Newsletter #8 24 May 2018

Principals Report

Education Week

What an exciting week and in fact an exciting fortnight of education for Glen Huntly PS!

When Steve Dimopoulos announced the news on Monday 14 May, 2018 that we are to receive $309,000 in funding for the GHPS oval re-development, we were very happy and feeling on top of the world! We can look forward to a green and lovely oval for our fantastic students to play on, for our chooks to gaze at and for our hardworking and fantastic community to enjoy. We can’t wait to have our super-star kids playing sport, kicking footies and soccer balls and all the games they love! It’s a great vibe here at GHPS and we are very grateful for how this will impact on our students and the fun they will have. So well deserved everyone and thanks to the many parents and staff who helped realised our dream.

This week we have enjoyed welcoming students and families to celebrate with a focus on the Arts and to marvel at the children’s unique and abundant creativity. Along with the open classrooms which proudly showcase student learning and look vibrant and exciting, the Learning Street, corridors and offices are displaying student’s artwork and they look amazing. In the Art Room some of the projects have been incorporated with the topic of Inquiry which has exposed the students to an array of creative experiences.

For the first Art Scavenger Hunt Miss de Bruyn set the challenge to find certain artworks across both sides of the school. You needed to look very closely and write down the answer or students names to find them all. There was a total of 10.

The Performing Arts and Music celebration was opened by the Music Captains: Prachi with Alyssa, standing by to play in the Party Hats with Qi Qi, Derick, Rafi, Pakhi, Alyana and Kamal. We were amazed at how well they performed for us and so fantastic to see them enjoying themselves so much. Mr Andrew Aitken has done a fabulous job practicing and preparing the band.

On violin, Aiden accompanied Mr David Jenkins as did Boris on keyboard when the members of choir sang for us. Everyone was so entertaining.

                      

The Community Breakfast was served early on Wednesday morning before school from the verandah of the Art Room and Grade 1 classrooms by the wonderful teaching and education support staff for students and parents. There was a yummy selection to choose from: egg and bacon, cereal, yoghurt, fruit and toast. We hoped the parents enjoyed the Movin’ Van coffee too! It was great to see so many families enjoying the breakfast including bringing their own cutlery which hugely reduced the amount of waste. Special thanks to John Tinetti for joining us to cook on the bbq and everyone who attended. We hope you enjoyed everything, including the opportunity to create a hanging thread artwork in the Art Room with your loved ones.

District Cross Country

On Tuesday, our very enthusiastic squad competed at the Caulfield District Cross Country at Caulfield Park. Congratulations to all our students for participating in a very challenging race. We are very proud of your effort and achievement in making it to this level of competition. There will be a report at this Friday’s assembly. The squad were:

3F – Thomas, Kelsy, Reiko
3S – Ben, Amber
4J – Alex, Hugo, Daksha, Aidan, Boris, Michael, Charlotte, Zoe, Anara
4O – Evan, Lakshita, Clara, Kashvi
5R – Emma, Josh, Will, Abhasurya, Veer, Andrea, Riyan, Dakota, Luba, Diana
5S – Yashvi, Kane, Shoma, Hiro, Aditya, Kotaro, Imogen, Sophia
6A – Jude, Jeremy, Jun, Metteya, Vidhath, Kayla, Tina, Tahlia, Melanie, Qi Qi, Rakhi
6P – Pranitha, Jorja, Vanshdeep, Kieran, Josh, Ronnie, Prajval, Aditi, Ruby, Aarushi

GPA & Grandparent’s Morning Tea

On Friday morning we will wrap a very special week by inviting very special people in your lives to attend assembly, visit classrooms followed by a wonderful morning tea in the WW Hall hosted by the GPA. We hope the grandparents enjoy this tribute and really enjoy their visit to school.As always, we have enjoyed a very exciting Education Week and I wish to say what super star staff we have in

School Uniform

Wearing our school uniform is like a badge of pride, creates an identity for our school and is an important part of being a member of our school community. At GHPS we promote a smart dress code, believe that school uniform teaches students to dress smartly and take part in their appearance.

How are you helping our school? Can you self- assess how you are sending your child to school: Is it?

1. Extremely well – my child wears the correct uniform every day
2. Very good – my child wears the correct uniform most days
3. Good – but I need to change 1 thing
4. Fair – there is more than one thing I need to change.

Our aim is for all parents to be able to self-assess as a one by the end of next week – Friday, 1 June. So coming into the much cooler weather, do you need to change something? I would ask each parent to look closely at what their child is wearing and make sure they don’t wear other colored leggings or pants or a miss match of other long sleeved colored tops.

If so, we would like you to make the necessary change/s. The uniform shop is open Wednesday morning from 9.00 – 10.00am. If you can’t make it to the uniform shop you can collect a form from the office and return with payment so the goods can then be taken home by your child.

The uniform is only the following colors:

Navy Blue or Maroon              Track pants/Bootleg pants
Maroon                                    Long Sleeve Polo
Maroon or White                     Short Sleeve Polo
Maroon                                    Bomber Jacket/Polar Fleece Jacket
Navy (Grade 6 only)               Bomber Jacket – Grade 6 names
Maroon or Navy                      Shorts / Skorts / Culottes
School fabric                           Summer Dress

School Council May Meeting

Thankyou to the SC President Craig Matthews for his report which is in this newsletter.

LSL

On Thursday 31 May – Tuesday 5 June, I will be taking LSL and Ms Tinetti will be Acting Principal. Acting as Assistant Principal will be:

Ms Piscioneri on Thursday, Mr Manuel on Friday and Mr Mackie on Monday. CRT’s will be replacing each member of staff on their day.

Libby Alessi
Principal

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Up and coming events, dates & meetings:

• Friday 8 June : 9.45 am after Assembly: GPA in the WW Hall
• Monday 4 June: Building and Grounds meeting, 6.30pm, East Site Staffroom
• Monday 11 June: Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday
  

  ---

School Council Report

School Council met for the 1^st time in Term 2 on Monday 14^th of May.

We had a visit from the State MP for Oakleigh, Mr Steve Dimopoulos who officially advised of the $309,000 GHPS will receive to go directly towards the much needed re-surfacing of our East Site oval. This was very welcome news indeed as it is a much discussed topic amongst the whole school community for a very long time, and one that without sufficient funding was always going to be difficult to address. The current plan is to have the oval re-surfaced before the end of the year, and in a way that will require very little maintenance and provide some real longevity to this much needed space.

The topic of wider school improvement funding was also raised with Mr Dimopoulos, and I would like to thank School Council for their valuable input during this discussion. He was quite amazed at just how fast GHPS has grown and he advised that our school is his number one priority for the next funding year. Whilst this is no guarantee that we will get the funding we need to complete all of our plans, it is encouraging to know, as his track record in delivering for schools in his electorate is reasonably strong. GHPS has written to Mr Dimopoulos post the meeting to re-iterate those items that were discussed.

Other items covered at the meeting included;

• Out of Hours School Care review – as per the letter that was sent home to all families last week, the school is conducting a review of available providers in the market place to ensure the best possible service is being provided to the school community. The focus will be on Quality of Care, Value for Money, Affordability and the Financial Viability of the provider.
• Current enrolments stand at 364 with a full 2019 prep class already enrolled – a record for this time of year
• Welcome to new staff – Fiona Davey and Amy Spilkin who have taken over the cooking and education support positions respectively. They have been appointed following the positions being advertised on the Department of Education Recruitment Online and left vacant following the departure of Yvonne Balfour
• The departments building planning officer has been in contact with the school regarding space issues, hopefully some good will come of this to relieve the space pressures our fantastic student numbers are creating
• The 2018 Mothers Day Stall was again a resounding success
• The digital newsletters are working really well with the feeling the reach is now far greater than the paper copy as people can download and read immediately it is released to their phone or tablet
• Carpet installed in grade 1 class rooms and new doors in grade 2 area (with funding coming from GPA)
• Prep Parent Information night was very well attended – thanks to those current parents who attended and spoke on the night about what a great community GHPS is
• Lara O’Grady (Emma 2M) provided insights on her thorough study of the Improving School Governance documentation supplied by the department. A timely reminder to all of us of the important role School Council has in the smooth running of the school, and its obligations regarding its conduct.
• The history of the school book “The Story So Far” will be updated by Mrs Shirley Mirams to take the life of GHPS up until 2017. A huge thank you to Shirley who has taken on this task of her own volition.

If there is any issue any member of the school community would like to raise with School Council, please email glenhuntly.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au

Craig Matthews
School Council President

---

A message from your Assistant Principal Amy Tinetti

I am proud to announce the Glen Huntly Primary School will take part in the Feed Melbourne Appeal again this year.

Here is some information from Feed Melbourne:

WHAT IS IT?
The Feed Melbourne Appeal is celebrating 10 years of raising funds and collecting food donations to support people struggling to put food on their table.

We are asking schools across Melbourne to help support us by participating in a Food Drive during the months of May and June.

WHAT WE NEED?
This year we need three key staples penne pasta, plain flour and tinned tomatoes so one of our partners FareShare can cook them into nutritious, healthy meals for those in need.

We will be collecting items from Monday 28^th May up until Friday 22^nd June. The 3 items they are in desperate need of are-

• Penne pasta
• Plain flour
• Tinned tomatoes

There will be collection boxes in the Office on the East Site and in the Staffroom on the West Site. This small act of kindness will make a HUGE impact on the lives of so many.­­­

After school pick up-

As the GHPS school community continues to grow our teachers have noticed that the after school pick has become a lot busier. Classroom teachers have been conducting Community Circles and we encourage parents and carers to have discussions with their child/ren on the following after school pick up procedures:

The key aspects for students to know what to do in the event of their parent not being there to pick them up:

1. Finding the yard duty teacher to say I can’t see my mum and knowing to wait with the Yard Duty teacher
2. Yard duty teacher will bring any uncollected children over to the office to contact their parent
3. Reminding children not to go with another parent without that person checking with the yard duty teacher to see if that parent has been contacted by someone (school or parent of chid they are taking directly)

We also ask all parents to please leave the playground as soon as they have collected their child as it is challenging for the After Care Team and Yard Duty teachers to see who has not yet been collected by their parents. This will enable teachers to have a smooth and safe collection of all students at the end of the day.

 

---

Students of the Week

Congratulations to the following students who received a ‘Student of the Week’ award during the last 2 weeks.

Rashmi 0N – working hard and making beautiful patterns in Monster Maths.
Isaac 0N – listening attentively and participating in our Responsible Pet Care incursion.
Tyler 1J – improved efforts during our writing sessions.
Sahana 1J – participation and contributions to discussions during our excursion to the Gould League.
Dharmi 1M – excellent excursion recount and beautiful handwriting.
Levi 1M – enthusiasm and excellent contributions on our excursion.
Aanya 2E – consistently working hard to improve in all areas of her learning.
Aarav 2E – persistence and enthusiasm while working on number lines.
Sidd 2K – your fabulous effort in writing.
Sushma 2K – always trying your best and keeping our classroom organised.
Sahasra 2M – impressive story writing.
Samardeep 2M – awesome skipping skills.
Marko 3F – positive, enthusiastic and insightful contributions to all class discussions and all learning tasks.
3F & 3S – their positive attitudes and persistence when completing their first NAPLAN.
Riley 3S – concentrating hard and trying to perfect his hand writing.
Bhavya 3S – being super persistent in Art to create a fabulous God’s Eye with yarn.
Hiya 5S – Showing persistence and focus whilst learning new concepts in Maths.
Ishu 5S – For always being a helpful and positive student in 5S.

---

Congratulations Anvay!

        

Anvay, Prep N, won 1^st prize in the ‘Creative drawing and writing competition’ in his category. He won a prize of brain games, books and also $1000 for the school!

He showed his big heart by drawing that if he had an extra sense he would have x-ray vision to x-ray poor people who couldn’t afford x-rays. We also had some brain scientists come and talk to the junior students which was super interesting.

Student Council Report

On Monday the student council had a meeting about how to improve our school and ideas from our class. Some people suggested a suggestion box, others said more chromebooks. We want to step up and have the Library open for recess and lunch on certain days like Monday and Wednesday. We think the max amount of people would be 20. Depending on how many people want this, the number might change. You will have to be silent while you do your work or read and make sure there is a teacher, otherwise don’t go in. We’ve also been helping out in the class by taking your requests. We encourage you to keep making them so that we succeed in our job in making our school great.

Romani 5R 

Mother’s Day Stall

     

Hello, Had a wonderful day setting up stalls, and staying till pack up…Watching the little ones use their tiny fingers to count the coins and buy gifts for their mum’s..

Hands filed with chocolates cookies and sweet treats, but with the promise that they will open it on Sunday as a surprise for their mum’s amazed us..

Their curious eyes scanning through that array of gifts, and their choice of “what my mum likes “.. Made us all feel so proud…

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the parents for donating such wonderful gifts..

We would like to thank all the teachers and volunteers for not minding the rains and making this event a grand success…

Thanks a lot Glen Huntly primary school for making this a very very memorable Mother’s Day experience…

A very happy mum..!

Cheers…

Sona

---

 

Too sick for school?

Ask yourself:

• Is my child well enough to comfortably take part in the day’s activities?
• Will my child pass on their illness to other children or staff?
• Will my child’s teacher be able to care for my child without it impacting on their ability to care for other children?
• If I felt like this, would I go to work?

If you are unsure, speak to your pharmacist or doctor for advice.

Click on the link for more information:  Too-sick-for-school_02

Notices distributed to parents

10 May      All Families       Education Week Celebrations
16 May       Year 4 – 6 students        Attitudes to School Survey
18 May      All Families      OSHC Service review
24 May      Year 3/4 students        Excursion Notice

---

Calendar

May

Fri 25th          Grandparents Morning Tea
Mon 28th    Sporting Schools After School      Athletics Final week
Tue 29th      Sporting Schools After School      Football Final week
Thu 31st      Sporting Schools After School       Golf Final week

June

Fri 8th            GPA Meeting
Mon 11th       Queens Birthday
Thu 14th        Year 3/4 Excursion