Newsletter 06/2016

PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Dear Parents and Friends,

Welcome to term 2! I hope you all enjoyed some family time together over the past few weeks, especially over the Easter period when more of you may have had time off work. I enjoyed a lovely 13 days over in Los Angeles visiting a life-long friend who moved there 10 years ago. There is certainly nothing like getting together with people you have known most of your life and enjoying each other's company as if it was just yesterday that you last saw each other.

Term 1 was a very quick with one, with only 8 full weeks of school.  Term 2 is set to be much longer and busier, with 11 weeks of school. It will be an exciting one though as students enjoy their Science semester, this year looking at Biological and Earth sciences. We are already planning a family science night on May 18th and look forward to having lots of parents and families along on the night.  More information will come, but put the date in your diaries now!  We are also excited to have Ivan, our resident Scientist in Schools, back working with our Year 3 - 6 students this term.  We will celebrate his work with us, as well as all our science work, at an open afternoon and assembly on Friday 17th June.

This term will also see our first camp to Canberra for our Senior School students.  We are all very excited about this and lucky Mrs Lough won "Rock Paper Scissors" and will be attending the camp as well.

Over the holidays we had quite a bit of action at school with major repairs done in the junior school area for some termite damage experienced recently. We also had our new signs installed - and don't they look fantastic! A tree audit completed to direct our ongoing maintenance of our grounds and we are preparing to install security cameras around the school.  The new junior school equipment will arrive in the next few weeks - something we are all very excited about!

Reminders as we head into term 2:

• Term 2 is not a "Sunsmart" term so students are not required to wear their hats, but as always are encouraged to at all times for their protection
• Be aware of the parking restrictions around the school, including not blocking our neighbours driveways and driving carefully near where children are crossing
• The staff car park is for staff only; and please do not walk your children through the car park when entering the school
• Please enter the school building via the nearest door to keep the office area clear for office visitors
• Children may enter classrooms from 8:45am which enables them to be unpacked and prepared to start their learning at 9:00am sharp.  Parents should be out of the corridors and classrooms at this time to allow the teacher to focus on their class (except if you are helping in the classroom of course!)
• The senior playground is for students in years 3 - 6 only during school times.
• Parents are asked to wait outside for their children at the end of the day so that students are not distracted while they finish the day and get packed up.

Many of you will have noticed that we have had a lot trouble with our school dumper being overfilled due to neighbours using it to dump their rubbish.  This is a big problem for us as it often means we cannot fit our weekly rubbish in, and to have it emptied costs us $100. We are in the process of installing security cameras around the school which we hope will deter this practise.  If you see or know of anyone who has been using our dumper in this way, please let them know of the inconvenience and cost this is causing our school. Thank you.

CURIOSITY AND POWERFUL LEARNING

We started the term on Monday with a staff professional learning day. As you know, last term we introduced "High expectations and Authentic Relationships" and "Learner Protocols" as our Theories of Action for whole school improvement.  A lot of this work has been around the "Growth Mindset" and hopefully you have seen this in your children at home as well.

This term we are introducing 2 new Theories - "Set Challenging Learning Tasks" and "Frame Higher Order Questions".  Staff will be delving deeper into the curriculum and assessment tasks to ensure they are providing opportunities for students to work in their "Zone of Proximal Development" (ZPD).  Work in this zone is work that is "just right" for optimal learning - providing some opportunity to practise known skills while introducing some new challenges.

Last term we put out draft Learner Profile statements and asked for feedback.  You can access them here. Feedback on this draft is welcomed - please email the school or drop by and see me if you have any comments.  We will finalise this early in the term so any comments please send through by 22nd April.

Kendra Parker

PRINCIPAL

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL'S REPORT  

It was my pleasure to attend the Junior Mayor Election event at the Chelsea Town Hall this morning with our School Leaders - Daisy, George, Clem and Julian.

This year, students were asked to write a 2 minute speech on the topic:

What could you do to create a better future for young people?

Clinical psychologist, Andrew Fuller, who works with many schools and communities in Australia and internationally, gave a presentation to the students on the concept of the ripple effect. He showed a snippet from a TED talk, around creating a movement, whereby a leader started to make a change and then a follower who believed in the cause joined in, the follower then encouraged his friends to join in and steadily, the number of followers increased. Eventually, those that did not join in were a smaller number than those who did. Andrew then explained that in the case of creating a movement, it is the 1st follower who plays the biggest part. If we believe in something that someone is saying or doing, we need to be brave enough to follow and this will in turn encourage others to do the same. Following is an equally important part of leadership as leading.

Daisy delivered an excellent speech about Resilience and the importance of having a healthy self esteem. Here is a snippet of what was in her speech:
Every single person has the power to do anything but one thing that many people are missing is self-esteem. We need to start teaching strategies to people at a younger age to help them build their resilience.

Daisy talked about: 
Bringing workshops into local schools around Kingston to help people find a way that they can speak up about their feelings. Workshops would include teamwork games and show kids how to keep a positive and resilient mindset.

Daisy's ideas support the notion that Andrew Fuller shared with us, that it is easier to build strong children than repair broken adults. The concept of "resilience" offers a coherent framework for the creation of schools that are sensitive to the development needs of young people and their teachers. As Andrew describes, resilience is "the happy knack of being able to bungy jump through the pitfalls of life - to rise above adversity and obstacles".

I was impressed by the quality of speeches given by all the year 6 students from across our community. I was chatting with the parents of our lovely student leaders following the speeches and we were commenting on the high level of understandings and levels of compassion and drive to make positive changes in the world, beginning with our local community, that was being presented by these children. It was noted how much hope this provides for the future when there are inspired, intelligent and empathetic young people such as these destined to be our future leaders. 

One of the members of the Kingston Council said afterwards that she wished the student leaders in the room were currently in Parliament!

Some of the common themes and just a few of the quotes that stood out through the day were:

• Bullying "to protect our youth, tell the truth" (Matthew from Parkdale Primary School)
• Following your dreams "education creates a platform where dreams can be created - we can reach our goals and shape the future of our country" (Collete from St Andrews)
• The importance of being active and leading a healthy life "we need to ensure we have a balanced lifestyle" (Norah from Moorabin PS)
• Drug education "drugs are not cool" (Charlotte from Patterson Lakes)
• Sustainability "leave the world better than we found it" (Mia from Parktone)
• Mindfulness "a positive mindset creates a positive outlook" (Jack from Chelsea Heights)
• Self-Belief "use the three C's - Communication, Collaboration and Confidence" (Mason from St Louis)

FRIDAY ASSEMBLY

Don't forget, this term assemblies are bring held on Friday afternoons at 3pm on the basketball court (weather permitting). There will be no assembly on Monday afternoons.

PASSIONATE PURSUITS

This term sees the return of our Passionate Pursuits programme! Next week teachers will be spruiking their Passionate Pursuit activities and students will be given the opportunity to select which group they would like to be a part of. Each Friday afternoon, before assembly, students will partake in fun activities that aim to engage and inspire as well as build positive relationships with others. Some of the pursuits on offer this term include: Reading Club, Inventions Group, Fashion Drawing, Construction Club, Green Gang, Scrapbooking, Football, Chess, Paper Creations, Silly Songs, ICT, Photography and more. Alison Lough
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

PFA

There will be a PFA Meeting on Monday Morning (this Monday the 18th) in the Kids' Cafe - all welcome! Come for a coffee and a chat and find out about what's happening around the school. 

COMPUTER PROGRAMMING COURSE

In term 2, Mentone Park will be hosting an after school activity for budding computer programmers. This fun, 9 week course is available for students in years 3-6 to learn complex computer science and software programming in a fun way.  The programs used are stepping stones toward professional-level tools.  The  course will run from 3:40 - 4:25pm on Thursday nights and costs @225.  Please see the attached flyer for further details and registration.

Computer Programming Course

SUSTAINABILITY

Thank you to all members of the community who have contacted me regarding the need for wooden pallets and old tyres. We were very lucky to receive a large donation of both from local businesses. Egg cartons are no longer needed as we have plenty, but are happy to announce... 
THE CHICKENS ARE COMING!

Thank you:

Plant Access, Heatherton for the pallets

                         Marco of Marco's Automotive, Moorabbin for the tyres

FREE SPORTING SCHOOL PROGRAMS

Hi parents and students,

Just a reminder to please sign up AT THE OFFICE for the FREE 4 week programs at MPPS this term. All programs apart from AFL (begins Week 6) will begin Week 3 this term.
All programs are 4 weeks and located at the school. Can I please ask that you sign up before the end of the week so we can work out numbers per sport.
Can I also ask parents if you could please write on the sign up sheet whether you are able to help supervise during the sessions each week (we need at least 1 per group for the sessions to go ahead).
*Also please note: If there are not enough students for a particular sport, that sport will not run this term.
Below are sports and days:

Monday – Week 6 AFL begins – 15 spots (min) available for both Prep to Grade 2 and another group for Grade 3-6 students.

Tuesday – Week 3 GOLF begins – 20 spots (max) available for GRADE 2-6 ONLY

Wednesday (confirmed) – Week 3 BASKETBALL begins -15 spots (min) available for both Prep to Grade 2 and another group for Grade 3-6 students.

Thursday – Week 3 SOCCER begins -15 spots (min) available for both Prep to Grade 2 and another group for Grade 3-6 students.

Friday – Week 3 TABLE TENNIS begins -20 spots (max) available for GRADE 2-6 ONLY

Friday Week 3 NETBALL begins - 20 spots (max) for Prep to Grade 2

Miss L

Dear Parents,

Here is the Kids Café class roster for Term 2, please make a note in your diary of your class dates. I will send tiqbiz reminders to individual classes as your week approaches. To make things easier for the class reps, please call or text me on 0413 009 493 to let me know of your availability on your rostered day.

Term 2

April      15th     2O

             22nd     2UO

             29th     3B

 May       6th      3G

              13th     4H

              20th     4W

              27th    5/6L

June      3rd       5/6R

             10th     5/6S

             17th    Prep B

             24th    cleaning - all welcome

We are still looking for a volunteer to make pizza bases on a fortnightly basis with another parent. It’s not a difficult job and can be done on any day during the week.

Thank you,

Liz and the Kids' Café Team.

OSHC NEWSLETTER APRIL 13^th 2016

Happy Easter, we hope you all had a good break!  While some may have been off on holidays we continued to provide vacation care which turned out to be a very successful program, with numbers exceeding 45 on occasions and an average of 30. 

The children particularly enjoyed Inflatable World in Oakleigh, seeing Zootopia at Southland and the reptile incursion where children got to handle some of Australia’s native wildlife. We also introduced more cooking into the program these holidays, baking pirate cupcakes, worm mud pits and even the ambitious task of making a Pavlova on New Zealand day. With the enjoyment the children had and with the obvious talent they share in the kitchen we have decided to introduce cooking as a regular activity throughout this term.  The children have helped come up with the  suggestion of introducing a wheels day each week where children are encouraged to bring their scooter, bike, skate board or roller blades on the specific day that week.
We look forward to celebrating Earth Day next week and ask for any recyclables as donations e.g. milk cartons, card board boxes, bottle caps…
Look forward to seeing you all at before and after school care!
From Anicca and James

Working With Children Check

All parents/guardians, visitors & volunteers to the school MUST sign in & out of the school and display their WWCC in a lanyard, which is available at the school office.

The Department of Education requires any person involved in an activity where children may be present to have a current WWCC or have supplied proof that they have applied for a WWCC with the Department of Justice. All schools are required to comply with the Working with Children Act 2005.

Volunteers are expected to carry the WWCC card on their person at all times when working or volunteering at the school or during school related activities.

There is no fee for this check. Apply now by visiting: www.workingwithchildren.vic.gov.au

COMMUNITY SERVICE & ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Department of Education & Early Childhood Development and Mentone Park Primary School do not endorse the products or services of any private advertiser. They accept no responsibility for accuracy of information contained in advertisements or claims made by them.

PIANO LESSONS

Piano lessons are available for Grade 2-6 students during school time.

If you are interested, please contact Mrs Jocelyn Millard on 0418 629 586 or 9583 6172.

POCO MUSIC INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC LESSONS

NEW ENROLMENTS Term 2

Local Music School POCO MUSIC offers private Brass and Woodwind, singing, strings, and drum kit lessons at Mentone Park primary school during class hours.  Lessons are conducted in a fun environment by qualified teachers teaching students the basics and expanding to AMEB exam preparation if needed.  If you would like your child to commence lessons in term 2 visit our website and fill out the online enrolment form at: www.pocomusic.com.au , alternatively you can email us at: admin@pocomusic.com.au or call our office on 9584 7341.

Come and Play Girls Footy in 2016.

Join us in season 2016 as we celebrate our 6th year of Girls Footy at Mordi-Brae JFC. Since we started our Girls only teams in 2011, participation has grown enormously due to the passion and commitment of our Girls and their supporters to the game.
Our club will be fielding 3 Girls teams in U12 & U15 in 2016. They will be supported with experienced and dedicated team of quality coaches, assistant coaches and team managers.

Interested? Then Come and Join Us!

Interested in playing or would like to find out more?  Contact Girls Footy Coordinator Jason Pribil 0458 988 264 or email jason.pribil@gmail.com.