Term 1 CALENDAR

FEBRUARY Fri 8 First Friday assembly. Mon 11 Getting to know your child chats this week. Wed 13 Preps day off. Tues 19 6:00pm Whole school information session. Wed 20 Preps day off. Tues 26 Twilight sports and BBQ. Wed 27 Preps day off. MARCH Mon 11 Labour Day public holiday. Thurs 21 Curriculum Day. APRIL Fri 5 2:30pm End of Term 1.

Malmsbury Primary School Newsletter

Learning with a view...to the future.

Dear Parents, Carers and Friends,

Welcome everyone to the start of what will be another great year at Malmsbury Primary School. What a lovely start to the term we have had. I have enjoyed catching up with everyone, hearing holiday stories, seeing how very tall some of our students are now and getting to know our new preps and their families. A special welcome to our 14 preps– Peggy, Oscar, Hayley, Django, Charlie, Rosina, Noah, Kota, Zoe, Renni, Edith, Levi, Bastian and Arbella. What a fantastic job they are doing at settling in to school. Thank you to all our prep parents and carers who are supporting their child with the transition– you are all doing a great job! We have a number of new students at other year levels too– welcome Skyla, Atrina, Assyria, Jack, Finn, Darcy, Andrew, Arke and James. It is great to have you join our school community.

Staffing. A very big thank you to all our staff who made time over the holidays to come in and prepare their classrooms for the start of the year. Our staff this year are: P/1= Rainer Canobie-Harris 1/2= Jade Batey 3/4= Pixy Amber 5/6= Siobhan Moody (Monday—Wednesday) Carolyn Tavener (Thursday & Friday) Integration aide= Alison Butler Business Manager= Jan McIntyre (Tuesday-Thursday) Visual Art= Paul Allen (Wednesday) Japanese= Jaimee rice (Wednesday) Performing Arts= Joseph Bromley OSHC– Louise Olsen Cleaner= Janette Smith Tech support= Ken Hawkey

Getting to know your child chats. Go to www.schoolinterviews.com.au and enter the code 9zduw Enter you details, select the teachers you wish to see and the times that suit best. At Malmsbury Primary School we work together to help us all achieve our best. We want to hear from you when you have concerns or celebrations and we will be getting in touch with you for the same reasons. Please get in touch by phone, email or make a time to meet with your child’s teacher or myself when you need to discuss your child’s progress. We are looking forward to working with you all.

Warm regards, Carolyn Tavener.

Principal

Thursday 7 February 2019 - Issue #1

Contact us- Phone 03 5423 2284 Fax 03 5423 2044 Email malmsbury.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au Web www.malmsburyps.vic.edu.au Twitter @MalmsburyPS

Lunchboxes. Malmsbury Primary School is a Go For Your Life school. We encourage all our families to choose active ways to get to school, to drink plenty of fresh water, to exercise regularly and to pack a healthy lunchbox for their chil-dren and themselves! Please make sure your child has a freshly filled water bottle each day, a fruit/vegie snack for fruit break time and healthy foods to help them make the most of their learning day. No chocolates or lollies are to come to school please, keep them for occasional after school snacks. We aim to keep our rubbish to a minimum too so see if you can pack ‘Nude Food’. We regularly put lunchbox ideas in our newsletter so look out for those. School bell times. Yard supervision starts at 8:40am. Please do not drop your children at school before 8:30am as teachers may not be here and we do not want students unsupervised. Please help us to keep your children safe. First bell goes at 8:55am. Students are expected to be at school by this time. Please ensure your child is here by then. Arriving late is disruptive to the class, your child will find it more difficult to settle in as they haven’t had an opportunity to meet and greet their friends before school and they will have missed instructions from the teacher. Families arriving after 9:00am must sign the Late Arrival book at the office & students collect a late pass to take to their teacher. Recess 11:00-11:30am. Students are supervised while they sit together for 10 minutes to eat and then go to play. Lunch 1:30-1:40pm. Students eat inside. Lunch play 1:40-2:30pm. End of the day 3:30pm. A teacher is on yard duty at the end of the day until 3:45pm. If you are running late, please phone the school to let us know and we can reassure your child that you are on your way. Contact and Medical information. Please make sure we have your up to date contact de-tails including who we contact if we can’t contact you. It also extremely important that we have up to date infor-mation about any medical conditions your children have. Asthma plans must be updated every year and the school given the copy signed by the child’s doctor.

Outside of School Hours Care (OSHC) We are pleased to welcome Louise Olsen as our OSHC coordinator. Louise is enjoying getting to know our OSHC children and their families. She has lots of ideas for our OSHC program and is keen to hear from you if you have any ideas too. Drop past the OSHC room and say ‘Hello’ and check out our program. Our OSHC service runs each day Monday to Friday 3:30-6:00pm. If you would like your child/ren to attend OSHC please complete a 2019 enrolment form. You can book your child in on a casual basis but you must let us know by 11am on the day. Please make use of our OSHC service. We set it up to support our families and it needs your support to con-tinue operating. Student Accident Insurance arrangements. Parents and Guardians are reminded that DET does not provide personal accident insurance for students. Par-ents and guardians are responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for injured students, including any transport costs. Reasonably low cost insurance policies are available from commercial insurers. Zetland Lodge Bursary presentation. Congratulations again to Erin and Ziggy who were the 2018 recipients of a Zetland Bursary. Here they are re-ceiving their awards in January at the Zetland Lodge.

School banking details-

Bank Australia BSB – 313 140 Acc. No. 1207 4523 Reference – your surname

Student Absences. Please remember if your child is absent from school, you must inform the school the reason for their ab-sence. You can send a note, tell their teacher, contact the school or send us a message via http://goo.gl/i0dKiJ or the Tools & Resources section on the Konnective app.

Our gorgeous Preps!

Malmsbury PS OSHC! I'm Louise Olsen and I'm super excited to be the new OSHC Co-ordinator! I live in Castlemaine and work part-

time at Castlemaine Secondary College. I met most of the OSHC kids and parents in the last couple of weeks of

Term 4 last year and it took a very short time to feel welcome and relaxed in this lovely school with friendly

students, staff, parents and carers.

Weeks 1 and 2 have just flown by. We have chosen to start the year with sorting and organising. Malmsbury

OSHC has collected so many bits and pieces, art and craft supplies, books and games, that we have been sorting

things out, seeing what we have, and putting it where we can find it again so that we can use these things. The

students have been discovering long-lost toys, telling stories about past OSHC activities, and being inspired to

come up with activities and games that we can enjoy in 2019.

We haven't been throwing much out, but if we have kept something we have given it a special place and pur-

pose. Having discussions around each item has meant thinking about reuse and recycling, organising and mak-

ing the most of what we have rather than buying shiny new resources. It's a big job and may well carry on into

next week's program. Our students invented two things this week: bead slime and cup cows (and cup sheep).

They are amazingly creative!

We have also welcomed Django and Jayce to OSHC and they have had great fun with dress ups and imaginative

play.

We have been eating healthy snacks, spreading our own corn crackers, as well as playing some music games,

playing percussion on found objects and playing on the playground outside for fresh air and exercise.

I am very much looking forward to a fun and productive year at OSCH, providing a safe and friendly place for

the kids to grow.

From Louise.

PS. Photos of pizza making and some general OSHC fun.

Bushfire At-Risk Register - Schools

School procedures for the bushfire season

Fire danger ratings and warnings are used in Victoria to provide clear direction on the safest options for preserving life.

Schools and children’s services listed on the DET Bushfire At-Risk Register (BARR) will be closed when a Code Red fire danger rating day is determined in their Bureau of Meteorology district.

Our school has been identified as being one of those at high bushfire risk and is listed on the BARR.

Where possible, we will provide parents with up to four days notice of a potential Code Red day closure by letter, a phone call, Konnective or Facebook message. A Code Red day will be determined by the Emergency Management Commissioner no later than 1.00 pm the day before the potential closure. Once we are advised of the confirmation of the Code Red day we will provide you with advice before the end of the school day.

Once confirmed, the decision to close will not change, regardless of improvements in the weather forecast. This is to avoid confusion and help your family plan alternative care arrangements for your child. It is also important to note that:

No staff will be on site on days where the school is closed due to a forecast Code Red day.

Out-of-school-hours care will also be cancelled on these days

School camps will be cancelled if a Code Red fire danger rating day is determined for the Bureau of Meteorology district in which the camp is located.

On these Code Red days families are encouraged to enact their Bushfire Survival Plan – on such days children should never be left at home or in the care of older children.

For those of us living in a bushfire prone area, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) advises that when Code Red days are forecast, the safest option is to leave the night before or early on the morning of the Code Red day.

As part of preparing our school for potential hazards such as fire, we have updated and completed our Emergency Management Plan and reprioritised any maintenance works that may assist in preparing for the threat of fire and cleared our facility’s grounds and gutters.

What can parents do?

Make sure your family’s bushfire survival plan is up-to-date and includes alternative care arrangements in the event that our school is closed.

Ensure we have your current contact details, including your mobile phone numbers. Keep in touch with us by reading our newsletters

Most importantly at this time of year, if you’re planning a holiday or short stay in the bush or in a coastal area, you should check warnings in advance of travel and remain vigilant during your stay. If your child is old enough, talk to them about bushfires and your family’s bushfire survival plan. You can access more information about children’s services closures on the Department of Education and Training website – see http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/health/pages/closures.aspx

For up-to-date information on this year’s fire season see:

https://emergency.vic.gov.au

Facebook (facebook.com/cfavic)

Twitter (twitter.com/CFA_Updates)

ABC local radio, Sky News and other emergency broadcasters

VicEmergency Hotline (1800 226 226)

Playground upgrade. Over the last few years our School Council and Parents Club have been fundraising to remove the old treated pine equipment and introduce safer, more interesting play equipment for our students to use. The next step in our playground improvements is to create other play areas in the yard that utilise more natu-ral materials. One of our parents, Desiree Radi Mansbridge, has very generously given her time to draft some ideas for our yard. Her draft design is below and also on the noticeboard at the front of the school. We are very keen to get your feedback and we will be asking our students for their ideas too. Please take some time to have a look at the design and to add your thoughts. Thank you.

Community Notices