Grade 1 Dinner Congratulations to our Grade 1 students on a fabulous Grade 1 dinner last Thursday night. The Grade 1 students were busy planning and organsing the events of the night all day Thursday along with their teachers and many parent helpers. This wonderful planning and preparation made way for fun and excitement with a sustainability theme throughout. I would like to thank the Grade 1 students for giving everything a go with such passion and enthusiasm and displaying such lovely manners. Thank you to the Grade 1 team of teachers and all of the staff from Prep to Grade 6, Integration Aides and pre-service teachers who gave up their time to provide such a wonderful experience.

Aerobics Once again, our volunteer teachers – Julie, Melinda and Gretl – provided great coaching and opportunities for our Aerobics Teams to shine! Both teams did extremely well in the Aeroschools State Championships placing 3rd and 6th after competing against 22 state school teams. We are so very proud of both teams!

Trivia Night Glitter was sprinkled throughout the St Kilda Town Hall for our Trivia Night. We had Trivia, fun, auctions, glitter, dancing, food trucks and a great night together. It is a wonderful night for staff and parents to relax and have some friendly competition!! This successful and amazing night was all put together with thanks to a band of parent volunteers. A huge thank you to Lucy, Elleni, Rose, Holly, Amy, Lauren, Penne, Jane, Sharon, Meagan, Kerry & Ashlee for taking this on board and organising such a fantastic night to raise funds for our school and in particular, funds to

assist our Playscapes and Grounds Masterplan. Ed – one of our parents and School Councillors - put together a wonderful video from the EPS kids to let us know what fundraising money has been spent on in previous years and their hopes and dreams for future plans. You can view this video on our website. Thank you to everyone who attended or bid through Galabid to help raise money for EPS.

P a r e n t Te a c h e r Interviews Our Parent Teacher Interviews Online bookings are now open. Parent Teacher Interviews will be held on Thursday 29 August. Some teachers will also be available throughout that week during different times. Parent-Teacher Interviews are an opportunity to meet with your child’s teacher and a great way to promote communication between school and home. Parent Teacher Interviews is another way to enable us to continue to work together toward our students’ learning and social wellbeing. The objective of our parent-teacher interviews are to: involve you in the educational process, to document progress, reflect on learning outcomes and goals, give you the opportunity to express feelings, questions or concerns and continue the ongoing communication networks between us. We hope to see you.

Father Bob Our Grade 3 and 4 students, with the Kitchen Garden teachers, have formed a very special partnership with the Father Bob McGuire Foundation. Throughout Homelessness Week, Janet, Sam, Kathy, all of the kids and Grade 3 & 4 teachers produce treats for the homeless to enjoy. These treats are enjoyed after a meal that is provided by the Father Bob McGuire Foundation in South Melbourne and St.Kilda, or

14 August 2019 No. 13

Newsletter

CALENDAR

Thursday 15 August Grade 1 Excursion Port Phillip Eco

Centre

Mon 19 August - Fri 23 August Book Week

Mon 19 August-Wed 21 August Grade 4 Bike Ed 9am-1.30pm

Wednesday 21 August Grade 6 Excursion Immigration

Museum 9am-3.30pm

Prep Grandparents Day

Wednesday 4 September Whole school production & rehearsal

Palais Theatre

Saturday 7 September Community Market

Thursday 12 September PREP-Collingwood Children’s Farm

Excursion

Friday 13 September Grade 4 Excursion Elsternwick Park

Eco Centre, 9am-12.30

Mon 16 Sep –Wed 18 Sep Grade 6 Camp, Camp Arrabri Lodge

Wed 18 Sep - Fri 20 Sep Grade 65Camp, Camp Arrabri Lodge

Friday 20 September End of Term 3 : 2.30pm Finish

Website : www.elwoodprimary.vic.edu.au Scott Street, Elwood Vic 3184 Phone : 9531 2762

Community Market (bookings) : www.trybooking.com/437202

Saturday 7 September Community Market

1A, 1T, 3C, 5A, 6L rostered

Monday 14 October Curriculum Day

Student Free Day

are taken home to fill lunchboxes or eaten with a cuppa. Janet, Valerie and Julie started the hand out of our EPS home-made treats on Wednesday night in South Melbourne and they continued to be distributed by the Foundation on Friday and Sunday nights in our local community. This was posted on the Fr Bob Foundation Facebook site: Following the outstanding success of last year’s production, throughout Homelessness Week the fabulous students of Elwood Primary School (with a little help from their equally fabulous teachers), have again cooked hundreds and hundreds (and yes hundreds more) delicious treats for our friends – cupcakes, Anzac biscuits, lemon slices, pizza pinwheels, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, muesli bars ……. and so many more. Needless to say as we’ve been distributing them during the evening meals we were often asked “are there any more, please?” On behalf of our friends, hundreds and hundreds of thanks to everyone at Elwood Primary School. Congratulations EPS Kitchen and Garden Program. We are so very proud!!

Nicole Richards…...Principal

Production Update! Big thanks to everyone for putting so much effort into their part in production. Special shout out to the parent band giving up Wednesday nights to jam the songs. Rehearsals haven’t got long to go. Students have blown us away with their effort! Thank you teachers too for helping students get to rehearsals on time and ready to learn. Remember, performance Wednesday 4 September at the Palais Theatre. T i c k e t S a l e s a t T i c k e t m a s t e r h t t p s : / /www.ticketmaster.com.au/elwood-ps-heroes-of-change-st-kilda-04-09-2019/event/130056F2E3DFFBCD You’ll notice that the rehearsal schedule has been updated on the school website. More information about the performance night coming to you soon. We’ll tell you about things like when to arrive and what to wear. Soon bus forms will come out including tips on what to do during big rehearsal days. Thanks for your understanding. Please don’t hesitate to ask Kaz or Paula any questions. Looking forward to the big night!

Parent Opinion Survey The 2019 Parent Opinion Survey will run until Sunday 18 August. The survey will be conducted online and only takes 15 minutes to complete. It can be accessed via desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile through a secure online portal. It is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education

and Training that is conducted amongst a sample of randomly selected parents. All responses are anonymous. The survey is designed to assist us in gaining an understanding of your perceptions of school climate, student behaviour and student engagement. We will use the survey results to help inform and direct future planning and improvement strategies. A friendly

reminder should you have been selected, to please complete the online survey. We thank you in advance for your participation.

Grade One Dinner Last week the Grade One students threw a party like no other! The Grade 1 Dinner! Over 100 students planned an amazing dinner party with a strong f o c u s o n c a r i n g fo r o u r environment. The students helped plan the menu, make the food, plan the music playlist, make decorations out of recycled materials and even provide herbs and flowers form their own gardens to transform the JLC in to a party palace! The only landfill that was created from the event was half of a small bag of soft plastics, which were then taken to a soft plastics collection point. Every other form of waste was either reused, recycled or composted. An amazing effort from the students. We would like to say a huge thank you to the many parent helpers that came in to classrooms to help the students make pizzas and dip, chop veggies and fruit as well as create decorations. A special shout out goes to Mat Hughes for being our official photographer for the night - we are so lucky to have such talented and supportive parents in our community. Furthermore we would like to acknowledge and thank the huge team of teachers that volunteered for the night. We had classroom teachers from every year level from Prep all the way to Grade 6, amazing specialist teachers, our generous teacher aides and our very excited pre service teachers all pitching in to make the night the success that it was. Just another example of the community spirit thriving in our school!

The Grade One Teachers

Exclusion from school A friendly reminder if your child has been vomiting and has diarrhoea to please adhere to the exclusion rule of 48 hours. Likewise if your child has any other infectious disease’s (nasty head cold for example) please keep them at home until the symptoms have cleared. This will not only help to minimise the

spread of germs but will also assist with a speedier

recovery for your child.

Book Week & Story Dog Elwood Primary Celebrates Book Week with our Story Dog Mori. A gold coin donation on Tuesday 20 August will allow Elwood PS to sponsor our Story Dog Mori and continue the Story Dog Program. Mori will visit Grade 1 & 2 classes during Book Week reading his favorite story to the students with his handler Rosie and John. Thank you for your donation… Mori!

Poets Grove Kinder visit Each week a small group of Grade 5 students share the love of reading with the kinder students from Poets Grove Kinder. The Grade 5 students select their favourite picture story book to read to the kinder group. The Grade 5 students also get the opportunity to play with the kinder students. There are lots of smiles and giggles when interacting together. These Grade 5 students will be ‘buddies’ to our 2020 Prep students and have certainly started to bond with the kinder students preparing them for school.

Rosanna Grosso….Assistant Principal

Attachments: Enhanced Learning, Reducing Waste, Parent/Teacher Interviews, TeamKids, Positive Parenting, School Sustainability Festival, Cybersafety.