Book and Stationery Packs and Voluntary Contributions 2025

On Friday 8 November, parents will receive information about how to purchase book and stationery supplies for your child for the 2025 school year and have the opportunity to make voluntary contributions to the school to support specialist subject supplies, technology, literacy and numeracy resources, first aid supplies and online learning subscriptions. Parents will be provided with a link to access the WINC portal whereby you can purchase your child’s book and stationery supplies and make voluntary contributions to the school. Book and stationery supplies will be delivered to your home. Students will be required to bring their book and stationery supplies to school on the first day of school in 2025. Students may wish to label their books with their name and class. We ask that all stationery items are not to be labelled with individual student names. Information regarding the Stationery Packs and Parent Payments for 2025 will be provided to your child on Friday 8 December in hard copy form. Additionally, parents will be able to access the information through Compass.

School Saving Bonus

In the final weeks of November, families will receive an email from the Government’s School Saving Bonus team with instructions on how to access the portal to redeem the $400 bonus for your child to support costs for excursions and school uniforms. The School Saving Bonus email will include a unique code for each child. A family with multiple siblings will receive multiple email codes. Parents can nominate up to $50 for uniforms or activities (camps, excursions). The $400 vouchers are a one-way nomination, so if the family allocated the full $4000 towards an item, it cannot be undone. Any unspent voucher money will be transferred to the family’s account at our school. If a family accidentally deletes the email, you will be required to call the helpdesk to have the email resent. The helpdesk phone number will be provided in the School Saving Bonus email and on the Department of Education’s website. All School Saving Bonus related concerns, questions or issues parents have are to be communicated through the SSB Helpdesk, not through our school directly.

I encourage all parents and carers to pay close attention in the coming weeks to look out for the School Saving Bonus email in your inbox so that you can access this financial support provided by the government. This bonus should be of great assistance to our families in supporting school-related costs.

Specialist Subjects 2025

In 2025, students will engage in four specialist subjects as part of their weekly learning program. First Nations/Visual Arts, Physical Education, Science/STEM and Performing Arts. In 2025, our school will no longer offer Japanese as a specialist subject. This decision was based on survey results from the parent community at the end of 2023, the learning needs of our students and the School Council. Our students will have the opportunity to learn Wadawurrung language as part of the First Nations specialist program. As a result of this change, Mrs. Katelyn Hurley will conclude her appointment at our school this year. Katelyn has been successfully appointed to teach Japanese at Fyans Park Primary School in Geelong in 2025. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Katelyn on her new appointment and thank her for your significant contributions to our school in delivering the Japanese specialist program. Our school community will have the opportunity to farewell Katelyn in the final weeks of the school year.

Semester 2 Reports

Families will receive their child’s Semester 2 School Report on Wednesday 18 December via Compass.

Assembly

Parents and friends of our school community are invited to join us for our next assembly scheduled for Friday 15 November at 9:00am. We will have 3/4F, Japanese, 5/6C and 3/4TA showcasing their learning at the assembly.

Nyatne baa Gobata

(Thank you and take care)

Mat McRae

Principal

Grade 5/6C News

Grade 5/6C have been learning about careers and career paths during Integrated Studies lessons this term. We have learnt that there are many career options available when you finish school at the end of Year 12, such as going to university or TAFE, beginning an apprenticeship, joining the Defence Forces or emergency services or finding full or part time employment. Students have also chosen a career that they’re interested in and have been researching that career to find out information such as the history of the career, how it’s changed over time, what benefits the career provides to our society and what the career might look like in the future.

Here is a selection of some interesting pieces of information that we have discovered so far:

• Architecture has been around since 10,000BC, when cavemen stopped living in caves.
• Plumbing began in Iraq in 4000BC when clay pipes were used to get rid of wastewater.
• The worlds first flushable toilet was invented in 1596.
• Firefighting has been around since the Roman times.
• Electricians have been around since about 1600; Elvis Presley was a trainee electrician before he became a famous musician!
• Pilots have been around since 1903 and the first passenger flight was in 1914.
• A marine biologist invented scuba diving gear.
• The real estate industry traces its roots back to the late 19th century, but it didn't begin to take shape as we know it until the early 1900s.
• The earliest known work of an author is the poem, Epic Of Gilgamesh.