Mansfield Primary School Newsletter

Hello Families,         

“Winter has come.”

What a strange place we live in…last week it was a balmy 20 degrees and this week I feel like we are in the middle of winter.

EDUCATION WEEK

Thank you to families who were able to join us during Education week. Many families wandered through the classrooms and joined in PE, Art, Music and French classes. Our students and staff enjoy the opportunity to highlight their learning. I enjoy hearing the responses of grandparents and older community members who have not visited a classroom in many years. They are usually amazed at the technological advances, which have had a massive impact on learning.

ATTITUDES TO SCHOOL SURVEY

Each year the Education Department require students to complete a survey on how they are feeling about their school. The Grade 4, 5 &6 classes are involved. It is an important survey as it forms part of our systematic school data. In 2018, our student survey was very pleasing with many areas being above state level. Our staff also are required to complete a survey. Once again, our results were well above state level. Unfortunately, disappointing results came from the parent survey. We had a very poor completion rate (30%) which may have impacted on the overall data. The results were also disappointing as they were below state level. One area of major disappointment was the staff/parent level of satisfaction with “communication”. We have worked exceptionally hard this year to improve parent/school communication. All parents now have access to teachers email. We have instilled a new and far more effective school app. We have included an extra parent /teacher interview at the beginning of the year. We have taken your feedback very seriously and will continue to monitor communication between home and school. Please be assured that our doors are always open and that we embrace conversations between parents and school leadership. Having had three primary school children myself, I am very aware that an unhappy child at school, can have great impact on family stress levels.

Parent and staff surveys will be distributed later in the year.

NAPLAN

Last week, our Grade 3 and 5 sat the NAPLAN tests. Many schools, (including our school) were asked to complete the tests on line for the first time. As you may be aware from the expansive media coverage, the online system did not cope with the volume of students sitting the test. The students experienced many disruptions during the test and for some students, the test “cut out” half way through, (this was a statewide issue). The VCAA gave the schools the choice to re-sit any test, in which students were effected.

For our school, the students sitting the Grade 5 writing test were impacted. We reverted to paper tests from day two, following the problems we encountered on day one and with the permission from the VCAA. Our Grade 5 students re-sat the writing test, (on paper) this week. As a principal and teacher, I felt it was only fair that students were given every opportunity to perform at their best. Our students showed a great deal of resilience during the NAPLAN issue.

SPORTS

Good luck to our students who will be competing at the division cross-country event in Yea. We hope you once again complete the course with a giant smile, (just like you did at the Mansfield cross-country event). I know you will be fabulous ambassadors for our school and our district.

Congratulations to the Grade 5 and 6 students who competed in the division sports at Shepparton last Friday. From all reports, the students had a terrific day competing in AFL; Soccer; T ball and Netball.

The Grade 6 also had a training hike as a part of their School to Summit training. I heard on the grape vine that there was a fair bit of huffing and puffing! Having climbed Mt Timbertop, I can understand!

BUSCOMBE FAMILY

We wish our school chaplain, Mark Buscombe his wife Jay and the kids a fantastic time on their 3-month travel around the USA. We look forward to hearing about their journey and viewing many pictures on their return.

Mrs Bec Corden will take over Mark’s chaplaincy role up until she welcomes her fourth child into the world. Bec has spent many days working at our school in a student support role. Bec has a social work degree so she is extremely qualified to work with our students and staff.

Enjoy your week and please remember to make contact if you have any concerns regarding your child/children.

Cheerio, Julie 

May 28th    Year 3/4 Coding Workshop

May 31st    Division Cross Country - Yea

May 31st    Year 1/2 swimming

June 7th    Year 4 S2S Hike Mt. Stirling

June 7th    Year 1/2 swimming

June 7th    Assembly 3pm

June 10th   Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday

June 11th    Mount Buller campus opens

June 19th    Regional Cross Country - Winton

June 20th    Reports Home

June 20th    P-2 Cross Country

June 21st    Gd 3/4 Melbourne Museum Excursion

June 21st    Assembly

June 24th-28th    Student Lead Conferences

June 24th/25th    Gifted Outreach Camp Melb.

BUS TRAVEL

Thank you to our families who are advising us of changes to their bus travel arrangements for their children. There does continue to be a few families who are forgetting to advise us of any changes.  If you can please make an effort to inform us either by Skoolbag, email or phone it would be appreciated.  Even though we are unable to hold buses to locate missing children it is still an inconvenience to our bus coordinators in the afternoon.

CONVEYANCE ALLOWANCE TERM 2

Parents /Guardians who drive their children in excess of 4.8 km to board a school bus stop or travel more than 4.8km without passing a bus stop when driving to school are entitled to apply for a conveyance allowance.  If you believe you are entitled to this allowance please ask at the school office for a Conveyance Form or follow this link https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/transport/Pages/conveyance.aspx. . If you already receive conveyance allowance there is no need to complete another form.

Please ensure that this form is received at the school office by Tuesday 11TH June.

SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB Issue 4

Book Club Issue 4 order forms will sent home with your child this week.  Please ensure these order are returned by Friday 7th June or alternatively order directly with Scholastic by the LOOP online system. 

https://mybookclubs.scholastic.com.au/Parent/Login.aspx

If paying by cheque, please make it payable to Mansfield Primary School.  Each student must have a separate order form.

SKI PROGRAM 2019

Forms relating to the Ski/Snowboarding program were sent home with children last week.  Please ensure that these forms are returned to the school office by Friday 14th June.  It is important to note that if your child is interested in the program, but did not receive a form, that they please ask for one at the school office as soon as possible.  Please note that forms must be returned by the due date.

ARRIVAL TIME AT SCHOOL

Please note that students are not expected to be at school before 8:30am. This is the time that teachers are legally on duty. Teachers commence yard duty at 8:30am. Students who arrive prior to this time will be asked to go to the school office. Parents will be informed by phone. We understand that many parents commence work prior to this time, however the school does not offer before school child care. It is your responsibility as parents to organise this. The Farmhouse has before school care and delivers the students to school at the appropriate time. Children unsupervised could be at risk of harm. Please ensure this is not your child. 

WET WEATHER CONDITIONS

With the wet weather well and truly upon us it is worth considering packing a set of extra clothes in your child’s school bag.  This is especially useful for the younger students who enjoy playing in wet and muddy conditions.  Please note that we do carry a small supply of extra clothes to use in these situations, but we do rely on these being washed and returned to the school office.

LUNCHES

We are getting quite a few students coming to the office looking for extra food. It may be worth packing some extra snacks in lunch boxes in this cold weather.

How was Grade 5 Camp? In the words of Marly Kelleher: "It was fully sick!" Pun intended.

We had a ripper day down to Ocean Grove on the V/Line train. Lots of students brought travel games and George Crawford (dad, parent helper, policeman, magician) was pretty handy with the card tricks. The train toilet was also quite a highlight for many students. Mind you, what is it with kids and train or bus travel? As soon as the train pulled away from the station, before they had even finished waving off adoring parents, bags upon bags of lollies and chips and snacks were ripped opened. Next camp, I am having a lolly tax – be warned Grade 3. We had an easy transition through Southern Cross Station. With 20 minutes between trains, this allowed groups to ride the escalators and/or the lifts. Eyes were also eagerly scrutinizing the take-away options for the trip home. Little did they know . . . .

After arriving at camp in Ocean Grove, Group 2 quickly got changed and headed off to OG Main Beach for our first surf lesson. The conditions were primo. After wrestling into wetsuits, we headed to the sand for a quick lesson. Within 20 minutes half of Group 2 were standing up on their boards and riding waves all the way into shore. There were definitely some super stars in the making. If only Mansfield had some waves. Group 1 had already set up their tents. They headed down for their surf lesson and also ripped it up. They lived up to the phrase, "No waves, no glory". There was glory all round. 

The afternoon was spent watching possums, setting up tents, playing sport, playing in the playground and having showers. We had delicious lasagne and salad for dinner. Some more lasagne than others! Some more salad than others! After dinner we went for a walk along the river and saw millions of soldier crabs. It was impossible to not tread on some. Sorry crabs. We all settled into bed after a long day.

Mrs Robinson took the early risers for a morning beach walk before we had breakfast and headed to Anglesea for some canoeing alternative activities with EcoLogic and some beach play. Unfortunately the forecast high winds and rain prevented us from canoeing. We participated on a range of activities with EcoLogic including Relationship to Country: Bush Tucker Food, Coastal Animal Adaptations and games. Beach play including digging the biggest hole, sandcastles, kick to kick, and going on the ocean was absolutely the best way to spend a few hours. I am sure if we did this for four days straight, they would have been more than happy.

Then the tides of health and wellness turned........

At 5pm we had three ill students. As students lined up for dinner at 6pm, we had another. And another. And then it didn’t stop. It got to the point (very quickly) where we knew we were in for a long night and Plan B needed to be initiated. The kids were dreadfully disappointed. Asking parents to drive to OG late in the evening became unreasonable and unsafe. We had called a small number of parents early to come and collect their student but then went about setting up a field hospital (a la M*A*S*H style) in the recreation room for our sick students. Admittedly I would cast Sam Corden as Maj. Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan. A supermarket run happened to stock up on medical supplies, coins got from the 24 hour petrol station so we could run the three washing machine and three dryers all through the night. Some staff also fell ill. Others needed to sleep to swap out staff or drive vehicles home in the morning. Mrs Murray, Mrs Robinson, Ella McRae and myself stayed up all night nursing sick students, washing and drying sleeping bags and clothes. By the morning we had 32 sick students. Others slept soundly through the night. Thursday morning involved a lot of toast, packing up, hosing vomit out of tents, cancelling buses, trains, surfing, supermarket orders, bakery orders etc.  

MMBL arrived at 9.30am to take us home. They came with loads of sick bags and buses that had no carpet and vinyl seats. Not their first rodeo. We are ever so grateful that we could contact them late the evening before and they made our return to school smooth. We are also grateful for those parents who came to pick up their son or daughter and offered to take another sick student home. What a wonderful community. When I called Michelle Lunam, she said she didn’t know whether to buy the staff a bucket or some chocolates. She settled on a bucket of chocolates. I loved this humour because in situations like these it is essential.

Last of all, our Grade 5 students are amazing. It wasn’t the best camp ever. But it probably will be the most memorable. Even when sick the students had the most impeccable manners. Even though they just wanted to be home they were absolute troopers. The students that were fortunate enough not to fall sick did a fantastic job of looking after their friends and helped pack up. I would like to thank the Grade 5 students, staff and parent helpers (Ella McRae, Beth Crowe, George Crawford and Heidi Cotterill) who all went above and beyond on this camp.

Due to the shortened length of the Year 5 camp we have some funds that were not used. Sally Kelly is planning an outdoor adventure activity later this year for the Year 5 students so we are intending to allocate these funds towards this. We will keep you informed as plans are made. Stay tuned.

Memorable Quotes

"Does this mean we don’t get to go surfing?"

"I feel sick"

"Does this mean we don’t get to eat KFC?"

"I feel sick"

"Oh no! It’s running down my leg!"

"I feel sick"

"I should have never come on this stupid camp!"

On 24th of May, Mansfield Primary School Grade 5/6 went to Shepparton to play the Division Championships at McEwen Reserve and John Gray Oval, Mooroopna. The school was represented by a girls Soccer team, boys Soccer team, mixed AFL, two mixed Netball teams, one all-girls Netball and one mixed Tee Ball team.

AFL

The footy was hard fought out by a mixed team of 19 MPS players. The other schools were pretty rough and much taller! It was fun to get out and get muddy. We would like to thank Mrs Yencken for coaching and Henry Gove as our Assistant Coach. Also thank you to Gina Elliot and Leith Azzopardi who helped out on the day by goal umpiring. (Cody Azzopardi) 

NETBALL

Last Friday three netball teams went to Shepparton to play a five round tournament. There was an all-girls team and two mixed teams. The competition was tough but all the teams did a fantastic job!!! One of our mixed teams got into a semi final and did really well.(: We would like to thank Sarah Hensell, Kathryn Murray and Collete Clarke for coming along and managing the teams. It was a great day and it was fun to get on the court with our friends and give it a go. (Amelia Clydesdale and Jade Rau)

TEE BALL

The mixed Tee ball team of 11 players was not the most successful but it was a great experience for all players in Year 5/6. The problem was that we did not get much practise due to the timetable this term. The first team we played was quite a challenge but we lost by 5 home runs. The rest we lost but had so much fun and by the end of the day we all were so tried and most of us fell asleep on the bus. Special Thanks to Laura Westwood and Sally Kelly for helping out the Tee Ball Team and the rest of the teams. (Connor McFadden)

SOCCER

The girls’ soccer team went to Shepparton and played a best of three games tournament at the sporting oval. Unfortunately they didn’t win but they did manage to score a good goal.

The boys soccer team played tough competition but came out victorious on the last of the four games that they played. We would like to thank Sam Corden and Ben Les for coaching. A special thank you also goes to Amanda Poulson who came to help out on the day. (Danae Avgerinou and Beth Chamberlain)