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The Oak Leaf |
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Address: Willett Avenue, Oak Park VIC 3046
T:(03) 9306 9182 E: [email protected] |
Issue 20
July 21st 2022 |
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
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Principal's Column
Air House (Yellow) Reward – Thursday the 28th Next Thursday the 28th, students in Air house (Yellow) will celebrate winning our Positive Behaviours Token Challenge last term. Students will receive a sausage in bread at lunch time as a reward for receiving the most tokens for demonstrating positive behaviours linked to our school values. The sausages are halal and a small number of plant-based sausages are also available. This is intended as a treat and not a replacement of a regular school lunch. This token system has already re-commenced this term to endorse and acknowledge positive behaviours in classrooms every day. Calling all Gardeners! The school is beginning to open up the Sustainability Orchard on Monday lunchtimes (11:10 – 12:10) to students, with supervision provided by school staff. This enables cohorts of children access to a new area of the school and opportunities to garden, understand more about our school chickens and learn about sustainable use of water. We would also like volunteers from the community to assist with tending to the garden beds and planting new seasonal fruits and vegetables. A Working with Children check is required to volunteer at school, more information is available here. If any parent, carer or grandparent is keen to assist, please email the school at [email protected] or call on 9306 9182. Upcoming Curriculum Day – Friday August 12th Just a reminder that on Friday August 12th we have a Curriculum Day. Students are not required to attend school on this day. Face Mask Recommendation The Victorian Department of Health and Department of Education strongly recommends that face masks are worn in indoor settings at present. As a result, we are recommending all students aged 8 and over and all staff in all schools across Victoria to wear masks when in class (except where removing a mask is necessary for clear communication) from now to the end of winter. Students won’t be required or expected to wear masks when outdoors, and this expectation won’t stop student participation in the full range of school activities, including music, sport and performances. We are asking for your support in explaining to your child or children the importance of this simple step that will help keep our schools as safe as possible. We also ask that you make sure your child (or children) takes a mask to school (and wears it if they are travelling on public transport) or collects a mask when they arrive at school. Testing Requirement Change The period of time when someone is considered a recently confirmed case and therefore exempt from testing and isolation requirements has been reduced from the previous 12 weeks to 4 weeks. This means that staff and children who are household contacts of people with COVID-19 are now required to undertake the testing and isolation requirements from 4 weeks after completing isolation with COVID-19. After the 4-week exemption period, students and staff members who are a household contact of a new COVID-19 case, must follow the rules for household contacts, including reporting this to their school. We all appreciate how important it is for students to be back at school. This action will help make sure as many students and staff as possible are protected from COVID and other winter illness. Thank for your help with this collective effort to keep our communities safe and healthy. Staff Absences A reminder that all schools in Victoria and across the whole of Australia, are experiencing a chronic teacher shortages at the moment. We continue to do our best to ensure the continuity of the learning program for our students when a staff member is absent and we will continue utilising Casual Replacement Teachers (CRTs) when they are available. At times, class splits within nearby year levels will occur when CRTs are not available. We thank you for your continued support, patience and understanding with this matter. Kind regards, Michael Gill Principal Staff Car Park
A reminder to all families regarding the staff car park. We ask that you do not park in the staff car park when dropping students off in the morning (including when dropping off for the OSHC program). There are parents/carers parking here every morning, as a result our staff are unable to find a car park when arriving for school. Please do not park in the Disabled car park at any time unless you are authorised to do so, this includes dropping off and picking up your child. The staff car park is available for staff only, and unfortunately we do not have enough parks for our staff Thank you Late Arrival Notifications
Students who arrive late to school must be signed in by a parent at the front office. We ask parents to not advise via Compass that their child will be late prior to arriving to school. New Canteen
Please note our new locally based canteen service begins operating this week, with orders now delivered to classrooms on Fridays. The new service focusses on homemade, fresh food and makes use of our school kitchen. To order, please follow the usual process of sending orders to classrooms each Thursday by 9:30. Please find attached the new menu of delicious homemade items. 
Student Disco
The PFA are excited to announce that the Student Disco is back for the first time since 2019. The disco will be held in the school gym on Friday 22nd July with tunes spun by DJ Joe from Weddings Parties Anything Entry is $5 per student and there will be two sessions of dancing. Foundation – Grade 3: 6 – 7.30pm Grades 4 – 6: 8 – 9.30pm Food Waste Challenge
School Council/PFA Food Waste Challenge: winning entries A huge thank you to those who submitted entries to last term's Food Waste Challenge. Congratulations to our winners: May (Foundation), Oscar (Grade 1) and Claudia (Grade 4). Well done on your efforts to help find solutions to this very big problem! Each winner will shortly receive an Urban Greens Grow Kit as a prize for their work. Below are their winning entries. May's Entry For the challenge, May collected all of her family's kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps and put them in a little bin. Once the bin was full, she took it outside to their two worm farms and spread the food over the worms. May now does this once a week. After it has been raining she turns on the worm farm taps and fills up recycled bottles with worm wee. The worm wee is then put on the garden to make the vegetables grow bigger and stronger. May's family has more worm juice than they need so give it away to everyone who comes around.
Claudia's Entry
Oscar's Entry
Book Club
Don't forget, the last day for orders from Issue 5 of Book Club is Monday 25th July. Check out the great deal from Scholastic when placing your order through the LOOP platform online (details provided in last week's newsletter). Thank you to everyone that has placed an order already. Grade 1/2 News
On Friday the Grade 1/2s spent the day exploring our Term 3 Inquiry topic of Geography. Students talked about places, maps, flags, seasons and Indigenous peoples’ connections to the land. They designed their own flags, drew maps of their bedrooms, made framed pictures of their families, created information booklets and learnt the Aboriginal names of the creatures that call this area home. It was a big day and a wonderful way to finish our first week back. 
Performing Arts
Needed- Roarsome Props helpers!
Some teachers may like some assistance creating or sourcing some handheld props for their class acts. If you are crafty please email your child’s teacher and see if they need help! For those parents who emailed me regarding helping with sewing, I am giving your details to Sheryl Hamilton who is in charge of costumes and she will be in touch with sewing jobs. If you have talents in any other areas and wish to donate some time to the school production please don’t hesitate to contact me- [email protected] Thanks families- Let’s get this show on the road! Physical Education
Dear families, I hope you have all settled back into the swing of things at school! I’ll just touch on a few things to look forward to this term in PE. Next Thursday 28th July all students in F-2 will be participating in the “Kaboom Sports Tabloid Day” in the first 2 sessions of the morning. It will be an Olympic themed event with lots of games and possible prizes to be won! Please make sure you have provided payment and consent on compass by the end of this week if possible. As for our older students, we have our annual Hoop Time basketball at Broadmeadows stadium on Thursday August 11th for students in grades 5-6. I am looking for any parents who may interested in helping me coach some of the teams for the day (we have 4 teams going through at this stage). If you are interested, please email me. The following week on Friday August 19th, all students in grades 3-6 will be heading to Coburg Athletics track to compete in our annual OPPS athletics carnival! Each student will have the chance to compete in a series of track and field events in an authentic scenario. Some events include 100m, high jump, long jump, triple jump and throwing events.I am also on the look out for as many parent helpers as I can find to help out on this day, duties would include being in charge of running an event and recording results. I will provide all necessary information for you. This is a great way to get up close and personal with your child’s sporting activities! If you are free that day and are interested in helping, please get in contact with me. Visual Arts
As you may already be aware, students from Grades 3-6 will be involved in creating an advertising poster/DVD cover for the school concert production “The Lion King Junior” in September. Students will participate in their final art class this week to make a start on their artwork. Information and feedback with regard to the concert and their artwork samples will be provided during these lessons. Students will then be bringing their artwork home to complete for the next two weeks (art supplies required to complete the competition entries will not be provided by the school). Please note: Students do not have to enter the competition, but will have to still return their completed artwork for assessment purposes. Artwork for the competition is to be returned to the art room no later than Friday the 5th of August. We will be selecting the winning piece of artwork shortly after receiving all entries, and the winner and 9 other finalists will be announced at a future assembly and the concert nights. The student selected as the winner will receive two free concert tickets, a poster of their artwork as well as an art stationary prize. Good luck to all of the students from Grades 3 to 6! |
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