• Sunday 15th March - Term 1 Working Bee, 9am to 12pm
• Monday 23 March - Bakery Lunch Orders to be place by today - Order Now
• Friday 27th March - Bakery Lunch Orders Day - Order Now
• Friday 27th March - Last Day Of Term 1 (2:30pm dismissal)
• Tuesday 14th April - Student Free Day
• Wednesday 15th April - First Day Of Term 2 For Students
• Saturday 20th June - Parents Trivia Night
• Saturday 14th November - School Fair

PUPIL FREE DAYS

• Tuesday April 14th, 2020
• One extra day yet to be confirmed in 2020

TERM DATES

• 2020 TERM 1: Tuesday 28th January - Friday 27th March (2:30pm finish)
• 2020 TERM 2: Tuesday 14th April - Friday 26th June (2:30pm finish)
• 2020 TERM 3: Monday 13th July - Friday 18th September (2:30pm finish)
• 2020 TERM 4: Monday 5th October - Friday 18th December (1:30pm finish)

CAMP DATES

• Year 6: Canberra Camp (Mon 25May to Fri 29May 2020)
• Year 4: Anglesea Recreation Camp (Wed 27May to Fri 29May 2020)
• Year 3: Arrabri Lodge Camp (Mon 27July to Wed 29July 2020)
• Year 5: Lady Northcote Recreation Camp (Tue 06Oct to Fri 09Oct 2020)

SCHOOL COUNCIL NEWS The first meeting of the 2020 School Council was held last Tuesday evening. The Annual Report of 2019 was presented at our Annual reporting meeting, before an election of office bearers was conducted. I am happy to report the following members of School Council have been elected to the following positions for 2020:-

• President Ian SHERLOCK
• Vice President Dale ARMSTRONG
• Secretary William TONG
• Treasurer Anu CHIKARSAL

I congratulate these office bearers and look forward to a most successful year as School Council oversees a range of projects and initiatives during 2020.

BUILDING UPDATES The demolition of the Northern Classrooms will commence in the first week of the school holidays. Potentially, the building could be levelled in time for our return after the holiday break, but if not, then certainly in the first two weeks of Term 2. The construction of the permanent modular classrooms has commenced offsite and this is anticipated to take approximately 3-4 months. As a consequence of the aforementioned holiday demolition, NO staff member, parent or student will be allowed any sort of access to the schoolgrounds over the holidays, except with the permission of the Principal, and even then it will be unlikely to be granted! And therefore the HOLIDAY PROGRAM normally run by OSHClub will NOT take place. There will be further correspondence about options and positions at other holiday programs provided by OSHClub in due course (for these holidays only. Normal arrangements will resume for the Term 2 break).

POSTPONEMENT OF THE PROPOSED VIETNAM TOUR You will be aware that we had great hopes of taking 15 students and 5 staff to Vietnam in October of this year, but due to the coronavirus and all of the implications and potentialities associated with it, we have postponed the trip. Our best intentions, all things being equal, is to look at a trip in October 2021. We trust you are fully understanding of our decision.

DIVISIONAL SWIMMING Congratulations to all 12 members of the swim team who swam at Northcote Pool on March 4 – very proud of all of you. Special congratulations to Jesse McLeod who was successful in both freestyle and backstroke in his age group and now gets to swim at a Regional level at the WaterMarc pool on Tuesday, March 17. We wish him the very best of luck.

NATIONAL YOUNG LEADERS DAY The upcoming National Young Leaders Days on Friday March 20 will be attended by 28 of our Grade 6 leaders. Held at the Melbourne Convention Centre, this year’s event features speakers including Rove McManus, Erin Molan, Bianca Chatfield, John Coutis and Solli Raphael! It is always a highlight of our young leaders’ year, and they will have their opportunity to share their experiences in the final newsletter of the term when they report back to the community.

WORKING BEE We are very, very keen to have as many people as possible help out on Sunday, March 15 at our Term 1 working bee. As well as the normal projects and tasks we commonly schedule, we are also seeking help transporting furniture and equipment to storage in our shipping containers up in the staff carpark. Essentially, this task needs to be completed by Friday, March 27 and if we can get most of it completed on Sunday that would be sensational. As always, a sausage sizzle lunch will be provided and plenty of good company to boot.

FINAL WEEK ARRANGEMENTS Term concludes on Friday, March 27 with an assembly commencing at 2.10pm with dismissal at 2.30pm. PLEASE NOTE that as the first day of Term 2 is a pupil free day, the first day for students will be on WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15.

Have a great weekend and hope to see you on Sunday.

Kind regards,

Bill Kersing

Principal

.

RESILIENCE, RIGHTS AND RESPECTFUL RELATIONSHIPS

What is Respectful Relationships? The Respectful Relationships initiative supports schools to promote and model respect and equality – and to teach our children how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence identified the critical role that schools have in creating a culture of respect to change the story of family violence for future generations. In 2016, respectful relationships education became a core component of the Victorian Curriculum from Prep to Year 12, and is being taught in all government and Catholic schools and many independent schools. In the past at Viewbank, we have indirectly addressed respectful relationships through our school values however from this year we are adopting a more targeted, whole school approach. Taking a whole-school approach is about embedding a culture of respect and equality across our entire school community, from our classrooms to staffrooms, sporting fields, community gatherings and social events. This approach leads to positive impacts on students’ academic outcomes, their mental health, classroom behaviour, and relationships between teachers and students.

This year, Viewbank PS has made a commitment to implementing Respectful Relationships through the Leading and Partner School model. We have joined with Viewbank College (Lead school), Rosanna Golf Links PS, Rosanna Primary and St Martin of Tours School (Partner schools) to form the Banyule Cluster. Late last year, Bill Kersing, Karli Mooy, Kara Lane and myself (Respectful Relationships implementation team) took part in two induction and training days and last week all VPS staff took part in a Respectful Relationships professional learning session facilitated by Brigitte Walker and Peta Fualau, the Respectful Relationships Project Leader and Liaison for North-Western Victoria Region.

The Respectful Relationships initiative will complement the work we have already begun with both School Wide Positive Behaviour Support and the Resilience Project.

We know that changes in attitudes and behaviours can be achieved when positive attitudes, behaviours and gender equality are lived across the school community, and when classroom learning is reinforced by what is modelled in our school community.

Together, we can lead the way in saying yes to respect and equality, and creating genuine and lasting change so that every child has the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

In the coming weeks, I will unpack and explain the Respectful Relationships whole school approach model further. You may like to ask your child what they know about Respectful Relationships.

PLANNING WEEK Next week (March 16-20) will be planning week across the school.

Throughout the week all classroom teachers will be timetabled to spend a whole day planning for Term 2, along with the other teachers in their team. Specialist teachers also receive time throughout the week to plan for the following term. In teams, teachers reflect and provide feedback on the learning that has occurred across this term, discuss student data that has been collected and use this information to inform future planning.

The teaching and learning for Term 2 is discussed and planned for, with curriculum planners being developed for English and Mathematics. Inquiry units, will also be reviewed and planned. Common assessment tasks will be discussed and excursions and in school activities researched and booked.

Planning Week allows our staff the opportunity to engage in professional discussions and develop the rich, differentiated learning programs that allow our students to engage fully in their learning.

Teaching teams will plan on the following days with students having specialist lessons for the day:

• Monday - Year 6 , Tuesday – Year 5, Wednesday – Year 2 and Foundation,
• Thursday –Year 1 and Year 3 & Friday – Year 4.

Have a great week

Gill Nicholls

Cyber Safety Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we continue to be informed of students at Viewbank Primary School who have social media accounts. Of particular concern are the students who have posted on platforms such as TikTok in their school uniform and include other students whose parents have NOT given permission for their child’s image to be used. TikTok has many more dangers than some other social media apps due to the country where it is hosted having very few laws to protect users, and where facial recognition software is extremely advanced. Nobody really knows where that ‘cute’ video of your child in pyjamas in their bedroom will end up in the future, and what it may be used for.

The below statistics come from the UK report Safety Net: Cyberbullying’s impact on young people’s mental health, published in 2018.

• Under-age use of social media is commonplace 61% of young people had a first account at age 12 or under.

• Children and young people are using social media for longer periods and using multiple profiles Nearly half (44%) of children and young people spend more than three hours per day on social media, whilst almost 1 in 10 (9%) reported always using social media overnight between midnight and 6am.

• There is a connection between intensive social media use and mental ill health 38% of young people reported that social media has a negative impact on how they feel about themselves, compared to 23% who reported that it has a positive impact. This was exacerbated for girls, with 46% of girls stating that social media had a negative impact on their self-esteem.

A Current Affair aired a report in mid-2019 on the dangers of TikTok, as well as the predatory, grooming behaviour of some TikTok users. It is a ‘must see’ if you or your children use this social media platform. You can view the episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kofyo2kCnKY (6 min watch). This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOsgQbmvuUQ (2 min watch) is a re-enactment of a real case reported to the Australian Federal Police. It shows how an online child predator attempted to groom a child online.

This is a huge amount of information available at https://www.thinkuknow.org.au/ , https://www.youtube.com/user/ThinkUKnowAUS/videos, and https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents

In 2019, our Grade 3, 4 and 5 students (our Grade 4, 5 and 6 students in 2020) completed an online survey as part of our participation in The Resilience Project (TRP). We had Antony from TRP present the results of that survey to the staff on Tuesday evening. While there were many positives, of particular concern, and related to the above, were the amount of students who text or are online after 10pm regularly (recorded below as percentages):

For our current Grade 6s, this is almost 1 in 4 students – 6 out of every 24 students in a class! Without a doubt, this is having a negative impact on these children’s ability to learn the following day – they are tired! It is also safe to say that the majority of these interactions are ‘unsupervised’ and are happening in bedrooms. Who are your children letting into their bedrooms late at night?

Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) Over the last 4 weeks of Term 1, many parents will have, or will be, receiving an Individual Learning Plan, or ILP. These are official documents that recognise that your child requires extra support with their learning to ensure they continue to progress as effectively as possible.

I would like to acknowledge and thank our teachers for the many hours of extra work they do to create these, and the work that they do to implement these throughout the course of the year. We have a number of grades across the school that have around half of the class (10 – 15 students) with an ILP due to learning challenge support, or extension above the expected level. This is on top of the twice yearly written reports as required by the Department of Education and Training.

If you have any questions about your child’s ILP, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher, in the first instance.

Have a great weekend everyone,

Patrick

​

OSHClub Due to the building works during the upcoming school holidays OSHClub Vacation Care will not be running here at our school. There will be further correspondence about options and positions at other local schools OSHClub holiday programs.

OSHClub will be available at school on Tue 14 Apr, the pupil free day.

Free Sanitary Items in Government Schools Initiative The government is committed to providing free pads and tampons in all government primary, secondary and specialist schools via a dispenser which has installed at our school in the sick bay.

The aim of this initiative is to:

• Provide students with the confidence that there will always be sanitary items available at school.
• Relieve female students of the stigma, anxiety and discomfort that can be associated with menstruation and its management.
• Ease the cost of living for families.

The use of sanitary items provided at school will be entirely voluntary. Providing both sanitary pads and tampons allows students to make a choice based on their own needs, cultural beliefs, maturity and preferences.

CSEF (Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund) CSEF (Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund) is a government assisted fund which provides payments for eligible students to attend camps, sports and excursions ($125 per child). Applications for the Governments ‘CSEF Fund’ can be accessed by filling in the attached form and return to the office with a current Health Care card. To be eligible for this funding, you need to hold a current Centrelink Health Care Card or Pension Concession Card or Veteran Affairs Gold Card. Please note: as this funding is means tested, the Parent/Guardian MUST be the card holder, no Medical Health Care Cards in the student’s name will be accepted as it will be rejected by the CSEF system. Funds are paid to the school and will be automatically allocated to the Term Expenses unless otherwise stated by the parent at the start of the year.

COMPASS If you have any questions or require assistance with Compass, please do not hesitate to contact the office or refer to the Compass Parent Guide on your Compass Newsfeed.

Kind regards

Lucy Addati

Business Manager

The School Fair Committee is working hard to deliver the School Fair in November 2020 but we need your assistance as a liaison or co-ordinator. No matter how big or small you can contribute we would love to hear from you.

If you can assist with any of the following please contact the listed co-ordinator for more information.

Communications and Sponsors - Dale Armstrong 0417402432 or emal: armstrong.dale70@gmail.com

• Sponsors
• Marketing and promotions

Stalls - Jules Kent 0437423260 or email: juliennekent@gmail.com

• Food vendors
• Market stalls
• School stalls
• Rides & attractions

Programming & Logistics - Neralie Cadusch 0412551430 or email caduschconsulting@gmail.com

• Permits
• Risk Management Planning
• Stage Programming
• External contractors

If you are unsure who to contact and wish to offer your assistance, we would love to hear from you. You can contact Dale Armstrong (Fair Convenor) on 0417402432 or email armstrong.dale70@gmail.com

​

SECOND HAND UNIFORM SALE - Every Friday, next to the music room. Jumpers with the school logo, long and short sleeve school polo tops and school dresses will be $5.00 and all other items $2.00. We are currently asking for donations of any unwanted reusable school uniform items to sell at our stall.

Uniforms can be purchased online at www.aplusschoolwear.com.au with one of three delivery options:

• Free collection in store during trading hours.
• Postage to address of customer’s choosing, at $12.50 for two items or less, or $17.50 for three items or more.
• Free delivery to school, to an existing student at Viewbank Primary. Please note, this option is not available if the customer does not already have a student at the school.

The Viewbank Primary School Council has approved for the Lower Plenty Bakehouse to provide the school with a bakery provided Lunch Order on the last Friday of each month.

Parent assistance is required on this day to collect the food from the bakery and sort juices. If you are available to assist in any way can you please email your details to viewbank.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au

ORDERS MUST BE PLACED BEFORE MONDAY 23RD MARCH, 2020

Please contact Lower Plenty Bakehouse in regards to any dietary information 9435 1603

All food is halal, pasties, sandwich and rolls are vegetarian.

I

2020 VIEWBANK PRIMARY SCHOOL EASTER RAFFLE

$1.00 per raffle ticket, great prizes to be won!! Please return all sold tickets to school by Friday 20th March, 2020. Raffle to be drawn on Monday 23rd March, 2020. Please ensure name and phone number are clearly written onto all sold tickets.

All money raised will be going towards our schools fundraising oval project.

Thank you for your support.

A little bird told me about this month’s bonus offers with Entertainment. You can spend and save, get extra membership months and receive a gift with purchase. Don’t forget you would also be supporting Viewbank Primary School fundraising. https://www.entertainment.com.au/orderbooks/1891w37

ICY POLE FRIDAY Students are able to buy icy poles over the counter at lunchtime. All icy poles cost $1.00 each. We are asking for parent helpers to assist with the sale of these icy poles on Fridays from 1pm to 1:30pm.

VEGETABLE SALES On Wednesday afternoons at 3pm in the Rotunda students from 4M will be picking produce to sell to the community. We are also looking for donations of plastic buckets and pots to re plant some of our plants in before the Northern Building is demolished.

Bushfire Appeal Viewbank Cub Scouts A number of our Students who are members of Viewbank Cub Scouts wish to raise money for the Bushfire affected communities.

They will be selling cookies for $1 each at lunchtime on Friday 6th and 20th of March.

Chocolate chip cookie ingredients – unsalted butter, caster sugar, brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, plain flour, baking powder, chocolate chips.

Anzac cookie ingredients – rolled oats, plain flour, sugar, desiccated coconut, golden syrup, butter, bicarbonate soda.

They are selling chocolate chip cookies on the 6th March and Anzac cookies on the 20th March.

OXFAM Trailwalker Melbourne 2020 100km We are a team of four Viewbank PS mum’s crazy enough to be tackling the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker Challenge 2020 on 27-29 March. We are aiming to complete the 100km in approximately 26 hours, have been in serious training and are ready to walk!

Our team is called “The Wannabe Warriors” consisting of Kate Coleman, Jodi Cook, Muireann Lambe & Jess Martin (with special thanks to our support crew of Vanessa Buttigieg & Tracey Muir).

If anyone would like to donate to this worthy cause, please click on the link below to donate to our team. Thank you for your support!

MESSAGE FROM DANI THE SCHOOL GARDENER

I'm taking part in the World's Greatest Shave for the Leukaemia Foundation soon and I need your help! I'm on a mission to shave the world from blood cancer.

Please be my shave sidekick and sponsor me to give Aussie families facing blood cancer the emotional and practical support they need, plus fund vital research.

Every day another 35 Australians are diagnosed with a blood cancer. That’s one Aussie every 41 minutes. Although research is improving survival, sadly an Australian loses their life to blood cancer every two hours.

Will you help by sponsoring me?

HATS ON From 1st September until 30th April school hats must be worn outside during all outside activities.

RUNNING GROUP Starting from week 3 every Tuesday and Thursday from 8:35am on the oval, for any student. All abilities welcome. Pack a spare pair of socks/shoes in case the oval is damp. Hope to see you there!

SCHOOL CHOIR Every Wednesday, 8.30am, in Miss Lane’s room. Everyone from Year 2 to 6 are welcome!

PHONE NUMBER: 0448 075 422

EMAIL: viewbank@oshclub.com.au