Category: Featured

On the 27th of October the GPA together with a committee made up of staff and parents put on ROCKTOBER – a music trivia night. This committee was made up of Laura James-Clark, John Jacobs, Andrew Aitken, Mark Dorrington, Dave Johnstone and myself. We prepared both the trivia questions for the night and made up the band that played live music.

Many other members of the GPA helped in setting up the night. Caitilin Hawkins and Andrea Carveth decorated the hall on a budget of zero – but the hall looked magnificent. Hayley Kringas came and turned the high jump bar into a wonderful Photo Booth backdrop. Nicole and Theo Verginis along with Katherine Dench and Angela Natalier helped move desks from the classroom to the hall and by the time we got started our school hall had been transformed into the setting for ROCKTOBER.

The night was a mixture of trivia questions, fun games and live music. From my point of view, it was a great learning experience and I will be better able to streamline it for next time. Thanks to all those who helped on the night especially Tony Carveth for running the games. Some things worked well and some things didn’t but the overall vibe of the night was great and lots of people had lots of fun – the band was still playing well past midnight and to a hard-core audience of stayers who had hung around and were dancing and having a good time.

From a fundraising perspective – because we provided everything ourselves, there were no external costs. This meant everything we took on the night was profit. Special thanks to those who donated auction items and prizes – Melbourne Music Centre in North Road, Ormond, the Giouris family, Andrew Aitken and Caitilin Hawkins. Thanks also to Caitilin and Helen Matthews for the Cake Raffle donations.

A very special thank you to our fearless Principal Libby Alessi who took to the stage to sing Bon Jovi’s ‘Living On A Prayer’ (a rendition that Mr JBJ would have been proud of) and to all those who tossed some money into the guitar case to show appreciation for her efforts. Thanks also to Ross Donnan for his wonderful artwork promoting the night. It was great to see so many people there including former parents and friends of the school community.

The following day a small pack up crew of John Jacobs, Andrew Aitken, Mark Dorrington, Caitilin Hawkins, Laura James-Clark, Alice Jayaweera, Emily Jayaweera and myself got the classroom and hall back into order and the school cleaner ensured that things would be right for Monday. I’d also like to thank my wife Sarah McGregor for all her support.

Overall it was an enjoyable night where people had fun and raised some money for the school all while dancing to the beat.

Shan Jayaweera

Thank you to Ms Justine De Bruyn for the wonderful art displays around our school. All of the students are enjoying your fantastic classes and producing some amazing pieces.

Tuesday 11th September

Robert Blackwood Hall – Monash University, Clayton.

The Victorian Government has launched an anti-racism campaign that will include television commercials, action plans and a digital engagement campaign.   A number of our students were fortunate to be a part of this great campaign, featuring a former student teacher at GHPS Anita Robi.

GHPS are very proud of our diversity, and humbled by any contribution we could have played in celebrating that message further.

We are all Victorian. And proud of it.

Also see Anita Robi’s story here:

More details can be found on the government’s website: https://proud.vic.gov.au/

We also made it onto the official printed Multicultural Policy Statement which you can read in full here.

On Wednesday, our Year 1 to Year 6 students took part in The Resilience Project. Students where excited and amused by Martin Heppell, who worked with the students on building their resilience skills. Resilience is having the ability to learn from your experiences and to bounce back and beyond (posttraumatic growth), resilience leads to happiness, therefore increased cognitive capacity, and it fosters a growth mindset and increased confidence and self-belief. Please talk with your child about their experience at the Workshop. Teachers are looking forward to using the workbooks throughout the year with the children so that we can continue to build resilience in all of our students. The Preps will attend on Tuesday, 21st February.

The parent night presented by Martin on February 16 in the Wendy Wilson Hall was very well attended and we thank our school community for once again showing their commitment to their childrens’ learning and that wellbeing matters.

Domain.com.au have released their annual school zones report featuring school catchment zones across Australia and rising house prices, indicating a relationship between the rate of housing price growth and the quality of state schools in the catchment zone.

Though we’re sure there’s a few other factors involved in housing prices we’re happy to have been mentioned as the “top performing national primary school” by Doctor Nicola Powell, with Glen Huntly leading the national rate of growth.

But of course you already knew we were pretty awesome.

We got a mention on the the Today show this morning and keep an eye out on Ten News tonight for someone you might recognise.

Here’s a photo of Principal Libby Alessi with the Channel 10 news crew.

*Update* Here’s the video courtesy of Ten News.

And here we are too, via 7 News (1:18 minute mark).