IMPORTANT DATES!
PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE
It is certainly wonderful to end our week with such beautiful weather. Our 5/6 students are getting increasingly excited about camp and our younger brigade have continued to demonstrate our values in everything that we do.
Community Forum
Last night we had a few families join us to discuss the school vision statement going forward. We asked families to post some words, sentences and phrases that were meaningful to them. I have posted the link to a Padlet on Compass and would love it if all families took a few minutes to write a few words encompassing their vision for RGLPS. This way when we publish our new vision it will incorporate the feelings, values and understandings of our entire community.
Staff Carpark
The staff carpark can be a very busy and sometimes dangerous place. We do ask that our young people use the designated footpaths to walk through the school and get to their classrooms in the morning. Thanks to all of our families for helping us to keep the safety of our students at the front of our minds.
Helping Hands
Helping hands is a wonderful initiative at RGLPS where members of our community put their hand up to support any families who are going through a rough time. Attached to this newsletter is a document outlining the supports that are on offer. Please read through and discover all about it.
Tutor Learning Initiative
Tutoring has commenced with many students accessing the program. It is important to remember that this is not a remedial program. We do have a number of students involved who are working above the expected level in the area they are receiving tutoring in. All students are able to be supported by this program as the classes do become smaller when tutoring takes place. This gives every teacher the capacity to spend more 1:1 time with the students in their classroom. A big win for everyone.
A message form the Chief Medical Officer
Term 1 is now fully in swing for 2021, which makes it even more important for every Victorian to play their part to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. We all want Victoria to continue to stay safe and stay open and we want our children to continue to learn at their school, kindergarten or other early childhood education centre.
Recently, we’ve seen some cases of COVID-19 emerge. The Department of Health is doing everything it can to prevent spreading in the community through locating close contacts, continued testing and wastewater monitoring.
Early childhood centres and schools have comprehensive COVIDSafe plans in place. This means that schools and centres have embedded the behaviours we learned in 2020 and are well placed to act quickly and respond to any identified risks.
I am confident this is reassuring to families, children and staff.
However, the importance of all Victorians remaining vigilant cannot be stressed enough.
It is vital that we all continue to stay home when unwell, get tested, perform regular hand hygiene, and cough into your elbow if you have to. I remind all staff, students, parents and families to wear a face mask when required and stay at least 1.5m apart from others when practical.
I also encourage you to promote and ensure testing whenever a child or staff member has any symptoms, no matter how mild. Getting tested and staying home until results are known remains critical to limiting the spread of COVID-19.
It is also important to get tested when it is recommended, for example, if you have visited an exposure site.
The symptoms to watch out for are:
- – loss or change in sense of smell or taste
- – fever
- – chills or sweats
- – cough
- – sore throat
- – shortness of breath
- – runny nose
Continued vigilance to prevent the spread of COVID-19 ensures that schools and early childhood education centres remain safe for students and staff.
Adj Clin Prof Brett Sutton
Victorian Chief Health Officer
Annual Ganeral Meeting
On April the 1st at 6:30pm we will be holding our Annual General Meeting. This meeting is held every year and is an open meeting for our community. During this meeting we present our Annual Report to the School Community. The 2020 report is presented at that time and will then be uploaded to our Website so that our entire community can access it.
We look forward to a productive final few weeks of term. Keep safe,
Kirrily Lamers
Principal
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL’S REPORT
Talk to your Child About School
Have you ever asked your child how their day was to get a short sharp, “OK”. Or perhaps, What did you learn today? To receive, “Nothing”. It’s a common story in most households and you’re not alone. Talking to your child about their day at school shows them that you value their experiences both academically and socially and that you are part of the learning process and their lives.
Starting a conversation might need to be more specific, like:
- – What book did you read today?
- – What was the best part of your school day?
- – Did you play with anyone at break time, what did you play?
- – Did you have any specialist subjects today?
- – Did you learn anything interesting?
Raisingchildren.net.au have some great tips to help your conversation along:
- – Make time to talk. This can often be when you’re doing something with your child. For example, your child might like to talk when you’re walking the dog or preparing dinner together.
- – Give your child your full attention if she wants to talk with you about her day.
- – Take seriously whatever your child tells you. For example, you can say things like, ‘That’s really interesting. Then what happened?’ or ‘And how do you feel about that?’
- – When you talk about the school and teachers with or in front of your child, use respectful language. For example, ‘I can see that’s frustrating, but Ms Adams is your teacher and you need to speak respectfully to her’, or ‘Yes, that seems unfair, but perhaps you don’t know the whole story’.
Should you hear anything that concerns you please don’t hesitate to make contact with your classroom teacher. We are all here to help and build a partnership with you and solve any issues that come along. –
Luke Franklin
Assistant Principal
TEACHING AND LEARNING
I hope everyone enjoyed a great long weekend and made the most of the sunny weather last Saturday and Sunday.
'The Power of Yet'
You may have heard the term ‘Growth Mindset’ in recent years. This term comes from the research of Carol Dweck (Stanford University), who has conducted extensive research on the psychology of success. Essentially ‘Growth Mindset’ refers to the belief that our intelligence can be developed through effort. In contrast, a ‘Fixed Mindset’ is a belief that our intelligence is static and can’t grow or be changed – that we are born with a certain amount of ability and a predisposition to be good at some things and not good at others.
Dweck’s research indicates that our mindset is strongly linked to our motivation. If learners believe they can’t change their intelligence, there is a tendency to give up when tasks become difficult, rather than persist. Learners think they are not naturally good at this skill or subject. People with a ‘growth mindset’ however embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, learn from feedback and see effort as the path to mastery. These are more like the behaviours we want to see from learners at RGLPS.
As teachers and parents, we can help children develop a ‘Growth Mindset’ by praising the learning process over achievement. We should reward effort, strategies, focus, perseverance and improvement. An excessive focus on achievement can inadvertently communicate the idea that we can naturally be good at something. This can cause learners to give up when the going gets hard, thinking they don’t have natural ability and will never be ‘smart’ at that task. This can be particularly damaging for learners who normally find learning new things easy. When these students are confronted by unfamiliar and challenging learning, it literally challenges their ‘sense of self’. They are unable to understand why this new learning isn’t easy for them, become overwhelmed and often give up. We want all our RGLPS students to realise that through effort we can all grow our brains and improve our skills.
This brings us to the word ‘yet’. It can be useful to reframe new learning as something you can’t do ‘yet’. This implies that is entirely possible and expected that the child will be able to learn and perform this skill with effort and practise. I encourage parents to use the word ‘yet’ when your child says they can’t do something. This change in language will help reset any fixed mindset beliefs they might have about their ability.
Maths Olympiad #1 is coming soon.............
The first Maths Olympiad for 2021 is on Wednesday 24th March at 10:45am. Like all Olympiads, Olympiad #1 will comprise of five problems which students will have 30 minutes to solve.
Student Portfolio Tasks on Seesaw
Our teachers are now starting to upload Term 1 portfolio samples to Seesaw for all students. A portfolio sample is a assigned common assessment tasks for all students in that year level. This might be a writing task, a recording of children reading aloud or a rich maths task your child has completed. Classroom teachers will include a brief annotation or comment about how your child has performed on this task and upload the sample and comment to Seesaw as evidence to support their judgment.
Specialist teachers will also add a portfolio task for all classes each term. Due to the large volume of students they teach, specialist teachers will not be able to provide an annotation or comment with each portfolio sample.
I encourage parents to check Seesaw regularly to see how your child is going with their learning and to view samples of their work.
Have a wonderful week!
Kerron Worsdell
Teaching and Learning Coach
RGLPS HELPING HANDS
SPORTS NEWS
District Athletics Squad
It is my pleasure to announce the following students have made squad for the District Athletics on the 26th of March:
Under 9/10: Ruby P, Celine L, Alicia S, Audrey J, Molly M, Eva R, Audrey T, Vida C, Ellie V, Elsa L-F, Maxine S, Sienna H, Zoe G, Indigo B, Lauren C, Jack P, Flynn H-W, Angus G, Hayden P, Owen W, Finn G, Owen M, Oliver C, Joshua B, Adan A, Aidan T, Will B, Christian L.
Under 11: Madeline O, Eva L, Ainsley H, Michaela T, Adele R, Grace R, Erin S, Violet T, Laila K, Olivia N-A, Jesinta C, Ava S, Alia C, Chloe T, Lachlan P, Jensen W, Mitchell T, Benjamin S, Michael K, Matthew S, Levi S, Nehan K, Joshua W, Oliver A, Sam B.
Under 12/13: Maddison B, Emily S, Emma B, Poppy P, Natalie V, Lana E, Alba N, Lola W, Isobel M, Darcy B, Abbey C, Joel T, James B, James M, Riley T, Nash G, Alexander L-Y, Gabriel B, James T, Lutz S.
Congratulations on your wonderful achievement, we are all very proud of you and wish you the very best of luck when competing against our local schools!
Basketball Tower Padding
In exciting news, the first two of our four new basketball tower padding has arrived! I wish to thank Kirrily for considering my request and granting the special funds in this year’s budget for these important safety assets which will ensure that no children can be injured whilst playing basketball and netball. They look fantastic, are very high quality and really complete our superb new courts!
Rocking Step
Thanks to our ‘Sporting Schools’ Federal Government Grant, we have also been able to purchase a ‘Rocking Step’ gymnastics piece. As students walk up the stairs the rocking step begins to tip over, causing the students to balance carefully to complete the obstacle. It has been a favourite of many of the students participating in our gymnastics program over the last few weeks. Due to the Covid lockdown, we have been very lucky to obtain the services of Kristie Loidl who is the Director of a gymnastics centre in Port Melbourne whilst her business is on hiatus. She has been able to look at our equipment and has made some recommendations for future purchases which has been really appreciated.
Soccer Round Robin
And finally, today at Banyule Flats our girls and boys soccer teams will play a Round Robin to determine which of our local schools will move on to represent Heidelberg District at the Division Championships. I’ll report back next week and let you know how we went!
Kind Regards,
Darren Peters
PE and Sports Coordinator
RGLPS ART GALLERY
FUNDRAISING
Easter Raffle
NEWS FLASH: We have a very generous gift voucher donated for our Easter Raffle- $100.00 at WATERDALE JEWELLERY.
We cant wait to have the fun of the Easter Raffle at our last assembly of the term!!
RGLPS has a long history of a huge and exciting Easter Raffle!! Many kids holding their breaths and crossing their fingers in the hope that their family will be lucky enough to win.
This fundraiser relies on your generous support. If you have the means, and would like to make a small donation of an Easter Egg for the hampers, please drop them at the office before the Monday 29th March.
Each student will be given 10 raffle tickets to be sold at $1 each. Tickets and money are due back no later than Wednesday 31st March.
Thank you for your support and good luck!
SUTAINABILITY NEWS
GARDENING CLUB
Vege Patch Update
On the long weekend, there was a working bee to rejuvenate the vegetable garden beds near the Science room. The old growth was removed and soil improved with the additional of organic compost. The chicken coop was also tidied for planting out for 2021. The watering system was also audited and will be repaired. This year, OSHC and the Gardening Club will be working together to ensure the new plants are watered and maintained on a regular basis. Gardening Club will be starting up again once government restrictions allow.
Our classroom fruit and vegetable waste will continue to be put into our green tumblers to compost which is then used in the vege patch.
Many thanks to Patricia, Caroline and Kate for their work on Monday in the vege patch.
Best regards, Ms Wheeler
CSEF – CAMPS, SPORTS AND EXCURSIONS FUND
The Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund helps eligible families to cover the costs of school trips, camps and sporting activities.
If you have a valid means-tested concession card, such as a Veterans Affairs Gold Card, Centrelink Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card, or are a temporary foster parent, you may be eligible. There is also a special consideration category for asylum seeker and refugee families.
Payment amounts this year are $125 for eligible primary school students. Payments are made direct to the school to use towards expenses relating to camps, excursions and sporting activities for the benefit of your child.
If you applied for CSEF through our school last year, you do not need to complete an application form this year, unless there has been a change in your family circumstances.
If you would like to apply for the first time, please contact the school office on 9457 4178 and ask for an application form.
You can also download the form, and find out more about the program and eligibility, on the Department of Education and Training’s Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund web page.
Check with the school office if you are unsure, and please return completed forms to the school office as soon as possible.
CANTEEN
Thanks to the parents who have answered my call for help in the canteen .
If you would like to help out and have not sent a form in yet ..just send an e-mail to margaret.groves@education.vic.gov.au
and let me know your availability. All help is very welcome and much appreciated.
It would be help-full if you send your children with enough money to buy over the counter .They get quite up-set when we can’t sell them any-thing.
They need at least .80c to buy a Quelch tube or Frozen Pineapple and some – times we run out of those.. You need to send them with at least $1.50.
Prices range up to $2.70. All profits made at the canteen go back into the school funds so you are helping out in that way as well.
Kind Regards
Margaret Groves
Canteen Manager.
SPECIAL RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION (SRI)
Special Religious Instruction – Christianity sessions commenced again yesterday. It was great to spend time with some children I already know but haven’t seen for almost a year, as well as meet some new participants. The sessions will run every Thursday in the library during the first half of lunchtime. Permission forms are still available on Compass or at the Office. Please feel free to contact me if you have any queries about the program.
Cathie Clarke
0411 883 904
THEIRCARE – BEFORE & AFTER SCHOOL CARE
COMMUNITY NOTICES
Disclaimer: Rosanna Golf Links Primary School (RGLPS) does not endorse any product or service advertised in this newsletter. RGLPS takes no responsibility for the content of advertisements or the quality and reliability of products or services offered in the advertisements
