PUPIL FREE DAYS 2023 (TheirCare will be running their day care programs at school on all student free days)
- Friday 26th May - Staff professional practice day
- Monday 10th July - Three way conferences
- Monday 6th November - Report writing day
2023 TERM DATES
- Term 1: 27th January - 6th April (2:30pm finish)
- Term 2: 24th April - 23rd June (2:30pm finish)
- Term 3: 10th July - 15th September (2:30pm finish)
- Term 4: 2nd October - 20th December (1:30pm finish)
OPEN DAY The school is open on Tuesday, May 16 from 9.30am to 3.00pm for all community members to visit and see our normal programs in operation. Whilst a large focus of the day is to conduct school tours for new and prospective families (conducted by our student leaders), current families are also invited to attend, observe and chat to your children about their work.
BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS MEETING The Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee of School Council is scheduled to meet at 7pm on next Tuesday, May 16 in the staffroom. All welcome!
GRADE 4 SCHOOL CAMP We wish all of our Grade 4 students and staff (including parent helpers) a wonderful camp at Anglesea from next Wednesday, May 17, through to Friday, May 19. Hopefully the weather is kind (surely we have had all of our May rain in the first few weeks of the month), and the program and food are wonderful!
WORKING BEE To coincide with our community open morning on Saturday, May 20, we are also having a working bee from 9am to 12 noon on site. All welcome!
PUPIL FREE DAY At School Council on Tuesday evening, a further pupil free day (in lieu of a whole staff professional practice day) has been approved for Friday, May 26. Consequently, there are no classes for students on that day. Full day care is available through TheirCare and can be booked through the usual processes.
BUILDING WORKS UPDATES It was great to finally see the existing portable buildings moved last week, and the delivery of two new portable buildings and a new toilet block. The contractors, Fleetwood, will spend the next 5 weeks readying these for occupation by our Grade 3 and 4 students in June. Work commenced on the building of the new Administration and Staff wing yesterday, and fingers crossed that progress is steady on that stage of our building program.
I hope our Mums have a wonderful Mothers Day on Sunday and that you are truly spoiled.
Kind regards,
Bill Kersing
Principal
Curriculum Day Recap The staff from Rosanna PS and Ivanhoe PS joined our staff for a fantastic day on Monday 8th May. We started the day with Dale Sidebottom, a ‘play-time’ consultant. You can find information about him at his website https://www.jugar.life/ and you can view a TEDx talk he gave in 2020 here: https://www.ted.com/talks/dale_sidebottom_narcissistic_to_nice
This was a great way to start the day and segued nicely into the next session with Maria Ruberto. Maria is a psychologist whose work is anchored in research in neuroscience and brain function. There was lots of information about how experiences, including emotions, ‘map’ onto our brains informing future (sometime decades in the future) responses to events. You can find information about her at her website: https://www.salutegenics.com.au/about-us/.
Communication at Viewbank Primary School This is just a reminder that the Viewbank Voice Newsletter and Compass Notifications (including email) from staff are the only official channels we use to communicate information to you. To complement these, we also have a school Facebook and Instagram page (@viewbankps) that we share various events and activities.
Mother's Day Stall Thank you so much to all the volunteers who organised and ran the Mother's Day stall yesterday. Your hard work and dedication made this event a success, and we couldn't have done it without you. A thank you to the staff who kept to the times and an extra special thank you to Mr Prell who shared his PE lessons in the gym yesterday with the stall - it is always a team effort at Viewbank PS!
To all the mums and special ladies in our school community, have a great day on Sunday!
Have a great week!
Patrick
Smile Squad Dental Care Returning to Viewbank
The Smile Squad team from Banyule Community Health are coming to our school again from the 5th June to the 23 June 2023. Many families took advantage of this free service last year and we encourage new and returning families once again to register their child/ren for a dental check.
Smile Squad is the Victorian Government free school dental program.
This means all students can get a free dental check-up, preventive services, and treatment at school.
How to access free dental care
Smile Squad need your consent before they can provide services. Consent is usually provided by a parent or guardian. Please complete and submit the online consent form by 26/05/2023.
If you wish your child/ren to receive a dental check please sign up to Smile Squad at: https://bit.ly/smilesquadvic.
The electronic consent form can be translated into more than 100 languages.
Smile Squad dental packs
All children deserve a healthy smile, and the Smile Squad free school dental program is working hard to help make sure this happens.
Your child(ren) will soon receive a free dental pack to bring home. The dental pack contains a toothbrush, full sized toothpaste, and an oral health brochure. Please take the time to read the brochure. It’s full of helpful hints and tips to help your whole family eat well, drink well and clean well – for life.
Smile Squad provides standard strength fluoride toothpaste that is generally used by ages six and over, unless recommended by a dental or trained health professional.
If your child is under six, please talk to a dental or trained health professional to find out if your child might benefit from using this toothpaste. You can also choose to put the toothpaste away until they turn six or give it to someone else in your family to use.
Do I need to attend my child’s appointment?
No, you do not need to attend your child’s appointment. You can attend if you would like to, and you can take your child to the community dental clinic if you prefer.
The Banyule Community Health Smile Squad look forward to seeing you soon.
Parent Support Webinars
Parenting pre-teens
- Be more confident as your child enters their teen years
- Learn why adolescents behave the way they do
- How to guide your pre-teens behaviour
- Help your young person with their feelings
Webinar details:
- When: Monday 15 May
- Time: 7.00pm to 8.30pm
- Where: Online, access details will be sent to your email when you purchase a ticket
- Bookings: Essential via trybooking.com/CHKVI
Promoting mental fitness in your child
They say it takes a village to raise a child–parents, carers, teachers, support staff, to name a few– who all work together to support the children in their lives.
Thanks to the generous support of the Barr Family Foundation, Smiling Mind is extending an exclusive invitation to parents and carers of students at our Victorian partner schools to join us in a webinar next month to help support children’s mental fitness and social and emotional learning at home.
We invite parents and carers to join a free webinar next month, where a Smiling Mind psychologist will discuss common issues children face with their mental fitness including navigating friendships, emotional regulation and learning how to confidently take on more responsibility, with research and evidence to support parents and carers to confidently respond.
Webinar: Promoting mental fitness in your child
- Date/Time: Wednesday 24th May 2023 at 12:00pm AEST
- Registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cTbtO-zCTI6m-sTfunBPiA
Have a great week and I hope all our Mums and special friends have a wonderful day on Sunday.
Gill
FIRST AID AND MEDICAL CONSENT The Department no longer seeks parent consent to administer first aid or receive medical attention. This Department update has been made because schools have a duty of care to provide appropriate and reasonable first aid to students and to take action in emergency situations. Additionally, parents cannot delegate decision-making authority, including consent for medical treatment. Where a student requires medical attention, the medical professional administering treatment would either speak to the parent or provide treatment without consent.
UNIFORM SHOP RELOCATION The school uniform shop provider A Plus Schoolwear/My Uniform store has relocated to new premises. Please find attached information re location and updated operating hours.
If you order online your order will be delivered to the school. If there are any issues with sizes etc uniforms can be returned to the office for exchange.
Kind regards,
Lucy Addati
Business Manager
New Certificate Design Viewbank primary school is hosting a competition for the new certificate design. This certificate will be replacing the citizen of the month award. This competition will be open to all students that would like to participate.
The person who receives this award will be someone who is a positive member of the community.
They contribute to the community by attending events like working bees. They might fundraise. They go above and beyond to contribute to the school and wider community.
Your certificate design must include:
- VPS colours
- Name of the certificate(star of the term)
- Space for name of the student receiving the award
- Space for the teacher to write a description on why the student is getting the award
- The students year level and grade, space for the date and a space for the teachers name
- It also has to be landscape
The design must be handed in to the office by week 4. After that date our Year 6 leadership team will decide on which design will be chosen.
Thanks,
Year 6 Leaders
An Important Announcement From The Junior School Council
This is to all students. There is going to be an art competition.
- You have to enter by the 22nd of May.
- The theme is “A Voice For Generations” as it will be Reconciliation Week.
- If you want to enter you have to bring a gold coin donation.
- Your JSC rep can take your art to Ms Walker or Mrs Yates.
Thank you for reading!
By Jack Monagle on behalf of all the other JSC
Look what our Year 4's cooked this week!
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Lower Plenty Bakehouse will be providing the school with fundraising Lunch Orders every Thursday. These lunches have been implemented via our Parents and Friends Committee. All money raised will be used towards our major school upgrade.
Our Term 2 Fundraising Lunch Order Dates are:
- Thursday 18th May (Orders closing on 15th May, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 25th May (Orders closing on 22nd May, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 1st June (Orders closing on 29th May, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 8th June (Orders closing on 5th June, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 15th June (Orders closing on 12th June, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 22nd June (Orders closing on 19th June, 3:00pm)
Orders need to be placed in advance via Compass Canteen. Ordering will close the Monday before the lunch date at 3pm. All of Term 2 lunch dates are now open for orders, and can be placed in advance for the whole term if you choose to do so.
Please see attached a Parent User Guide on how to order via Compass Canteen. Please note a 35 cents order fee will be charged at check out.
Parent assistance is required on Lunch Days from 10:30am to 12:30pm to assist with the packing of our orders. If you are available to assist in anyway can you please email the school at viewbank.ps@education.vic.gov.au so your name can be added to our roster.
Thank you for your support.
ICY POLE FRIDAY Students are able to purchase icy poles over the counter at lunchtime every Friday. All icy poles cost $1.00 each.
Entertainment Book 20% of the membership goes directly to support our fundraising at Viewbank Primary School. https://www.entertainment.com.au/current-promotion
Lunches must be ordered online using the CLASSROOM CUISINE website.
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WEEKLY SECOND HAND UNIFORM SALE - Every Friday 8:45am to 9:15am, next to the music room. Jumpers with the school logo, long and short sleeve school polo tops and school dresses will be $2.00. We are currently asking for donations of any unwanted reusable school uniform items to sell at our stall.
Instrumental Music Enrolments Can all students who would like to join our school instrumental music programs please inform the relevant teacher below of your expression of interest.
SINGING WITH GABRIELLA - Gabriella
- Email: favrettogab@gmail.com
- Phone: 0413 676 733
STRINGS - MR CAI
- Email: cai66@optusnet.com.au
- Phone: 0403 490 078
GUITAR/BASS GUITAR - Alec
- Email: alec.stalder@gmail.com
DRUMS/BEGINNER KEYBOARD - Michael
- Email: michaelfindlaymcnab@gmail.com
- Phone: 0451 394 540
PIANO/KEYBOARD – Tiaryn Griggs
- Email: tiaryngriggs@gmail.com
Our school has partnered with an independent provider called TheirCare to provide exceptional Outside School Hours Care services for our school community.
The program is available for all children at Viewbank Primary School from 6:30am until 9:00am in the morning and from 3:30pm until 6:15pm each school day.
During School Holidays & Pupil Free Days the service will operate from 6:30am until 6:15pm.
Families wishing to use this service can visit the TheirCare website: www.theircare.com.au
Families are eligible for a Government Rebate called the Child Care Subsidy which can reduce the cost per session by up to 85%.
More information can be obtained by contacting the school or ringing TheirCare Support Team on 1300 072 410.
TheirCare provides a stimulating and safe environment for all children. During sessions, children develop life-skills, friendships, confidence and creativity through play-based programs.
A PLUS SCHOOLWEAR
Shop Details:
- Unit 3/30 Heaths Court, Mill Park
- T: 9436 4005
- E: info@northernregionaluniforms.com.au
Opening Hours:
- Monday to Thursday 9am to 5pm
- Friday 9am to 3pm
- Saturday 9am to 12pm
Online Ordering Please Visit: www.aplusschoolwear.com.au