School Saving Bonus

The School Saving Bonus is a wonderful program that enables  families to access a one off $400 for each child enrolled in a government school. It's designed to help ease cost of living pressures. Last year, all families should have received an email with instructions how to access the SSB portal. From there, families can decide to use the funds for uniforms or to send to the school to pay for "activities". It's important to note that it can't be used for voluntary contributions.

Activities include excursions, incursions and camps. Sadly, Compass doesn't play nicely with this new initiative, so once you have "sent" the school the funds, you need to "tell" us to use them for an upcoming activity. To do so please email the school on ashburton.ps@education.vic.gov.au

Getting to Know You

Thank you to everyone for either meeting on site or online for this week's Getting to Know You meetings. They are an important part of building strong school-home connections as well as being a means for families to share the most up to date information about their child. 

Safety

As we return to school for 2025, it's an appropriate time to remind everyone in our community of the need to ensure everyone's safety as we all travel to and from school. Here are some simple reminders

• We have three school crossings manned by our wonderful crossing guards - Dee, Gordon and Chrisoula. Please use them with your child but also yourself. It sets a wonderful example to the students when they see adults using a safe way to cross the road.
• The drop off zone is in front of the junior playground. Please don't let your children out in front of parked cars
• The staff parking is just for that - staff. Please don't enter the car park to drop off your child in the morning or for collection. Also, we encourage everyone to NOT walk through the car park entry to save some time - walk through the pedestrian gates
• Those riding to school should wear appropriate helmets and walked their bike along the footpath on the edge of the school
• Drive slowly around Fakenham and Carool Roads! There's no need to rush!
• Finally, it can be a stressful time, but please keep calm! There's no need for aggression, angry words or actions.  

ALERT: GET READY FOR THE BEST SCHOOL DAY EVER! Monday March 24th!

Hi Ashburton families,

This year, we've got our eyes set on some important fundraising goals for our School Oval. We're reaching out to all our amazing families to join forces and make this a success. All it takes is

1. Creating an online profile and

2. Sharing your link with family and friends.

Please mark your calendars - we will be holding our Colour Fun Run on Monday March 24th at Our School Oval.

What do we need you to do?

All we need you to do this week is create an online profile at https://www.schoolfunrun.com.au.

This Friday at assembly, some students will be selected to receive prizes

Other prizes…

•Highest Fundraising Class

•Top fundraiser student will get a surprise prize

The class with the most profiles will get an icy-pole each as a reward.

Thank you all in advance, Parent's Association

Meet our Gate Greeters,

Members of our Community Team will be out in force at the gates next week as we trial Gate Greeters. Year 6 students who will be on the gates of the school from 8.45am welcoming students and families for the day. We hope that this adds to a lovely start of the day for you but also helps to build the confidence of our Year 6 students. Give them a wave when you come on through.

Ashy Swim Trials

Congratulations on those who attended the Ashy swim trials at the Ashburton Pool. Competing against the clock in freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly, it was great to see students give their all. We award ribbons at the most recent assembly. From this day we are able to select the swim team to represent Ashy at the Glen Iris District School Sports Association meeting next Tuesday. 

Year 1 have had a smooth start to 2025 and have loved settling in to and personalising our new classrooms. We have spent time making connections with new teachers and peers and developing classroom routines. In our first few weeks, Year 1 have been:

• Getting to know each other through teamwork activities and games.
• Recording our ideas and recording the sounds we hear in words during Writing.
• Making predictions using picture and text clues in Reading.
• Practising efficient and accurate counting of objects, including counting by 10s. 
• Learning to ask questions and use tally marks to collect responses. Making statements about the data we collect.
• Exploring light and sounds during Connected Learning program and using body percussion to make sound effects. 

Thank you to all of the families that have popped in to say hello and taken time to meet their child’s teacher in the first few weeks. We are looking forward to a great year ahead!

Year 3 has had a wonderful start to 2025. It has been so exciting getting to know one another and start our year of learning together in our new classrooms. So far this term, Year 3 have been:

• Building our teamwork skills and getting to know each other
• Learning about our iPads
• Discussing what good readers do and choosing Good Fit Texts
• Activating our prior knowledge and making predictions about Matilda
• Building our self monitoring strategies when reading
• Discovering what good writers do and how to structure procedural texts of our own
• Sharing our strategies for telling time and learning how to tell it to the minute
• Learning what it means to persist and be a good communicator

We are so excited for our Super Sleuths of Food incursion next week and starting to borrow books from the library. 

Assembly

Our assemblies are run by our assembly team made up of rotating Year 6 students. We celebrate student successes, share news and provide updates on what's happened and what's happening in our school community. You are most welcome to attend.

Assemblies will run on Fridays every fortnight. They will usually run from 2pm in the hall, but depending on the weather or other events, we may move them outside or to earlier in the day. We'll give you an update if that occurs.

The dates for this term's assembly are 

Friday 7th March

Friday 21st March

Friday 4th April (last day of Term 1)

In a few weeks, Year 3 and 5 students will participate in the NAPLAN assessments. This will take place over a two-week period starting on Wednesday March 12th.

NAPLAN sessions will take place on the following dates:

Wednesday 12th – Writing (handwritten for Yr 3 and iPads for Yr 5)

Thursday 13th - Reading (iPads for Yr 3 and 5)

Tuesday 18th - Conventions of Language (iPads for Yr 3 and 5)

Wednesday 19th - Numeracy (iPads for Yr 3 and 5)

All sessions will begin around 9.15am so it is important for students to be at school on time. 

In Year 3, students will complete their writing session by handwriting directly into a supplied booklet. While in Year 5, students will type directly into iPads using supplied keyboards. iPads are required for all other sessions for both Year 3s and 5s.

Headphones are also required for the NAPLAN test window. They are required to enable students to listen to prompts and to have questions read to them if needed. We have some available at school however it is preferably that they bring their own set (if available).

We also ask students to ensure their iPad is charged up the night before any NAPLAN test sessions they are due to undertake. 

There is limited time to allow students who miss tests to sit for a make up session later in the week. We will try to catch all missing students up but time restrictions might make this impossible.

Please remember to encourage your child to try their best during these upcoming sessions, but at the same time, it's important to emphasise that it's not the most important event in their lives. Their results from four days in the year do not reflect them - they are much more than that. 

If you have any further questions, please refer to the NAPLAN Parent Information attached.