GHPS IS COMMITTED TO CHILD SAFETY

Learning Today. Leading Tomorrow.

This term has been very busy with exciting events and some of which we will have next week in the final week of term 2. It has been highly rewarding to celebrate being able to come together as a community:

Open Night, Community Breakfast & Open Morning
Reconciliation Week
Group tours for prospective Prep families in 2024
Grandparents and Special Persons Visit and GPA Morning Tea
Working Bee: Sunday 18 June
States School Relief Fundraiser: Pizza lunch & Student Council Colours Day

Welcome to Grandparents and Special Persons

It is wonderful to be able to hold this event once again! Thank you to the families and friends who came to visit classrooms, see our wonderful school, and enjoy a lovely morning tea. Together with GPA, we hosted our special visitors who were able to see classrooms in action, maybe answer some questions about their school experience, and be shown around the school, and hear the Choir perform. They sang some lovely songs, including The Whole World Is Dreaming, Count On Me, Scarborough Fair and a TV Medley, and were very excited to be able to share their love of singing with everyone.

A big thank you to GPA for providing and serving a delicious morning tea. There was a great turn out and many yummy things to eat. We greatly appreciated our GHPS community of bakers who did an amazing job! We hope all our Grandparents and Special Persons had a lovely time with their special person.

It was a very special day in Prep where students were invited to Milo’s Surprise Party. They were able to come dressed as one of the letters that they have been learning about and celebrated their love of learning literacy.

Always a special treat to visit Prep! It was very well attended, and all our preps and teachers did a great job dressing up as their favourite character. Such a memorable day:)

GHPS Memorabilia Cabinets in the Main Office

The Memorabilia Cabinets have a new position off to the left of the main office. In the cabinets are a collection of artefacts that have been historically significant in the life of GHPS.

Thank you to Liz for arranging the move of everything from the Learning Street to where we hope more families can enjoy seeing these items on display.

Staffing

Thank you to Ms Elisha Thorman who will be replacing Ms Kasambalis until the end of term while Ms Kasambalis is on Leave overseas.

We wish Ms Thorman an enriching experience in 3RK:) Ms K will return after the term 2 holidays.

Student Council

This week I met with the Student Council members and we reviewed their class’s list of ideas to improve the school even more! Thank you to Sanvi and Ewan in 5/6J who will be speaking at Friday’s Assembly about the meeting and for their report in the newsletter.

Progress with 2023 Annual Implementation Plan

Mid-Year Monitoring: The Professional Learning Communities (PLC) Leadership team has evaluated progress and uploaded evidence to the Department of Education’s platform: Strategic Online Planning Tool (SPOT)for each of the goals and key improvement strategies.

The meeting with Stuart Andrews -Senior Education Improvement Leader (SEIL) took place last week and Stuart will notify us when he has submitted his feedback. He was very complimentary about the progress to date and the learning walks taken across the school.

When Stuart has completed his evaluation, it will be presented to the School Council at the July 31 meeting next term and then reported on in the newsletter.

Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) update: Goal: Student Wellbeing

Term 2 Focus: Wellbeing:

Thank you to Mr Cameron White for the commentary on progress with the Wellbeing Key Improvement Strategy which is supported by a broad number of highly effective activities, events, and initiatives:

School Buddy Program

The school Buddy Program has matched Prep and Grade 1 students with an older buddy in Grade 5/6.

They catch up about 4 times a term and have completed a range of tasks including writing a story, making Mother’s Day cards, reading and having lunch together.

Cross Connections

In Term 2, the Cross School Connections Program for Grade 2-4 started. This program is aimed at building stronger school relationships between our middle year’s students. The program involves students in Grades 2, 3 and 4 all being mixed together in 5 different teams, with each one completing a series of activities that they rotate through. The activities include sporting, art/craft, teamwork, and drama games.

RRRR Program

This is the second year the school has been running the RRRR Program. 8 staff have attended training in the area and staff have attended a PD session in Term 2 where all staff will receive training in the RRRR Program. The timetable sets aside a dedicated time each week for teachers to teach the skills of the RRRR Program.

Koori Inclusion

To support our Koori students this year, the school has implemented the following initiatives:

A Smoking and welcome to country ceremony to mark National Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week. This was held at an assembly and in the spirit of community we also invited the Noble Park English Language School to be part of the ceremony.

A set of tri flags have been put on display in the foyer at reception and also two acknowledgement signs have been put up at the front entrances of the school.

The Indigenous and Torres Strait Island Flags have been put up on display in the gym for assembly. Across the school, the Inquiry focus for Term 2 has been around Indigenous culture, history, and reconciliation. Classes have added both incursions and excursions around these themes.

Three flag poles have been ordered and will be erected in the East Site school grounds in June. Term 2 has seen the whole school focus on Indigenous culture during inquiry lessons to mark Reconciliation.

Breakfast Club

The school runs a breakfast club every Tuesday and Thursday morning, providing free breakfast to any student who visits. Approximately 20 students attend the club each morning breakfast is provided.

The breakfast club provides both food and is a good check in resource for some of our more at-risk students. In addition to breakfast, we give food packages to vulnerable families each fortnight.

Lunchtime Inclusion Monitors

Every day at lunchtime, Inclusion Monitors (volunteer students from Grade 6) visit the Junior Campus and run organised and inclusive games for the Prep and Grade 1 students. They also help mediate minor disputes and facilitate group play. This is also a great leadership opportunity for our older students.

Lunchtime Clubs

To support student wellbeing at lunchtimes, the following clubs and activities operate:

Two art clubs which are both student led. A junior and senior art club runs each lunchtime.
A Library Club was started this year and runs every Tuesday lunchtime.
A Gardening Club for students runs every Tuesday at lunchtime. This is primarily aimed at offering some of our funded students a place to enjoy but is open to all students.

This year to help student wellbeing, the school gym is open to Grade 5 and 6 students each Friday lunchtime.
The school runs a School Choir once a week at lunchtimes. This is open to Grades 3 to 6 and has 45 students in it.
The school operates two musical bands that practise before school and two lunchtimes. The bands have been very successful engaging some of our older more disengaged students. Student Voice and Leadership

The Student Council is an important part of our student wellbeing program at school. The SC meets eight times per year and discusses a range of issues at school that affect student lives.

Student Check Ins

All classes hold bi-weekly student check ins, usually on Monday and Friday. The check-ins involve the students sitting in a circle on the floor or at tables for older students. The teacher then goes around the room checking on the welfare of all students. This is a quick and effective way for the whole class to come together and share how they are feeling or what they did on the weekend.

Student Support

Modified student programs exist for all students on an Individual Education Plan (IEP) at our school. Regular Student Support Group meetings are held with parents to discuss the IEP and student progress.
The school operates the Tree House Reading Program each week targeting Grade 1 and Grade 2 students needing extra support in literacy. These are small focus groups of 3 to 5 students with an emphasis on reading and phonics.
Students are further supported through the Tutor Learning Initiative. Students in this program receive small group support twice a week in either literacy or numeracy.
The program also includes learning enhancement.

Thank you to everyone for their highly valuable contribution to support Wellbeing at GHPS.

Term 2 Curriculum Day

On Friday 9 June staff collaborated to work on Wellbeing, a key improvement strategy within the AIP and Semester 1 Student Reporting.

We appreciate the professional learning opportunity to hear from Jac who was very interesting and provided us with much excellent information and activities that can be used with our students.

A very positive and uplifting day!

Assessment & Reporting (A & R)

Staff are finalising Student reports for Semester One. In addition to this Mr David Jenkins, who leads A & R, has provided commentary about the AIP Key Improvement Strategy 2c about how the school is building staff capability in the use of Data Tracking.

Our school wide Data tables, require several sets of data such as DET English Online (Prep & Year 1) NAPLAN data (the most recent set) PATReading, PATMaths and ICAS data, together with term by term and June and December progression point teacher judgements. These multiple sources of data allow and encourage teachers to triangulate and verify their data by comparing and moderating these multiple sources of assessment results.

The shared data tables cover the Learning Areas of Reading and Viewing, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Number, Statistics and Probability and Measurement and Geometry, with varying numbers of multiple data sources for each Learning Area. Analyses of current data are required to be a constant and ongoing focus amongst all Year level PLC teams during PLC data review times, assessing student learning and indicating future teaching and learning needs and goals. This is a well-established and embedded practice school wide, where PLC teams look at data to drive and determine future learning foci and student learning growth. A sharpened and precise PLC Inquiry approach is implemented each term, such as Reading and Viewing during Term 1 of this year, where the data tracker tables are the central pieces of evidence for monitoring student learning progress and growth.

Thank you, Mr David Jenkins and Mrs Melinda Oldham who play a key role in the successful progress, made with this Key Improvement Strategy and to all staff for their diligence in using data to track and inform learning and teaching and the whole process of writing Student Reports.

Semester 1 Reports go live on Wednesday 21 June.

Final Week 9 19 -23 June

There are over 55 school uniform tops in the lost property bins, including the ones outside the gym and on the west side.

Please have a look through these bins with your children.

Pizza and Gold coin donation

Thank you to the Student Council, in conjunction with GPA, who will be hosting a Pizza and Colours dress day on Friday at school to celebrate a great term 2 and to help raise funds for the State Schools Relief Fund, who raise money to provide uniforms to families in need.

The Student Council is asking that each grade be assigned colours to wear:

Preps, 1, 2 will wear pink, purple or blue.
Grade 2, 3, 4 will wear green, yellow, orange, or red and
Grade 5/6 will wear multicolour.

Please remember to bring a gold coin donation which will also be donated to the State Schools Relief charity.

Planning for Term 3

Across the school all teams have been released together to document planning for term 3. This takes an incredible amount of time and teams appreciate the opportunity to dedicate this time to looking at how best to meet the needs of all students in the coming term. Mrs Melinda Oldham will be teaching Prep-Year 3 Science in Semester 2 having taught Years 4-6 in Semester 1.

Teachers – Parent/Teacher/Student 3-Way Meetings- Semester 2: 24 – 28 July

The parent teacher interview booking system will be set up on Compass in term 3. The interviews will take place on Tuesday 25 July between 2:30 and 6:40pm, with the last interview being available at 6:30pm. Teachers may then determine their own schedule for any remaining three way conferences, between 8:00am and 8:45am on either Wednesday, Thursday or Friday morning of this week, however teachers do not have to be available for all of these times and Staff will have the flexibility to select the times that suit them. Parents can be offered a choice of face-to face times or Webex online forums. Parents will have access to the interview times when they go live on Friday 21 July at 1.30pm. Interviews will be online and can be done from your own home. Teachers will need to send out their Webex address to parents.

Flashback

to this time last year! And now- so happy to have a fantastic facility for our superstar students, staff, and community. 🙂

We are very grateful to have the Gymnasium complex completed!

End of term 2

There will be the usual early dismissal at 2.30pm on Friday 23 June. Please remember to collect your child early.

TheirCare will be operating for families who need this excellent service. They also have a school holiday program for any school aged student at our school.

We wish all our fabulous staff and families a safe and happy holiday and look forward to Students returning on Monday 10 July.

Libby Alessi Principal

***Congratulations* *to the following students who received a ‘Student of the Week’ award.***

Fadi FB – For your efforts in creating your roads in your Inquiry Project. Fadi, you carefully designed your layout and have a fantastic start to planning your town. Keep it up Awesome Architect!

Mimi FD – For always persisting with tasks in the classroom, especially when faced with challenges. You are developing the ability to ask for help when needed which makes me very proud. Keep up the great work!

Hugo FD – For demonstrating creativity and independence during our Inquiry task this week about places and maps. You cleverly built your roads in the shape of an H and a T and named it ‘Hugo’s Town’. Well done!

Sophia 1B – for publishing your amazing story about a unicorn that escaped witches by diving into a story book!

David 2M – For your fantastic contributions to our Growth Mindset lesson this week. You always have so much knowledge to share with the class and we value your contributions!

Kira 2S – for being a kind and generous classmate who is always willing to lend a helping hand to her classmates. Well done Kira!

Adam 2S – for welcoming new students to our class and being and always being a cooperative group member. Great work Adam!

Rachel 2S – for contributing some inquisitive thoughts and knowledge in our Inquiry lesson about landforms this week. Great job Rachel!

Ellie 3C – For consistently showing pride in the presentation of your work and always being prepared to learn. The delight you find in learning and organisation is admirable.

Luluo 3C – For being an enthusiastic student during our Circle Time activities. You have shown to listen to the instructions of the many games we’ve played and have been a kind friend while playing.

Ivy 4A – for always showing kindness and patience towards your peers and teachers. You are a delight to have in the classroom.

Anisha 5/6J – Maintaining focus throughout your reading group learning tasks this week. This dedication provides you with the opportunity to maximise the effort you put into your learning. Brilliant!

Ganeeth 5/6J – Excellent energy and contributions made during our Zoom Poetry Workshop on Thursday. Some great ideas and willing participation noted! Well done!

Hudson 5/6J – Maintaining focus throughout your reading group learning tasks this week. This dedication provides you with the opportunity to maximise the effort you put into your learning. Sensational job, Hudson!

Ruby 5/6K – For joyful enthusiasm in our Poetry lessons and strong involvement in creating onomatopoeia words at the online Poetry Workshop!

Elizabeth 5/6K– For showing constant maturity, leadership and dedication to your classmates and classwork! Wonderful Elizabeth!

Abraham 5/6K – For trying hard and giving your best in class room activities and for achieving 7 weeks of 20/20 on your Weekly Spelling Tests, congratulations on your 90,000 house points!

Elka 5/6R – for your constant positivity displayed in the classroom. Thank you for putting a smile on everyone’s face on a daily basis!

In our meeting we discussed the casual dress day for the end of Term 2, the secret garden that Mr White is planning and the BBQ next week.

On the last day of week 9 we will have a casual dress day where each grade has been assigned colours to wear.

Prep, 1 & 2 will wear pink, purple or blue and grade 2, 3 & 4, will wear green, yellow, orange or red and the grade 5/6 will wear multicolour.

Please remember to bring a gold coin donation which will go to the State Schools Relief charity who help families to buy school uniforms.

Secondly, Mr White is planning a secret garden next to the 4S/J classroom. We are going to start the designing part of this soon and bring the designs to the next Student Council meeting which is on the 1st of August.

We are also planning to ask the grade 3C student councillors to create a fair cricket pitch roster for all the grades on the east side.

Also, some suggestions that people had asked the student counsellors about were not possible like having swings, moving the library to a different place, separating spaces on the oval, space to ride bikes during play time, more animals in the school and another cricket pitch. We are also asking Mr Jenkins if the choir can practice in the gym instead of the music room.

Lastly, in week 9, the winning House who earnt the most House points in Term 1 will have a House BBQ on Tuesday 20th of June to celebrate their win.

The winners of term 1 House points were Bael and Kurwan.

Sanvi & Ewan 5/6J

Breakfast Club

We would like to thank Woolworths Glen Huntly for donating Milo and cheese slices for our breakfast club.

With the cold winter months upon us it will be wonderful to be able to serve hot Milo and cheese toasties to our students.

Maths News

Sport News

Hockey

Hockey is a wonderful sport for all ages and abilities, providing opportunities to make new friends and develop personal skills, as well as being a fun physical activity. The hockey community is inclusive and welcoming to all, and is always ready to take on new members. There are quality playing levels available for people of all abilities; whether you want to play casually with friends, or with the best in the state, there is a team for you!

Hockey clubs near the Glen Huntly area include:

Waverly Hockey Club: https://waverleyhc.org.au/players/juniors/

Essendon Hockey Club: https://essendonhockey.com.au/junior-hockey/

MCC Hockey Section: https://www.mcchockey.org.au/

TEM Hockey Club https://www.temhockey.com/