Colour Run Fun

I want to thank our organisers for a wonderful event. For months Susan Lee, Stacey Louras and Kylie Macfarlane have been working behind the scenes in organising and promoting the big day. It is thanks to their hard work and your support that we were able to raise a gross figure of $31, 355!  When accounting for the number of students, this is actually the highest total we have ever raised for a Colour Run, surpassing the totals in 2021 and 2023! We are investigating how we can use these funds to improve the condition of the oval to make it more play and sport friendly. 

Playground

It goes without saying that our community will be as deflated as we are with the news we shared this week around the continued delays to the planned re-development of the playground. We are continuing to work with Department of Education bodies, most notably the Victorian School Building Authority and Legal Services as to a plan on how we can deliver a new playground for our students as soon as possible. We hope to be able to share more news in Term 2. 

Some missing faces early Term 2

I will be taking some leave during the first two weeks of Term 2. With public holidays involved I will be away for 8 schools days. In that time, Mrs Roberts will step up to take on the Principal role for that time. 

We also have a number of teaching staff who will be taking leave in the early weeks of Term 2. We have been able secure some of our regular casual relief teachers to take their classes. 

Phoebe Whitehead (1B) returning May 5th replaced by Mary Gibney

Anastasia Moukas (2B) returning May 5th replaced by Betty Maric

Liam Purdy (5B) returning April 30th replaced by Alyssa Lynikas

Additionally, Melissa Billington from our office will be taking the first 5 weeks of term as leave. Nicole Ralph will be taking additional days to support the office. 

School Council members - farewell

With the end of the current School Council cycle, we bid farewell to new of our members. 

Georgia Blood concludes her two year stint as a member of the group and I thank her for her time and also her always thoughtful contributions to our discussions and decisions. 

We also bid farewell to Camy Wong as she finishes her 5 year tour of School Council, the last 3 as President. In her time, Camy has been a member of School Council during the two years of COVID affected lockdowns and remote learning periods, been our school treasurer, presided over the amazingly successful Grand Fair in 2023 and also was on the selection committee to appoint our latest Principal (lucky me!). Camy has been able to bring her considerable knowledge and experience to bear on a number of complex matters and she has prided herself on being one of the conduits between our parental communities and the school's executive. Thank you for your service Camy! 

End of term

The final day of Term 1 will be Friday, April 4th when we conclude with an early 2.30pm dismissal (following on from our 2pm final assembly). The first week of Term 2 is a short one, with school returning on Tuesday, April 22nd. The first week will only be 3 days with Anzac Day being a public holiday on Friday, April 25th. 

Justin Hone 

Principal

What an amazing day it was Monday when the school converged on the oval to take part in the Colour Run 2025. 

Preparations began early with setting up the oval, putting out the coloured powders, installing the inflatables and marking the course. Each year level had a run of the track, with some students treating it like an Olympic event and others enjoying a more leisurely stroll. Regardless of how they moved, our parent volunteers were sure that everyone was doused with colour and the occasionally water spray as they made their way around. 

After all the year levels had a go, posed for a group photo and then had a well earned icy pole, our lucky staff crew of Mr Worlley, Miss Abbott, Mrs G, Miss Cath, Miss Hooper and Miss Dooley braved the trip as they completed two laps of colour and water much to the crowd's enjoyment. Finally, once we had passed the $30,000 grossed raised figure, Mr Hone was ambushed by seemingly hundreds of assailants throwing colour and water. At the stage he is still flushing colour out of his ears. 

It was all for a good cause and the funds raised will go towards revitalising the oval space to make it more useable for our student. We need send our big thanks to the students and staff for their enthusiastic approach to the day, the parents who volunteered, sponsored or just cheered on, but most of all to our wonderful organisers Susan Lee, Stacey Louras and Kylie Macfarlane!

For those families who signed up and made a fundraising account, parents will be able to select their children’s prizes from today until Monday, 31/03/2025. Please note that all families can continue to fundraise up until that date, which will be helpful for students who have not yet reached their fundraising target.

As we recently achieved  Gold level of acknowledgement for our School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) implementation for the third year running, I thought it might be timely to share further information on this subject. 

Each year, we are asked by the Department of Education to gather and share specific information and data relating to SWPBS, collated in an Annual Evaluation Report. 

Click here to view our Annual Evaluation Report and share in some of our notable accomplishments!

Rachel Roberts

Assistant Principal

The Junior School Council presents - 

Pyjama Day to raise money for The Royal Children's Hospital and the JSC (half each)

Friday April 4th (last day of Term 2) 

To help support the Royal Children's Hospital, the JSC will be having a Pyjama Day. Wear your favourite pyjamas to school! It might be a onesie, a dressing gown or flannels. Whatever you want as long as it's sunsmart (so no bare shoulders!) and you wear normal school shoes (so no slippers etc). 

Half the raised funds will go to the RCH, while the other half will go towards the JSC for student led projects arounds the school. We are aiming for $400 so please bring in a gold coin!

Year 2 are busy preparing for our special celebration of our wonderful work at Expo next week! Can’t wait to see you all there!

• For spelling we are revising vowel sounds.
• We are identifying the main idea in fiction and nonfiction texts .
• Continuing to look at structural details of procedural texts.
• Writing detailed procedures from learning experiences this term.
• Creating an engaging retell/storytelling - ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ using sound effects to narrate and retell.
• Using MAB to discuss partitioning numbers and trading.

This year we are celebrating Mother's Day in two ways!

First up, we will be having our now traditional Mother's Day event before school in the hall on Friday, May 9th. Come in with your child/children for a morning of coffee and craft making. It's a great opportunity to socialise with others in a relaxed environment. 

A new initiative for this year is a special luncheon at the Gardiner Hotel (away from the kids!). For $80 you'll enjoy a 3 course lunch and a chance to get to know some of the other parents in a different setting. 

Tickets for the luncheon are on sale from Monday 31st March via www.trybooking.com/DAAFW 

Thank you to the organisers!

Over the past few weeks the Preps have had lots of interesting learning experiences with special events at school and visitors from our school community. The Preps participated in their first Colour Run which was so exciting. They dressed up in orange or traditional clothing for Harmony Day and, they were visited by the local Burwood fire fighters who taught them about good and bad fires and the importance of having a safe meeting place. 

This week the Preps were also treated to a presentation by the 2022 -2023 Australian Children’s Laureate author Gabrielle Wang, who also happens to be Harrison from Prep C’s grandmother. Gabrielle spoke to the children about how she writes books and taught them how to draw their very own dragon. What an exciting time it has been to be learning and playing in Prep! 

Other learning experiences in Prep over the past two weeks have included:

• Hearing and generating rhyming words.
• Learning how to use an iPad safely with their Prep pal.
• Subitising numbers to 5. Subitising is being able to look at a group of items and know how many there are without counting. 
• Learning the letters and sounds of our first set of phonemes/graphemes in the Sound Waves program and blending these together to read words. 

We have had a great couple of weeks in Year 4 and are looking forward to the much deserved term break coming up! 

We have:

• Been reading non-fiction texts and practising our summarising skills 
• Researched  information on a topic and begun writing our own information reports 
• Worked in small groups during connected learning to create an activity that encourages physical activity  and started presenting these to our classes 
• Been learning about  2D shapes, 3D objects and their properties 
• Continued developing our additive thinking skills by using strategies including splitting, compensation and the jump strategy to solve addition and subtraction problems 
• Started discussing symmetry and transformations 
• Enjoyed sharing our cultures and learning about others on Harmony Day 
• Made fond memories of running together in to 2025 Colour Run 

Coming up we are:

• Editing and publishing our information reports 
• Aiming to finish reading our novel study book ‘Matilda’ 
• Using all of our comprehension skills to respond to a chapter from Matilda 
• Presenting and facilitating our own connected learning activities 
• Beginning to use our additive thinking skills to understand financial maths and solve problems 
• Beginning to explore different types of angles