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5 Harriet Street TOORA, 3962 Ph: (03) 5686 2283 / Mob: 0475 605 437 Email: toora.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au Website: www.tooraps.vic.edu.au 31st January 2019

Attendance

Attendance will continue to be a priority for our school this

year as the research shows that anything below 95% (missing

more than 1 day a month) starts to impact on a child’s

learning. We fully understand that at times being away cannot

be helped (and encourage you to keep your child at home if

they are unwell), but we do request that days off are kept to a

minimum. We also ask that students are punctual in the

morning as even being ten minutes late can result in your child

missing the vital instruction time at the beginning of a lesson.

Pictured Left to Right Prep students: Kelarny, Lola, Bella, Ryan, Mrs Gilbertson ad Madelyne

Principal News

Welcome to the 2019 school year! As crazy as it sounds,

we are all delighted to be back and are really keen for a

great year of learning. It has been great to have all

students return fresh and ready to get straight back into

learning, which has created a really positive buzz around

the school.

New students

This week we have welcomed 13 new students to our

school to bring our enrolments to 44. In preps we

welcome Ryan, Lola, Kelarny, Bella and Maddy, Grade 1

Jarrah, Grade 2 Dean and Riley, Grade 3 Lizzy, Grade 4

Abby and Tyson and Grade 5 Chloe and Jayden. Many of

these students are also new families to our school so we

also extend a very warm welcome to all new parents and

siblings.

Preps

Our new preps took to school like ducks to water

yesterday, which highlights the success of our transition

program that we run with Toora Welshpool Kindergarten.

Just a reminder that all prep students have Wednesday’s

off for the month of February (6/2, 13/2, 20/2 and 27/2)

to help them adjust to a full school week.

INFORMAL SCHOOL BBQ

An invitation to all of our School Community to join us for

an informal BBQ and meet the staff after school next

Thursday 7th February 3:20pm - 4:20pm

Parents and children invited.

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Prioritising Learning

This year we will be placing an emphasis on prioritising

learning to ensure that every student has the best possible

chance of experiencing success at school. Some actions we

have taken to ensure that this happens include:

Maintaining a 3 grade structure for all core learning

(literacy and numeracy) with small groups sizes of 15

or less

Moving all core learning to the sessions before lunch

to ensure these lessons are in the students

optimal learning time

Protecting our core learning by moving all additional

programs (cooking, swimming, gardening etc.) out of

this time

Program

There have been a few slight adjustments to our program

this year, these will be:

Indonesian - as mentioned last year we were looking

to align our language program with Foster Secondary

College. FSC have indicated from this year they will be

teaching Indonesian as their LOTE language so we will

follow suite.

Gardening with Juneen will now be Monday

afternoons between 1pm and 2pm. Juneen will

continue to take small groups of students out to

teach them all things vegies!

Thursday will be my admin. day, Mrs Wiggins will be

covering me in the class on these days.

Mr Whittle will be having Fridays off this year – on

Friday’s all 3/4/5/6 students will be with myself for

the day.

Parent Payment - (formerly known as School fees) In 2018 Toora Primary School Council passed the School policy in line with the Department of Education’s guidelines. The policy includes a number of payment options to support parents to access the materials and services associated with their child's education. The school-level parent payment policy is available on the school website. If you have any queries or wish to discuss your circumstances and the options available to you, please contact the school to make an appointment. The 2018 Parent payment has been set at $150 per student.

Swimming

Swimming will start back up next Thursday (February 7th)

and will continue for the rest of Term 1. This will be

provided free of charge to all students however we do

require permission slips to be returned. Please remember to

pack your child’s swimming gear each Thursday.

Grades 3/4/5/6 Camp - Forest Lodge

We have booked a 3 day camp at Forest Lodge this

year, we are still to finalise which days but it will be in

the week of the 25th of February. Cost of the camp will

be $210 per child ($85 if accessing CSEF). We

appreciate that this is very short notice (we got the

booking late due to another school cancelling), so, as

always, we are more than happy to set up payment

plans.

Dental Visit

We are fortunate enough to have been selected for a

new dental program where all students are entitled to

free dental check-ups (usually we can only offer these

type of check-ups to preps). Please see attached flyer

for further information and have forms returned by the

Friday 8th February.

School Council Nominations A brief outline of the role of School Council follows later in this newsletter. I encourage anyone who would like to contribute and is able to commit to nominate for this active group. I am only too happy to elaborate on the role should anyone feel they may be interested. Our current School Council consists of: Parent Members: President: Tara Hollier, Emma Hughes, Anna Hopkins, Jen Delaney , Michelle Bacon DET Members: Louise Gilbertson, Di Walker, Luke Haustorfer as Executive Officer. Community Member: Vacancy Thank you to all of our School Council members for their tremendous effort working on behalf of our school community maintaining a watchful eye on the finances, policy development and educational programs at the school. Please see the office for a Nomination form. Please see Luke Haustorfer if you are interested and/or would like to know more about School Council.

Hope to see you all tomorrow afternoon at assembly

(3:00pm),

Our School VALUES are: Be Safe, Be Fair, Think, Learn & Care

Toora Primary School No:2253

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri

1 1

Assembly 3:00pm

4 5 MARC Library

6

No Prep Students

7 Swimming

AFL Visit

11:45—12:45

Family BBQ 3:20pm

8

Assembly 3:00pm

11

12

Flying Doctors Dental Van Visit MARC Library

13

No Prep Students

14

Swimming

Valentines Day

15

Assembly 3:00pm

18

19

Breakfast Club MARC Library

20

No Prep Students

21 Swimming

DISTRICT SWIMMING

22

Assembly 3:00pm

25

26 Breakfast Club MARC Library

27

No Prep Students

28 Swimming

Responsible Pet ownership Session

March 1

DIVISION Swimming

Assembly 3:00pm

February 2019

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri

4 5

Breakfast Club MARC Library

6 7 School Photos

Swimming

8

Assembly 3:00pm

11

Labour Day PUBLIC Holiday

12

Breakfast Club MARC Library

13 14 P-2 Performance

in Foster

Swimming

REGIONAL — Swimming

15

Assembly 3:00pm

18

19

Breakfast Club MARC Library

20 21

Swimming

22

Assembly 3:00pm

25 26

Breakfast Club MARC Library

27 28 Swimming

Musical Futures

30

Assembly 3:00pm

April 1 2

3 4

5 Assembly 2:00pm

LAST DAY TERM 1 early dismissal

2 :20pm

March 2019 Welcome to our PREP students who now come to school every day

NOTES WE NEED RETURNED: Blanket Consent form Swimming permission & medical form

CSEF application Parent Payment $150 per child

What is a School Council and what does it do? All government schools in Victoria have a school council. They are legally formed bodies that are given powers to set the key directions of a school within centrally provided guidelines. In doing this, a School Council is able to di-rectly influence the quality of Education that the school provides for its students. Who is on the School Council?

There are three possible categories of membership:

A mandated elected Parent category. More than one third of the total members must be from this category.

Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DET) employees can be Parent members at their

child’s school as long as they are not employed at the school.

A mandated elected DET employee category. Members of this category may make up no more than one third

of the total membership of school council. The principal of the school is automatically one of these members.

An optional Community member category. Its members are appointed by a decision of the council because of

their special skills, interests or experiences. DET employees are not eligible to be Community members.

The term of office for all members is two years. Half the members must retire each year, creating vacancies for

the annual school council elections.

Why is parent membership so important?

Parents on school councils provide important viewpoints and have valuable skills that can help shape the direction

of the school.

Do I need special experience to be on school council?

No. What you do need is an interest in the school and the desire to work in partnership with others to help shape

the school’s future.

What do you need to do to stand for election?

The principal will issue a notice and call for nominations following the commencement of Term 1 each year.

All school council elections must be completed by the end of March.

If you decide to stand for election, you can arrange for someone to nominate you as a candidate or you can

nominate yourself in the Parent category.

DET employees whose child is enrolled in a school in which they are not employed are eligible to nominate as

parents for the school council where their child is enrolled

Once the nomination form is completed, return it to the principal within the time stated on the notice of election.

If there are more nominations received than there are vacancies on council, a ballot will be conducted during the

two weeks after the call for nominations has closed.

Remember: Ask at the school for help if you would like to stand for election and are not sure what to do. Consider standing for election to council this year. Be sure to vote in the elections.

Contact Principal, Luke Haustorfer for further information.

Information: School Council Elections 2019