Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome Back to 2023. We have had the best start to the year. Our students are amazing, and we have the best staff! Further on in this newsletter some of our staff have written a short paragraph to introduce themselves, one of our school programs has been outlined and some of our grade six leaders have introduced themselves.

I would like to remind all our families about using the school crossing to cross the roads surrounding the school. We do have some families taking their students across the road in between cars and this is so unsafe – I worry that they will then do this without you. Please use the crossing.

We are incredibly proud of everyone for working so hard to make the start of this year so successful. As I write this, we have already had two whole school rewards for the amount of SWPBS tokens that have been given out to our students for following our school rules and displaying our values to a very high level. In our next staff meeting, we will discuss another four rewards as more targets were achieved today. One of our classes has also had a class celebration – 5/6K made pizzas this week as they were the first class to receive a massive 150 tokens. Sharyn Borg has written an overview of the SWPBS program, our use of tokens and the ethos behind this program.

This week also saw the beginning of our 2023 partnership with the school community. Our PACH committee met on Tuesday to begin planning our fundraising activities for this year. There will be an activity every term – more information will come out about these dates and activities shortly. On Wednesday we held an information session for parents, grandparents and carers who would like to volunteer at school. If you were unable to attend, please pop into the office and I can run you through the information. I was very happy to see that some of our helpers have already begun helping in our rooms and I know that there will be lots of assistance for the House Swimming and Pool and Park fun day on Friday. Ali has done another amazing job organising everything and our students – THANK YOU ALI.

Just a reminder that Linda always lists all the upcoming dates for the term at the end of our newsletters. You will see that the Colour Run has a set date as does parent teacher interviews and our Amazing Race. The latter is a sports afternoon/ evening organised by Ali, our teachers, and our captains. The invitation is for all our families to attend and have a great time. It is an opportunity to meet new families to our school and re acquaint with old families and complete the challenge – there will be prizes.

The following is a list of our staff, specialist teachers and our education support staff.

Regards,

Tracey

Friday 10th February - House Swimming Sports

Wednesday 22nd February - P.A.C.H Family Twilight Sports - Amazing Race

Friday 24th February - District Swimming

Thursday 2nd March - House Athletics Day

Thursday 9th March - Division Swimming

Monday 13th March - Labour Day - Public Holiday

Wednesday 22nd March - School Photo Day

Wednesday 15th March - Friday 24th March - NAPLAN

Tuesday 21st March - Parent Teacher Interviews

Thursday 30th March - Colour Fun Run

Friday 31st March - Curriculum Day

Thursday 6th April - House Cross Country

Thursday 6th April - Final Day of term 1 - 2:30pm finish

Friday 7th April - Good Friday Public Holiday

1/2G

Emily W - Confidence Award - For starting the day with confidence.

Sebastian C - Learning Award - For always having a red hot go!

1/2S

Tanisha R - Confidence Award - For always being involved in class discussion.

Tait R - Confidence Award - For always presenting his work neatly.

1/2H

Harrison G - Community Award - For being a great role model.

Nevaeh K - Community Award - For helping others.

3/4E

Ava M - Confidence Award - For coming to school and making new friends and helping out the in the classroom.

Matilda N - For helping others in the classroom when finished work.

3/4O

Jacob R - Confidence Award - For sharing new ideas and giving things 'a go'.

Brandon H - For a fantastic start to the year, keep it up!

5/6L

James A - Confidence Award - for showing enthusiasm in 'getting to know each other' activities.

Avah P - Respect Award - For consistently showing respectful speaking and listening behaviours.

5/6K

Lincoln V - For actively listening in all areas.

5/6W

Jarrah T - Confidence Award - For settling well into 5/6W and working really hard.

Mia SC - Community Award - For being responsible in her role as Sustainability Captain, setting up things and being really caring.

P6I

Lewis - Community Award - For having a great start to the new school year. He is very helpful with the new students.

A little bit about me – I have been the principal of HPS since term four 2019 (just in time for the pandemic ☹) I have three adult children, Rich, James and Liz. They have all left home so now it is just me and Alsa my dog. Alsa is a rescue dog that was meant to be a medium size – she is now 36 kilos. She is also my first rescue dog – would I do it again – jury is out on that one. However, the amount of love I get when I come home is wonderful. Walking her is one of my favourite things to do, she loves a long walk and so do I. My happy place is at the beach, I love to spend time in the sun and the sea -floating in a tyre is a favourite past time. Gardening, catching up with friends and family, reading, knitting and mosaicking are also relaxing past times. I think I made over twenty bird baths for friends during the lock downs. On my to do list is to make a birdbath with a platypus for school (the birdbath has been in the shed for a few months now). Spending time in the city of Melbourne is also a favourite past time and luckily that is where James lives so I get to go on lots of city adventures with him. I have discovered the joy of riding an electric scooter – so much fun! Travel is something that I am looking forward to getting back into now that we can. For the end of term one holidays I am going to relax on the beach in Bali, there will be afternoons by the pool and definitely cocktails. Can’t wait to lie back and look up at the sky watching the kites.

Hi, my name is Madison, and I am one of the school captains for this year.

I have four people in my family including me. I have four horses, one cat and two dogs. I play inline hockey which is like ice hockey on roller blades. I’m in a team called the Lilydale Rats. We have 9-10 people in a team with 5 on the rink at any one time. It’s like ice hockey because we also get padded up to play. I also do BMX racing and have ridden with Olympic champions. I’ve competed at state level and have won lots of medals. Another activity I enjoy is horse riding and can go over all sorts of jumps. You have to use many of the same skills in horse riding as you do in BMX racing. My favourite holiday I’ve been on was to America and hope to go back to Las Vegas and do a horse trail ride in the Grand Canyon. When I grow up I want to be a cake maker.

There is a new service starting at Father’s House Church, 11 Symons St, Healesville.

ON Monday evenings they are using their food van to give out Free hot food and free food relief boxes and free laundry relief, available Monday nights 6:30pm - 7:30pm.

Look out for James and the van.

They provide free boxes of foods, hot meals and laundry boxes with washing powder, laundry liquid, toilet cleaners, sanitary pads etc.

ALL FREE!

If you would like more information or would like to chat to them about how you can get involved or support, please do let them know. If you know families that you feel would benefit from this, please do let them know they are available Monday evenings from 6:30-7:30pm at Father’s House Church, Healesville.

Please book in via the contacts below - all ages abilities welcome

WAYNE BROOM - ph - 0437008788 www.classictennis.com.au

Tennis Australia/USPTA Club Professional Coach

healesvilletennis@live.com.au