Issue 14, Friday 27 May 2022
View our Newsletter in a different language
Principal's Message
Dear Parents/Carers
We’re at the halfway point and what a term so far. This week we celebrated Education Week and with our Open Day and Open Night activities. The school was buzzing with both new and existing families on Wednesday morning. Our Y6 Leadership Team hosted tours of the school followed by Q&A sessions with myself and Michelle. We saw numerous prospective families in the evening too. It was fabulous to be able to open our classrooms this year and be able to showcase MSL, STEAM and Mathematics.
Those of you who were able to attend will have seen a continuation of our rock painting – these rocks will be added to the dry creek and cemented in. The idea being that every family at Parkhill is represented and as new families join us they can paint a stone and be added to our river. We also saw rainbow portrait painting in the upper school building. These will go together to create a beautiful display of our children in the foyer. Thanks to Sasha Guy and Andrea Crane for their work here.
The school choir performed beautifully as always, bringing smiles, goosebumps and even a tear or two. A huge thank you to the children, and also to Marinda for her dedication. It was super to hear from our School Captains who spoke with confidence about our new school values – Care, Courage, Curiosity and Community.
Carlie Eriksen was out and about visiting more of our local kinders again this week armed with her ukulele; there are more sessions with Chinese to come.
I visited Ashwood High School and was pleased to see many of our Parkhill students doing really well in the high school setting. It was good to chat with Dr Moore about their new STEAM centre.
This week we pay our respects during Sorry Day and acknowledge the beginning of Reconciliation Week. The children gathered in their Care Groups to learn more.
On the building front, we have some exciting news! The fencing has been removed today, with us gaining access from Monday to our new and sparkly basketball facility. Eventually we can start to plan the move into this wonderful space.
It was awesome to read all the creative mantra entries. The winning entry was from the Tanner Family – “Parkhill’s powering full steam ahead!” This will feature on all of our upcoming publicity.
As you will have read in the media, Casual Relief Teachers are very difficult to find. With sickness spiking and teachers having to stay home when they’re unwell, we are struggling to find CRTs to cover classes. Every term the teaching staff are entitled to a Professional Practice Day. This is a day where they are able to plan for the coming term, visit other schools, and engage in professional learning. This term, due to the shortage in CRTs, the Department of Education has approved the use of an additional student free day to help schools manage the release of staff. Parkhill’s School Council has approved the date of the Term 2 pupil free day as Tuesday 14th June. This day allows us to offer the Professional Practice day to as many of our staff as possible without needing the support of CRTs and also tags onto the end of the long weekend.
I hope you and your family have been able to avoid the terrible cold and flu that is raging through our community.
Have a super weekend!
Best wishes,
Elaine Brady
Principal
Calendar of Curriculum Events
Please note that these events are subject to Covid-19 restrictions and are subject to change and/or cancellation.
Professional Practice Day for Term 2
Professional Practice Days provide time for staff to plan together, observe teachers in other schools or complete other work to develop their professional understanding. Staff are entitled to Professional Practice Days throughout the year, one per term, pro-rata. DET has allowed schools to call a student-free day to facilitate a Professional Practice day for Term 2, to mitigate the difficulties of sourcing CRTs at the present time. We will be holding our Professional Practice Day on Tuesday 14 June (the day after Queen’s Birthday holiday). In doing so we aim to provide a day that can support all staff, is more convenient for families and is towards the end of term where planning usually occurs. Students do not attend school on this day. If you have any questions, please contact the office.
Michelle Smith
Assistant Principal
School Council Wrap
Parkhill’s school councillors met last week with a very full agenda. It was great to have Elaine back for her first School Council meeting since lockdowns ended last year. In the meeting we discussed the future for Parkhill PS and our role in helping build the vision and direction of the school. This responsibility is taken seriously by school councillors and it was great to have informed discussions about growing our enrolments, improving our playgrounds and engaging with our community. We have noticed how much energy and enthusiasm our parents and teachers are putting into working bees, volunteering opportunities and overall passion and support for the school.
Being part of Open Day/Night this week was another example of this enthusiasm. In particular, I’d like to thank the teachers, support staff and school leaders for their work ‘showing off’ our school for Open Day/Night this week – we have a lot to be proud of!
Dan Edwards
School Council President
2022 School Councillors: Parents: Masooma Cheema, Melo Conti, Elle Delmee, Wendy Douglas, Dan Edwards, Peter King, Jay van Schyndel, Jodie Thatcher and Jason van Lint. Teachers/Leaders: Elaine Brady, Andrea Crane, Sasha Guy, Jo Ravida and Michelle Smith.
Open Night
A great night was had on Wednesday with the Parkhill COMMUNITY coming out to celebrate the 2022 Parkhill Open Night.
CURIOUS parents and students had a go at some fun and engaging numeracy and specialist activities.
A lot of CARE was taken decorating rocks for our dry creek bed, which will look amazing upon completion.
It was great to see the COURAGE shown by the Parkhill Choir performing expertly in front of parents, students and staff. Our school captain, Noah, and SRC Captain, Lucas, showed all of our values competently leading tours for many prospective families.
Over in the STEAM room it was “powering full STEAM ahead” experimenting with surface tension.
Sasha Guy
Y6 Teacher
Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week
This week marks the start of Reconciliation Week, which holds key dates including National Sorry Day. This year’s theme is ‘Be Brave, Make Change’ and that is certainly the approach we are tackling this year as we undergo big changes to our garden and broaden our knowledge about the significance of the land that we are on.
During Care Group sessions, we read a book that looks at Sorry Day and what it means to First Nations People and the wider Australian community. We shared insightful conversations about the word ‘sorry’ as we applied this to our own personal contexts. We also discussed the characters point of views from the story.
Parkhill students then made their own Sorry Day posters which will be displayed in the foyer area.
We continue our Reconciliation Week events next week with students planting the bush foods on Monday. A very special mention to Roger, Jane and Brent who have been the driving force behind getting our garden to where it is now.
On Thursday we will hold our Wear It Yellow Day fundraiser for Children’s Ground. We ask students to wear a touch of yellow and to bring a gold coin donation. At 3:00pm a Wurundjeri Elder has been invited to hold a Smoking Ceremony in our newly opened Bush Tucker Garden. We will inform the community on further details when this has been confirmed.
For upcoming Reconciliation Week events in Melbourne, please visit:
https://nrw.reconciliation.org.au/calendar/list/?
Bella Crowe
Koorie Education Ambassador
SENSATIONAL STEAM
It has been a sensational week with students engaging in chemical explorations across the whole school. In particular, 6B challenged themselves by designing an ice melting experiment that fairly compared three different melting methods, finally determining which was most effective. Student hands, the sun, warm water, felt, vinegar and shattering the ice into smaller pieces were a number of the methods under investigation. Students were surprised at the lack of heat provided by the sun and that some hours later the felt wrapped ice cube was still powering on. Who knew felt was an insulator! Needless to say, shattering an ice cube with a mallet to increase the surface area, resulted in the shortest melting time.
Many thanks also to the families, new and existing, who visited the STEAM room as part of Open Day. It was great to share the Y4/5 students’ investigation into solids and to show off our microscopes once again. And for those that visited in the evening, I hope you enjoyed propelling your little boat forward using the power of surface tension and detergent.
Andrea Crane
STEAM TEACHER
ATTITUDES TO SCHOOL SURVEY - Y4-6
The Attitudes to School survey survey asks students about their perceptions and experiences of school. Students will be asked about their thoughts and feelings in relation to their school, their learning, peer relationships, bullying, life in general, as well as health and wellbeing questions.
We are planning to hold the survey in class from Monday 30 May to Friday 17 June.
AtoSS是教育和培训部实施的年度学生调查，以协助您孩子的学校了解学生的看法以及他们在学校的经历。问卷涉及学生对其学校、学习、同学和家庭关系、韧性、霸凌、精神健康、身体活动及一般生活问题的想法和感受。
您孩子的学校将在今年30 May – 17 June期间开展AtoSS调查。
Further information about the survey will be sent out to families with Y4-6 students soon. If you have any questions, please let us know.
BullyZero parent Webinars
Did you miss out on our BullyZero parent webinars? Here are some of my key takeaways:
Bullying is repeated, ongoing negative behaviour directed at an individual or group with intent to cause harm. It’s not a single incident, disliking someone, accidental, choosing different people to spend time with or having arguments. It’s important to remember that bullying is a behaviour, not a person and behaviours can be changed! Kids aren’t born to be bullies, they’re taught to be bullies. Behaviours are shaped and formed at home and dealing with bullying behaviour must be a shared responsibility between parents, students and teachers.
Warning signs for parents to look out for in children:
- Changes in behaviour
- Being secretive about who they’re talking to online and offline
- Feeling worried, anxious or scared, unexplained headaches, stomach aches, appetite changes
- Low self-esteem, negative self-talk, emotion/mood changes
- School refusal, spending large portions of time alone withdrawing from family/friends/social situations
What to do if your child is being bullied:
- Stay calm!
- Listen and allow your child the opportunity to find solutions or seek help
- Don’t approach the child/parent yourself, instead refer to the school bullying policy. Ask the school to devise a safety plan. Pre-arrange meetings with the school and follow up daily until the bullying stops
- Be open to using support services
Strategies for kids to deal with bullying:
- 4 R’s – Remain calm and don’t react
- Record date/time/incident/witnesses
- Report (tell someone, create a safety network)
- Refer to the school’s bullying prevention policy
What to do if your child is doing the bullying:
- Communication is key. Listen carefully and help your child to process anger
- Help them to understand that there are others with different perspectives
- Be clear that there are consequences to negative behaviour – encourage them to make distinctions between assertive and aggressive behaviour
- Praise positive behaviour! Avoid punishing, blaming and shaming
- Work with the school to support them and let your child know that they can come and talk to you
- Bullies can change negative behaviour. These people often have great leadership skills. Helping them to develop their self-awareness is key
Cyberbullying is a particularly dangerous form of bullying because our children can be subjected to bullying in their own homes and bedrooms. It can occur under our very noses as most parents don’t know what their children are doing online, don’t check their child’s online activities or log onto the apps their children are using. Cyberbullying is a criminal offence.
Action plan for ALL parents:
- Get devices out of bedrooms
- Set clear boundaries and time limits and learn to say NO!
- Supervise and monitor online gaming sessions and conversations (it’s loud, but getting kids to use speakers over headsets is one way to do this)
- Research parental control apps
- Ensure your child is using age appropriate platforms (Snapchat, Instagram and tik-tok are all 13+ and Fortnight is rated 15+)
- Visit esafety.gov.au
- Ensure your child’s apps are set to private
- Ensure that your child is not on technology 1-2 hours before bedtime so they get the recommended 9-12 hours of sleep
- Create a tech agreement with your child. Children need boundaries
A good way to have these conversations is not to frame them in terms of restrictions or privacy, but in terms of safety. You wouldn’t send your child walking through Kings Cross alone and neither should we give them unrestricted access to devices.
What to do if your child is being cyberbullied:
- Don’t remove devices – it isolates them socially and can cause more mental health issues
- Communication is key. Speak to your child. Work out strategies together. Reassure them that you’ll be there to support
- Listen, think and remain calm – resist the urge to pick up phone and attack the bully’s family as your children will feed off your reaction
- Collect evidence
- Report cyberbullying by first reporting to the media service (the app or program). Collect the URLs and take screenshots and submit this evidence to the eSafety commissioner (esafety.gov.au/report). Use the software to block the bully
You can find our school policy on bullying here: https://parkhillps.vic.edu.au/policies/
If you need any further support or information, please don’t hesitate to contact the school.
Alex Davies
Y5/6 Teacher
OSHClub Update
This term has been fun! We said goodbye to our wonderful educator Shehreen, and had the amazing Rose join us. We have also had lots of new students start at OSHClub. Throughout the term we have had a massive focus on mental health and mindfulness. The students have had lots of conversations about how to be nice friend and what it means to be nice to people. We made compliment chains for the students to add to each session about someone at OSHClub. We do daily meditation sessions to talk about how we are grateful for our lives, and we speak a lot about mindfulness. The children love these activities. We also check in with the student’s day with a thumbs system that helps the students to understand their own emotions.
This term we have started to expand our art club. The students have created various paintings to show their countryside imagery, self-portraits, and free drawing. Art club has helped the students engage with their creative side.
Throughout the term we have allowed the students to start to create their own group games. The students have come up with lots of different ideas including a zombie game, a pizza group game, a treasure game and a laser game. The students are all quite proud of their group game ideas and very happy to share them with the new people that join OSHClub.
Our SunSmart policy has been upheld throughout the term. We have had lots of conversations with the children about wearing sunscreen and hats. The children all know how important this is and will automatically put their sunscreen and hats on without being asked.
We started a new program this term called ClassDojo. The children absolutely love it as it is something to look forward to and they are rewarded for their good behaviour. The children receive points based on how well they do things at OSHClub or if they are being a kind person. They have their own monsters that they designed, which makes it a fun interactive tool. We have started to make ClassDojo more interactive with parents to share photos and updates with them. We also use ClassDojo for conundrums. These are videos that are part of the app that put forward a problem for the students to discuss and critically think about. The students love doing the conundrums at the children’s meetings and we have had lots of interesting discussions and opinions from various children. It is great to be able to see children critically thinking and holding a respectful debate.
We look forward to continuing some of these great initiatives in Term 2, along with new clubs and activities!
To enrol your child in OSHClub, visit https://www.oshclub.com.au/register/
CHOIR CORNER
Congratulations to those choir members who performed at Open Night on Wednesday evening. Many members of our community commented on how lovely it was to hear children singing again after so long. Unfortunately, many of our choir members were unwell and unable to sing on the night therefore, the choir will perform again at the last assembly of the term on Monday 20th June. Parents, please add this date to your diaries!
Marinda Tanner
Choir Coordinator
Lost Property & Second Hand Uniform Stall Update
We have new Lost Property boxes – one in the lower school kitchen area and one in the upper school kitchen area. The children have been advised if they have lost any items to check the boxes first. Our resident Lost Property Monitors for term 2, Lucas and Will from Y6, check the boxes twice a week and return to named owners. A reminder to PLEASE label all items to enable a smooth process.
The next Second Hand Uniform Stall will be on Thursday 16th June from 8.45am.
Kerry D’Arcy
Lost Property & Second Hand Uniform Co-Ordinator
Games Club
Earlier in term 2 we saw the return of our popular Games Club, an indoor space where quieter games like chess/Lego/board games/art and craft/puzzles, etc. can be enjoyed. This week we have recently been on the move and re-located from the library to the Y4/5/6 building. It is a very warm, inviting space open to all children every recess, except Fridays.
If you have any items you think may be welcomed into this space and wish to donate, please contact myself. The area will be guided by the interests of the children.
Kerry D’Arcy
Games Club Co-ordinator
150 years of public education in Victoria
In 2022 we mark 150 years of public education in Victoria. Let’s celebrate a shared belief that every child deserves a high-quality education, regardless of background or economic circumstances.
Did you know that Victoria was one of the first governments in the world to make education free, compulsory and secular? This year Victoria is commemorating 150 years of public education – learn more: vic.gov.au/150years
In 1872 the introduction of the Education Act made Victoria the first Australian colony (and one of the first jurisdictions in the world) to offer free, secular and compulsory education to its children.
Being a forerunner of free, secular and compulsory education is one of Victoria’s greatest achievements.
Before 1872 most children living in Victoria were enrolled at government-aided institutions, others attended independent or church schools. A few were educated at home by tutors and, at a time when schooling was neither compulsory nor free, some received no formal education at all.
The 150 year anniversary of public education is an opportunity for us to commemorate the long and proud history of high-quality education in Victoria and to reflect on our own engagement with the state education system.
Parkhill Primary School celebrated 150 years of public education with a focus on 150 years with our Open Night activities on Wednesday 25th May.
For more information and to see a selection of digitised records from Victoria’s oldest schools visit vic.gov.au/150years.
Just a quick thank you to those families who have collected their bread bags and deposited them in the box near the front office. For every 5kg of bread bags we collect we gain 500 reward points to go toward sports and play equipment. Let’s try and maximise our rewards by collecting the capped amount of 2,500 points. Collection will continue until September, so we have plenty of time to achieve this goal. Keep up the good work for both the environment and our fabulous school.
Andrea Crane
STEAM Teacher
Watches
If one of these watches belongs to you, please come and collect it from the office!
PFA News
TRIVIA NIGHT IS BACK!
Time to dust off those clothes that have been hiding in a box in the garage or raid the local op shop and get ready for some fun – Trivia Night is back in 2022!
Silent Auction Donations
Parkhill PFA will be running a silent auction as part of Trivia Night in August.
If you have anything to donate or know a business that would like to help, please email PFA.
ENTERTAINMENT BOOK
They cost $70 and provide over $20,000 in discounts to all the things you love to do…dining, attractions, shopping, travel and more! They are filled with up to 50% off or 2-for-1 style offers, they are a great way to discover new favourites and enjoy the value at the same time. The proceeds of the books sold goes to Parkhill Primary School. Please order one now via this link
REMEMBER TO SAY ‘PARKHILL PRIMARY SCHOOL’ WHEN SHOPPING!
Rebel Community Kickbacks Program.
Under this program, Parkhill Primary School can earn 5% of your purchases at Rebel Sports as an in-store credit to spend on our school sports programs.
You can sign up in store or log into your rebel Active Member account when shopping online at www.rebelsport.com.au to attribute the expense to the school.
RITCHIES COMMUNITY BENEFITS
$52 Million is up for grabs!!
It’s quick, simple and easy to: Download, Register and Activate.
Scan QR code below
Nominate ‘Parkhill Primary’ as your chosen school.
Don’t forget to share the news with family and friends.
Need more?? Visit a store within 14 days of activating your card, spend $100 or more in a single transaction and scan your Ritchies card or app.
Get $10 off instantly. (Valid for one transaction).
DON’T MISS A THING!
Join our Facebook page.
Search for us using the name “Parkhill Primary School Community Page”.
Then click the “join group” icon.
A group administrator will confirm your association with the school and approve your request.
If you would like to be on our email distribution list and receive communication and minutes from our meetings please email parents.friends.secretary@gmail.com
Contact us on WhatsApp – https://chat.whatsapp.com/DtYmFR9RjrZ7ayDpYAVy6L or email parkhillpiranhas@gmail.com
Lunch Orders
You can find the links to the lunch orders on the website under Quick Links.
FLEXISCHOOLS LUNCH ORDERS
community notices
