Tjuringa

Term 4, Week 1


Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the traditional Aboriginal custodians of the lands, waterways and skies of the Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation where we gather, learn and grow at Aspendale Primary School.


We pay our respects to past and present Traditional Custodians and Elders of all nations,  and their ongoing cultural, spiritual and educational practices.  

We extend this respect to all Torres Strait Islanders and any First Nations peoples who learn or visit these grounds. We thank you for sharing and caring for the land we are learning on.


New version of the Acknowedgement of Country
Above is an updated Acknowledgment of Country that has been written in consultation with staff, students and members of our community. We recieved positive feedback and approval from our friends at the Bunurong Land Council in 2023. 



Aspendale Primary School commemorated Reconciliation Week.
We understand that for many members of the APS community, this is a challenging time.

Reconciliation Week is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.


Now more than ever, these conversations are important to be having. 

As a school, we commemorated the week by focusing on developing our sense of community and connections with a whole school event. 

Our School Captains made a video during camp to commemorate the week. It starts with our school's Acknowledgement of Country. You can watch the video here. 


Thank you to Gus, Surina, Warren & Edie for helping create the video. You all did an amazing job understanding the purpose of the week. 



Important Dates

Important dates: 2024 Calendar 
EventDate
Last Day - early dismissal20th December
Year 6 Final Assembly starts at 12pm
Early finish at 1pm


2025 Calendar 
EventDate
Student Free Day 28th January 
Student's first Day 29th January 2025


Week 1 Acting Principal Message

Welcome back to school for another exciting term. It has been great walking through classes this week, hearing students joyfully conversing with peers and teachers about their adventures over the holidays.

This week, students have re-established their learning routines and re-engaged in learning tasks and activities. There have been many additional happenings around the school throughout the week. We welcomed back Running Club and Breakfast Club on Wednesday mornings, both being well supported by the school community.

On Tuesday 8th October the current Foundation teaching team ran the 2025 Foundation Information Evening. It was well attended by our 2025 families. The 2025 foundation students will attend for 4 transition sessions on 31st October, 7th, 14th and 21st November. They will then meet their teacher during the Statewide Orientation morning on Tuesday 10th December.

Year 6's have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work with Kingston Youth Services. This new program is designed to prepare students moving into Year 7. We had our first session yesterday and we will have 3 more sessions that run every Wednesday 9.00 - 10.00.  Yesterday our students had a great time learning about High School timetables, playing with combination locks and having races to unlock the locks as well as asking lots of questions that will be answered in the next session. We are very thankful to Kai, Josie, Spencer and Ella who ran the session, we look forward to seeing them next week!

  

If you're not familiar with Kingston Youth Services or Platform 81, have a look at their website! They offer a range of services and drop in time on Friday afternoons! https://www.kingstonyouth.org.au/Home

PRICE Day took place on Thursday 10th October with a focus on building connections between students across year levels and between staff and students, demonstrating our school values and having some fun exploring our passions through a range of cross level activities.  Some of the activities on offer were: Dave the Dog artwork, Cooking, Loom Bands/ Friendship Bracelets, Fashion Design, Chess, Netball/Basketball, choreographed dancing and The Chopstick Challenge. I hope that your children have shared their memorable moment with you from today.

Reminder - Community Event: School Disco – Friday 11th October.

Students in year 3/4 can have a dance at the disco from 5-6pm, then year 5/6 students from 6:30-7:45pm. Students need to be signed in and signed out of the disco by an adult.

Thank you to the volunteers for assisting this community event for our students.

Term 4 Canteen News: The School Canteen will open on Friday 18th October.

If you are interested in helping with the canteen and can offer a few hours of your time to assist, volunteering in the school is great way to be involved in your local community.  

Please send an email to Aspendale.ps@education.vic.au and let us know.

Thank you to the families that volunteer with canteen tasks and enable us to provide this service.

We are currently looking for a new canteen manager and have placed an advertisement on SEEK. If you or someone you know is interested, please apply through SEEK:

Canteen Manager Job in Aspendale, Melbourne VIC - SEEK

If you have any questions, you can contact Amelia Mastorakos (Business Manager) on 9580 3255.

 

A recent, Department of Education scheduled facilities audit has identified maintenance works to be undertaken in 6F/6W classrooms. 6F and 6W have relocate to Chinese/STEM rooms for the period of the works. The community will be updated when we have further information from the Victorian School Building Authority regarding the scope, commencement date and the estimated duration of the works.

 

From next week, students who were on the China Tour in 2024, will be sharing reflections.  It was an amazing experience, and we are very impressed by how open-minded, caring and respectful our students were. Thank you to Ms Ma, Mr Dowling, Mr Pearce, Ms Fletcher and ALL of the families who supported the trip.


I would also like to say thank you to Mel Jacobs for her work as acting Assistant Principal over the last two weeks of term 3 and the first week of term 4. I would also like to thank Emily Bourke for taking 4MB for the three weeks to provide consistency to the class. Over the next three weeks Leanne Peterson will be fulfilling the role of acting Assistant Principal. Emily Bourke (Monday, Tuesday, Friday) and Stela Matthews (Wednesday and Thursday) will take on the teaching role in 5PM for these three weeks. 

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Kind regards, 
Amelia Busuttil



2024 PYP X Blog - Week 1

PYPX Blog Week 1 

Hi were Evie , Keeley Isabel and Freya Year Six students from 6M & 6D. We are here to tell you what we have learnt and done this week for our PYPX.



We hope you enjoy reading about what we have done this week! The four of us have decided on our issues

- An inquiry into the animals endangered due to climate change and their habitats and how it affects them (Keeley)

- An inquiry into the effects of social media on younger people (Issy N)

- An inquiry into how the climate affects the growth of different crops in different seasons & countries (Freya N)

- An inquiry into how fast fashion has an effect on the world (Evie)


We will be finding out more about the checklists we got, our padlet, google site and our coaches and mentors. 

Do you know why different liquids and solids do not mix together? (Willow) or How animals evolve based on climate change (Harry D) Why actors get paid more than nurses when nurses are saving people? (Molly) How fast does climate change happen? (Elod)

What are the causes of mutations? (Sean) and Why is yawning contagious? (Huddy)

 

This week as part of our PYPX journey we have been able to choose our coaches from the year 6 teachers and get a mentor from the other teachers from around the school that are interested in our topic. Our mentor and coaches will guide us through PYPX. We will check in with our coaches every few days and we will check in with our mentors only a few times throughout the 6 weeks.


We each got a list to check off what we needed to get done for our PYPX project. In PYPX we get to choose an issue and research it. There are a lot of different topics and issues that people have selected. In the list, we need to work on our padlet which makes it much easier to jot down our notes. We also need to find a reliable source of information for our project.

 

The Year 6 students were lucky enough to have Dr Karl do an online meeting with us and have him answer some of our questions about issues on our PYPX or interests we had. Our students were impressed by Dr Karl’s knowledge about so many different topics. In case you don’t know Dr Karl is a scientist, physician, author and presenter. In PYPX we will be getting advice from our mentors and coaches but it was extra special to have Dr Karl give some of his knowledge.




Padlet and Google Site

This week for PYPX we have been working on all sorts of things but something we have been focusing on in every session is our Padlet, our Padlet is like a fun way to brainstorm all your ideas, add links to websites, images and anything else we can think of. We are also working on a google site to make a blog about what we have been doing in our sessions.

 



Disco Party



Aspendale Life Saving Club



Mini Soccer Stars



School Saving Bonus: A note from our Business Manager

 

 

Dear parents and carers,

 

Please see the following information below received form the Department of Education in relation to the School Saving Bonus.

 

In Term 4, 2024, families with a child enrolled in a government school from Prep to Year 12 in 2025 will receive the one-off $400 School Saving Bonus.

 

The $400 School Saving Bonus provides families with support for education-related costs, such as school activities and/or school uniforms and textbooks.

 

The School Saving Bonus is not available for full-fee international students, home schooled students, TAFE students and students attending kindergarten in 2025.   

 

Actions for parents and carers

Before 18 October 2024, the Department of Education is asking parents and carers to:

  • Complete enrolment: If your child, or children are changing government school for Term 1 2025, or starting Prep or Year 7 in 2025. For more information, read about Enrolling in School. 
  • Check your contact information: Ensure your email address and phone number is up to date with us. You can check this information by contacting us directly.

 

We need to ensure your contact information is up to date as the Department of Education will email you twice:

  • in October, to verify your email address
  • in November, with your $400 School Saving Bonus and access to an online system.

Please check your junk mail regularly to make sure you do not miss an important email.

To learn more about the School Saving Bonus, download the School Saving Bonus Information sheet for government school parents and carers or visit vic.gov.au/school-saving-bonus.






Alex Barnard - Music lessons



Peter O'shea - violin and viola



Luke Drohan – Guitar and Keyboard



Julia Davis - Singing lessons