Friday May 4 - Mother's Day Stall
Monday May 7 - Year 3 to 6 Cross Country
Thursday May 10 - School Finance Meeting 6:30pm, School Council Meeting 7:30pm
Thursday May 17 - Special Lunch Day (Sushi)
Friday May 25 - Fundraising Children's Disco (evening event at Viewbank Primary School)
Monday June 11 - Queen's Birthday Public Holiday
Tuesday June 12 - Pupil Free Day
UPCOMING TRANSITION DATES* — May Information Night: Thursday 3 May 7-8pm, Education Week Open Day: Tuesday 22 May 9.30-3pm, Education Week Open Morning: Saturday 26 May 9am-12pm *Full Transition timeline available below
Annual Working Bees — Saturday May 26 (Term 2), Saturday August 11 (Term 3), Saturday November 3 (Term 4)
PUPIL FREE DAYS — Tuesday June 12, Monday December 17
TERM DATES — TERM 2: Monday 16 April - Friday 29 June, TERM 3: Monday 16 July - Friday 21 September, TERM 4: Monday 8 October - Friday 21 December
CAMP DATES — Year 6 Canberra Camp 14 - 18 May, Year 4 Anglesea Camp 30 May - 1 June, Year 5 Lady Northcote Camp 9 - 12 October, Year 3 Urban Camp 10 - 12 December.
FAMILY MATHS NIGHT It says a lot when we advertise a Family Maths Night and we have 254 people expressing an interest in attending!! Many thanks to Gill Nicholls, and her esteemed team, for planning, promoting and implementing this event. It was a lot of fun, and an ideal educational experience. I think the attached photos evidence this fact. And whilst I think about it, please keep August 15 free for a family Science Night – more to come on that as the date draws nearer.
2019 FOUNDATION INFORMATION EVENING A final reminder that we will be outlining what lies ahead for our Foundation 2019 students and families at an Information session tonight at 7pm in the Science Room.
GRADE 3 TO 6 CROSS COUNTRY This annual event is set to take place next Monday, May 7 from 9.30am at Price Park. It is always an exciting event, punctuated with the joy of winning/competing/completing. We encourage you to come along and cheer on the competitors, and if you could manage to help run the event by ‘manning’ the course, we would be eternally grateful as it is quite a logistical exercise.
CANBERRA CAMP I wish our Grade 6 students and staff all the best for what is one of the highlights of the school year - the annual Grade 6 Canberra Camp. Everyone leaves awfully early on Monday, May 14 to ensure we arrive with an hour or two to spare for dinner on the first night at Ibis Styles Motel in Canberra. Highlights of the tour include a visit to the War Memorial, Government House and Questacon. Gill Nicholls will be attending for the week, and I will be visiting from Tuesday to Thursday. In recent years we have been lucky enough to meet our Governor-General, Opposition Leaders and ex-Prime Ministers, so here’s hoping our luck continues this year. Many thanks to all staff who are attending for putting their family lives on hold for the week – a massive commitment. I’m sure you will thank them upon their return.
ATTITUDES TO SCHOOL SURVEY The Attitudes to School Survey is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education and Training to assist schools in gaining an understanding of students' perceptions and experience of school. Our school will use the survey results to plan programs and activities to improve your child's schooling experience. Students from Grades 4 to 6 at our school will participate in the survey. Your child will complete the survey online during school hours using a purpose built secure online survey tool. It is important to note that we are not in any way “testing” your child. Your child has the right to refuse or withdraw from the survey at any point before, during, or after completion of the survey. Your child will be provided with a unique login to complete the survey. The student login is an assigned identifier that may be used to link data for statistical and research purposes only. All responses to the survey are kept anonymous in the response file. Personal identification data will not be recorded in the survey response file. This ensures that the confidentiality of your child’s responses is protected at all times. Bec Andrew (Grade 6), Phil Byrne (Grade 5) and Meredith Collins (Grade 4) will be administering the survey on behalf of their teams. This year the Attitudes to School survey will be conducted at our school over the period April 30 to June 1. The survey only takes 20 minutes to complete and occurs during your child's class time. The survey results will be reported back to the school before the end of term 2. All survey data that is made available in reports are for groups of students only so that no individual student can be identified. If you would like more information, please visit: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/management/improvement/Pages/performsurveyat.aspx
I hope you have a lovely weekend, and to be honest, I hope it rains!
Kind regards,
Bill Kersing
Principal
FAMILY MATHS NIGHT What an amazing response we had to our Family Maths Night on Wednesday! Well over two hundred people attended and everyone seemed to enjoy the range of maths activities and games that were set up in the gym. All families got involved; becoming problem solvers, discussing ideas, testing strategies and working together. It was great to see students explaining and playing favourite mathematical games with their parents as well as having a go at more challenging tasks with mum or dad’s support. Thank you also to the wonderful Viewbank staff who supported the evening in so many different ways. We also officially launched our Maths Games Borrowing Library. Parents can now borrow these games from the stand in the library for use at home. Hopefully families will be able to use many of the ideas from the evening to continue to think mathematically at home.
Thank you for attending.
Have a good week
Gill Nicholls
MOTHER'S DAY STALL This year’s Mother’s Day Stall will be held on Friday 4th of May, 2018. Children are asked to bring no more than $10.00 to purchase some quality goodies for their Mums, Grandparent, Aunties or Special person. Please remember to bring your money and a carry bag with you on the day. For this to run smoothly Parent helpers are required to assist with the setup, selling of gifts and packing up the stall which will run throughout the entire day…. so if you are available please contact Carol Seneca & Sarina Sherlock via email cazstar@optusnet.com.au (Mob: 0410 039 554)
ENTERTAINMENT BOOK AND DIGITAL MEMBERSHIP Purchase your Entertainment Membership NOW to help Viewbank Primary School raise much needed funds! Viewbank Primary School are again fundraising with the very popular Entertainment Book or Digital Membership. You'll receive hundreds of valuable offers for everything you love to do, and help our fundraising at the same time. Hurry, Entertainment Memberships sell out quickly.
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.
LIVE FOR LILY RIDE TO THE ROCK 2018 As many of you are aware during the first term school holidays I completed the Live for Lily Ride to the Rock helping to raise money to cure childhood cancer. Our ride began at the start of the Oodnadatta track in South Australia and continued for the next 6 days, finally finishing in Uluru, Central Australia. The ride was extremely difficult to say the least and definitely harder than expected. Each morning saw our little band of 12 riders up at 4.30am, pack up our tents and camp site, make our lunch, eat breakfast and be ready to ride at 5.30am. It was very strange lathering myself in sunscreen in the pitch black of early morning ready for a day in the sun. Each day saw us contend with scorching heat, every day being over 36 degrees, flies like I have never seen, so bad that we all had to wear fly nets over our helmets and some very, very rough roads. The combination of corrugation, fist size rocks and sand, meant that we often had to get off and walk, making the going really slow and difficult. We were often on the bike for 12-15 hours each day. Needless to say 6 days was long enough! Since returning and having time to reflect on what an amazing feat we were able to complete I’m feeling very proud. Our small group of 12 riders and 20 support crew and family were able to raise just under $120,000.00. The community of Viewbank Primary School helping us reach this amazing total. I want to thank everyone once again for their support of me in doing this ride and know that through the Live for Lily Foundation the money raised will go to helping find a cure for this horrible disease. If you would like to see some photos of our adventure please go to the Live for Lily Facebook page. Feel free to like it and share it. The more people who know about this wonderful foundation the better.
Kind regards
Janelle Spinks (Kiara’s mum 3W)
CRAFT/CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS Dear Parents/Guardians, The Year 3 students will soon be participating in an Inquiry unit about sustainable design. In our ‘Tuning In’ stage, students will be constructing creations using different materials. We are asking for donations of craft/construction materials for the students to work with. This can be anything from yarns and fabric, to boxes and clean recyclable plastic, to fastening materials like split pins. For safety reasons, we will not be accepting or working with tools or hardware during this task. If you have item/s you wish to donate, please drop them in to any of the Year 3 classroom teachers by Friday 18th May. We thank you for your ongoing support! Year 3 team
THE VICTORIAN PREMIER'S READING CHALLENGE The Victorian Premier's Reading Challenge (VPRC) has commenced for this year. Registration forms are available on Compass and from the Office. Students in Foundation to Year 2 are required to read 30 books (20 from the Challenge list) and students in Year 3 - 6 are required to read 15 books (10 or more from the Challenge list). The Challenge finishes on the 7th September so there is plenty of time to meet the Challenge. Successful students will have their names published in Honour Roll on the Challenge website and will be issued with a certificate in early December. Are you up to the Challenge?
Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) The Government assisted ‘Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund’ provides payments for eligible students to attend camps, sports and excursions. Applications for the Governments ‘Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund’ can be accessed by filling out the form available on Compass, at the office or via the link below. To be eligible for this funding, you need to hold a current Pension or Health Care 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 will be automatically allocated to the Term Expenses unless otherwise stated by the parent at the start of the year.
TRANSITION DATES Please download the below timeline for your future reference.
HATS ON From 1st September until 30th April school hats must be worn outside during all outside activities.
Look what the Year 3 students cooked this week!