Month: April 2023

Welcome to Term 2.  I hope Easter and the school holidays was a nice time to relax, explore and engage with family and friends.  Talking to students I hear a lot of camping, visiting beaches, catching up with family and friends and watching the Super Mario Bros Movie.

Please note a couple of dates for your calendar: curriculum day on Thursday 18^th May and a fun family afternoon for Education Week on Monday 15^th May from 3:30 to 5:00pm.

Cross Country

Last term, we held our junior and senior cross country.  We had great weather and it was lovely to see our families coming and watching our students participating in this event.  We are so proud when all our students give it a go – regardless how competitive they are.  For everyone, it is about doing your personal best.

Taylor our school captain has written an article on cross country as her experience from a student perspective:

“On the 4^th of April, just before the holidays, the grade 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s competed in the Senior House Cross Country.  The top ten students from each race will go on to compete at District.  We started off by walking from school down to Holm Park where the track was set up.  Grade 3 and 4 raced together in the 2km race, while grade 5 and 6 ran separately in the 3km race.  It was great to see everyone dressed up in their house colours!

On the 6^th of April, the Preps, 1s and 2s competed in the junior cross country at school.  All classes were dressed in their house colours and the seniors came to help cheer and encourage the younger students.

Everyone was feeling a little bit nervous because we all wanted to try our best.  By the end of the day every student had persevered to the finish line which was the success criteria of the day.  Congratulations to every person who ran cross country because every race had tough competition! In the house competition, the points were tight but in the end Morgan came 4^th, Cooper 3^rd, Lohan 2^nd and coming out on top, Rankin.

Well done to everyone who competed in the junior and senior cross country.  Every student tried their best and that’s what really matters.”

Taylor – school captain

Prep enrolments 2024

Enrolments have opened for Preps 2024.  The Department of Education have introduced timelines (similar to the timelines for Year 7 enrolments).  All enrolments submissions are to submitted to the school by Friday 28^th July.  All siblings are required to complete an enrolment form, please do not assume that we know who all our younger brothers and sisters are.  Offers will be sent out by 11^th August.  Last year, we were full after our first offer of acceptance so please make sure if you have a child or know of anyone who would like to attend our school in Prep next year, to collect an enrolment form and submit it by 28^th July.

We are holding an Open Day on Saturday 6^th May 10:00 – 12:00pm for families looking at enrolling their child at our school for 2023.  This is a great morning to see the school and ask questions of our staff.  If you know someone who is interested in attending our school, please let them know of this date or to contact our office for more information.

ANZAC day

Yesterday we held our ANZAC ceremony with the whole school. Due to the windy weather, we moved the ceremony indoors. Our SRC students did a wonderful job of speaking about the history of ANZAC day and its importance. We are so proud of them.

Incursions, Excursions and Camps – permission

Over the year, our teachers plan many exciting events for your child to participate in.  They work in line with the curriculum and we hope that they are engaging and supporting of the learning that is happening in the classroom.

When organising these events, there are many requirements that we must meet due to our duty of care.  We have Department of Education policies to follow to ensure that the events are safe.  Some of the things that are considered are adult to child ratios, transportation, medical care, child safety requirements, risk management and more.  We work diligently to ensure that we are meeting our requirements so our students have a great and positive experience.

As a parent, you are informed of the event and we ask that you provide permission by the due date and make payment.  If payment is an issue, we ask that you give permission and then speak to us about payment plans.  We are more than happy to work with families to work out payments.  We understand that we use two platforms – one for permission and one for payment.  We are working at streamlining this process but we have yet to come up with a solution that works for everyone.

We understand that households are busy places so some things that we do to support families about events are:

• * Notification sent out on Sentral for Parents app of the event (notification of activities are also sent to your email)
• * Notification sent out on Sentral for Parents app that will be closing soon
• * Events written on the Sentral for Parents app in Calendars, as well as the due date for permission and payment
• * Parents can check the Sentral for Parents app in Forms to see if you have any
• * Teachers will remind your child in class and at their year level assembly
• * Depending on the event, we sometime mention it at the whole school assembly

We look forward to more exciting events to come and we hope all our students are able to join us.

Vale Jillian (Jill) Phillips

Sadly on the holidays, we lost a dear staff member.  Jill Phillips was our computer technician and had worked at our school for over 20 years.  She was battling an illness and we had to say goodbye to a great friend.  Our thoughts are with her family at this difficult time.

Jill did an amazing job at our school.  She worked tirelessly in the background, ensuring that all our technology was working for our school community.  She was instrumental in ensuring WiFi, teamboards, laptops, iPads, platforms and more, were all up and running.  Jill would always walk into our school with a smile on her face and would take the time to check in on us all.  Sometimes you could be brainstorming ideas with her whilst she would be in front of her many screens, helping and fixing problems at our school and at other schools.  Her knowledge about technology and how it works best for students and teachers was amazing, however her strength was how calm she was in a crisis and how kind she was with all staff and students.  Jill would come into the room and try very hard not to intrude on the lesson and quietly fix the problem and sneak back out of the classroom.

We are heartbroken to say ‘goodbye’ to Jill but we are so appreciative to have had such a wonderful friend. 

Take care of the people you care for,

Heidi Inglis

Principal