Newsletter 25.06.2021

Issue 10


Principal Update

Dear Ardeer South families,

It is hard to believe that we have reached the end of Term 2.  It has certainly been another unusual term with another ‘Remote and Flexible Learning’ period. As we think about heading into two weeks of school holidays, please take the time to do the things you enjoy. Term 3 begins on Monday 12th July 2021.

Covid Measures

Whilst we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still a number of guidelines that need to be followed.

The school buildings are only accessible to parents who enter via the office and login via the Compass Kiosk and QR code. 

All parents must wear masks if they enter the school buildings.

Parents are not able to enter classrooms or school office areas unless the matter is urgent.

We have hand sanitizers in all classrooms and continually request that students, staff and visitors use them.

We will hold assemblies in the John Evans for students and staff. Unfortunately, Department of Education guidelines will not allow parents to join the assembly in the John Evans Room.  However, we invite parents to join via the school private Facebook Group to watch the 'Live' stream (https://www.facebook.com/groups/402506947029831)

Prep Enrolment 2022

Our Prep enrolments for 2022 are growing slowly.  If you have a child of Prep age who is due to start school next year please call the office and we will arrange to get an enrolment pack to you. If you have a friend in the area who is looking to enrol their child at our school please encourage them to call the school for us to arrange an enrolment pack to be sent to them.

Student Illness

Please do not send your child to school if they are not well. It is important that everyone is healthy at school so we do not pass on any illnesses. If your child is deemed sick at school and you are called to pick your child up it is your obligation to arrange for somebody to do this promptly. We want to keep everyone well especially during these winter months.

Lateness

Did you know that when children regularly arrive late, they miss out on so much:

  • They miss out on the lovely morning meet and greet that connects children to their classmates, staff and classroom environment and is an important part of children feeling like they belong.
  • We schedule literacy and numeracy for our morning lessons – so regular lateness means that children are missing critical learning in these areas.
  • They miss the opportunity to prepare for the school day and join the ‘Morning Circle’ where important details about the daily learning are missed.

Please help your child to arrive on time for school every day – especially as we try to support children even more after the Remote Learning challenges.

Curriculum Day

REMINDER - Our curriculum day is planned for Friday 23rd July.  Please remember that this is a Pupil Free day and children do not attend school on this day.

Thank you and Farewell

I recently wrote an open letter to the community and shared it via Compass and our closed Facebook Group.  A copy of this is below….

It is with a heavy heart that I share with you the news that I am finishing my Principal role at the end of this term. Sharing this news is a combination of sadness and excitement, as I have been successful in securing a Principal promotion at the new Grasslands (Deanside) Primary School (interim name) opening at the beginning of 2022. The opportunity to open a brand new school (see recent photo of me at a site construction meeting to right), setting the vision, culture, curriculum and engaging with a new community, is a challenge that really appeals to me.  Understandably, the establishment of a new school requires significant planning, therefore 6 months is provided to oversee and manage the school development; so I will start this new role at the beginning of Term 3.

I will be eternally grateful for the time I have spent at Ardeer South Primary School. It has been a privilege to be the Principal of this school and community. I was asked to join Ardeer South Primary School in April 2019 as the Acting Principal. This then provided additional opportunities to become the substantive Principal. Since being at the school I have seen it blossom into the most amazing, caring, innovative, nurturing and supportive educational facility. The curriculum and opportunities presented to students have really allowed the children to aspire to the school motto ‘Preparing for the Future’.

The amazing work done in the school is a credit to the hard-working staff behind the scenes. I certainly thank the staff I have worked with for the drive, determination and enthusiasm towards bringing additional opportunities to the school. I am really proud to have been part of a team that has grown Ardeer South into a high performing school in the Sunshine area. The accolades and achievements are due to incredible hard-working educators and support staff, as well as students always trying their personal best.

I would like to say thank you to all the past and present School Councillors and School Council Presidents that have taken time out from their families to be on School Council. Your support and advice has been reassuring and appreciated.

As an educator our rewards are simple – we rejoice when we see our students learn and when we see the spark of understanding that lights enthusiasm and passion to unlock their talents. It has been great to work with such wonderful students at Ardeer South. Each and every student is amazing and I am so proud of their commitment to learning and achieving their personal best. I am certainly going to miss their smiles, stories and seeing them grow.

To the staff of Ardeer South, it has been a pleasure to work alongside you to create amazing opportunities for the students. I am confident that Ardeer South Primary School is well-positioned to move forward in delivering high-quality education for all students.

The school is very well placed, with incredible leaders and educators ready to take the next step into the future of education. This has made my decision to leave somewhat easier.  The Department of Education is currently undergoing the appropriate processes to fill the Principal vacancy, once this decision has been made it will be communicated with the community.

As I say at the end of every school newsletter - Remember to show Respect, Be Responsible and always put in Effort. These school values allow us all to reflect on our journey and take responsibility for who we are.

I wish the very best to all of you and hope our paths may cross into the future.

Stuart Telford

Principal



Assistant Principal Update

Well, that’s the end of what has been a semester jam-packed with learning and student achievement!

Once again, thank you to all families for their support through what was a challenging remote learning period. It has been wonderful to reconnect with you all back on site and I appreciate all the support provided to our staff as we navigated through the challenging lockdown period. As promised, we made it through, and our kids did a fantastic job reconnecting with the learning in their classroom as they returned. It has been great to see students finish off another unconventional term of schooling with such grace and resilience. We truly have outstanding children here at Ardeer South Primary School and they continue to impress me each and every day.

It was also fantastic to see our recent Parent-Teacher interviews run so smoothly, albeit in remote conditions. As I’ve mentioned in the past, though our preference is always to meet with you in person, we appreciate your flexibility in ensuring that the Parent-Teacher were conducted online over the two nights this week. We received a fantastic engagement rate and I am proud of the efforts of our staff to remain adaptable and provide an opportunity for every family to discuss the academic progress of their child, despite the COVID-19 restrictions. Please also note that Compass essentially acts as an archive for your child’s reports, so you can login at any time and view previous reports if you wish to do so. As always, if you have any concerns about your child’s progress, please don’t hesitate to discuss these with their classroom teacher. We pride ourselves on being approachable at Ardeer South Primary School because we understand how important a partnership between families and students is to student achievement and wellbeing.

Finally, as discussed at our recent assemblies and previous newsletters, there is some staff movement occurring at the end of this term. Please join me in thanking Anthony Cavallaro and Paola Ly for their efforts at Ardeer South Primary School. Both these teachers will be missed by many students in our community and we wish them well in their future endeavours. Of course, I would be remiss to conclude without again wishing the best to the departing Stuart Telford. As you all know, Stuart has had a profound impact on this learning community. We cannot thank Stuart enough for his efforts over the past two years and we wish him nothing but the best of luck as he tackles the ambitious challenge of setting up a new school in Deanside. I can’t think of a better person for the job out there because I know that Stuart will bring his passion, work ethic and leadership to this new learning community and they are very lucky to have him.

That’s all from me for Semester 2. It has been a whirlwind term and it is time for our staff to get some much-needed rest. Please stay safe over the holidays and make sure you have some self-care in whatever form that looks like for you. I know that I’m looking forward to spending some time with my young daughter – she’s obsessed with playing with animals at the moment so a trip to the Zoo may be on the agenda for me!

Keep Smiling,

Brock Wilson

Assistant Principal



Prep Cohort

What a term we have had!

The students have had an amazing learning journey, from starting to write a sentence to identifying the different shapes. We are so proud of them all.

Although we have had fun, we say goodbye to an amazing teacher, Mr C. I know not only will I miss teaching alongside of him but so will the students. We all wish him the very best at the new school.



1/2 Cohort

It has been another spectacular week in the ½ cohort. Students have been exploring financial maths and have been having hands-on experiences by creating their own shops. This has been such an exciting and engaging learning opportunity.

Students have also been busy working on their ipads to create amazing explanation pieces describing how school has changed over time. We can’t wait to share our finished pieces with you.

Students have also been reflecting on an amazing term and have had the fantastic opportunity to partake in a music session using drums and singing. We look forward to many more opportunities to develop our music sense in term 3.

Have a safe and happy school holiday. We thank you for all of your ongoing support and we are so excited to be back in the classroom for another amazing term.



3/4 Cohort

This term the 3/4 students have been writing Narratives. We have been focusing on using the ‘mountain’ strategy to plan and structure our writing. This week we have revisited opening sentences and focused on writing a ‘sizzling’ start. We are very proud of the amazing effort students have displayed in their writing. Below are some amazing examples of opening sentences, check them out!

 

-Emma woke up with a lot of regret. (Newal)

-Life was simple before they came and the world came into darkness. (Ziggy)

-“Vroom” went the police car. (Ayaan)

- “Boink”, what hit me? “why are you in my house?” (Roble)

- Jeremy is the last survivor, fear was pumping through his chest. (Johnny

5/6 Cohort

The grade 5/6’s have been hard at work this term. They have continued unpacking the mysteries in Gary Crew’s text ‘The Water Tower’. The classroom discussion on this text has been fantastic and the students have shown a lot of enthusiasm during their tasks.

Students have been experimenting with ambitious vocabulary to assist in making their narrative writing more engaging for an audience. They have used ‘The Water Tower’ to help inspire their writing.

Here we have our ‘learning walls’, where students have added vocabulary associated with the images from the text. It was great to see how excited they have been investigating this book and becoming more confident in their writing. It has really motivated students to tap into their imagination!

Through exciting discussions and activities, students were able to write some brilliant narratives where they filled in the missing parts in ‘The Water Tower’. Students worked hard writing up their drafts and then published their final piece onto Keynote. Here are some fantastic piece published by in 5/6A and Bisrat in 5/6C.

Here are some fantastic triaramas that students have been hard at work on. Well done to Tina & Brandy in 5/6A, Grency in 5/6B and Jamie & Mason in 5/6C for putting in their best effort;









ART

Ciao a tutti! Hi Everyone!

These two weeks, for Art, students in F-2 did some free drawing, since it was almost the end of term. They put their imagination to good use and created wonderful art work to take home. Students in 3-6 did clay work. They were allowed to create anything of their choice. There were some awesome creations! Popular choices were food (lots of donuts, pizzas and cupcakes), Among Us and even Super Mario characters. Two very talented students made Yoda and Godzilla. For Italian, F-2 revisited Polletto Carletto and we played Italian Hangman to see who remembered the characters from Polletto Carletto, students who were able to guess the name and say it correctly received stickers, we also watched Italian songs of Old McDonalds and made character masks . Everyone had fun trying. Grades 3-6 almost finished their multicultural posters which will be up on the Arts and Culture wall soon.

That is for now. I hope everyone has an awesome holiday!







Sports News

Western Region Cross Country Championships

Due to the recent COVID restrictions, the Division Cross Country Championships that were scheduled for June 2nd were cancelled.  However, the following students have automatically progressed to the Regional Finals to be held on Friday, July 16th - Mandje, Anika, Athena, Masiame, Jana, Grency, Maher, Arham, Riyal and Ahmed. GOOD LUCK!!!

Sports Uniforms

Late last year we applied for government funding for our sports program, and we were fortunate to receive the grant. With this money, we have purchased new sports uniforms for our interschool and athletics sports teams. We look forward to having our teams wearing our new uniforms with pride in 2022! Below are the images of the uniforms.

 

Regards,

Morgan Belbruno

Basketball 


Athletics 

Football 

Netball






Exciting News

“Big Day at Ardeer South Primary School”

A journey has begun at ASPS. It officially began two years ago, when students in Years One and Two wrote letters to the Mayor, sharing their knowledge of the enormous benefits of Green Infrastructure.

Using an artist’s impression of the CBD of Melbourne Urban Forest as inspiration, they asked the Mayor if she would consider, an Urban Forest to be planted at their school. They mentioned the benefits of increased tree canopy, and biodiverse planting, in their letters, and accompanied these with beautifully detailed drawings. Of course the Mayor’s response was “Yes.”

Fast forward to June 2021, and some of these same students have been helping Ms. Cronin and Mr Christoforou to weed a 3 metre wide strip along the Murray Street fence line that has been cultivated by Brimbank City Council, overseen by Adrian Gray, Manager of Urban Design and Co-Chair of Greening the West. 

Add to this already rich mix of adults, Rose Godde (ex-parent and Activities Organiser at Bunnings) and some funding from Woolworths Junior Landcare Grant ($1,650), we have now payed for the area to be cultivated, so that it can sit and absorb moisture, prior to planting, later in Term 3.  As you can see from the photograph, Rose certainly looked after us with a donation of gloves and tools to start weeding the site, which is what ‘The Gardening Club’ started today. Saige Quinney, (Year 6 student and School Leader), has volunteered her time and her Tech skill (along with her tech-savvy mum) to capture both still, and static images, of our journey to compile into a Vimeo in the future. Rose and Ms Cronin are hatching a plan to develop the front of the school for food production, so watch this space over the next year two years.

So far we would like to thank Brimbank Council, Woolworths, Bunnings and most of all your children, because they own the future, and they will learn invaluable life-skills about caring for their world, and behaving in a sustainable way. They may be small, but they know first-hand the power of their voice in influencing decisions made at Local Council level, that will impact their future.



Student of the Week

Name

Class

Achievement

Oliver

Prep A

For learning the letter Gg and being able to say the sound. Well done Oliver, keep up the great work!

Charlotte

Prep B

For demonstrating the school value of effort during her learning. You work so hard and always try your best. Well done !

Mia

1/2A

For demonstrating the school value of effort. Mia is articulating how she feels using the zones of regulation colours. Mia is able to respond when asked what zone she is in. Well done, Mia!

Samar

1/2B

For her resilience shown over the past week returning from home learning. Samar you have made such amazing progress this semester. I am very proud of you. Keep up the amazing work.

Zaroon

1/2C

For showing the school value of effort during writing a detailed and descriptive explanation text. I am so proud of your amazing work ethic and how beautifully you always present your work. You always work so hard, amazing job Zaroon!

Nawal

3/4A

For being highly organised with your note taking for home reading. Well done!!

Ayaan

3/4B

For arriving at school on time every day this week! Well done Ayaan, keep it up!

Johnny

3/4C

For being creative and developing an informative Keynote presentation about Australia.

Riyal

5/6A

For showing effort in his writing by including precise vocabulary.

Athena

56B

For creating such imaginative and unique narratives

 

Mason

5/6C

For showing the value of effort by using his creativity in his planning for narrative writing.

Hannah

Prep B

Italian

For always being respectful in Italian classes

Jesse 1/2B

Arts

For trying his best during Art sessions

Tuba 3/4C

PE

For her perfect technique in triple jump

Emine 3/4C

Tutoring

For taking risks at school and being her best self.

Razan

Prep A

For always participating in class discussions and sharing her ideas. Well done Razan!

Izac

Prep B

For trying so hard during your learning. I am so proud of you! Keep it up.

Dhruv

1/2A

For showing the school value of respect. Dhruv always follows class expectations when using iPads. Well done and good luck at your new school!

Ruthina

1/2B

For transitioning back to school this week after her family holiday and lockdown, and catching up on her writing with ease. Well done Ruthina.

Uriah

1/2C

For showing the school value of respect, you have worked so hard this week and I am so proud of your amazing writing and reading. You are a pleasure to teach and have had a spectacular term.

Christina

3/4A

For your reasoning with multiplication. Thank you for your hard work.

Beniam

3/4B

For consistently applying himself in everything that he does. Beniam has had a great term!

Waleed

3/4C

For writing a fantastic sizzling start to his Narrative, capturing the Reader’s attention, well done!

Linh

5/6A

For being friendly, reliable, hard-working, polite, helpful and respectful.

Sarah

5/6B

For putting so much effort into her writing about Aliens. Well done Sarah.

Uyen

5/6C

For being a respectful member of 5/6C and working really hard across all subjects throughout the semester. Good luck at your new school!

Bibi 5/6A

Italian

For being the first to finish her Cultural poster in Italian. Fantastico!

Cohen 1/2B

Art

For being a respectful and enthusiastic student during Art Sessions. Great Work!

Peter 1/2B

PE

For displaying great motor skills and maturity in PE this term.

Anika 3/4C

Tutoring

For showing amazing enthusiasm for a new multiplication strategy to calculate the number of blocks in a building.