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.
Event | Date |
Last Day - early dismissal | 20th December Year 6 Final Assembly starts at 12pm Early finish at 1pm |
Event | Date |
Student Free Day | 28th January |
Student's first Day | 29th January 2025 |
Dear families,
It was wonderful to see our school decked out in blue and green yesterday to raise awareness of Neurofibromatosis, a condition that affects members of our school community. We’d like to thank the Student Representative Council for raising our awareness and for helping us to make a contribution to ongoing research of this condition.
Last week I enjoyed the opportunity to visit our Year Four students at Camp Rumbug. I was proud of the passionate way our students supported each other in all the different activities across the three days. The commitment to the mud run was a particular highlight for the group I was with. Thank you to our staff and parents who made the camp a success!
Yesterday the third round of continuous reports were published for first semester. The intention of each continuous report is to give you a timely update about your child’s progress in literacy, numeracy and their unit of inquiry. At the end of the term, you will receive an end of semester report that contains your child’s progress against the curriculum and our fourth round of continuous reports. Reports can be found on the Sentral App. Thanks to our teachers for your commitment to providing these regular updates to our families.
This week saw the final day of our school review. We would like to thank our Reviewer, Karen Patten, our Senior Education Improvement Leader, Tim Wilson, our Challenge Partners, Aaron Cox (Principal-Kingswood PS) and Mel Bach (Assistant Principal-Parktone PS) and our School Council President, Kevin Riant, for the way you have highlighted and challenged our improvement work as a school. We would also like to thank our students, staff and school community for the way you have engaged with our review panel, sharing your thoughts, learning and practice. We look forward to planning our next School Strategic Plan with our community.
Neurofibromatosis Awareness Month Dress Up Day
Thank you to the Aspendale school community for supporting our dress up day to raise awareness for Neurofibromatosis. It was fantastic to see everyone dressed up in blue and green to show their support. We successfully raised $556.40 for the cause. Amazing job APS!!
Thankyou for your support.
Mrs Jones and the SRC
What's Buzzing in the Year 5 Hive
Our wonderful Year 5 students have been busy exploring different political systems from around the world. For our final task of the unit students were provided with the opportunity to identify, analyse and reflect upon various ways in which government systems influence the lives of their citizens. Students did a fantastic job of independently researching and presenting their findings to the class as an oral presentation.
Our class has been working on a unit of inquiry about political systems. As the end of inquiry project, we researched other countries and their political systems. We explored how they work, which system they follow and who their current political leader is. In my case I researched the Japan’s political system. Overall, it was a fun experience which allowed me to explore other ways in which people vote and the different laws they follow.
- Matilda 5G
During our inquiry project, I really enjoyed researching about a specific country and how it’s political systems may be different to Australia’s. I made a poster about England’s political system. I discovered that in England the King doesn’t get to make many decisions as they are a constitutional monarchy.
- Abi 5M
For the country political systems protect we had to research about a countries political system of our choice. We could presentation our findings however we wanted to, for example we could make a poster, a video, or a Google Slide. We were given research questions from our teacher that helped us to inquire into what the political system looks like and how it has changed for our country.
- Frankie 5M
The Great Olive Harvest
In garden club on Wednesday lunchtime, we picked lots of olives from the trees in our garden and we are going to make olive oil with them.
Aspendale Primary School is a child safe organisation which welcomes all children, young people and their families.
We are committed to providing environments where our students are safe and feel safe, where their participation is valued, their views respected, and their voices are heard about decisions that affect their lives. Our child safe policies, strategies and practices are inclusive of the needs of all children and students.
We have no tolerance for child abuse and take proactive steps to identify and manage any risks of harm to students in our school environments.
We promote positive relationships between students and adults and between students and their peers. These relationships are based on trust and respect.
We take proactive steps to identify and manage any risk of harm to students in our school environment. When child safety concerns are raised or identified, we treat these seriously and respond promptly and thoroughly.
Particular attention is given to the child safety needs of Aboriginal students, those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, international students, students with disabilities, those unable to live at home, children and young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) and other students experiencing risk or vulnerability. Inappropriate or harmful behaviour targeting students based on these or other characteristics, such as racism or homophobia, are not tolerated at our school, and any instances identified will be addressed with appropriate consequences.
Child safety is a shared responsibility. Every person involved in our school has an important role in promoting child safety and wellbeing and promptly raising any issues or concerns about a child’s safety.
We are committed to regularly reviewing our child safe practices, and seeking input from our students, families, staff, and volunteers to inform our ongoing strategies.
Click here to view our school Policies
It is a time for all Australians to pause and learn about our shared histories, cultures and achievements. We have had a lot of tough conversations in the senior school over the week.
Lucas, Ella, Ky and Alex talked about some of the issues they have been learning and discussing.
- Reconciliation Week helps us try to recognise and accept our history. We started with the Apology on Friday. We watched the Apology by Kevin Rudd when he apologised for the Government's policies around the Stolen Generations. It was such a long time to have this policy between 1910-1970.
-We learnt about the 'Uluru Statement from the Heart' and how that is an invitation with the Voice to Parliament being the response.
- The 1967 Referendum was massive moment in our history as it meant Aboriginal (and Torres Strait Islanders) were given the same rights to vote in their/ our country. Big changes.
-By not learning about this, we are sort of saying it wasn't there, it didn’t happen and it's not happening now. And that is not okay. First Nations members of our communities might think that we don't care and don't want to learn about it. That it not the case. Reconciliation Week is a good time for us to come together and talk about it.
Acknowledgement of country ‘Voice’
The Year 6 students came together on Tuesday to discuss changes to the Acknowledgement of Country on the schools website. The Global Awareness team has previously shared a version with staff who have given their feedback. This was our chance to hear the voices of the students and their understanding of its importance. It was amazing to hear the students' perspectives and debate about word usage and details of who is included, what is needed and what we want to say.
Their greatest concerns were:
- Will the use of the word ‘their’ leave members of our community who are not from the Kulin nation, out of the Acknowledgement?
- When it says ‘learn’ on the grounds, what about families who visit but aren’t in classes?
- Could we have this written in Bunurong Language?
As the leader of the Global Awareness Team, I would also like to ask to hear the voices of those in our community. Below is a QR Code that will take you to a Google Form with a proposed Acknowledgement of Country. This Acknowledgement would be listed on our school website. As part of our Professional Development, our teaching staff have learnt about how to write an acknowledgement, what needs to be included and how to create culturally safe spaces to discuss this with our students. If you attend assemblies, you may hear the versions that staff have written to share. The Google Form will take you to our recent proposed Acknowledgement, this is one that we would consider our more formal and school wide Acknowledgement.
~ Cait Fletcher
A reminder from the Visual Arts Leaders.....
Dear families in Yr’s 5 & 6,
The Term 2 School Working Bee will be held on Saturday 3rd June at 10.30am for the parents and students in your child’s class
Each term the Buildings and Grounds Sub-committee of the School Council organises a working bee aligned to 1 or 2 levels of the school. You are asked to attend just one Working Bee each year. Any amount of time you can contribute will be greatly appreciated, even one hour would be great, as a number of labour-intensive tasks are planned for these mornings. It’s also a great way to catch up with the other Year 5 & 6 parents!
The convenor for this Working Bee will be Kevin Riant .Please see Kevin upon your arrival, to go through the OHS Volunteer Induction.
Light Refreshments will be provided at 12:30pm for all adults and children!