Assistant Principal's Report

Welcome to our third newsletter of Term Three. We have had another great fortnight at DPS with many special activities taking place. We have had the Middle & Junior School Bushwahzee Performance, Kinder Visits, 100 days of Prep, a Shoelace Incursion plus many others.      

School Review 

Our School Review has now concluded. It was a very valuable process where we had the chance as a school to reflect on the last four years and identify areas for improvement which we did. A huge thank you to the people that were involved in making this process a huge success.   

Parent Feedback

Thank you to the 100+ families who returned the form asking for parent feedback as part of the School Review. It was great to have a large sample to analyse and many interesting points were raised. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive with many grateful families expressing how much they love DPS and everything the school has to offer. 

We have collated all of the responses and included here are the top five responses to each of the questions asked:

Why did you choose Doncaster Primary School?

• Close to home
• Word of mouth/ recommendation/ reputation
• Zoned
• Schoolgrounds/ Oval/ Environment/ Facilities
• School Ranking   

What is the best thing about Doncaster Primary School?

• Staff
• School environment/ playground/ facilities 
• Communication from staff
• Multicultural community/ inclusivity
• School Culture/ atmosphere
• Range of activities/ events offered   

What would you like to see more of at Doncaster Primary School?

• School Camps/ Incursions & Excursions
• Lunchtime and Afterschool Clubs
• Sports Events
• Music Program
• More communication about student progress
• Family/ Community activities  

Once again a huge thank you to all of the families that replied with their feedback. Moving forward, we have lots to consider to make DPS an even better school for our community.

School Tours

We have been hosting two School Tours a week due to the demand of families moving into the area and hoping to join us at DPS. It has been a great chance for our students to shine and show off the best parts of DPS and we have had a number of mid year enrolments as a result.  We are in the process of organising our Prep enrolments for 2024 and have a healthy number of enrolments already. If you have a child who will be attending Doncaster Primary School next year in Prep and you haven’t enrolled yet, we would encourage you to collect and fill out an enrolment form from the office and return it along with all of the relevant documentation as soon as possible. If you have any relatives or friends who are interested in enrolling Preps into Doncaster Primary School in 2024, can you please encourage them to contact the School Office. We’d love to take them on a School Tour and enrol them thereafter.   

Book Week Dress Up Day

On Wednesday 23rd August 2023 students and teachers will be celebrating Book Week at DPS by dressing up as their favourite book character! The theme for Book Week this year is Read, Grow & Inspire! You can dress up as an animal or fairytale story book characters, a unicorn, a dragon, a butterfly, a dinosaur or even a wizard. The list is endless. 

If you are stuck for dress up ideas please visit the following links below. 

Spotlight: https://www.spotlightstores.com/

Kmart: https://www.kmart.com.au/category/toys/costumes/

Target: https://www.target.com.au/search?sEngine=c&text=book+week+dress+up

Costume Box: Online Store https://www.costumebox.com.au/pages/bookweek-costume-ideas

You could also visit local Op Shops or find some costumes from your own dress up box at home. Let’s get creative with our costumes and have some fun.

Policies

Please remember to regularly check our school website for these policies:

• Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
• Child Safety Code of Conduct
• Complaints Policy
• Child Safety Responding and Reporting Obligations Policy and Procedures
• Volunteers Policy
• Visitors Policy
• Student Wellbeing and Engagement Policy 
• Bullying Prevention Policy
• Digital Learning Policy

If you have any questions regarding these policies, please contact the School Office. Hard copies are also available upon request. 

Attendance

Going to school every day is the single most important part of your child’s education. Students learn new things at school every day. Attending and participating in school will help your child develop:

• important skills and knowledge to help them learn
• social and emotional skills such as good communication, resilience and team work.

There is no safe number of days for missing school. Each day a student misses puts them behind.

At DPS, we have noticed that there are some students who have been missing quite a lot of school and this is concerning. If your child is having time off school, please let the classroom teacher or the School Office staff know. We are finding that students attendance is having a significant impact on their learning and the quality of their education. For example if a student is only attending school 70% of the time, then they will only have access to 70% of the educational activities and content on offer. 

Tips to help improve your child’s attendance

• Talk to your child about school and how important it is. You can ask them how they feel about school, what they liked and if there are any problems.
• Set a good example. Show them how you keep to your own commitments.
• Encourage your child to take on hobbies that your child enjoys such as sports and clubs. This will help them develop positive relationships outside of the classroom.
• Have a set time to do homework and go to bed.
• Leave all technology out of their bedroom.
• Pack their school bag the night before with everything they need.
• Have a set time for breakfast.
• Plan to meet up with a friend so they can travel into school together.

IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS 

Kids Help - kidshelpline.com.au phone 1800 55 1800 

Parent Line - betterhealth.vic.gov.au phone 13 22 89 

Headspace - headspace.org.au phone 1800 650 890 

eSafety Commissioner - esafety.gov.au - Advice for parents and carers to help children have safe experiences online 

Have a great week ahead DPS families,

Carly Epskamp