Virginia Primary School Newsletter

Dear Families,

This week marked Support Staff Week. This year's theme 'Essential for Learning' ‘acknowledges the important roles that School Services Officers (SSOs), Early Childhood Workers (ECWs) and Aboriginal Education Workers (AEWs) working in our DfE schools and preschools undertake.

At VPS we are very grateful for an amazing support staff team who work hard in their Learning spaces, whether it be in the Preschool, admin, classrooms, grounds or OSHC to support our children, teachers and families. This week we have celebrated their outstanding contribution by providing a Special Morning Tea and presenting each SSO with a personalised card of thanks from students across the school. Even though a number of weeks are set aside to acknowledge certain events or personnel, here at VPS, we are grateful for our SSO's contribution, every day!

Please make sure that you sing out to any of the following staff and say thanks if you see them out in the yard. Preschool - Jodie, Debbie B, Xuan and Kira. School - Deb, Mimi, Rebecca, Leonie, Hayley, Lia, Jacqui, Amanda, Nisha, Libby, Shirley, Jess N, Mihali, Karen, Jo, Denise, Simon our groundsman and all our OSHC staff. We are lucky to have such wonderful people supporting our staff, students and families. They were also appreciative of the acknowledgement they received over the week and wanted to pass it on.

Thuy and I would also like to thank everyone for all the beautiful messages written in cards that we received from classes on 'Principal's Day'. As I've mentioned several times now, it is an absolute pleasure to work here and be part of such a warm community.

We work hard to ensure that we provide ALL our students a 'high quality education' which is targeted and differentiated to the student needs. Positive student well-being is also highly valued here and a great deal of time and effort is put towards building strong relationships with our students and community. Exposing and teaching our students the HOMS (Habits of Mind - dispositions for learning) along with Formative Assessment also assist our students become 'life-long learners'. 

The Minister of Education, Hon John Gardner MP, was due to visit us this week, however the visit has been postponed to a later date. We are looking forward to sharing our learning and 'whole school achievements' with him when the time arrives. This is a remarkable opportunity for our school and community. 

We are also in the process of planning for 2021, so if your child will not be returning next year, or you know of someone who would like to enrol their child at our school, could you please speak to our front office staff.

Students are also looking forward to attending some excursions which will be occurring in the coming weeks, including swimming in Term 4, week 4. More information will be sent out to families in the next couple of weeks. Sports Day has also been locked in for the last day of term, however at this stage, it still remains as a 'closed, in school event' until further notice.

In the meantime, please enjoy some of this beautiful weather that has come upon us and hopefully it stays on until our School Closure Day - Friday 4th September. 

We thank you all for your continuous understanding and support.

Learning Together, Learning For Our Future.

Warmest Regards,

Voula Pounendis

Tumblr is one of the many social media platforms today's teens are using. It is used by younger teens etc who want to stay away from social networking sites that their parents are frequenting.  It is easy to use on smartphones and tablets, which gives the ability to post & access content throughout the day.

Tumblr provides a creative out for many young people. Posting photos and creating short blog posts can help teens find their sense of self. They can express themselves with text as well. Here are a few other potential benefits of Tumblr.

• It can help teens develop their interests. They can learn more about other people’s hobbies and talents, which may spark new ideas.
• Tumblr teaches teens about the world. Teens can read posts written by people from all over the globe. It can expose them to new ideas and interesting concepts.
• Tumblr encourages users to network with one another. Blog posts can be created collaboratively. This can help teens work with others and get to know new people.

 Although there are some positive aspects of Tumblr, there are also some potential dangers.  It is wise to educate yourself about social media sites your child/teen may be using.

One of the issues parents should be aware of with Tumblr is the lack of privacy. It is difficult to create privacy settings that prevent information from being public. As a result, most posts made by teens are open to the public.  Tumblr has been criticized for the overwhelming amount of pornographic material on the site. Tumblr allows sexually-explicit material to be posted to the site. Pornographic videos are not allowed to be posted directly to Tumblr but links to pornography are allowed.

Even if your teen isn't purposely looking for pornographic images, they may stumble upon it innocently. 

Familiarize yourself with the social media platforms your child/teen is using. Talk about the dangers of posting inappropriate content and the risks of engaging with unsafe people.

Monitor your child/teen's online activity from time to time. Make sure they know that you may look over their shoulder once in a while or check to see what they are up to. 

Educate your child/teen about social media. Make it clear that there can be serious consequences for posting inappropriate material and warn your child how inappropriate material can ruin a person’s reputation and potentially their future.

You might also be interested in the following Facebook pages  https://www.facebook.com/NationalOnlineSafety/  https://www.facebook.com/TheCarlyRyanFoundation/  https://www.facebook.com/ThinkUKnowAustralia/  https://www.facebook.com/eSafetyOffice/