MKPS News

Middle Kinglake Primary School Issue 5

RSD 1, EXTONS ROAD KINGLAKE CENTRAL

Phone: (03) 5786 1295 - Fax: (03) 5786 2090 Email: middle.kinglake.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au Website: http://www. mkps.vic.edu.au Principal: Ms Meagan Callander

28th February 2019

STUDENTS OF THE WEEK

Middle Mates focus: Being safe

P/1 Nick For listening to the swimming teacher and being safe around the pool.

2/3/4 Khye For always making sure our learning environment is safe.

5/6 Adrian For personal safety- monitoring his feelings, seeking assistance and stepping out of his comfort zone.

Dates to Remember:

Friday 1st March Swimming House Sports 12-2pm

Monday 4th March Student Leaders’ Badge Presentation *note change of date

Thursday 7th March Grade 5/6 Ander Louis

Monday 11th March Labour Day Public Holiday

Tuesday 12th March PFA 2.15PM. All welcome

School Council AGM

Wednesday 13th March Preps attend full time

Monday 18th March Young Leaders’ Day for School Captains

Wednesday 20th March Grade 6 Year 7 Reunion 6-8pm

Thursday 21st March Last Sporting Schools for term 1

Tuesday 26th March PFA AGM 2.15pm. All welcome

Wednesday 3rd April Drumming Showcase afternoon

Friday 5th April End of term, 2.30pm dismissal

Tuesday 23rd April Term 2. Parent cuppa after assembly

Wednesday 24th April School ANZAC Day service 10.30am. All welcome

Thursday 25th April ANZAC Day public holiday

BE SAFE, BE RESPONSIBLE,

BE RESPECTFUL

Next week’s Middle Mates social skill

focus is: “Showing a positive attitude

towards learning.”

SCHOOL FEES: Just a reminder that the 2019 requisite fee is $180 per student. This covers all school supplies including books, pencils, glue, art and printing supplies. Please see Carolyn in the office to arrange payment. We ask that all school fees be paid by the end of term 1. CAMPS, SPORTS AND EXCURSION FUND: Eligible families (Veterans Affairs Gold card or Centrelink Health Care card holders) can apply for this payment of $125 per child to be used for camps, sports and excursions. Please contact the office for an application form. SWIMMIMNG: We have had perfect weather for the second week of the swim-ming program. Our House Swimming Sports are tomorrow from 12.30-2.15pm. We encouraged parents to come along and cheer on the competitors. As we are all travelling on one bus we are asking for parent assistance with transport. Please let me know if you can take your child to swimming tomorrow. FAMILY PICNIC: Tonight is our Family Picnic. Bring a picnic tea and come along from 5.30 to 7.30pm. It is a great opportunity for families and students to get together in an informal social situation. Hope to see you there. PSYCHOLOGIST: Each fortnight, Mike Thayer, Clinical Psychologist, visits MKPS and works with individual students. Families can access this service and claim it on Medicare. Please contact the school for more information. PFA: The fortnightly meeting cycle has been changed by a week to suit member's commitments. So next meeting is Tue 26th Feb with meetings every fortnight after that until the end of term, i.e.12th March and 26th March, with our AGM booked in on the 26th March at 2:15pm leading into our usual meeting. STAFF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING: Staff have already been busy with pro-fessional learning early in the term. I have attended a Principal Network Meeting, a workshop for our School Maintenance Planning and a Cluster Principal meeting. Olivia has attended a Stephanie Alexander Professional Development and all staff had a Professional Practice day on Tuesday where they worked together on planning. Next week all staff will be involved in an after school Youth Out Loud Resilience session with Steve and Jen. SCHOOL COUNCIL: Thank you and congratulations to our new (or re-elected) members of School Council– Sacha Pidot, Sally Macdonald, Joyce Geddes, David Williams and Olivia Clark. We are very grateful for your time. Our first meeting and AGM will be held on Tuesday 12th March at 6.30pm. CLEAN UP AUSTRALIA DAY: Tomorrow is Clean Up Australia Day for schools. MKPS students will be involved in a school clean up before recess. Thank you to Miss Clark for her organisation and to the students for their ongoing pride in our school. ANDER LOUIS: Andrew and Rob Verhagan will be back at MKPS this year to work with students in Grade 5/6 to write and publish their own sto-ries. Andrew and Rob’s first visit is on Thursday 7th March– it is very important that all students are present that day.

ICY POLE WEDNESDAYS $1

SCHOOL LEADERS Since the start of the school year students, in all year levels, have been discussing what it means to be a leader. We are proud to have so many students who follow the rules, wear school uniform, are well mannered, take initiative, demonstrate pride in their school and are excellent role models at school and within the community. MKPS has worked hard to build its reputation and everywhere we go or whenever we have visitors to our school, the fabulous behaviour and attitude of the students is always commented on. A goal that came out of our School Review last year was to build student leadership and agency and with that we mind we have developed some of the existing rules in our school. Whether or not students receive an official leadership title and badge there is room for leaders everyday and in every aspect of school. This year we had so many students willing to have a go at a leadership role. Students were required to write and deliver a speech to other students, and then were voted in by their peers. The quality of the speeches was outstanding and I congratulate everyone who had a go. Below are the leadership teams for 2019. Certificates and badges will be presented at Monday morning’s assembly by Joe and Elaine Exton. All welcome.

School Captains Charlotte Barnes Mickayla Mead

Junior School Council

P/1 2/3/4 5/6

Charli Macek Matilda Crisp Alex Pidot Max Knight Lucy Hofman Chloe Manks

Sustainability P/1 2/3/4 5/6

Lucinda Hofman Josephine Barnes Isabel Draffin

Nick Draffin Brianna Dyson Hamish Hofman

House Captains Red Yellow Blue

CharlotteBarnes Chloe Manks Emily Allison

Zoe Knight Tahlia Mead Adrian Di Rico Vice Captains Red Yellow Blue

Sarah Hofman Jasmine Hope Alex Pidot

School attendance remains a focus of the Education Department in 2019 and we need your help! The attendance data at MKPS is alarming! The average amount of student absences have shown very little improvement over the last 4 years. See table This puts us in the yellow section below which presents many challenges. Many students are already in the bottom 2 red sections after only 4 weeks of school! We have worked hard to provide a challenging, varied and engaging curriculum for all students, we have many programs and resources in place to assist with school refusals/school anxiety, we have built a school culture that values and shows pride in our school, we have included Attendance and Punctuality as a Middle Mates focus, we follow up absences with phone calls and we have initiated the Sentral text message function. We are very grateful to the parents who contact us first and let us know of the child’s absence. When students are sick, being at home is the best place for them. They can rest and not pass on their illness to others. Occasional family holidays are also very valuable and beneficial. The absences we are trying to address are days off for birthdays, shopping etc. Please try and arrange appointments outside of school time. If your child is going to be away from school please speak with the classroom teacher to organise any catch up work. There is an Attendance Policy at the school. If anyone would like a copy please let us know. At the end of term, if your child have under 90% attendance you will be notified by letter.

YEAR AVERAGE ABSENCES

2015 21 days

2016 22 days

2017 15 days

2018 22 days

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE

Sustainability News: MKPS– A 5 Star Resource Smart School Clean Up Australia Day: All schools around Australia will be cleaning up their school grounds this Friday in preparation for Clean up Australia Day on Sunday 3rd March. Before our Swimming Carnival, we will be cleaning up rubbish in our school grounds and counting how many pieces of waste we find. Clean up Australia Day is the nation’s largest community-based environmental event. So get involved at your place over the weekend and clean up your garden or local area. Cooking Classes: Sustainability classes will return after swimming. We will be making pizza pinwheels and zucchini banana muffins. Thank you to the Wilson family for donating some bananas. We can’t wait to use those for our muffins! Gardening: We will be spending some time in the garden to remove the old summer crop and get ready for out Autumn crop. A huge thank you to the Puzin family for donating a variety of seedlings and seeds for our garden! The students are looking forward to planting them soon. Donations: If you have any extra produce in your garden or are happy to donate items such as flour, butter or eggs, please let me know or drop them off in the prep/one classroom. Guinea Pig Carers: Can you look after the guinea pigs for over the weekend? They come with their own house and food. You just need to provide a cool spot that is safe from dogs, foxes, etc. There is a timetable displayed on the PFA bulletin board near the office. Please let us know if you can help. Thank you to the families who have volunteered so far. Oral Care Products/ Cartridges 4 Planet Ark / Mobile Phone Muster: Recycle yours at school. Nude Food Fridays: Congratulations to 2/3/4 with the least waste last Friday. We had NO pieces of waste after redcycling so we had no waste going to landfill. Well done! Thank you to those families who minimize waste on a regular basis. Remember, every Fri-day is Nude Food Friday. No packaging please. This week’s results: Thank you Olivia Clark

Grade Actual number of pieces of waste

Number of pieces after ‘Redcycling’

Prep-1 1 0

2/3/4 0 0

5/6 1 0

Whole School Waste

2 0

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Last week in STEM we looked at how flippin’ bottles could result in data. Check out what we did on the S.T.E.M. blog:

http://sugarloafstem.global2.vic.edu.au/category/weekly-s-t-e-m-summary/

Congratulations to the students who received

STEM awards this week:

Nick– for his excellent focus and work ethic during STEM

Austyn– for his great behaviour change ideas during our

session.

Jai– for always applying himself and working on game

changing ideas in STEM

AWARDS

It’s the MKPS

Family Picnic!

Thursday 28th February 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Middle Kinglake Primary School grounds

Bring your picnic rug & dinner & get to know other families at MKPS.

PFA will also be serving ice-cream cones to everyone

(gluten and dairy free options available)

Please note, this is an alcohol-free event.

TONIGHT

Tesselaar

Bulb Fundraiser

Catalogues out week of 25/02/19 Extras available from the office

MKPS Receives 40% of Sales

Ask work colleagues, neighbours and friends if they would like to order some too!

Orders due back Thursday 14th March

Delivery will be during the last week of term