Virginia Primary School Newsletter

Welcome back to school for the start of 2020. We extend a warm welcome to all new students and families.  We hope that all families had a lovely holiday break and that you enjoyed the Christmas, New Year and Australia Day holidays. Thanks to the families, neighbours and OSHC staff who kept an eye on the school over the school break.

As mentioned in our last newsletter of 2019, we wish Ilia all the very best in his new role as Education Director. He has a wealth of knowledge and even though he will be greatly missed, it is affirming to know that Ilia will continue to support and make positive improvements across many sites. Education and student learning, is at the core of his business, and we thank him for all his hard work and contribution towards moving VPS forward. I look forward to continuing this journey with you all and wish all staff, students and families a successful 2020.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Thuy Tran who was successful in winning the Deputy position for term one. We are excited to have Thuy on board as having taught here for many years she knows our school very well. I am sure you will join me in congratulating her on her new role.

Congratulations to Sabrina and Christian on their beautiful wedding day in New York. We wish them all the very best. We will need to get used to calling Miss Sabrina Mrs Sliskovic. Sabrina will also continue the role as Literacy and Numeracy Coordinator. We also welcome a new staff member Pauline Knight to our school. Pauline will be in room 10 on Thursdays whilst Sabrina does the coordinator role and will be releasing teachers on Wednesdays. We welcome Pauline to our Community.

A list of staff for 2020 has been included in this newsletter. As you will see, this year we have 13 classrooms across R – 7 with over 330 children. Our numbers have certainly grown from 2009 when we had 226 students.  One question we have often been asked when chatting to families is the potential impact of the developments at Virginia Grove and surrounds. We have been closely monitoring the development and enforcing our zone to ensure we stay on top of the growth we have had, and expected growth over the next few years. 

It has been said many times, we highly value and acknowledge the crucial role parents play as primary educators in their children’s lives and believe ‘together is better’.

As you would know from the note already sent home, this year we will again be having acquaintance meetings with parents from weeks 1 – 3. The purpose is to try and find out as much information from you as to how your child best learns and any other information you think might be useful for us to create the best possible learning environment for your child. The feedback from staff has been that these meetings are an invaluable way of quickly making sure we are getting all the important information, rather than waiting to get it down the track. Thank you to everyone who have attended these meetings before and who have already booked a time.  If you haven’t done so yet, could you please do so. 

Follow the link below.

https://www.schoolinterviews.com.au/code?code=ncjbg

We seek to notify our school community that fees for 2020 are set at the prescribed sum of $244 approved by Governing Council.

This amount is in line with the School Card payment. Please see below a copy of the DfE approved Watermark for 2020 Materials Services Charge of $244 for Virginia Primary. The schedule of fees is an indication of the breakdown of funds received by the school and how these fit into the schools budget.

SCHOOL CARD APPLICATIONS 2020

Applications are now open online for school card applications.

The School Card scheme offers financial assistance with school fees (materials and services charges) for students attending government schools in that year.

Please follow the link provided to apply and check for eligibility. All applications are now done online

https://www.sa.gov.au/…/financial-help-s…/school-card-scheme

Well-being is integral to the learning process; well-being is about feeling well, functioning well, achieving one’s best and enjoying learning. At Virginia Primary school, students’ well-being is a high priority. In 2019 we embarked on a journey where our whole school community can connect with us if they have a concern connected to a student’s well-being.

We have a new TAB on our school website titled ‘Well-being’. This is where you can feed through well-being concerns to our well-being team about your child or another child. By scrolling down to the ‘Parent’ section and clicking on the form and recording your well-being or mental health concerns for your child or another, then pressing submit. This gives our well-being team valuable information, so we can support Virginia Primary School students holistically while they are at school. We believe ‘together is better’ and being able to connect with our whole school community will enable us to be positively proactive in supporting students rather than being re-active.

Be smart, play your part!

Tuesday the 11th of February is Safer Internet day. Among other activities, each class will be asked a range of questions through our student news to raise awareness and create rich discussion on keeping internet safe.  We are aware some of our 6/7 students will be away at Zoo Snooze on this day but they will certainly not miss out.

The Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner has a number of resources for the whole community to use. We have listed a link to and highlighted some of the parent resources available. We strongly encourage you look into these resources and work with your child to ensure they are E-safe.

E-Safety Parent resources

-        Cyberbullying

-        Inappropriate content

-        Online grooming

-        Too much time online

-        Parental controls

For more information, please visit the link below

https://www.esafety.gov.au/safer-internet-day

Increases to our fee structure.

At a Governing Council meeting in 2019 we discussed a combination of factors which have lead to the increase, some of which include the increase cost of excursions and incursions, having to pay for a new bus service where we previously used the Two Wells bus at a lower cost, increase cost in food and a wage increase for staff in line with enterprise bargaining agreements.

As a service, we have absorbed many of these costs, however, to continue to provide and maintain a high quality service without running at a loss we have had to increase fees. In making this recent change, we reviewed our fee structure with surrounding services to ensure we were remaining not only competitive, but in most cases cheaper and more affordable for our families. The last increase in fees took place in June 2018.  

Increase in fees will take place as of and including the 16th December 2019 for Vacation Care. For Before School care and After Schools Care the fee increase will take place on 27th January Term 1 2020.

The fee structure will be as stated below;

Vacation Care - currently $48.00, as of the 16th December 2019 fees will be $54.00

After School Hours Care - currently $15.00, as of the 27th January 2020 fees will be $18.00

Before School Care - currently $9.50, as of the 27th January 2020 fees will be $12.50

Families will still be entitled to CCS from Centrelink.

Kind Regards,

Nisha Ahrens

(31.10.19)