Principal and Assistant Principal's Page

Principal's Report

It has been another busy fortnight here at Huntingdale. The school oval project is moving along nicely with the drainage system and base being worked on over the last fortnight! Students have been very eager to watch the progress of oval and seeing all the machinery used!

School Review Parent Survey

In Term 2, 2020, our school will be participating in a School Review. This occurs every four years and is a part of our School Improvement Cycle. We collect data from many sources to reflect on the last four years at Huntingdale and to help improve and inform future directions of our school.

We would greatly appreciate your feedback by answering a survey to help us prepare for our review.  Please use the following link:  

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DJRYNHJ

This survey will close on Friday 6 March. Thank you for taking the time to give us your responses.

Parents as Partners Survey

Thank you to all of our families who attended our ‘Parents as Partners’ Night on 25 February. I heard many positive comments by students, parents and teachers about the night. We have put a short survey together to ask for feedback about the night and suggestions for future events. The survey link can be found at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R3J32VR

2020 School Council

I am pleased to confirm our School Council for 2020:

Parent Representatives: Chris Leffler, Anna-Maria Kendrick, Wesley Kwok, Nafisa Zabeen Ovi, Takuya Katsu, Katherine Ward, Alex Lord, Gemma Thomas

Community Representatives: Rachel Benson and Shane Sinn

Staff Representatives: Ruth Biddle, Nozomi Koyama, Naomi Mori-Hanazono, Keiko Harada

A special welcome to our new councillors Takuya, Katherine, Alex, Gemma, Rachel and Shane. School Council meets once a month, with the following dates confirmed for this year:

• 24 March (including AGM)
• 05 May
• 09 June
• 21 July
• 18 August
• 13 October
• 10 November
• 15 December

Each councillor will also be a member of a School Council Sub-Committee, which meet once between meetings. Our current Sub-Committees are: Sustainability and Grounds, Education and Future Directions, Community Links and Finance. If you are interested in joining any of these, please see me.

Our 2020 priorities as a School Council are:

• Oversee the redevelopment of the modular building program
• Secure funding from the State Government to build the next stages of our masterplan
• Redevelop the area behind the hall so it is an attractive and useful learning space for our students
• Work with the City of Monash to improve access to the car park
• Continue to strengthen our Community Links in partnership with Watashi Mo

Expenses

At Huntingdale, we aim to give you an overview of the year in many ways so you can plan ahead of time.  We realise expenses at the start and end of each year are high and we have provided an overview to help you budget accordingly. 

TERM 1

Excursions/Activities:

Camp year 3 to 6 $340

Interschool sport & gala day $25

Fundraising: Easter Raffle

Fees:   School Fees $300

Voluntary Donations:  

Bilingual donation $ 60

IT donation $60

Sustainability donation $ 25

 Building fund- parent decision- tax deductible

 Library fund- parent decision- tax deductible

TERM 2

Excursions/Activities:

Whole School:  Production $30 

Foundation- Myuna Farm $30

Year 1- Melbourne Zoo $30

3/4's Change excursion $30

5/6’s- Incursion $20

School Photos- $30

Fundraising: 

Colour Fun Run

Book Fair

SLC event (gold coin donation)

TERM 3

Excursions/Activities:

Whole School Photo- $30

Production tickets- $10-15

Fundraising: 

Scout Raffle

SLC event (gold coin donation)

TERM 4

Excursions/Activities:

Swimming- $55

Year 6 Graduation-$20

2021 Year 6 tops/jacket (current Year 5’s)- $100

Year 5/6 city excursion- $30

Year 3/4 Full Steam ahead  excursion $30

Fundraising

Christmas Raffle

SLC event (gold coin donation)

**Please note these expenses are an approximate and more details and exact costings will be available closer to the time. 

The Student Leadership Council usually organises a fundraiser per term, which is optional.

Our Parents Association ‘Watashi Mo’ also organises a range of activities and fundraisers, which will be advertised as they are organised.

Student Leadership Council

At Monday’s assembly, we presented the Student Leadership Council (SLC) with their badges. The SLC will work with Mrs Mathews and be responsible for organising some fundraising events, other school events and giving feedback about a range of issues.

Our 2020 SLC’s are:

Assistant Principal's Report

What a wonderful fortnight it has been with some lovely weather and a plethora of happenings and events around the school.

Parents as Partners Night

It was wonderful to see so many families at our Parents as Partners Night last Tuesday. This is a ‘key’ evening for both teachers and parents - to disseminate information about what is happening at school but also for the teachers to be introduced to your child’s first educator- YOU! There was a great buzz around the school as children introduced their parents to their teachers and showed them around the classroom. We hope that parents went away with much valuable information about school and also picked up their ‘pack’ containing key documents. Please see your child’s teacher if you have not received one. The Foundation Teachers also reported on what a successful night their 1:1 interviews were. It is lovely to reflect with parents how well their child has settled into school and for the parents to give some insight into their child’s learning and interests. The partnership does not begin nor does it end on one night. If you have any further questions or concerns about your child, you can always make an appointment to see your child’s teacher or share some great news after school when the teachers are on duty in their rooms. Thank you to Watashi Mo for having their information booth about upcoming events. They are still looking for some more parents to help out at the events below;

• Nihongo Sports Night

On Tuesday 10th March

At Davies Reserve

• Cultural Food Festival

On Friday 20th March

At South Oakleigh College

If you are able to contribute your time, please contact Watashi Mo. Thank you so much for your support in advance.

Parent Volunteers Induction Session

On Tuesday 3rd March we had our Parent Volunteers Induction session at the school. Thank you very much to our  parents who attended the session and showed their willingness to share their expertise for our children’s learning. Thank you also to Jenny, who is our chaplain,  for holding a parenting session especially focused on Anxiety. Jenny is holding the parents’ morning tea every Monday morning in the Hall Foyer. Everyone is welcome to attend the morning tea and meet other parents. The school keeps a list of parents who have attended the session and this is also passed and monitored by School Council. If you missed the session, please see Naomi in the office.

Community Cultural Festival

Our Taiko Club, Senior Choir and Junior Bilingual Choir will perform at 5:05pm to 5:30pm on the stage at South Oakleigh College’s Cultural Food Festival. We hope to see our community on the night to celebrate our cultural diversity.

We, together with Amsleigh Park PS, Clayton North PS, Clarinda PS, Hughesdale PS, Huntingdale PS, Oakleigh PS, Oakleigh South PS and South Oakleigh College will celebrate our shared heritage and showcase the cultural diversity within all our communities. 

Since the traditional owners first inhabited the land, Victoria’s cultural diversity has continued to evolve and shape our identity. Today, almost half of all Victorians were either born overseas or have at least one parent who was born overseas.  All schools represent this cultural diversity and we are proud to be educational institutions celebrating the past, the present and look forward to the future as a community celebrating diversity. 

There will be:  So come along and JOIN US to celebrate with:

• Food trucks
• Student performances
• Art Exhibition

So please come along and JOIN US to celebrate.

When:             20th March 2020

Where:            South Oakleigh College

                        Bakers Road South Oakleigh

Time:               4:30pm -8:30pm

Watashi Mo will be having a booth (activities and selling Japanese snacks). If you have some spare time, please contact them by email at Watashimo.huntingdale@gmail.com and put your name down to help.

Art Exhibition

South Oakleigh College, in collaboration with neighbouring primary schools, will be conducting an Art Competition during their Cultural Diversity Week.

The theme is Curiosity, Conversation, Community.

There will be three winning categories to be awarded a prize.

•  
  • Junior:             Prep to Year 4
  • Middle:           Year 5 to Year 8
  • Senior:             Year 9 to Year 12

Process

Our school selects 10 pieces of work from the total artworks collected, to be exhibited during the Cultural Festival on Friday 20 March.

All entries need to be returned to our school by Friday 13 March so we can transport them to South Oakleigh College.

South Oakleigh College will exhibit all the works in the school gym where guests will have the opportunity to view them and vote for their favourite artwork.

The ‘people’s choice’ will be announced by Wednesday 25 March via email along with the winners of each category.

Welcome to our Deakin University Master of Teaching Intern

As part of this school’s ongoing commitment to the induction and development of new teachers, we are pleased to welcome Karen Malone to the school. Karen is completing her Master of Teaching at Deakin University and has completed all theoretical and professional experience requirements to become a provisionally registered teacher with the Victorian Institute of Teaching, and has chosen to commence her teaching career as an Intern, beginning on 16th March. The Deakin Master of Teaching Internship Program is fully endorsed by the Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET), the Australian Education Union (AEU), the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT), the Catholic Education Office Melbourne (CEOM) and Early Childhood Australia (Victoria Branch).

Karen Malone will be working under the general supervision and expert guidance of Maria Perrella who will act as her mentor, advising and assisting Karen to plan, prepare and take on the responsibilities of a teacher in the school over a period of 10 weeks.

Karen will become fully involved in the life of the school including, where appropriate, communicating with parents. The school regards this as an opportunity for both the Intern and the Mentor Teacher to extend their professional skills in a collegiate partnership. We are pleased to be able to provide Karen with a stimulating and supported transition to her teaching career. We hope you will make her feel welcome!

Student Support

One of my main roles in the school is to coordinate the student support services in the school- academic, social and behaviour services. This includes programs we offer ‘in house’ as well as external services provided by the Department of Education and other external agencies.

Generally the process happens in the following way:

1. A teacher may have a concern with your child and will discuss it with you or you as a parent may have concerns about your child which you discuss with the teacher.
2. These concerns are then usually discussed with me so a decision can be made on which service can be accessed and is the most appropriate for your child. Permission forms are then