Important Notices
Walkathon
Our annual SKiPPS walkathon is taking place this Thursday afternoon (2pm on 8th September) on the oval next to the school.
Parents and carers are invited to come along and enjoy this fun event with us. We are excited that this event will allow us to come together as a school community to stay active, have fun and raise funds for the school.
After the walkathon has finished, we are inviting families to stay behind at school for a cake stall, sausage sizzle and icy poles. We would love your help to make the event a success. Here are the ways we are asking for your support;
- Support your child to find sponsors for the walkathon (or make a donation) - Sponsors may choose to sponsor per lap or make an overall donation. After the event, the money raised can be paid to the school via Compass. Simply log in and click on 'Course Confirmation/School payments', and the 'Walk-a-thon' (optional item) to make payment.
- Volunteer your time on the afternoon to help us run the event. If any parents, grandparents, uncles, aunties or friends are free on Thursday afternoon, we would love you to sign up for a volunteer slot at www.signupgenius.com/go/60B094BABA62EA3F85-skipps10 . We still have lots of slots that we need to fill – both during the walkathon and also for our event afterwards.
- Bake a cake or some cupcakes for our cake stall. The most delicious part of the day will be our cake stall in the quadrangle at 3:30pm. We would love donations of some delicious baked goods. . Cakes, cookies, cup cakes and other donations can be dropped into the Kitchen Dining Room from 8:30am on Thursday morning.
- Enjoy a treat and bring some gold coins after school on Thursday.
With a sausage sizzle, cake stall and icy poles for sale there will be lots of opportunities to buy some delicious food to celebrate completing the walkathon. We will also have a stall selling the amazing school merchandise (Jessie Breakwell designed tea towels, aprons and tote bags) and EFTPOS will be available for this.
It would be wonderful to see as many families as possible supporting the event to bring our community together again and help us raise money to purchase new iPads for our classrooms.
Child Safe Standards
As Hannah mentioned in her School Council update, SKiPPS is currently updating our Child Safe policies and documentation to ensure that they are in line with the new Child Safe Standards which came into effect in July of this year.
The new Standards set out minimum requirements and outline the actions organisations (including schools) must take to keep children and young people safe. They provide more clarity for organisations and are more consistent with Standards in the rest of Australia.
There are now 11 standards which we have spent time getting to know with staff and school councillors having undertaken extensive training in relation to this topic.
Further details about the new Child Safe Standards can be found at https://ccyp.vic.gov.au/assets/resources/New-CSS/New-Child-Safe-Standards-Information-Sheet.pdf
As well as learning about these standards, the school is obliged to update our existing range of policies in the area of child safety and consult with the school community on the creation of these documents and processes.
This work is being undertaken through Education sub-committee. Parents and carers are invited and encouraged to attend our upcoming meeting to learn more and have input into these policies. A robust and thorough process that involves the whole community will lead to stronger and better documents and processes for the school to follow.
The new draft policies can be found below - please read over these and feel free to contact Neil on neil.scott@education.vic.gov.au if you would like to discuss them further.
If you are keen to come to the next Education sub-committee meeting to be a part of this discussion, it is being held at 5pm on Monday 10th October - please email Matt on matthew.cook@education.vic.gov.au to confirm your attendance.
Staying Sunsmart - hats required
As we are now into September, students are required to wear a wide-brimmed hat when playing and learning outside at school.
With the arrival of spring, UV levels are regularly above 3 (even on cool or cloudy days).
Excessive exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation can cause health problems including sunburn, damage to skin and eyes, and an increased risk of skin cancer.
Please dig out your child's wide-brimmed hat, ensure their name is clearly marked and pack it in their bag for this week. Alternatively, new SunSmart hats can be purchased at the school office for $10.
We also recommend students wear sunscreen each day to stay SunSmart.
Further details of our policy can be found at www.skipps.vic.edu.au/assets/uploads/2020/06/2020-Sunsmart-Policy-1.pdf
Footy Colours Day
Staying on a Footy theme, the final day of this term (next Friday 16th September) will be our annual Footy Colours Day - the first in-person event since 2019.
On the day students, staff and parents are encouraged to show their colours and come dressed in the jerseys, scarves or colours of their favourite team (AFL or any other sport).
Before school, SKiPPA will be running a bacon and egg rolls stall in the school yard and we will have a coffee cart in attendance. We encourage you to come from 8am to grab breakfast at school before the start of the school day.
At assembly, we will have a parade to show our support for our teams.
Student Well Being
The recent Parent webinar; Reduce Chaos: Increase Calm & Flow, was another great success with many parents sharing how "timely" it was!
Our families who may have missed out have access to watch a recording of the session.
Reduce Chaos: Increase Calm & Flow
presented by Carley McGauran
It will be available to access until September 20.
We look forward to the final webinar (more details will be sent out early Term 4), in the meantime you may like to add it to your school calendar:
