Student Free Day this Tuesday

A reminder that next week will look very different at SKiPPS.

As well as the King's Birthday Public Holiday on Monday (12th), our school will also be running a student-free day on Tuesday (13th). This means that no students are required at school on this day. Our teachers will be using the day as a 'Teacher Professional Practice Day', an entitlement under the Victorian Government Schools Agreement.

The purpose of these days is for staff to work on their professional practice and complete tasks central to their work with your children.

Team Kids will be running a full-day program on Tuesday for those families requiring child care.

We look forward to seeing everyone again on Wednesday of next week.

Wear it Yellow Day

Last Friday, our school took part in 'Wear it Yellow' day as a part of our Reconciliation Week celebrations.

We wore yellow to raise money for Children's Ground - an indigenous-run charity that provides a range of programs and services for children and their families, such as: quality learning, play and development. grief, trauma and wellbeing services. family health promotion.

We are excited to announce that our school raised $489.57 for this wonderful cause. this was made up of $337.37 in online donations and $152.20 in gold coins collected on the day. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed.

It is not too late to make a donation via this link https://wearityellow.org.au/s-kilda-park-ps

For more information on Children’s Ground, head to https://childrensground.org.au/

Update on the Public Toilets

Last week we shared a detailed update on the proposed City of Port Phillip Council plans to construct new public toilets in the parkland at the front of our school, roughly 100 metres from our front gates.

We want to thank the many parents who got in touch following the newsletter to offer their support to help challenge this risky Council decision and hopefully see a more appropriate location selected instead.

Following her visit to last week's assembly, members of the School Council sat down with Nina Taylor MP to share our safety concerns about the project and to seek her support in this campaign. We are thankful that Nina took these points on board and has started to advocate directly to our local CoPP councillors to review this project.

Despite this, we are still in need of as many community members as possible to support this campaign - talents needed include any parents with comms/pr, media contacts, graphic design, corflute & flyer print or legal (planning) skills.

Even if you do not have these skills, we require parents and carers who are unhappy about this plan and committed to helping out. We are especially keen for parents willing to attend CoPP Council meetings to ask questions and communicate the school community's concerns with every aspect of their plan.

If you can help us to keep our school safe, please get in touch at dunniesaintfunny@gmail.com

Working Bee

A huge thank you to those parents who attended our working bee on Saturday morning.

Whilst the weather wasn't perfect, we did succeed in completing a long list of jobs around the school grounds.

This included clearing out and restocking our sand pit and sand play table, digging out storm drains, sanding and painting the latest addition to our playground - a fishing boat, weeding and pruning, building a compost system, fixing fly screens, painting doors and pressure washing our quadrangle shade sail.

For funding reasons, many of these jobs simply wouldn't happen without the generosity of our parents in attending working bees. It is of huge benefit to our entire school community and helps to build pride and confidence in our school.

End-of-Term Arrangements

We are now only just over two weeks away from the end of term 2 - at which point we will be halfway through the school year!

School will finish on Friday 23rd June at 2:30pm and we encourage families to make arrangements for this early finish. Team Kids will be operating from this time.

As you will read later in the newsletter, we also ave a great winter celebration to end the term with. Our wonderful Parents' Association SKIPPA will be running a hot chocolate and biscuit stall at 2:30pm on the day and we encourage you to hang around and finish the term with a treat!

Winter Wellness event reminder

Later in the newsletter, you will read more about our upcoming 'Winter Wellness' event - taking place in the new pavilion next to school next Thursday 15th June.

This is a brand new event for our school and we are really excited and thankful that so many members of our school community are getting involved and donating their time and expertise to provide a relaxing and mindful day.

As we move into winter, many of us are feeling tired and run-down and this event is a great chance to look after your wellness and engage with other members of our community.

During the day (and evening) there are a wide range of sessions that parents and carers can choose to come along to (or you can really treat yourself and attend the whole day).

Further details and tickets are at https://compasstix.com/event/30a67630-779d-4288-bf22-89610ce5362e

We hope to see lots of you there to help make this event a huge success.

End of Tax Year - reminder of our tax deductible funds

With the end of the tax year approaching, we know that some families will be looking at options to make gifts and donations to provide them with tax deductions.

The school operates two DGR (Deductible Gift Recipient) funds and we would welcome any donations that families may be willing and able to make. Doing so provides huge benefits to the school and can also give tax benefits to the person making the donation.

We operate a DGR Building Fund which allows us to collect funds that are used to maintain and upgrade our school buildings - something that is constantly required in our 141-year old buildings and which existing government funding never fully covers.

We also operate a DGR fund for our Library. Donations to this fund allow us to purchase books and resources for our wonderful school library - something which represents a lasting investment in the learning and engagement of our students.

Any parents considering making a donation prior to tax-time are encouraged to consider the school, chat to their accountant and reach out to Nova Whitehead, our lovely Business Manager at nova.whitehead@education.vic.gov.au to make arrangements.

Nova will be able to provide you with the appropriate receipts and documents to provide to your accountant to allow a tax-deduction to take place.

Year 5/6 Update