panel completed 2 days of fieldwork activities, including classroom observations, parent focus groups, staff focus groups and curriculum and data presentations.

The review process evaluates our school's strengths, areas for improvement and the impact of our improvement efforts. At the end of the review, a new four-year school strategic plan is created and endorsed by the school community. I would like to thank the following people who have contributed to School Review Panel:

Mr Fred Clarke, Monash University School Reviewer

Ms Anne Martin, Department of Education: Senior Education Improvement Leader

Ms Konnie Prades, Principal of Clyde Secondary College

Mr Marc De Lay, Principal of Courtney Gardens Primary School

Ms Jenni Maypiece, Clyde Primary School, School Council Vice President

As well as members of our school's Leadership Team including myself, Ms Lumley, Ms Taylor and Ms Couacaud.

Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) Program changes

RATs will continue to be distributed to you as they have been throughout this school year for the remainder of this term. However, from Monday 23 May 2022, students will no longer be recommended to undertake either twice weekly RATs.

RATs however will continue to be required by students who are household contacts to attend school (5 negative tests over a 7 day period) or who have symptoms. The ongoing supply of RATs to families in our school will ensure that parents and carers will have them should they need them if their child is a household contact or has symptoms.

Families must continue to notify the Department of Health and the school if their child returns a positive RAT result. Additionally, you should inform us if any of your children are household contacts.

Thank you also to all families who has got their child vaccinated. Vaccination continues to remain the best way to protect students and staff in our school.

Getting vaccinated is easy and bookings can be done via the coronavirus website. If you have any questions about the vaccines, I encourage you to speak to your GP or a health practitioner.

Online Safety Basics

Over the last couple of weeks as a staff and via some parental concerns, we have been made aware that outside of school hours some students may be posting photos of themselves and discussing worrying content online, via platforms such as Snapchat and/or Tiktok.

The eSafety Commissioner website is a great resource that our Leadership Team at

school use regularly to support others in understanding online content, protocols and strategies.

Here is a link to some online safety basics for parents to help them navigate and support their children in the online world. https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/skills-advice/online-safety-basics

Policy Update

We have recently updated our school's Duty of Care Policy and Statement of Values and School Philosophy. These and other current school policies can be found on our website here: https://clydeps.vic.edu.au/about-us/#policies

Acknowledgement of Country