Hello Vermont Primary School & Kindergarten friends and family,

Welcome to a new school year! We are so excited to start 2024, and cannot wait to see how the rest of the year unfolds. We had a wonderful two days at the beginning of this week working with all our school staff on some professional learning, and then welcomed our Year 1-6 students on Wednesday. It was great to see so many happy children back at school! Then Thursday was another huge day with our Foundation students starting. This year was an incredibly smooth start, with students taking to the classrooms with such ease and confidence. Teachers and students alike are excited to be back, and looking forward to lots of learning, friendship and fun this year.

At the end of last year, we notified parents that Mrs Julie Hall (Digitech) had taken up a position as Acting Assistant Principal at Jells Park Primary School. This position is for 7 months, and we wish Julie all the best on her adventure. We know that Jells Park will appreciate her knowledge and expertise, and we wish her all the best. Julie was teaching the Year 3-6 Digitech program, and in her absence we are very lucky to have Mr Mic Lowne filling the position. Many of you will already know Mic as a familiar and friendly face around the school, and we are so thrilled to have him join our teaching team.

This issue of the newsletter won't contain updates from the classrooms, but please keep reading below for some important information...

Compass

As parents who were here last year will know, during Term 4 we made the switch to move away from Sentral and replace this with Compass. Compass will be the platform through which all communication is sent, payments are made and reports will be issued. This means that Sentral and Qkr! will no longer be used. Compass also gives you a direct link to contact your child's teacher, or any other teacher in the school should you need to. It is important that parents and carers have access to Compass so as not to miss important information. We will also be updating the parent calendar on Compass to notify you of upcoming events. If you require help to log on, please just come and speak to one of the teachers or myself, Joy or Jacci and we will be more than happy to help you.

There is a Compass parent guide available for you to use as well.

CSEF

The Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) provides payments for eligible students to attend activities like:

school camps or trips
swimming and school-organised sports programs
outdoor education programs
excursions and incursions.

Families holding a valid means-tested concession card or temporary foster parents are eligible to apply. Families can list more than one student in the one application form if they are attending the same school. Information can be found here

Subway and Classroom Cuisine

This year, Subway will be moving to an online platform for ordering. This means that orders will go directly to Subway, and not through the school. This will be in operation in a few weeks time, so Subway will not be available until then. Classroom Cuisine will be available from next week. The menu is available in the Community Noticeboard tab.

Child Safe Standards for Volunteers

All parents and carers who wish to volunteer in the school or kindergarten are required to understand and agree to the Child Safe Standards, the content of which is contained in the attached in the video below

Teacher and Classroom locations

Year level	Teachers
Foundation	Mrs Lewis (Room 17), Ms Mealings (Room 15), Ms Williams (Room 13) & Mrs Pring (nee Miss Strachan) (Room 18)
Year 1	Mr Tran (Room 7), Mrs Quinn (Room 3), Miss Abrahams (Room 4), Miss Fletcher (Room 5) + Mrs Walsh + Ms Hedstrom (supporting the Year 1 cohort)
Year 2	Mr Hoskin (Room 9), Ms Battle (Room 32), Mrs Lumley (Room 10), Mrs Forster (Room 31) & Mrs Jones (supporting Year 2 and 2JH)
Year 3	Miss Yates (Room 8), Mrs Shoebridge (Room 1), Mr Allison (Room 2), Mrs Moore (Room 11)
Year 4	Mr Souter (Room 12), Mr Dahlenburg (Room 20), Mrs Caldarelli (Room 22), Mr Sadler (Room 19), Miss Nguyen (Room 14)
Year 5	Mr Condron (Room 27), Mr Bird (Room 28) , Mrs McConachy (Room 21) , Mr Webb (Room 20) , Mrs Dyett (Room 29)
Year 6	Mr Straughan (Room 25), Mrs Prentice (Room 26), Mr Samothrakitis (Room 23), Mrs Clark (Room 24)
Specialist	PE - Mr Walsh (+Mrs Tarenidis) Music- Mr Fraser (+Mrs Reid) Digital Technology – Mic (+ Ms Jenkin, Mrs Guye & Mrs Tarenidis) Visual Art – Mrs Mulvany & Mrs Simpson Indonesian – Ms Pittas EAL – Mrs Fuller Literacy support – Mrs Van Zuylen, Mrs Pritchard Numeracy Support & Intervention – Mrs Hannink Wellbeing specialist teacher – Mrs Jarvis Planning & Differentiation support – Mr Wastie
Supporting teachers	Support teachers will be supporting the specialist program as well as classroom teachers. They may also be undertaking literacy/numeracy support and tutoring roles. These teachers include: Mrs Tarenidis, Ms Guye, Mrs Reid, Mrs Jenkin, Ms Hedstrom & Mrs Walsh

Thank you for all your encouragement and support as we commence the new school year. As always, please feel free to come and speak with us should you have any questions or concerns,

Have a lovely weekend!

Jess (Principal), Joy (Assistant Principal) and Jacci (Assistant Principal)