Dear Families,

The end of the year is nigh and we are looking forward to our final week of the 2020 school year next week.

It has been a hive of activity this week at our school. The 5/6 students enjoyed an outing to Rochester for a game of cricket; our students represented our school beautifully and despite the loss, they had a great time.

Our staff went head to head for a lunchtime basketball match with the Echuca Twin Rivers Specialist School on Thursday. We were cheered on enthusiastically by our students and staff from both schools. Unfortunately, we were pipped at the post. We look forward to more of these fun activities next year.

It has also been great to use the gym at recess and lunchtimes for organised activities. This week table tennis has been a feature with many students taking the opportunity to showcase their table tennis skills.

Graduation

Grade 6 Graduation is on Tuesday, December 15th.

The Grade 6 Graduation will be at the Mercure Function Room in High Street (next to McDonalds). Unfortunately, we are still restricted by numbers attending, therefore this event will be for students and staff only. Upon arrival between 5:45pm and 6pm, families may have a photo taken together. The ceremony will take place from 6:15pm and will be broadcast live via Webex so families may watch from home. The ceremony will be completed by 7:15pm, allowing families who may like to go out for dinner afterwards to do so.

We understand this is not a perfect Graduation for our Grade 6 students, and lots of schools are doing different things to celebrate, but our hope is to make this as special for the students as possible, and allow them to leave school with a memorable evening. We appreciate everyone's understanding.

The Webex link is:

Meeting number: 165 699 6669

Password: Grade6

Last School Assembly

Our last assembly will be held on Wednesday of next week at 2:20pm in the new courtyard as we are restricted to 150 people inside. This assembly with be broadcast via Webex for our parents and friends who'd like to join us. We welcome you to join us. Our Kiwanis Terrific Kids will be presented, our Grade 5/6 students will be performing a song and we will be having the final School arch as students farewell our Grade 6 students.

Webex Meeting Number: 1659941543

Password: Assembly2020

Last Day of School

Next Friday is the last day of school and our students will be dismissed at 1pm. The buses will be running 2 hours earlier than normal and all bus students will be departing school at 1:10pm.

Thursday and Friday will be clean up and pack up days and we encourage students to come along and assist us with the end of year tidy up. It is always a big job and many hands make light work.

Library Helpers

We are calling out to those parents who may have a spare couple of hours to help with the return and cataloging of library books next week. If you can, we'd love your help. Please see one of our staff members or ring the office on (03) 54 107700

2021 Classes and Teachers

We will be running 12 classes next year.

2 x Preps

3 x 1/2

3 x 3/4

4 x 5/6

We also have several new staff members joining us. We'd like to warmly welcome

Ms Courtney Foster (Grade 3/4 teacher),

Cailtin Green (5/6 teacher), Meaghan Portwine (PE Specialist) and Angus Mawson (trainee).

We are bidding farewell to Leila Campbell who has decided to take leave next year. We'd like to thank Leila for her hard work and effort in setting up our PE program this year as a specialist subject. She also did a wonderful job of organising our Athletics Days under some very trying conditions.

Families will be formally notified of your child's class for next year on Wednesday 16th of December. Please see a spreadsheet outlining the staffing arrangements for next year.

2021 Dates

Just a reminder about some key dates for 2021:

All students (except Prep) return to school on Friday 29th of January.
Prep students return on Monday 1st of February.
Teachers return on Wednesday the 27th of January.

Reports

Reports will be uploaded to Sentral and be available on Wednesday 16th of December. If you require a hard copy (paper copy) of your child's report, please notify the office for this to be arranged by Monday the 14th of December. Interviews are not scheduled, however if you'd like to discuss your child's report with their teacher, please contact the school to make an appointment.

State Wide Transition Day

On Tuesday, December 8th we had the State Wide Transition Day. Onsite here at school, it went very smoothly and many of our new students who are joining us next year also had the opportunity to meet our teachers and students. Our 35 new Foundation students had a wonderful day at their new school too.

Our Grade 6 students, by all accounts, had an enjoyable time at their perspective new schools also.

End of Year Parent Survey

It is that time of the year again. This survey is our own school survey seeking individual feedback on how we are tracking as a school, what we have achieved, areas to improve and suggestions for future planning.

Last year we had 33 responses, this year we are striving for 50 responses. We can do it!

The survey is open until the 18th of December and we want to hear from you. It is a 30 question survey which also includes questions about your experience of remote learning and will take about 10 mins to complete. Below is the survey link, just click on it and it will take you to the survey. We appreciate and value your time and opinions. A text message was sent out last week to families with the link.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/T97FLL5

Toy Drive

You may have seen our front page feature in the Riverine Herald earlier this week promoting the Toy Drive we assisting with. We are gathering quite a collection of toys in our foyer, providing it with some very welcome festive cheer. Both Echuca Twin Rivers Specialist and Primary schools have joined the Echuca Moama Community Projects along with the Echuca Moama Uniting Church and is a drop off point and key contributor for the 2020 Christmas Toy Appeal. It is exciting to be involved in a project in our Community that our students will benefit from. We are grateful for your contributions.

Donations will be collected on Wednesday the 16th of December.

Class Parties

Class Parties are taking place next week. Our Foundation students are having their party on Monday in Shepparton at Jett's Gym, with all other grades having their parties on Tuesday. Grade 1/2 students will be heading to the Port of Echuca for a Paddle Steamer ride followed by ice cream. The 3/4s are going to Twisted and the 5/6s are going to the pool followed by the movies. Our school is subsidising part of the cost for these parties, so we can assist students to attend. Notes have been sent home and permission is needed to attend the excursion.

Class Kris Kringle

Each class will be having a Kris Kringle gift exchange to celebrate the end of the year. It would be wonderful if your child participated in this voluntary process of giving and receiving a gift. If you would like your child to participate, please send along a small, wrapped, unisex gift up to the value of $5.00. Each class will be exchanging gifts in the last week of school. A note was sent home about this earlier this week. Please contact your class teacher if you need support in organising a gift.

School Uniform

Just a reminder that students are expected to wear full school uniform when attending school. Students are not permitted to wear black variations of the uniform. We are seeing an increased number of students choosing to wear black pants, jumpers and shorts. Black or white socks are the only coloured socks permitted at school.

Second Hand Uniform

We have a number of uniform items in the office that can be purchased. Each item is priced $2.

If you have any items that are in good condition and you have no further use for them, we would appreciate any school uniform donations.

Staffing for 2021

School Wide Positive Behaviour Supports

Wishing you all a great weekend.

Kind regards,

Rob and Anthea

Happy Birthday