Newsletter #5 April 1, 2022
GHPS IS COMMITTED TO CHILD SAFETY
Learning Today. Leading Tomorrow.
Principal’s Report
As we prepare to head into the final week of term 1 next week, we acknowledge that it’s the first time we’ve been able to have our students continuously learning at school for nine weeks in a row in what seems a very long time. We are feeling very grateful that this has been able to happen this year.
The goal to gradually re-build our students has been at the forefront of our strategy and how we have set out to achieve the best possible outcomes for everyone. We have been very mindful of paying close attention to the renewal and return for students and covering all areas of the curriculum in each grade level.
World Maths Day
Maths Unites us!
During Maths today, all classes have been learning about how Maths unites us, and the numerous ways Maths is integral to our lives.
Students in Grades Prep-6 have been invited to enter a Maths problem solving competition that Ms Claire Piscioneri has created for them to enter. When visiting some classrooms today, it was inspiring to see everyone enthusiastically exploring their about Maths learning today.
Thank you Ms P for making a display for the Learning Street.
Celebrating Harmony Day
The theme this year was “we all belong”. We were able to enjoy a Sushi Lunch coordinated by Hayley (Adam Year 1, Harvey Year 3).
Annual Reporting Meeting for 2021 and School Council 28 March 2022
The new School Council met for the first time on Monday and elected Office Bearers. Congratulations and a big thankyou to the following parents for accepting the nomination to take on the roles of office bearers. We are highly appreciative and trust that you find the experience highly rewarding:
President: Nicole Verginis
Vice President: Supriya Arikarevula
Treasurer: Nicole Bishop
Secretary: Kathryn Dench
Thank you to Nicole V for providing a report about what was discussed at Monday’s Council meeting.
Student Councillors Meeting 30 March
For the second time since being elected as representatives of their classes for 2021, the School Captains and the Grades 3-6 Student Councillors met with me this week. Today we discussed what their Highlights have been while at GHPS and using the project ideas that each class has considered will consider what we may achieve for the year.
Thank you to Steph and Sid for their report which follows:
On the 30th of March the Student Councillors and School Captains attended their second meeting for this year.
We began by presenting everyone with their badges.
We then discussed casual dress day which will be taking place on the last day of Term 1. Everyone came up with different themes for the day, and we concluded on having it being a free dress day.
We decided to donate the money raised on the day towards a GaGa Ball Pit in the school. Next term we are going to donate our money to the Red Cross Foundation to help the clean-up of the Queensland/NSW floods.
Make sure to wear your casual clothes on Friday next week and remember to bring a gold coin donation to go towards our GaGa Ball Pit.
Thank you!
Steph and Sid School Captains.
Next term we would like to hold the Family Fun Night which we had to postpone this term. Please keep Friday 6 May 4.30-6.30pm available if you can. This is at the end of week 2. We would love to have a great turnout of families where we can enjoy a picnic or order a pizza from Woodstack Pizza who will be parked in Garden Avenue for the school. There will be some games and time to relax and catch up or meet new families. Ms de Bruyn will be selling Jude’s delicious lemonade icy poles.
Prep (Foundation) to Grade 6 Easter Hat Parade
Thursday 6 April outside on the West Site 11.30 – 12pm approx.
Parents and Friends welcome to watch the parade! Thank you to Mr Jenkins who has been organising the music and singing for the annual Easter Hat Parade and to GPA will be running the annual Easter Raffle. Thank you to those families who have dropped in Easter donations already and there is still plenty of room for more donations! Don’t’ forget to buy your Easter Raffle tickets which went home with the eldest child in the family on Wednesday 24 March. If you need more tickets, we have lots you can buy.
End of Term 1
Casual Dress Day & Gold Coin Donation for the Royal Children’s Hospital
This is a final reminder that all students will be dismissed at 2.30pm on Friday 8 April from their usual site. To support the Royal Children’s Hospital Appeal, we will donate the proceeds of the casual dress day for the end of term 1.
Students who are registered for TheirCare will be collected in the usual way. Don’t forget there will be a great Autumn Holiday Program operating by Their Care and bookings will open later in the week on 1300072410 or go to www.TheirCare.com.au
Wishing everyone a lovely and safe break and thank you for bringing your energy and positivity to school this term. As Monday 25 April is ANZAC public holiday, Term 2 resumes on Tuesday 26 April,2022.
Libby Alessi Principal
Congratulations to the following students who received a ‘Student of the Week’ award.
Mia 0S – for being an amazing friend to everyone in Prep S. You are so kind and caring to all and I am so proud of you!
Vivaan 0S – for always trying his best during all tasks especially our writing sessions. Keep up the great work and keep on smiling!
Anvayi 0H – for being considerate of others and taking care of our classroom. Keep it up, Anvayi!
Isabel 0H – for persevering with her letter formation and name writing. I am so proud of your hard work. Keep it up Isabel!
Rachel 1D – for showing great resilience and determination during numeracy when faced with challenging concepts and questions. Well done!
Robin 1D – For being a supportive member of her team during our Inquiry unit about dinosaurs. You have done some amazing research, creating and presenting. Well done!
Surkhaab 1PB – For her outstanding efforts in all Learning areas this week. Keep it up!
Urangoo 1PB – For clearly explaining how to use the 5 finger strategy to all her friends in 1PB
Anika 2M – For changing your voice to sound like the big bad wolf from The Three Little Pigs in our guided reading group this week. Well done Anika!
Shivansh 2M – for persevering with his challenging literacy work with a positive attitude! Well done!
Shivika 2S – For always showing kindness and helping her classmates. You are a super star!
Eklavya 2S – for his expressive and enthusiastic performance as the wolf in our literacy groups play – The Three Little Pigs!
Ivy 3K – For always helping everyone in the classroom and confidently delivering speeches and presentations! Congratulations!
Sai 3K – For creating detailed character and setting descriptions for his Narrative Writing.
Rina 3M – For consistently being a great role model to everyone in 3M. Keep up the wonderful enthusiasm!
Monil 3M – putting in lots of effort into his subtraction mental strategies this week. Well done you maths superstar!
Ulemj 3M – For his amazing drawing of a robot and helping others in Art.
Aoi 4A – For working hard to improve his setting descriptions in his narrative by adding detail and interesting adjectives. Well done!
Sahara 4A – For working hard to add sparkle to her narrative by including Show, Don’t Tell and interesting word choices. I can’t wait to read your published story!
Twisha 4S – For working hard on improving her addition and subtraction skills. Your focus and determination is really starting to pay off, Twisha!
Ruchika 4S – For being a reliable, kind and generous student who always brightens up the 4S classroom.
Elizabeth 5/6B – For giving everything on camp a big go with eagerness resilience and confidence! Well done you Liz!!
Jessie 5/6B – A slick, smooth, captivating, deeply researched and engaging Japanese city information package presentation.
Aadhya 5/6B – An engaging, detailed, thoroughly researched and purely awesome Japanese city information package presentation.
Harper 5/6B – for sticking up for your friends and giving them great advice when they’re having a rough day. You have a fantastic growth mindset and are always modelling that to your classmates and your younger peers.
Aditya 5/6F – for his intuitive contributions when making connections during Literature Circles this week.
Charvi 5/6F – An entertaining, enthralling, thoroughly explored and tightly coordinated, Japanese city presentation, with a clear, sharp and perfectly cued extended script.
Zoya 5/6F – An awesome, highly organised, fascinating, detail rich and thoroughly rehearsed Japanese city presentation, with an additional extended script as well.
All of 5/6R – For your amazing resilience, determination and teamwork demonstrated whilst on camp! It was a delight to spend the past 3 days with you, you all worked so hard with all of your peers! Well done!
Audrey 5/6R – for her amazing presentation about her virtual product, Groovy Glasses. Well done for speaking confidently in front of the whole class, go Audrey!
GHPS 2021 ANNUAL REPORTING MEETING
& MARCH 2022 SCHOOL COUNCIL PRESIDENT’S REPORT
On Monday 28/03/2022 Glen Huntly Primary School held the 2021 Annual Reporting Meeting, and this was followed by the School Council Meeting.
We discussed highlights and reflections of the 2021 year, and exciting developments in 2022.
- Remote Learning.
- Well done to the entire school community (leadership team, teachers, parents and students) for amazing efforts and achieving high quality education and supporting each other throughout repeated lockdowns and remote learning that continued in 2021.
- Building Works
It is exciting to see the progress of the building works made possible through the $7.1 million grant which came from State Member for Oakleigh Steve Dimopoulos:- New main office area including numerous new office spaces, private meeting areas, new sick bay and new staffroom.
- The previous Wendy Wilson Hall has been demolished, with foundations for our brand new full sized gymnasium now in place. The current planned completion date is Term 4.
- Steve Dimopoulos (MP) attended for a tour of progress on Fri 18/03. GHPS are very proud of how impressive our student leaders were during the tour and opportunity for discussion with Steve about matters important to them.
- Thanks to the entire GHPS community (especially the students) for dealing with some of the disruptions and limitations to outside play areas during the building phase – it will all be well worth it!
- ReSurfacing of Junior/West site playground
- Over the summer holidays the Junior site playground was transformed. Many thanks to Mrs Alessi for her persistence in recouping monies owed to GHPS that made this possible, and to Mr White & Mr Jenkins’ vision for what could be achieved in that area. I’m sure everyone will agree this upgraded play area is a huge improvement to our school and is being thoroughly enjoyed by our students.
- Buildings and Grounds (BAGS).
- There was a wonderful turnout to the Term 1 twilight working bee with an estimated 70 people attending. Many jobs were completed on the West Site including painting of bench seating, general grounds clean up, graffiti removal, tree pruning, weeding, a revamp and extra features to the Fairy Garden, and the spreading 2 truck loads of mulch donated from the Glen Huntly Station level crossing works.
- Repair of damage to some areas of the oval resulting from the building works is in progress and will be covered by the builders.
- A cantilever shade sail is being installed on the Junior/West site over the decking (thanks to Mr White for his successful grant submission to fund this).
- Tree re-planting. There are plans to re-plant trees over the coming 12-24 months (as part of the building works landscaping and through various other initiatives).
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- GHPS has seen a shift to a fully online system for school notifications, consent for excursions/camps, parent payments and student reports. We also now have acquired an iPADs on each site enabling sign in of visitors/contractors and recording of student late arrivals/early collections. Well done to Liz Howard and the team in progressing this to the point we are at now.
- New House Names.
Following consultation with the students, teachers and school councillors, GHPS renamed the 4 houses to be Indigenous names of Boon Wurrung flora:- Blue House: Garrawang
- Red House: Bael
- Yellow House: Pike
- Green House: Kurwan
- NAPLAN Results.
- GHPS were very proud of the excellent NAPLAN results achieved by Year 3 and Year 5 students during 2021 (detailed information is available in the School Annual Report on the GHPS website).
- Preparation for 2022 NAPLAN is going very well.
- School Review.
- GHPS completed our School Review during 2021 (delayed by one year due to COVID). GHPS received very positive feedback; this feedback has formed the basis of the 2020-2024 Strategic Plan and based on that the 2022 Annual Implementation Plan.
- Glen Huntly Parents’ Association.
- GPA are excited to have been able to host Sushi Lunch on Harmony Day, the Hot Cross Bun Drive and our Easter Raffles during the Easter Hat Parade (remember to please make your donations for the raffles by Wed 06/04).
- GPA are looking forward to resuming many much loved activities such as our Friday lunchtime snacks and weekly cake raffles during Term 2.
- Family Fun Night is going ahead – Friday 6th May – look out for more details.
- Finances.
- GHPS is in a sound financial position.
- The proposed budget approved by School Council in November 2021 was based on an expected number of 332 students. At census date the student numbers were 278. The budget is now under review initially by the staff Consultative Committee, and will then be reviewed by the Finance subcommittee and School Council at the next meeting in early May.
- School Council.
- Thank you to 2021 school council members for their wonderful contribution to GHPS – especially Ross Donnan (2021 SC President), Arthur Le (2021 SC Secretary) and Gunjan Oberoi (2021 school councillor) whose children have moved on to high school this year.
- We welcome the 2022 School Council members (some in their 2nd year of tenure, some returning and some new to the role). Congratulations to the office bearers appointed during the school council meeting.
School Council Staff Members: Libby Alessi, Cameron White, David Jenkins, Kamila Krauze, Liz Howard
School Council Parent Members: Supriya Arikarevula (Vice President), Nicole Bishop (Treasurer), Kathryn Dench (Secretary), Noel Duffy, Caitilin Hawkins, Nicole Healy, Kristen Howard, Alexis Weekes
Looking forward to a wonderful year throughout 2022.
Nicole Verginis (School Council President).
Forensic Science
Students have had a great time exploring the field of forensics and applying first hand investigations to explore the concepts of fingerprinting, cracking codes, taking evidence and magnifying prints.
Grade 4-6 students have trialled protective equipment including gloves, goggles/face masks, booties, jumpsuits and hair coverings or hairnet to prevent hair from getting mixed up in crime scene evidence.
Melinda Oldham Science Specialist
Year 5/6 Camp
Day one – Srishti
The first day of camp was very exciting and fun. We boarded the bus a couple of minutes past 9:00. After a 2-hour drive on the bus, we arrived at Portsea Camp.
At first, Miss Fox called out who was in our cabins and what room number we were in. We all put our suitcases and day bags under our beds.
We soon got into our activity groups. We did fishing and learnt how to use fishing rods and went kayaking and learnt how to use oars.
We had an amazing time on the first day of camp!
Day two – Amelia
On day two, we were excited for the start of the day, as we will have many activities.
All the six groups got ready and did the four remaining activities. Some had kayaking in the ocean, some had a lesson on how to fish, some flew far on the flying fox, some balanced on the scary high ropes. Others swam in the cold waves of the ocean.
It was really fun, and we had a cosy sleep.
Day three – Bindu
And finally on day three we did only one activity which was minute to win it and we did it all together and not in our groups.
We played the game by putting 21 games in a circle and doing rotations. We have a minute to get ready by reading the instructions and then the games start, and we have a minute to do the activity. If we finish the activity in the hula hoop within the minute we get a point.
We all had a wonderful time on camp and would like to say a big thank you to all the teachers and staff that came along and helped to make this a great experience.
Year 1 News
The grade ones have been learning all about dinosaurs this Term.
They have been working very hard in groups to create dinosaur shields!
They have added features such as spikes, plates, frills, armoured skin, tails, and horns to their dinosaurs.
They have made some wonderful creations out of recyclable materials.
TheirCare News
Calendar
April
Thu 7 Easter Hat Parade
Fri 8 End of Term 1 (early dismissal – 2.30pm)
Mon 25 Anzac Day Holiday
Tue 26 Term 2 Commences
Fee payments and Excursion Permissions and Payments.
All Communication notices regarding excursions will be sent through COMPASS.
Permissions are to be given through COMPASS.
Preferred payment method for Fee payments and Excursions is through COMPASS.
This will allow us to always keep all the correct information available to staff whilst on an excursion.
If you have any questions, please contact the office or see Guide below.
CLICK HERE for Parent’s Guide to Compass
Thank you.