PUPIL FREE DAY (OSHClub available)
- Wednesday 13th July 2022
- Monday 31st October 2022
FUNDRAISING BAKERY LUNCH ORDER DATES - Lower Plenty Bakehouse
- Thursday 9th June (Orders closing on 6th June, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 16th June (Orders closing on 13th June, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 23rd June (Orders closing on 20th June, 3:00pm)
2022 TERM DATES
- Term 2: 26th April - 24th June (2:30pm finish)
- Term 3: 11th July - 16th September (2:30pm finish)
- Term 4: 3rd October - 20th December (1:30pm finish)
2022 SCHOOL CAMP DATES
- Year 3: Arrabri Lodge Camp - Monday 8th August to Wednesday 10th August
- Year 5: Lady Northcote Recreation Camp - Tuesday 4th October to Friday 7th October
- Year 6: Camp Coonawarra - Monday 18th July to Friday 22nd July
OPEN MORNING AND WORKING BEE You only had to be here on Saturday to feel and understand the community spirit of Viewbank Primary School. In the first instance, we had a well-attended and extremely well organised working bee with different groups spreading softfall on the various playgrounds, filling our flagpole garden with topsoil, and setting up our new vegie patch up in the old tennis court in readiness for the ‘big move’ later in the year. Thank you to everyone for another job well done. In particular thank you to these families who signed the attendance sheet – Cadusch, Bailey, Waese/Stevens, King, Moucha, Parrent, Deane, Wang, Grimshaw, Seletto and Carpenter. In the second instance we had a number of staff and student leaders gladly giving up their Saturday morning to conduct school tours for a very large number of families taking up the open morning opportunity provided. The staff were well prepared and answered many questions and discussed what happens in day-to-day life at our school. Thank you. I was extremely proud of our student leaders who, with confidence and poise, conducted many of the aforementioned school tours. We were all blown away with their knowledge of and pride in their school, and the way they handled questions and showed genuine respect for each visitor. Their parents should be very proud of them, as they are a credit to their parents and our school. And the feedback from our visitors could not have been more positive. Given that our student leaders had already conducted a large number of tours on Tuesday (our Open Day), it was gratifying to see them come back (in full school uniform) on a Saturday morning! Well done and thank you!
SCHOOL COUNCIL A reminder that the June School Council meeting is scheduled for 7pm in the staffroom on Tuesday, June 7.
FOUNDATION 2023 Whilst it may seem a little early for this request, it is really important for planning for 2023 that we know of our numbers from ‘within’ our school as early as possible. So, if you are a current Viewbank Primary School family and you have a child commencing school in 2023 we courteously ask you to complete the enrolment information as soon as possible. Don’t forget also that we have a range of school readiness activities planned for next term including Storyland, Mathsland and PMP land. Details are on our website and are promoted in the newsletter as the dates draw near.
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE DAY As you will know, today was a professional practice day for all staff, with teachers in attendance working primarily on assessment and reporting tasks and our education support staff off-site attending a full day of first aid training and refreshers in CPR. It is opportune to remind everyone that we have two further pupil free days in 2022. The first of these is on Wednesday, July 13 where the day has been set aside for the conduct of three way conferences to enable the reporting of progress so far this school year. The final pupil free day for 2022 will be on Monday, October 31 (the day before Cup Day) again to enable staff to work on their reporting of student progress. As always, OSHClub will be open on each day to enable full day care for your children if you cannot make other arrangements.
Well, winter has hit with a vengeance. Look after yourself and your health, rug up and hopefully enjoy a lovely weekend.
Kind regards,
Bill Kersing
Principal
Semester 1 Reports Our staff are right in the middle of completing mid-year student reports. These will provide you with information about your child’s progress in the first half of the year. While we have not had lock downs to contend with so far in 2022, there has still been quite a bit of disruption due to student and staff absence. Earlier this year, this was more covid related. More recently it has been diagnosed influenza and general illness such as sniffles and coughs.
Many students are only now, late in Term 2, finding their school stamina. This is their ability to remain focused on their learning for a whole day. For some students, this means that they may not make as much growth as they have in previous pre-lockdown years, yet they are continuing to catch up fast.
Unless you have a family member who is a primary school teacher, you may not realise how much time reports take. Staff (classroom, specialists, support) can only write these during out of school hours times such as evenings and on weekends. Like you, many of our staff have commitments (family and other) after school and on weekends. Writing reports happens around these commitments. I would like to thank the staff for amount of work that they do, and effort made, to provided reports that are as accurate as possible under the current circumstances. It is a huge time commitment, often going unrecognized.
As Mr Kersing has mentioned above, our 3-Way Conferences are scheduled for Wednesday, 13th July. You will be able to book your time via Compass from Tuesday, 14th June. The exact time will be announced in next week’s Viewbank Voice. Reports will be available for you to download in the final week of this term.
Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) Every year, all schools in Australia participate in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). The NCCD process requires schools to identify information already available in the school about supports provided to students with disability. These relate to legislative requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, in line with the NCCD guidelines (2019).
Information provided about students to the Australian Government for the NCCD includes:
- year of schooling
- category of disability: physical, cognitive, sensory or social/emotional
- level of adjustment provided: support provided within quality differentiated teaching practice, supplementary, substantial or extensive.
In our context at Viewbank Primary School, students will be included in the NCCD process if they have (amongst other things) evidence of an ILP in 2021 or 2022, notes from parent teacher interviews or emails that outline adjustments in the classroom, participation in Literacy and/or Numeracy support classes, had an educational assessment (cognitive, hearing, speech etc) that outlines particular strategies that need to be implemented, the school receives funding for a students under the Program for Students with Disabilities, etc.
This information assists schools to:
- formally recognise the supports and adjustments provided to students with disability in schools
- consider how they can strengthen the support of students with disability in schools
- develop shared practices so that they can review their learning programs in order to improve educational outcomes for students with disability.
The NCCD provides state and federal governments with the information they need to plan more broadly for the support of students with disability.
The NCCD will have no direct impact on your child and your child will not be involved in any testing process. The school will provide data to the Australian Government in such a way that no individual student will be able to be identified – the privacy and confidentiality of all students is ensured. All information is protected by privacy laws that regulate the collection, storage and disclosure of personal information. To find out more about these matters, please refer to the Australian Government’s Privacy Policy (https://www.dese.gov.au/about-us/resources/department-education-skills-and-employment-complete-privacy-policy-0).
Further information about the NCCD can be found on the NCCD Portal (https://www.nccd.edu.au).
If you have any questions about the NCCD, please contact the school.
Have a great weekend. Rug up, the cold is not going away anytime soon!
Patrick
Proposal for new Summer School Dress Thank you to all those people who have voted for their preferred option for our new summer school dress. If you haven’t voted yet you can do so using this Google Form link.
Our students in grades Foundation to 5 have voted this week. I’ll let you know next week the option we have decided on.
The dresses should be available in October/November for purchase, ready for the 2023 school year and will be phased in over a two year period – 2023-2024.
Empathy is our ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others to feel and see what they do. We practise this through being kind and compassionate towards other people.
Brain imaging data shows that being kind to others registers in the brain as more like eating chocolate than like fulfilling an obligation to do what’s right (e.g., eating brussel sprouts)!
Research shows that practising empathy, such as performing acts of kindness, taps into our brain’s ‘mirror neurons’, builds compassion and our behaviour becomes more social and community-based.
View Part 3 of the Resilience Project series here - Empathy https://theresilienceproject.com.au/parent-and-carer-hub-hugh/
Watch the videos to hear stories about resilience, and be introduced to how Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness can support your kids learning and development, and also support you.
Here’s an activity to practise empathy and kindness:
Reflect on someone in your life who could benefit from an act of kindness today. It could be a friend who would love some affirmation about their work, your pet who deserves an extra treat, or a family member who would love a phone call or text message.
Make a plan for who you are going to show an act of kindness to, and what you are going to do.
If you want to add accountability to your plan, share it with someone else and encourage them to do the same thing.
Follow up with each other in a few days’ time, to ask how it went!
Have a great week, stay warm and well.
Gill
School Tours We run school tours on a Tue, Wed, Thu at 9.30am for prospective families. Please call the office to make a booking.
Enrolments We are currently accepting enrolments for 2023 and are happy to assist with any queries.
Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) 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.
It is important that funding made available in 2022 supports students to participate in school trips, camps and sporting activities this year rather than being held for future years. This funding can also be used in conjunction with any funding accrued from previous years. Please note these activities will only take place if they meet COVIDSafe requirements.
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 complete the attached application form and return to the office with a copy of your card.
You can also 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.
Kind regards,
Lucy Addati
Business Manager
Year 2 - Term 2 Heritage Village Excursion On Monday the Year 2s went on an excursion to Bundoora Heritage Farm to learn more about the Past for their Inquiry Unit. Besides being an amazingly cold and wet day the students showed great resilience and learnt so much. One thing we learnt was in the past there used to be someone called the ‘Ice Man’, he would distribute ice to the households and that ice used to come from a frozen river in North America. During the day we visited an old school, a farrier, an old farm house and discovered how newspapers were first printed. Here are a few photos of the students enjoying the day and appreciating the time we live in.
The history of Viewbank Primary School If you would like to find out more about our wonderful school’s past over the last 56 Years and would be interested in purchasing a copy of the VPS 50th Anniversary book another print run of these books would be available if enough interest is shown.
Please contact the school office to register your interest – It’s quite the read!
Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is now open and Viewbank Primary School is excited to be participating. The PRC application offers a range of exciting features including:
- access to a library catalogue (including book images and blurbs)
- a modern user-friendly interface
- rewarding students with badges as challenge milestones are achieved
- the option for students to mark books as a favourite, give them a star rating or complete a book review
The Challenge is open to all Victorian children from birth to Year 10 in recognition of the importance of reading for literacy development. It is not a competition; but a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by 2 September 2022.
Children from Prep to Year 2 are encouraged to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers. Children from Year 3 to Year 10 are challenged to read 15 books.
All children who meet the Challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers.
To read the Premier’s letter to parents, view the booklist and for more information about the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge, visit: https://www.vic.gov.au/premiers-reading-challenge
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Due to parent request the Lower Plenty Bakehouse will be providing the school with fundraising Lunch Orders every Thursday during Term 2. 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 9th June (Orders closing on 6th June, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 16th June (Orders closing on 13th June, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 23rd June (Orders closing on 20th 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.
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 $5.00 and all other items $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
SINGING WITH JADE - Jade
- Email: jadefaving@gmail.com
- Phone: 0413 834 933
STRINGS - MR CAI
- Email: cai66@optusnet.com.au
- Phone: 0403 490 078
GUITAR/BASS GUITAR - Alec
- Email: alec.stalder@gmail.com
PIANO/KEYBOARD - Ella
- Email: ellac.blackburn@gmail.com
- Phone: 0410 938 840
DRUMS - Michael
- Email: michaelfindlaymcnab@gmail.com
- Phone: 0451 394 540
PHONE NUMBER: 0448 075 422
EMAIL: viewbank@oshclub.com.au
A PLUS SCHOOLWEAR Our uniform supplier is A Plus Schoolwear which is located at 41-43 Northern Road Heidelberg West. Open hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s from 9am to 4.30pm (closed on weekend and public holidays).
You can also purchase your uniform online at www.aplusschoolwear.com.au