Messages

Galilee Carols

Last night we celebrated the season of Christmas, as well as the end of the school year, with Carols/Picnic Night.  The students sang beautifully and we were lucky to have the perfect weather.  It was fantastic to see so many families and Santa present on the night. Thank you to Carmen Carnovale for preparing the students and organising the event in conjunction with the Year 1 parents. Thank you to Colleen Giles for playing the keyboard for the performances and to Jackie Scott for coordinating the dancing.

 

2020 Staffing

For most of the term, teachers have been brainstorming and planning class groups for 2020. It is a long thought out process involving consultation with the students (about their friends), evening out genders and needs. Any further requesting for change of class is now not possible with one potential change impacting upon the suitability of many others. Any correspondence regarding changes or requests will not be answered.

Please read the attachment below for 2019 staffing positions. 

Library Books

All library books are due back this Monday 9th December. Please check your shelves and under beds for Galilee books as there are many overdue from the middle of the year.

Masses

Monday 9th December, Year 6 students will attend their Graduation Mass at OLMC at 6pm. Year 5 students and families are expected to attend for the handover ceremony.

End of Year Mass will be held on Friday 13th December. All families are invited to attend if you are available from 9.15am.

Charity Stalls

Good Afternoon Parents and Carers, 

The Year Sixes are hosting a charity event next Friday the 13th of December (Week 10) in the school hall to celebrate receiving the sacrament of Confirmation. We want to share the gifts we received from the Holy Spirit with others, so we are inviting students to visit our stalls to learn about some amazing charities. There will be 8 charity stalls set up selling a variety of yummy treats and items, as well as some fun games! 

 

The charities for the event are as follows: 

One Girl 

GreenPeace 

Royal Childrens' Hospital - Cystic Fibrosis Unit

Port Melbourne Life Saving 

4 Oceans 

The Cathy Freeman foundation 

Guide Dogs Victoria 

The Smith Family 

 

Although not compulsory, students are welcome to bring a small donation to purchase goodies from the charity stalls! 

 

Parents, we haven't forgotten about you! You are welcome to come visit our stalls from 3:25pm on Friday the 13th! We will run the event until 3:40pm! 

Thanks in advance for your support! 

The Year Six Students 

 

Congratulations!

Marco won the Taco Bill Citizen of the Year award for his amazing commitment to promoting an inclusive environment at our school and out in the local community. He received the award at our Year 6 lunch which is kindly supplied by Taco Bill, South Melbourne. Thanks to Stan and everyone who treats the Year Sixes each year.

End of Term

Prep to Year 5 students will finish the school year on Tuesday 17th December at 1.30pm. Please book for TheirCare's after school service if your child can not be collected by 1.30pm. 

TheirCare will also be running services Wednesday 18th, Thursday 19th and Friday 20th December at Galilee.

Book now:   https://theircare.com.au/

D.O.G.S Catch Up

D.O.G.S. Christmas Catch Up

December 12th from 7pm onwards at Meatworksco:

28/30 Ross St, South Melbourne. 

All welcome.

Number Intervention

This year Rosa and Pauline have been implementing a Number Intervention Programme with students from Grades 1 – 5.  Our Preps have been lucky to do the programme (SEAL) with trained parent volunteers. The students got to work in pairs. As the students’ needs changed, the strategies were adjusted to suit individuals’ learning needs, using different visual tools.  This helped them build up their confidence in Number and make new friendships throughout the year. A few even got to like maths!

The students work was catered to their needs by using the following strategies:

JUNIORS:

  • Early Number Words and Numerals
  • Structuring Numbers
  • Conceptual Place Value

The juniors enjoyed learning these strategies, by using concrete materials such as:

Numeral rolls, bundling sticks, number racks, various work sheets and other visual tools.

SENIORS:

  • Addition and Subtraction
  • Multiplication and Division

The seniors learnt the use of number lines to work out Sums and practised how to use their mental skills for Addition and Subtraction.

  The senior students also worked on Multiplication and Addition learning:

  • Skip counting
  • Quotitive/Partitive Division   
  • Arrays
  • Multiplication Strategies such as : Commutative/Identify/Associative/Distributive/Inverse

All of our students got to experience success in Number, with two of our students from 2B, Jamie Redmond and Lily Lacy, getting Number awards at our recent school assembly.

 

Hope to see you and any new students next year.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year.

Thank you,

Rosa and Pauline

Seeds and Sprouts Report

Early 2019, Carmen Carnovale, together with Simon Millar, Holly Evans (staff), Athena Romic and Michelle McCormack (parent school board members) began the process of applying for a City of Port Phillip Community Grant to help fund the proposed Seeds and Sprouts program. We received the fantastic news that we were successful in our application for a Social Inclusion Grant and received the amount of $8800.

 

In September 2019, Galilee launched the inaugural community inclusion and early learning program in the City of Port Phillip that was at no cost to families.

 

The Seeds and Sprouts program is a 10-week program which is designed to prepare children for a primary school environment.   The program was fully funded and there was no cost to families. There is no other similar program, that is fully funded in the City of Port Phillip or surrounding area that is available to families.

 

We weee overwhelmed with the response from the community and as a result, we exceeded our initial numbers and the numbers we proposed in the grant application.

We had 57 children in the program over three sessions. The Sprouts (4-5 year olds beginning school in 2020) sessions ran on Tuesdays from 9.00am-11.00am and 11.20am-1.20pm. These sessions were run by staff Holly Evans and Annmaree Pinner with assistance from other LSOs throughout the term. The Seeds (3-4 year olds beginning school in 2021) sessions ran on Wednesdays from 2.00pm-3.15pm. These sessions were run by staff Holly Evans, Carmen Carnovale, Sammy Bamford, Annmaree Pinner with assistance from other LSOs throughout the term.

 

The skills and learning areas the program developed were:

Cognitive skills – being curious and developing an interest in learning new things, having the confidence to learn, being interested and encouraging a willingness to solve problems.

 

Language skills – asking questions and communicating thoughts and ideas, listening to others, developing conversation skills, listening to stories and being read to.

 

Social and Emotional Learning – participating in play experiences, being flexible with play ideas and compromising, approaching and greeting children in a positive way and making new friends, identifying and expressing emotions appropriately, coping with transitions.

 

Self-help skills – using the toilet unassisted, dressing and undressing themselves independently, exposure to a structured environment, working at the table.

Physical skills-movement- jumping, skipping, hopping, using equipment such as, balls and climbing equipment.

 

Fine Motor Skills – scissors, correct pencil grip, finger strengthening tasks

 

Pre-Literacy Skills – Recognising and using phonics, sounds, letters and words, writing and reading name.