Principal's Message

Dear OLA Families,

August is such a special month for us in the OLA Parish.  Celebrating our Feast Day on the 15 August is a great reminder of what makes our community so special.  It has been a fortnight of creating memories and I thank all staff, students and parents for their energy and commitment to celebrations like our fortnightly assembly, welcoming our 2023 Prep families, the Grade 3/4 AFL Blind and Wheelchair Workshop and the Performing Arts Concert.

Feast Day

Thank you to our students and staff for such a memorable and fun Feast Day on Monday.  It was so lovely to be onsite and altogether this year to celebrate Our Lady of the Assumption Feast Day.  A big thank you to Caitlan for her creative thinking and organisation of this special day and thank you for preparing our House Team Leaders to be able to lead conversations around the names of our House Teams: MacKillop, Brigid, Lourdes and Fatima.  Thank you also to Sam for the beautiful portraits of Mary that you had displayed and celebrated in Brigid Hall. Everything from the prayer service led by our School Captains, to the chanting and team spirit, to the time together in House Teams, to the special class activities - the day was a great success.  It was so lovely to see our students in their house teams with children from across the school Prep to Grade 6.

We are really proud of the knowledge and understanding that the students gained around Our Lady of the Assumption, MacKillop, Brigid, Lourdes and Fatima.  

OLA Parish Fete

A big thank you for all the Lucky Bottle Stall donations we have received already this month.  Not to mention all the other donations, pre-loved toys and books etc. that continue to roll in.  

Book Week Parade

OLA will be celebrating Book Week from Monday 22 August to Friday 26 August. This provides a fantastic opportunity to celebrate authors, illustrators and the wonderful world of books. One of the most exciting parts of The Children’s Book Council of Australia’s (CBCA) Book Week is our Book Parade which we will be celebrating on Friday 26 August at 9am in Brigid Hall.

Students are invited to dress up as one of their favourite characters from a book. Our goal is to have fun and celebrate brilliant books and the magical world of stories. 

We would like all students to bring their book or a photocopy of the front cover of their book to enable their peers to easily identify their character. This will also assist the students organising the literary parade. Students are encouraged to ask their classmates, class teacher or Mrs Thredgold if they need any assistance.

We look forward to celebrating Book Week with you and the wonders of children’s literature at the Parade!

Building Project

Building Update!

The plastering is nearly complete…  

The windows and doors are in… 

The painters are in…

The old pavers have been reused and repurposed 

Next week we hope to see our outdoor stage being built and the shade sails not far away….! 

Exciting times… 

Celebrating our different cultures

At OLA we are creating a welcome sign for our new building (Shhh! it's a surprise!!) to celebrate the cultural diversity of OLA. The sign will say welcome in all the different languages that our families are connected to here at OLA. Thank you to all who have shared their heritage so that we can celebrate it in this project. Please email me at principal@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au with any additions.  We currently have noted the following languages spoken by families at OLA: 

Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, First Nations, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Maltese, Mandarin, Nepalese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Shona, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Tamil, Te Reo Maori, Vietnamese.

2023 Prep Families

On Thursday 11 August we welcomed our Prep 2023 families to OLA!! It was so wonderful to have both new and current families come together for our first parent workshop. Carley McGauren spoke about helping our children be school ready and how our families can thrive and not just survive at this important time.  

For those who were not able to attend or you would like a reminder of some of the content covered please refer to Carley's link  https://www.informandempower.com.au/parent-resources

We are grateful for the positive feedback that we have received:

I just wanted to say I thoroughly enjoyed Carley’s presentation on Starting School and School Readiness. As a first time primary school parent, I honestly had no idea what to expect, however after attending Carley’s talk, I feel more at ease with my child starting their primary school journey. The biggest takeaway for me was to 'say less' and to not immediately make judgment of a situation. I am looking forward to our next parent evening.

They really are great sessions to attend, not only for new prep parents but honestly parents/people in general.  It is so easy to make assumptions rather than ask a question.  Remembering to ask for help... that was my other fav!  Love your work, OLA team.  We are very lucky.

Thank you to Mr Jacques, all the lovely educators at OLA, and of course Carley for arranging the Prep Information Session for parents. Carley presented an engaging session that oriented parents to the transition to school, providing information around the common expectations and experiences around this transition. The presentation provided parents with a range of accessible and practical strategies to prepare and support our children for this transition, fostering a positive start to school and connection to learning. As a parent, I was left feeling empowered and confident to begin to support my child on their journey to begin school, continue to promote their personal growth, and overall wellbeing. I really did enjoy this session, thank you! 

We look forward to welcoming you all back to OLA for our second parent information session on Thursday 10 November at 7:30pm.

OLA Family Feedback

We would love to hear from you about what you think works well at OLA and what could be improved at OLA. Often surveys undertaken in schools have a number system attached and nowhere for families to comment and so following feedback from our community we wanted to offer this opportunity.

The voice of our students, staff and parent community is so important and it enables us to hear from you all directly, prioritise and then action improvements and future direction of the school.

Please take a moment to answer the three questions attached in this google form. Here is the link. We would appreciate each and every family providing feedback through this survey by Monday 22 August.

MACSSIS Survey

Following on from our local OLA survey of three questions as outlined above, the official MACSSIS Survey for students, parents and staff will open on Monday 29 August. This is a survey conducted in every Catholic School in the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

2023 Plans

We politely ask all families to notify the school should your child/children not be returning to OLA in 2023.  We have had a number of enquiries in recent weeks across various levels. Having an accurate indication of our enrolment numbers ensures we are able to plan accordingly for the following school year and access appropriate funding i.e. staffing and resourcing. We thank you for your cooperation.

COVID Safety & Sick Children

We request that any children who show signs of being unwell must remain at home.  Parents please note that children will be isolated in the sick bay and we will call parents if we identify that your child is unwell. This protocol is in place for the safety of all children and members of our community.  

Surveillance

With our surveillance cameras surrounding the administration building we are able to capture clear vision of the comings and goings on our property. On the evening of Wednesday 17 August at 19.34 two young males graffitied the walls and bitumen to the left of the Administration Building. The clear footage of these two young men has been shared with the Cheltenham Police. At school we shared with the children the importance of taking pride in ourselves, our belongings and our buildings and that we need to use our heart and our brain to be kind and to make good choices.  We also explained that while we are disappointed with the damage caused we can clean and repair this area and the police will help us keep our community safe.

AFL Blind and Wheelchair Workshop

One of our best visiting Sporting Schools Grant opportunities arrived at OLA last week with the Hawthorn Football Club running an AFL Blind and Wheelchair Workshop for our Grade 3/4 students.  We are so grateful that our Grade 3/4 students were able to develop their understanding, appreciation and respect for people who play sports with different abilities. It was a fantastic day learning about diverse skills in our community. One of our Grade 4 students reflected:

This afternoon we were very lucky to experience and explore the blind and wheelchair AFL workshop. I feel really inspired.  I learnt that you can do anything you put your mind to. I'm grateful that I got to meet such wonderful people. 

The understanding and empathy gained by our students was obvious and another tell tale sign is when our children come home to you and tell you all about what they learnt.  Thank you to the families once again for the positive feedback…

I just wanted to say thank you for the wonderful incursion the school offered for the 3/4 students around disability and inclusion not so long back. I work in the disability space and so we have conversations at home around difference, difficulties and inclusion, but being able to experience and see how this feels (as in the goggles and wheelchairs for example) is hugely powerful, as were the stories of the facilitators. It created more great chats for us. Our child was amazed by how hard it was and reflected more on the day to day world for people who live everyday with a disability. Thank you for offering the children this learning opportunity.

Performing Arts Concert

Congratulations to our OLA Choir, Taiko Drum Performers and Wakakirri Team for such a successful Performing Arts Concert on Wednesday evening.  Not only did we have many children and their families attend but we also had families with children not even involved attending too.  This was a great rehearsal and confidence builder for the children involved and a great showcase of the opportunities offered at OLA.  Thank you to all staff who led these initiatives and who were present on the night.

Because… other people matter!

What a gorgeous message from 3/4JD at their assembly last Friday.  Thank you to all our classes who celebrate the learning in their classrooms with us at our fortnightly assemblies on Friday at 2.30pm.  We are so proud of our students celebrating all they love about learning at OLA.

Baby Jacques has arrived!!

Thank you all for your interest and excitement in the birth of our baby girl, Rosie Kathleen Marylin Jacques. Rosie is a beautiful tiny little thing. It is hard to get to work some mornings having had such precious cuddles. Liam and Hannah are loving their little sister and Mairead is doing so well and is even on school drop off already!!  Thanks again. 

First Holy Communion

Our prayers and thoughts this week are for our students who are celebrating the Sacrament of First Eucharist.  Over the next two weekends children will be receiving Holy Communion for the first time.  May this be an extra special step on their faith journey and one they remember forever.

Enjoy the weekend and thank you for a great couple of weeks at OLA.

Richard Jacques

Principal