Parkhill Primary School Newsletter
Issue 12, Thursday May 9 2019
Principal's Message
Dear Parents/Carers,
What a busy couple of weeks we have seen to start term 2. We had our Inter-House Cross Country competition last Friday. It was wonderful to see so many children pushing themselves beyond their comfort zone to run the course. Many of these students will represent Parkhill at Jells Park soon.
Last week I was able to share with you the new members of our School Council; this week I would like to send a thank you to the outgoing councillors. In particular Greg Ditton who was President for 2 years and a fantastic support to the school community through a time of transition and change.
Our Y3 and Y5 students have their NAPLAN assessment next week. This year the assessments are online and may run for up to two weeks. We are hopeful that they will be complete within the first week. We will hold our traditional NAPLAN breakfast on Tuesday morning in the classrooms before the first assessment day.
It would have been wonderful to have been able to keep our Stargazing session this week – but the Melbourne weather seems to be against us. The session has been postponed to a later date, where hopefully we can see the sky! Read on for further information.
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING:
Anxiety is part of our survival instinct. When we’re faced with a threatening situation, our brains and bodies respond by kicking into safety mode. Our adrenalin starts pumping, helping us get ready to escape the danger.
However some people, including children, react more quickly or intensely to situations they find threatening, or find it harder to get their anxious feelings under control. Some kids also perceive the world to be scarier or more dangerous than others. The link below offers some tips for helping your children manage anxiety.
CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING SENSITIVITY TRAINING:
Over the last two nights the staff have undergone training in Cultural Understanding with a focus on Koorie Culture. It was lovely to welcome Arbup Peters, Koorie Education Coordinator for our region, to Parkhill. Below is a link to the Department website which offers some wonderful resources to help gain insight into Koorie Culture and the histories:
https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/profdev/Pages/indigenousculture.aspx#link73
REMINDERS
Bring it Breaky:
Wednesday 15th May is our first term 2 Bring It Breaky date – bring something to share and enjoy a coffee and chat in the staffroom from 9am.
Education Week:
During Education Week (20th – 24th May) we will hold our Open Day/Evening (22nd May). Open Day runs from 9am – 10:30am. The classrooms will be open for families and prospective families to visit and our school captains will host tours. In the evening we open the classrooms from 5:30pm – 6:30pm, with a gathering in the hall from 6:30. We will be showcasing our STEAM program and have performances from the choir and more… please do come along and join us.
Essential Items Payments (School Fees):
2019 school fees (Essential Education Items) are due – if you have not yet paid please contact the office ASAP. It is important to note that the school has to subsidise any fees that are not paid by families. These subsides are paid out of our curriculum budgets which will reduce what can be done in our class programs.
Ongoing meetings with teachers:
It is important to remember that you are always welcome to meet with your class teacher and I encourage you to make appointments throughout the year to touch base and talk about your child’s learning progress.
Elaine Brady
Principal
REMINDER: Monday May 13 is a curriculum day. Students do not attend school on this day
Calendar of Curriculum Events
Friday 10 May - Mother's Day Stall
Monday 13 May - Curriculum Day (Students do not attend school)
Tuesday 14 May - Friday 24 May - NAPLAN
Wednesday 15 May - Bring it Breaky
Friday 17 May - District Cross Country (selected students)
Monday 20 May - Y2/3 Woolworths excursion
Wednesday 22 May - Open Day & Night
Friday 24 May - Education Week Celebrating Careers Day
Wednesday 29 May - F/Y1 Zoo excursion
Monday 10 June - Queen's Birthday Public Holiday
Wednesday 12 June - Bring it Breaky
Wednesday 19 June - Friday 21 June - Y3/4 Camp Weekaway
Friday 28 June - Term 2 ends at 2:30pm
Student of the Week
F/1C - Leanna W
F/1T - Connor W
2/3L - Zane C
2/3M - Oscar F
4D - Sasha P
4O - Collin J
5/6A - Sam B
5/6CS - Beau V
5/6H - Ruby D
Bring it Breaky
Come along to the staff room for a cuppa, nibble and chat! We would love to meet any new Parkhill families too!
When: Wednesday May 15, 9:00-9:30am
Where: Staff room
Who: All welcome (younger siblings are also welcome)
Please bring something you would enjoy for breakfast to share (or just bring yourselves).
NAPLAN Begins Next Week
NAPLAN has quickly crept up on us. We will begin the tests in Y3 and Y5 next week, starting Tuesday 14th. Our traditional NAPLAN breakfast will be on this day to celebrate the beginning!
Testing will take place in the mornings until 12:30, so please be extra quiet when around school at this time. We want our Y3s and Y5s to have the best possible environment so they can concentrate hard.
If you have any hesitation about your child sitting the NAPLAN tests, please do let us know promptly, so that we can discuss possible adjustments or alternative means.
The best practice for a pre-NAPLAN weekend is to rest and relax, so try to find some downtime for those busy brains.
Michelle Smith
Assistant Principal
Stargazing at Parkhill has been POSTPONED… to the 6th of June
For our intrepid astronomers, unfortunately our stargazing evening with the Astronomical Society of Victoria has been postponed. Those pesky clouds are filling up the sky and will no doubt rain on our parade!
But all is not lost, as we have rescheduled for a month’s time to Thursday 6th June.
We will once again set up the telescopes for viewing around 6:30, to conclude at 8:30pm.
Please let us know if you can come along:
We Want Our Students to Tell Us What They Think!
We value student voice as a means to improving student engagement, wellbeing, and quality instruction, and are conducting a survey to find out what your child thinks of our school. The Attitudes to School Survey is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education and Training to assist schools in gaining an understanding of students' perceptions and experience of school. Our school will use the survey results to plan programs and activities to improve your child's schooling experience.
Students from Y4 to Y6 at our school will participate in the survey. Your child will complete the survey online during school hours using a purpose built secure online survey tool. It is important to note that we are not in any way “testing” your child. Your child has the right to refuse or withdraw from the survey at any point before, during, or after completion of the survey.
Your child will be provided with a unique login to complete the survey. The student login is an assigned identifier that may be used to link data for statistical and research purposes only. All responses to the survey are kept anonymous in the response file. Personal identification data will not be recorded in the survey response file. This ensures that the confidentiality of your child’s responses is protected at all times.
This year the Attitudes to School survey will be conducted at our school over the period Monday 27th May to Friday 7th June. The survey only takes up to 20 minutes to complete and occurs during your child's class time.
The survey results will be reported back to the school before the end of term 2. All survey data that is made available in reports are for groups of students only so that no individual student can be identified. Data suppression rules are used for schools with low student numbers per year level.
If you would like more information, please speak to your child’s teacher or visit: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/management/improvement/Pages/performsurveyat.aspx
Y6-Y7 Transition Application Forms
Transition forms for Y6 students moving to high school are now available.
This year the Department has made transition application forms available to parents online. You can either fill in the form your child has, or fill in the form digitally and print or email it to the school.
The form detailing your request for high school placement is due back at school before Friday 17th May.
Transition information for parents: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/parents/going-to-school/Pages/year-6-to-7.aspx
Application form: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/parents/application-year-7-placement.docx
Solar Challenge
We are full STEAM ahead in our Solar Challenge group in Y5/6 – we are making three model solar cars and one model solar boat. Teams have worked on designs and prototypes to figure out the fastest shapes, and are currently making the chassis and/or hull of their vehicles.
You are welcome to visit us, view us and help us in the artroom on Mondays at 1:45 – 2:30pm and Thursdays at 3:00 – 3:45pm.
Onward!
Michelle Smith
Solar Challenge Coordinator
Coats for Kids and Food Drive
Coats for Kids
Coats For Kids is a collection service that focuses on providing winter clothes for kids in need.
If you have any kids coats that are too small, please drop them off at the office in the tubs provided. These will be collected up until 24 May.
Food Drive
Tom H in 5/6CS is collecting non-perishable food items for the Waverley Benevolent Society (WBS). The WBS is a food relief charity providing food to people in financial crisis in our local area. You can help by cleaning out your pantry of unneeded non-perishable food items including pastas, tea bags, canned vegetables, jam, vegemite, etc. Donations can be made until May 14 and can be dropped off in the collection box in the office.
STEAM - F/Y1
The Foundation/Y1 students looked for pumpkins in the garden. We found lots of pumpkin vines and we even found a pumpkin flower. We examined a pumpkin and found lots of pumpkin seeds.
In the STEAM room, we sorted a collection of “things” and realised that some of the “things” were seeds and some were not seeds. We used magnifying glasses to examine the seeds more carefully and we recorded our observations.
We then went on to examine fruits and vegetables. We had lots of questions about seeds when we were investigating the fruits and vegetables. We observed that all the fruits had seeds inside them (except for strawberries which had seeds on the outside) and the vegetables had no seeds. There were some foods, however, that we thought were vegetables, but they had seeds inside them. Were they really fruits? We really had to put on our science hats to work it out!
Jan Tuck
Foundation/Y1 Teacher
PFA News
Committee Members
Office Bearers:
President: Vanessa Cowley
Vice President: George Andrakakos
Treasurer: Sumi Sundram
Secretary: Nadine Phillips
Committee Members:
Shadow Treasurer: Fiona Crellin
Communications: Eva Conley
General Members: Jason Van Lint, Elle Delmee, Mark Havas, Lisa Jacobson, Wendy Douglas, Janneke Storteboom, Leanne Knight, Kylie Touloupis, Donna Edwards, Katrina Battle
If you would like to be on our email distribution list and receive communication and minutes from our meetings please email parents.friends.secretary@gmail.com
TERM TWO KEY DATES - Please lock these dates into your calendar!
MOTHER’S DAY STALL - Friday 10th May
Students, please bring your money this Friday to buy a gift for your special someone at the Mother’s Day Stall. Items range from $1 to $10. Also, don’t forget to put your money in an envelope with your name and class on it.
MOTHER’S DAY STALL GIFT SELLING SIGN-UP - Friday 10th May
We would also like volunteers to help with one or two sessions, 9:00-11:00 or 11:00-1:00. You will either sell the items to the children or help them bag up and label their goodies. It is a great morning as the kids are so excited to get something special for their mum or other special person in their life. Please sign up via this link: https://signup.com/go/BZmBziW
BOGAN BINGO - Saturday 1st June at 7:30pm
You may be asking - what is Bogan Bingo? Well … one of the hosts calls out the bingo numbers and his budding DJ plays songs from the 80’s and 90’s that rhyme with those numbers. Then throw in some jokes, trivia, air guitar, Cold Chisel and your finest bogan dress ups and you have a bonza of a night planned. Tickets are $25 per person (BYO drinks and snacks). Organise a group of Parkhill parents or friends and get your tickets now via www.trybooking.com/BCOFW.
DONATIONS NEEDED FOR BOGAN BINGO
The PFA is looking for donations for the Bogan Bingo night. These donations will be used as prizes which will be raffled off, won or auctioned during the night. Prizes can range from alcohol, food, house and garden items, whatever you think parents would enjoy. All funds raised go to Parkhill Primary.
ENTERTAINMENT BOOKS - Now available!
Entertainment books are now available for you to purchase. They cost $70 and provide over $20,000 in discounts to all the things you love to do...dining, attractions, shopping, travel and more! They are filled with up to 50% off or 2-for-1 style offers, and are a great way to discover new favourites and enjoy the value at the same time. The proceeds of the sold books goes to Parkhill Primary School. Please order one now via this link:
WOOLWORTHS EARN AND LEARN now on!
Woolworths Earn and Learn promotion is running again starting May 1st. Parkhill has been registered to benefit from this generous program - last time we collected over 17,000 stickers, an amazing effort which helped purchase much needed sports and robotics equipment for our school programs. Let's see if we can smash that this year and collect even more!
There is a Parkhill collection bin at our local Ashwood Woolies and there is also one placed in the office. If you can please collect a sticker sheet from Woolworths or the office to attach your stickers to before handing them in that would be very helpful. We cannot submit stickers that are not attached to a sheet - from previous experience kids find this quite a fun activity so lets get them doing the sticking for us. You can photocopy blank sheets if you need more.
The promotion runs from 1st May to 26th June and all stickers collected provide our teachers with the opportunity to order any resources they need from the Modern Teaching Aids website, a well known and valued online resource portal for all Australian education services.
Please ask all friends and family to contribute as many stickers as they can to the Parkhill cause.
Parkhill Primary School
Email: parkhill.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au
Website: www.parkhillps.vic.edu.au
Location: 4A Parkhill Drive, Ashwood VIC, Australia
Phone: 03 9807 2239