Orrvale ObserverVolume 18 - Issue 2

17th February 2016

UPCOMING EVENTSFriday 19th February - Badge Presentation for Student Leaders at morning assemblyWednesday 24th - Friday 26th February - Grade 6 CampWednesday 24th February - P&F AGMMonday 14th March - Labour Day HolidayThursday 17th March - School Council AGMFriday 18th March - Orrvale Mini-FairWednesday 23rd March - P&F MeetingThursday 24th March - Harmony Day and Last Day of Term 1. Finish 2:20

Our motto: PRIDE IN YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY, PRIDE IN THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF OTHERS, PRIDE IN YOUR SCHOOL

Our Values: RESPONSIBILITY . RESPECT . EMPATHY . PERSONAL EXCELLENCE . COURAGE.

Principal – Mr Adam BrennanAssistant Principal – Mr Dan O’Reilly

300 Channel RoadOrrvale Vic 3631Ph: 58 292 490 Fax 58 292 717

E-mail: orrvale.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au Web site: www.orrvaleps.vic.edu.au

CONGRATULATIONS TO NEW STUDENT LEADERSSchool Captains, House Captains, Vice Captains, members of the Junior School Council and our EQ Buddies all play a highly valued role in the day-to-day running of the school and I congratulate our 2016 Student Leaders on gaining their new positions. At Orrvale, we work to provide a range of opportunities to listen to and take on board the ideas and opinions of our students and I look forward to working with our student leaders throughout the year.I’m very proud of all the students who could see leadership potential in themselves and had the courage to try out for a position knowing they may fail. As Henry Ford said, ‘You don’t have to hold a position to be a leader.’Our newly elected leaders will are:

2016 House CaptainsBoronia Captains (Blue House): Kian Roche and Chloe HanlonVice Captains: Kale Gibson and Shakaya NicksonWaratah Captains (Red House): Alex Martello and Lily JefferyVice Captains: Amandeep Singh and Olivia NaniaBanksia Captains (Green House): Dylan Cirillo and Zoe BullenVice Captains: Beau Presley and Tahlia HannAcacia Captains (Gold House): Jackson Fujimoto and Kelsey Clarke-SheeheyVice Captains: Harrison Mazzella and Jasmine Seach

Principals Report2016 Junior School CouncilSchool Captains – Braeden Meka and Yasmin Milne1/2 Chick - Tori Huddleston 1/2 Hendy - Koby Alessi1/2 Hudson - Olivia Simonis 1/2 Fitzgerald - Tyge Jeffery1/2 Farrell - Monique Barnett 2/3 Pettifer - Sienna Thompson and Trent Newbound3/4 Thompson - Coupar Lewis and Ethan Brennan3/4 Raglus – Zack Thompson and Taliyah Gifford3/4 Karolidis – Jasmine Thomas and Ava Mellino3/4 Marshall – Zeth Bourke and Will Griffin-Close5/6 Brennan – Taylah Irvine and Ella Novotny5/6 Dickins – Navraj Nahal and Oliver Beaumont5/6 Chapman - Isaac Rachele and Belah Allan SCHOOL COUNCIL ELECTIONSOrrvale Primary School Council is an invaluable resource and support to our school. It is now time to commence our School Council Election Process for 2016.School Council has three main responsibilities.They are:1. Finance – overseeing the development of the school’s annual budget and ensuring proper records are kept of the school’s financial arrangements2. Strategic Planning – participating in the development and monitoring of the school’s Strategic Plan3. Policy development and review – developing, reviewing and updating policies that reflects a school’svalues and supports the school’s broad direction outlined in the Strategic Plan.Other key functions of School Council include:· Raising funds for school related purposes · Maintaining school grounds and facilities · Entering into contracts i.e. school cleaning · Reporting annually to the school community and the Department ·Representing and taking the views of the community into account · Regulating and facilitating afterhours use of school premises and grounds·Currently, School Council meets in weeks 3 and 8 of each term on a Thursday evening at 7:00.Orrvale Primary School has a School Council of fourteen members – nine parent members and five DET employees members. Half the positions become vacant each year. This year we have 5 parent vacancies and 2 school staff vacancies.If you decide to stand for election, you can self-nominate (this does not require a seconder), or gothrough the regular nomination/seconder process.Nomination forms can be obtained from the main office.Nomination forms must be lodged by 4.00 p.m. onFriday 26th February.Please do not hesitate to call me if you have any further queries. Thank you to our retiring members for your hard work for the Orrvale School Community. Your time and effort has not gone unnoticed.

Principals ReportTimeline for School Council Elections

SCHOOL CONTRIBUTIONSThank you to all those families who have already settled their 2016 school contributions. A reminder that to receive the discounted rate, fees need to be paid before February 29th. An EFTPOS facility is now available at school for your convenience.CanteenWe now have almost 200 Orrvale families registered using the QKR App for ordering lunch through the canteen, which is not only helpful to the families who use the new system but a tremendous help to Hanna and her volunteers in preparing food in time. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive but there are a couple of common mistakes that have been made and I must admit, as a parent myself, I accidentally ordered lunch for my son on the wrong date. Other items to be aware of are:

● Once items are added to the cart, they haven’t been ordered until you go to the cart for payment.

● It is not possible to order for after the 8:45am cut off on the day of canteen.● For those who don’t have a credit card or are reluctant to enter credit card details into App,

some families have elected to use a pre-paid card. ● If you order ahead of time and your child is sick and does not attend school on the day their

lunch is ordered, families can cancel orders prior to 8:45am.. EVACUATION DRILL

Yesterday, we had a practice emergency evacuation drill involving all staff members and students.All students evacuated quickly and calmly to our evacuation point at the front of the school.Despite the recent Bomb Hoaxes that schools across the country have received, this drill was part of our scheduled emergency drills taken from the school’s Emergency Management Plan.

EVENT DATE

Notice of election and calling for nominees Wednesday 17th February

Closing date for nominations Friday 26th February

Date by which the list of candidates will be posted Monday 29th February

Date by which ballot papers will be prepared and distributed Wednesday 2nd March

Close of ballot Wednesday 9th March – 4.00 p.m.

Vote count (if required) Wednesday 9th March – 4.15 p.m.

First Council meeting to elect office bearers Thursday 17th March

Principals ReportCamps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF)The Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund is provided by the Victorian Government to ensure that no student will miss out on the opportunity to join their classmates for important, educational and fun activities. The Department of Education and Training administers the CSEF directly to the school who will allocate the funds against charges for the above activities.The annual CSEF amount is $125 for primary school students and $225 for secondary school students. All applications are to be submitted by 29th February. Please bring a copy of your Health Care Card to the school office, where the ladies will provide you with an application form..

**Please note: A new application form must be completed every year**To be eligible to receive the CSEF the parent of a student attending a registered Government or Non-Government school must:o on the first day of Term one or;o on the first day of Term twoa) Be an eligible beneficiary within the meaning of the State Concessions Act 2004, that is, be a holder of Veterans Affairs Gold Card or be an eligible Centrelink Health Care Card (HCC) or Pensioner Concession Card (PCC) holder, ORb) Be a temporary foster parent,and;c) Submit an application to the school by the due dateParents who receive a Carer Allowance on behalf of a child, or any other benefit or allowance not in- come tested by Centrelink, are not eligible for the CSEF unless they also comply with one of (a) or (b) above.

CAR PARKING Please remember when picking up and dropping off children at school that student safety is paramount. In addition to the tips I provided in our last newsletter, I also remind families that parking in the disabled bay at the front of the school is reserved for cars with a disabled sticker. We do have students at school who require this space.

Our Roundabout system is the safest and most efficient method for picking up your children but relies on families understanding the system we use. To keep traffic flowing, parents should remain in their vehicles, rather than parking and collecting their children. If it is taking a while for your child to make their way to the side gate, the teachers on duty, may ask parents to use the waiting bay beside the water tank.

QKR!

Can

teen

Ro

ster

Monday

Morning Shift

9 - 11am

Friday

1st Shift

9 – 10.30am

Friday

2nd Shift

10.30am – 12.30pm

Friday 19th February

Heidi PungitoreStacey Sprunt

Michelle Tricky Jodie Donaldson

Belinda Lewis

Monday 22nd February Di Trigila

Friday 26th February

Michelle TrickeyCarlene Beaumont

Lois SellickAlana Buchan

Michelle Darlow

Monday 29th February Bahar Bascuhadar

Friday 3rd March

Belinda WhitelawJodie Maskell

Amberlee GoodallHeidi Pungitore

Alana Buchan

Monday 7th March Natasha Brennan

Canteen NewsNow that we are using the QKR app to place lunch orders on canteen days, families will no longer be required to send along a lunch order bag. As a result if you have a draw full of unwanted lunch order bags, please feel free to donate them to the canteen.

If there are any parents also wishing to volunteer, please contact Hanna. It is a great way to meet other parents and enjoy a social morning.

Well done to the 195 families who are successfully using the QKR app! If you have any questions please see the Hanna, Adam or

Dan to start using it today.

ICT

KobyPeyton

JensonLewis

JoelLayla

LaurenBritney

RyanBailey

MiaKade

ICT

Angelina Jack

AlexGeorgia

MayaBailey

Liam

MillaJamison

KiaraBriana

AyvaAiden

EmilyCampbell

BRUCE FERGUSON TENNIS COACHING

Tennis Australia Professional Club Coach – coaching all age groups in group or private lessons.

Coaching available at:KIALLA PARK T/CMcEWEN RESERVE T/C

0438 571 831bomberferg@gmail.com

Music with Mrs Gray

PE with Mr McMullanFirst of all, thank-you to everyone for the very warm welcome I have received in my first weeks at school. To all the students and parents that have said hello as they walk past in the yard and for forgiving me for all those times I've called you by the wrong name. Having travelled to different schools all around the region for the past 2 years with the Bluearth Foundation it's fantastic to feel apart of a great school community.

This term will be busy for everyone, including P.E. We only have a few weeks to practice and master all the athletics events in preparation for our carnival. Our athletics carnival is on the 2nd Friday of Term Two.

Last Wednesday was the Shepparton regional tennis trials, held at McEwen Reserve. A big congratulations to Kian Roche and Angelina Waters for battling the best tennis players across Shepparton and the hot weather. Angelina missed out by a whisker on making it through to the next stage and Kian won enough matches to see him through to the School Sport Victoria Hume Regional Championships held at Wangaratta in March. They both should feel very proud of their efforts!

It has been a busy and fun first two weeks in the music room with all classes working on beat and rhythm. All students have had a chance to use different instruments to keep a beat and create different rhythm patterns. It has certainly been noisy at times, but we have all enjoyed making and echoing patterns using a variety of our instruments! The bells and ‘boom whackers have been amongst some of the favourites along with the spoons and drums!

Well done to Josh Sullivan and Tori Huddleston on being the first two EQ award recipients from the music room. Great effort!

Thanks to all of the kids for a great start to the year in music! I am sure we will have lots of noisy fun as the year progresses! Also a big thank you for making me feel so welcome here at my new school. I am super pleased to join the Orrvale team!

Foundation Level NewsWhat a whirlwind of a start the Foundation children have had!

Already the bright and cheery foundlings have done a remarkable job of settling into their new classes, getting to know their teachers and making new friends. I can certainly say that the foundation teachers and specialist teachers are all incredibly proud of our youngest charges. One of the many new things that the foundlings have been introduced to over the past fortnight is their take home reading books and getting used to the all important morning reading routine. Thank you to all who have already come in at 8:45am to help listen to children read and encourage them to change over their reading books ready for that evening’s reading at home. Infact, establishing reading routines and bestowing great encouragement on our new little readers is immensely important and is something that both teachers and parents must get right from the outset in order to maximise each child’s present and future reading success. Below are some tips to help parents at home support their children in beginning to read and also some common mistakes, though well meant, can have a negative impact on a child’s early (and later) reading success.

Essential reading tips for parents assisting their children to read at home.

� Most importantly, be animated and enthusiastic about reading the night’s book. Model enjoyment in discovering what you and your child are going to read about tonight.

� The first reading strategy is to LOOK AT THE PICTURES. When looking at the front cover, discuss the pictures. Ask,What can you see? What do you think this book might be about? Chat about any related experiences and where possible, bring the relevance of the topic back to your child’s own world.

� Carefully point to each word in the title and read the title to your child. Ask your child to do the same. Hold their finger to guide their one to one correspondence with the words as they read.

� LAVISH PRAISE FOR ALL EFFORTS. Remember, your child may not be able to distinguish between a letter and a word yet and indeed, may only vaguely know that the black markings (words) correlate to spoken message. This is ok, it is what is expected for beginning Foundation.

� ‘Walk ‘through the book with your child and LOOK at the pictures carefully and discuss what is happening. The pictures are designed to cue the readers for the words they are about to ‘read’. Discuss the names of items on the page and generally try to bring to to fore any new vocabulary that you can see that is in the text.

� Go back to the beginning of the book. Model looking at the pictures. Point to each word as you carefully read allowed to your child.

� The structure of these early readers is repetative and usually only asks the child to look at the picture to replace one word in the sentence on each page. Remember, your child is not actually reading the words at this stage, they are memorising structure and developing early reading strategies: POINTING CAREFULLY AT THE WORDS and using PICTURES AS CUES to the words on the page. They are learning one to one correspondence with the words also that text moves from left to right and the black markings on the page (words) correlate to spoken message.

� Once you have read each page to your child, encourage your child to have a go. Every effort is to to be congratulated as learning to read is an enormous, nevertheless, exciting feat.

Common Mistakes When assisting Your Child to Read.

� Never show frustration or expect that your child is actually reading the words yet. Most likely, your child is memorising sentences and relying on memory and the pictures to ‘read’. This is what is expected.

� Never cover up the pictures, as these are the only tools for your child to actually make an attempt at ‘reading’ the words.

� Never, at this stage, try to teach individual words in the sentences. Do not expect your child to remember words out of context even if they have been repeated numerous times in the book.

� Never ask your child to ‘sound out’ a word. It is too early for this and this is not the most effective strategy to use even later on as your child progresses as a reader. Infact, too many children come to rely on this strategy and it is often not effective.

� Don’t compare your child’s progress to that of another’s. Reading is not a race. Naturally some children ‘click’ with reading before others, however, this is no indication of later reading success.

Enjoy reading with your special little one, it is a joy to watch the pride your child feels when they experience early success and praise. It is our job to ensure that this initial joy and sense of achievement does not diminish. Happy reading!

Foundation Level News

5/6 Cullen EQ Report

1/2 Hendy EQ ReportOur EQ assembly focused on the value of RESPECT. Our ideas were shared with the school in an enjoyable presentation. During an Investigations session Chayse Stangl asked some of the children their thoughts on what respect means to them.Respect means to think about the class. Payton RowlandIt means to take care of your books and pencils. Lilli AmodioWe need to care for the things in our class. Tyrone Lawrie-MillerListen to other people when they speak. Zara AttanaListen to the teacher and don’t lie. Michaela Vera

Our first EQ assembly was focused on being prepared for the start of the school year. We talked about being prepared and organised by using our diaries, having our iPads ready and charged as well as demonstrating the school values through our words and actions. We also looked at the important roles we have in grade 5 & 6 like School and House Captain, as well as looking after our young buddies from Foundation Stonehouse.

Above - the 5/6 Cullen class prepare for our assembly.Left - our first EQ winner Cleo, as well as as School Captains Braedan and Yasmin, and our EQ Buddy. Lily.

Weekly EQ Winners

Week 2

Week 3

Current EQ Proverb“Fail to plan, plan to fail” - Winston Churchill

Weekly EQ WinnersGetting to know our new teachersOur school captains Braedan Meka and Yasmin Milne recently caught up with some of the teachers new to Orrvale this year. They asked them a few questions to help the community get to know them.

Name: Mrs Hope FitzgeraldWhat are you teaching: Grade 1/2Where were you before Orrvale: Teaching in Ballarat and raising my 3 beautiful children.Favourite thing about teaching: Seeing children excited and enthusiastic about new things.Which sporting team do you support: HawthornWhat do you already love about Orrvale: All the happy smiles you get when you walk inWhat do you enjoy doing on the weekend: Camping and skiing with my familyFavourite meal or restaurant: Thai Food

Name: Mrs Jackie GrayWhat are you teaching: MusicWhere were you before Orrvale: Benalla P-12 and at home with my 2 boysFavourite thing about teaching: Watching kids grow and learn, along with the interesting conversations (especially with the Foundation students).Which sporting team do you support: St KildaWhat do you already love about Orrvale: The awesome kids and friendly staffWhat do you enjoy doing on the weekend: Spending time with familyFavourite meal or restaurant: Love most food! Really enjoy thai food and pasta

Name: Mrs. Imogen RadevskiWhat are you teaching: Education SupportWhere were you before Orrvale: Wanganui Park Secondary CollegeFavourite thing about teaching: The funny things kids sayWhich sporting team do you support: Geelong CatsWhat do you already love about Orrvale: The kidsWhat do you enjoy doing on the weekend: Spending time with my two kids Willow & King.Favourite meal or restaurant: Chocolate

PARENTS CLUB

COMMUNITY NEWS

TISSUES

COULD FAMILIES PLEASE SUPPLY A BOX OF TISSUES TO THEIR CHILD’S CLASS.

Orrvale Primary SchoolWould like to thank the following businessesfor their ongoing support.

BRUCE FERGUSON TENNIS COACHING

Tennis Australia Professional Club Coach – coaching all age groups in group or private lessons.

Coaching available at:KIALLA PARK T/CMcEWEN RESERVE T/C

0438 571 831bomberferg@gmail.com

If there is any business in the community wishing to support Orrvale Primary School by sponsoring our newsletter, please contact the office.