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The Oak Leaf |
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Address: Willett Avenue, Oak Park VIC 3046
T:(03) 9306 9182 E: oak.park.ps@education.vic.gov.au |
Issue 35
November 16th 2023 |
Oak Park Primary School will work collaboratively to provide a stimulating, safe and challenging learning environment that promotes resilient, innovative thinkers.
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Calendar of Events
Principal's Column
Principal Report is missing this week due to a very important event in the Gill household. Congratulations to Michael, wife Mary and new big brother, Owen! 
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Assembly Timetable - Term 4
Student Wellbeing
Term 4 Clubs Timetable This term, we are excited for the return of Oak Park’s Got Talent!!! Every Thursday lunch time, year levels will be provided with the opportunity to share their talent and compete for a chance to perform at Friday’s assembly. We look forward to seeing what the students present! 
Family Carols Night
Happy Diwali
Happy Diwali for those in our community celebrating this important occasion. Wishing you a Diwali that brings happiness, prosperity, and joy to you and all your family. 
Class lists for 2024
In the coming week, students will be asked to select 4 friends they would like to have in their class in 2024. We make the commitment they will get at least one of those friends. To ensure students make considered choices and parents are aware, we encourage you to start this conversations at home. There are many factors we take into consideration when creating class lists, friendships is just one of them. When discussing friendships at home, please focus on positive attributes and avoid negative comments about other students. Wellbeing in Year 2
The Year 2’s have been exploring the Bounce Back program, developing our friendship and resilience skills. This week we read one of our favourite books ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’ by Giles Andreae and talked about the important message in the story. We are getting to that time of the year when transitions occur, and changes are made so to prepare for this we talked about being ourselves and being resilient. In the story Gerald wants to dance but everyone says he can’t but then he finds his own tune and realises he can dance in his own way and it’s amazing. In response to this our students thought about a time they found something hard and how they worked to improve and get better in that area. It was great to see the students reflect on their learning about the benefit of persisting when faced with new challenges. 
Unexplained Absences
A reminder for families to note their childs unexplained absence on Compass. Letters and emails have gone home to families whose child has unexplained absences, we request that these are actioned as soon as possible. Book Club
The last Book Club for 2023 has been distributed to students. Orders need to be submitted no later than Wednesday 22nd November to ensure delivery before the end of term. Don't forget, if you are purchasing items for Christmas presents and you would like a private collection, please let me know so that I can keep it aside. I will contact you when it is available for pick up. As always, if you have any questions, please contact me via email or see me in the Library. Thank you for your continued support of Book Club this year. Team Kids Fang Run Update
We had a fantastic morning at Oak Park Primary hosting our TeamKids Coffee Morning. In celebration of your school’s EPIC ‘Fang Run’ event for Halloween, we treated your families to some FREE coffee to make their day. We handed out over 60 coffees! 🎉 We thought you’d like to see some highlights from the event, so we’ve included some snippets for you. We are sharing with the school community so they can see the recap of the day, and so everyone knows to keep an eye out for when we’re next around for another coffee fix. Thank you for having us at your school, we can’t wait to see you next time! TEAM KIDS 
Robotics Incursion
Problem Solving through Digital Technologies From Week 6 to Week 9, Grade 5/6 students will have three chances to dive into the world of coding using the LEGO Mindstorms Robotics program. This exciting adventure is part of our Inquiry Unit: "How does Digital Technologies help us live in the 21st Century." During this incursion, our students will be working with laptops, software and Lego Mindstorms EV3 to build, code and bring their engineering efforts to life. Here are some of the exciting highlights:
Grade 2 News
The Grade 2s have been learning about area - how much space something uses. We wrote our names using grid squares then counted what the area was. It was so fun! Take a look at the amazing maths work we did this week! 
Specialist
Japanese This week in Japanese students have been excited to learn the names of some animals such as dog (inu), cat (neko), fish (sakana), horse (uma) and cow (ushi). Students have been especially excited to have a go at making origami dogs. Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into various shapes and figures without the use of scissors or glue. The word origami comes from two Japanese words, ‘ori’ meaning fold and ‘kami’ meaning paper. It has been wonderful to see the students trying their best and persisting with each step to create their own dog. The art of folding can be tricky to start off with and it is always great to see the students helping and encouraging each other as we work through each step. I hope you enjoy seeing the creative inu (いぬ) heading home this week. 
Performing Arts
This week classes have begun to learn their Christmas Songs for Family Carols Night. We have many excited students looking forward to the event! The songs are Christmas themed and focus on celebration and the joy around this time of year. We are mindful not to include religious based songs in our selection as we would like our whole community involved in this event. Students look forward to the tradition of knowing that the songs stay the same for each year level. I’ve heard many positive comments this week about the songs, such as “I’ve been waiting to be in Grade Three to sing this song!” and “the Grade Five song is so tricky, I can’t wait to try it”. For new parents, please expect a fun and casual night for both you and your children. We encourage families to bring a picnic, enjoy chatting with other parents in the community and of course enjoy the singing through the night. The teachers look after the students while the singing takes place so you can enjoy an hour on your picnic rug child-free. We encourage students to wear something festive such a Christmas t-shirt or red or green coloured clothes. We hope to see you all there on Thursday 7th December at 5pm! |
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Visual Arts
Winners for the Grade 3/4 and 5/6 AFL footy jumper design with an artist inspiration competition were announced at last week’s Senior Assembly. There were a lot of entries which made the job of judging the winning designs a tough challenge for myself (David the Visual Arts Teacher) and the two Visual Arts Captains Bella 5/6C and Diya 5/6M. The criteria for judging the competition entries was to satisfy three main components. Firstly, that the design reflected the intended artist’s style. Secondly, the design used colour that identified the intended AFL team. Lastly, the amount of detail in the design and the way colour was added. Prizes were awarded to the winners at the Senior Assembly last week. Below are the runner up and winning entries for Grade 3/4 and 5/6. 
Science
This week in the Science room our Senior Scientists have been begun their major research assignment. This assignment focuses on a reversible or an irreversible change in matter. Each student has chosen one type of matter change to focus on and complete a presentation about. The presentation will have to demonstrate some key scientific skills from the curriculum. These skills include - showing their understanding of changing states of matter, applying their scientific knowledge to the real world and communicating scientific information. A focus this week has been on how we can use internet search engines effectively as students. We have discovered some interesting search hacks that are making finding relevant information easier. This assignment will be the major assessment piece for this term and it has been wonderful to see the students showing interest and taking care with their research. 
Red Cross Toy Drive
Gifts may be dropped off with Liam (or the Office ‘Attn Liam’) and he will be happy to take them in. 
Interschool Chess Tournament
Please see attached notice for the Interschool Chess Tournament on Wednesday 22nd November to be held. 
School Contacts
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