April 30th 2021

6


Principal's Message

Congratulations to Ruby and Momo who have both been recognised for their entries in the Maribyrnong Young Writer’s Competition. Momo submitted a graphic novel that provides her readers with lots of factual information about microbes and won her age group and category. Ruby received a highly commended for her short story that follows the adventures of some dogs who had their eyes on a roasting turkey! You can read the work of these FPS authors in an anthology published and available at Footscray Library.   

We love hearing about the achievements of our students outside of school so please feel free to share a quick email with your child’s classroom teacher, or myself at jenny.briggs@education.vic.gov.au so we can share these moments with the FPS community.



Capital Works

We are meeting regularly with our architects and representatives from the Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA) to move forward with our capital works. A series of workshops have been held with small groups of stakeholders and we hope to share more about the project with you as soon as we are permitted to do so.

School Council

At our previous meeting, we welcomed our new and returning members to the 2021 Footscray Primary School Council. We meet again next week, where we will review our Standing Orders and formalise the work of our 2021 subcommittees which we will share with the community in the next newsletter.



Foundation 2022

We had a number of families join our first school tour earlier this week. We spent a lot of time in the Greenwood observing the bilingual program and visited many other locations within the school to share all the fabulous things about FPS. We have another Foundation 2022 tour on June 2 at 9:30am and an information session on June 15 at 6pm. Registrations can be made via our website or by calling the office. If you have a child starting at FPS next year, please submit your enrolment forms as soon as you can to support us in our future planning and recruitment.



Every day counts

We know that getting ready in the morning and getting every member of the family where they need to be at the right time is challenging. The start of the day is the optimal learning time for growing brains, and we would like to ask for your support as we renew our focus on ensuring all students are at school, each day, on time, ready for learning.

We encourage you to build strong routines with your child to ensure they are at school ready for learning at 9:00am each day. Our teachers pack each minute of classroom time with valuable academic and social-emotional learning, and our students have the best outcomes when they are present in classrooms right from the first bell.

Our teachers have shared insights about what occurs in their classroom at the start of each school day:

Within the first 5-minutes of school, students are:

  • Students are starting the day with a collaborative, social task that encourages connections to their peers.
  • Morning greetings are happening which builds teacher-student and peer-to-peer connections.
  • Students are unpacking their daily schedule which helps them understand what learning they are engaging in. Students feel prepared for their day.

Within the first 10- to 15-minutes of school, students are:

  • Students are participating in their first mini lesson for the day, where they are learning and practising a skill connected to reading, writing and/or numeracy.
  • Some mini lessons have already finished, and students are engaged in a learning task.
  • A fun warm-up task or provocation is shared with the class to get them excited for learning.
  • Students may be participating in a one-on-one conference or strategy group with their teacher to build on specific knowledge or skills.

When students are absent from school for a day, they may have missed:

  • A lesson which fits into a sequence, meaning there will be gaps in knowledge or skill attainment. Students may find it hard to engage with the next lesson when they are back at school.
  • A strategy group or conference is missed where students receive targeted, one-on-one support from their teacher.
  • Their weekly specialist class. As specialists only see each class once per week, students will not be able to have the content they missed repeated.
  • Assessment tasks, which help us know exactly where students are in their learning, and what support they need to keep growing.
  • A day of play and connection with friends and their teachers. These social experiences are invaluable to building belonging and a sense of wellbeing at school.

We appreciate that illness can be commonplace for primary aged children and some absence cannot be avoided. When children are healthy and well, we want to see them at school every day, on time, to form and maintain social connection and ensure learning continuity. If you are having difficulties getting your child to school on time for any reason, please reach out so we can support wherever possible

 



Koorie Facts

Aboriginal people have been in Australia since the beginning of time – the Creation Stories tell us this.  Even if you don't believe Aboriginal Creation Stories, there is scientific evidence of at least 60,000 years of occupation.

If we look at a clock and consider 1,000 years of time to be a minute of time in the clock, European occupation of this country began at approximately 10 seconds to midnight - 10 seconds, not 10 minutes! There has been a lot of Aboriginal occupation of this country before this time.



Annual School Photo Permissions

During the school year there are many occasions and events where staff may photograph, film or record students participating in school activities and events. We do this for many reasons such as celebrating student participation and achievement, showcasing particular learning programs, documenting a student’s learning journey, capturing moments on camps/excursions/sports events etc, communicating with our parents and school community in newsletters, the school Facebook page and class communication through apps such as Seesaw.

Footscray Primary School understands that parents and carers have the right to withhold permission for our school to use photographs, video or recordings of your child (apart from circumstances where the school is not required to seek consent – see our Photographing, Filming and Recording Students Policy). Follow the link here Photography, Filming & Recording Policy

We are still waiting for some families to complete the consent form, The students who need to complete the form should of received the note in their bag at the start of this week. 

We are asking if these forms can be handed back to the office by Friday 11th June. 

If you need a new copy please come by the office to pick one up. 



Community Pantry

Thank you to the families who continue to donate to our school community pantry. Many families who access the pantry have asked me to pass on their thanks and appreciation for the generosity of those who are able to donate.

If you would like to donate to the pantry, the following items are very popular:

·         Long-life milk

·         Vegetable and olive oil

·         Plain flour

·         Self-raising flour

·         Peanut butter

·         Vegemite

·         Jam

·         Coffee

·         Sugar

·         Muesli bars

·         Salt/ Pepper

·         Juice (apple or orange)

·         Fresh fruit (Monday)

·         Fresh bread (Monday)

·         Toothpaste and tooth brushes

·         Shampoo and conditioner

·         Laundry detergent

·         Soap

Currently we have a lot of canned goods, so no more are needed at the moment.

 

We encourage families in need to use the community pantry each week. You can come in with a bag and take what you need, and you can write up requests for essential items on the wish list (you don’t need to write your name). This list will be shared with the community so that we get the kinds of donations that are needed. We respectfully request that you only take what you need for your own family each week.

Monday will be the day of the week where fresh bread and fruit is available, and the pantry is open every day for all other items.



FPS Social Club

Thanks to everyone for your support during our Easter fund-raising at the end of last term. Between the hot cross bun sales and Egg-Guessing Comp we raised $382.50 to go towards iPad upgrades.

During our lunchtime Egg-Guessing-Competition, it was particularly lovely seeing all the students come together, cooperate so well in lining up, being patient, and helping out the younger students with their (very cute) guesses. Abigail, Fleur and Peggy were terrific guess recorders too. A very big thank you to the staff who helped supervise  - Caroline, Xuhi, Frederica, Caitlin and Rowena.

And well done Will in Grade 5 who guessed the total number of eggs exactly - apologies to his parents for the jar of 113 chocolate eggs that came home!! 


We are continuing our push to raise funds for iPad and tech upgrades in Term 2 with the Footy Raffle! 

Thanks to our great before and after school care provider, TheirCare, we have the Medallion Club seats for you and three friends at any* standard AFL game at Marvel Stadium or the MCG up for grabs! Hopefully a booklet of 10 raffle tickets made it home to you last week. If not, extra ticket booklets are available at the Office.**

To go in the draw, your sold tickets and money must to be returned to the Office in a sealed envelope by Wednesday 12 May. Be sure to write the purchaser’s name and mobile number on BOTH parts of the ticket.

The raffle will be drawn at Assembly on Friday 14 May – Good Luck!!

For more info, please email the FPS Social Club on footscrayprimarysocial@gmail.com

* Game to be chosen from remaining available 2021 season seats through TheirCare allocation.

** Please note, there is no obligation to purchase tickets.

If you’re keen to get involved with the Social Club, or go on our email list to be kept up to date on our activities, please get in touch via footscrayprimarysocial@gmail.com - we’d love to hear from you!



Year 1 Team

The year 1 students are conducting a wonderful scientific experiment in our investigation time. We would be grateful if anyone could donate some plastic jars, such as vegemite or peanut butter jars.

Please send these to school with your child or feel free to deliver to the Greenwood building.

Grazie mille,
Nick ed Emily



Footscray Concert Band

Hi I’m Juliette, and I play the trumpet.
I go to Footscray Concert Band and have a blast!
The reason why I love playing the trumpet is because it’s so fun! I love being loud and
expressing my feelings into the music. There’s a few instruments you can play, the trumpet,
flute, clarinet, xylophone, trombone and percussion. Right now we are learning the song
Squonk Blues. It's really strong and stiff which means I can play loud! At concert band
there’s lots of beginners so we try to help and explain to them. I have been doing concert
band for one year and I’m doing another this year. I really recommend coming to concert
band where you learn new things every lesson, I hope I’ll see you there!

Student Free Day

A reminder that next Wednesday, May 5, is a curriculum day and students do not attend school on this day. If you require care for your child/ren, TheirCare will be providing a full day program.

 



Important dates to remember

Important dates to remember 



Student of the week T2W1

Term 2 Week 1 Student of the week
Class Student 
FAGabriel
FBQuinn
FCSunniva
1BKim
2AJanelle 
2CLenny C
34AAbigail 
34BWilliam T
34CCatherine 
34DLuke B
34EZoe
5CTahbit 
Music Xavior P 5B
VietnameseAtticus 34C
Art Gabriel FA


Student of the Week T2W2

Student of the week Term 2 Week 2
Class Student 
FASvanik
FBViolet
FCGeorge
1AAmanuel
1BPhilippa 
2ALogan
2BJaxx 
2CDiego F
34BZin L 
34CHugo 
34DMohammad & Thomas G 
5C Hunter 
6AAzan 
Vietnamese Arlo J 34D
Art Paddy D 5B