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. 

Dear Aspendale families

Winter has certainly been kind, giving us a beautiful sprinkle of sunshine this week. On Saturday we came together for our annual 5/6 working bee. We spent a large amount of our time completing the harvest of our olives. A very big thanks to Robyn for her dedication to our garden. Once the olives have been pressed, we will receive the oil back for  all the children who are part of gardening club  to sample. This has been a wonderful initiative for our school by which we were also recognised in the Age this week! https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/all-roads-lead-to-newport-for-suburban-olive-harvest-20230601-p5dd7d.html

Professional learning on Friday 

Last Friday our staff came together for a full professional learning day around the area of Big Ideas in number. Hosted by Di Siemen, an expert of many years in this field. Our staff were both challenged and affirmed.

Student Attitudes to school

On Tuesday  we administered the Attitudes to School Survey for students in year 4-6. The data compiled from this enables us to see how our students are experiencing school. Our SRC’s from each class played a vital role in presenting a short slide show before the survey. This helped to promote student voice and the relevance of their feedback for future planning.

Kinder Visits

This week, I spent two mornings at Aspendale North Kindergarten. It was a delightful couple of mornings where I joined in the various activities with the students. A perfect opportunity to meet with some of our 2024 Foundation students. If you know of anyone intending to come to our school next year, could I please ask that you encourage them to make contact with the school for an enrolment form.

As we start winding up Term Two

Our staff are  busy putting the final touches on their student reports and look forward to your student led interviews. A very big thanks to our entire Aspendale community for your unwavering support. Next term I begin my Long Service Leave for the remainder of 2023.  I’m looking forward to extra time with my family and some much anticipated travel. It is pleasing to let you know Tom Pearce will be Acting Principal, during my time away.

Last Friday, staff engaged in a mathematics PD with Di Siemons investigating the Big Ideas. Aspendale Primary School has been working on centring Siemon’s Big Ideas in our numeracy program for the past 12 months, so it was timely and beneficial for the researcher herself to share her body of work as well as the implementation of activities, assessments, targeted teaching and planning from F-6.

 Our professional development with Di Siemon’s allowed us to reflect on how many excellent practices we already have in place at APS, but also allowed staff to identify a change or tweak they can make immediately as well as helped the conversation of long-term goals.

The concept of Big Ideas in mathematics is not new, but outside of Place Value there can be debate about they are. Siemon’s definition of Big Ideas in Number are Trusting the Count, Place Value, Multiplicative Thinking, Partitioning, Proportional Reasoning and Generalising.

These Big Ideas are progressive but also present across all of F-6.  For example, whole number place value ideas should be in place by the end of Year 2 but reappear later when decimals come into play.

Below are video instructions about two games that many students at APS are familiar with and can be played at home and Di Siemon’s reiterated as quality activities that benefit the development and understanding of concepts within the Big Ideas.

https://vimeo.com/591888243 - Ten Frame Filler

https://vimeo.com/400490263 Multiplication Toss- How to play

https://vimeo.com/400490049 Multiplication Toss-Split Strategy

Lisa Phillips

Numeracy Learning Specialist

A Day at the Museum

Last week Year 5 attended the Melbourne Museum as part of our Sharing the Planet inquiry.

Below are some student reflections.   

On Tuesday last week 5M and 5G caught the train to the Melbourne Museum. It was a cool experience as we saw a lot of things that we wouldn’t have been able to see at APS. The exhibits we looked at were Dynamic Earth, Bugs Alive and the Forest Gallery. The highlights from these exhibits were the globes showing the changing of the world (Dynamic Earth), the alive bugs in enclosures (Bugs Alive) and finally, the birds, waterfalls and plants (the Forest Gallery). 

After we explored the exhibitions, we had some lunch and free time outside. We ended the day by completing a workshop on climate change where we explored and worked out what we can do to help prevent climate change from becoming worse. 

Overall, the museum trip was really interesting.

• Anna 5M

On Wednesday last week 5B and 5P went to the Melbourne Museum. We did an activity about climate change which was related to our Sharing The Planet unit which explores natural disasters. We started off by immersing ourselves into a video that was played onto all the walls around us. It showed us what Victoria was like many years ago, how Victoria was during the European settlement and how Victoria is now. The video also explained the deep connection to land that the Indigenous and the Wurundjeri people have. After the informative video the museum educator explained how Victoria's weather will change over time due to climate change. She talked about greenhouse gases and how they trap heat in earth which causes global warming. After learning about how climate change occurs, we did a group activity, everyone got a topic to work on. Some topics were: travelling responsibly, alternative energy sources, protecting our parklands, etc. My group focused on the ‘Travel Responsibly’ topic. We had to decide how to travel responsibly during the week, weekend and holidays.

• Warren 5B

On Saturday the 3^rd of June Aspendale Primary School had the Year 5/6 working bee, where students, parent, families, and teachers participated in harvesting the remaining olives left on our trees. The grand total from the harvest are – Drum roll please…

First harvest 28 kg

Second harvest 44 kg

Making a grand total of 72 kg harvested during the month of May.

This is a truly amazing effort by all involved. The olives have now been delivered to CERES and will be converted to olive oil and we will be collecting the oil on the 18^th of June.

With thanks to John McHaffie, Kevin Riant, Coby Larrieu, Cait Fletcher, The Morris Family, The APS Garden Club and Jo who have all assisted with the harvest. 

We Made The News!

APS made its way into the Age newspaper on the 5^th of June for the Great Olive Harvest. 

For further reading the article name is as follows:
All roads lead to Newport for suburban olive harvest.

The Act for Peace Ration Challenge is about raising awareness for Refugees all around the world.

A refugee is someone who has left their home or their country due to conflict. 

During the challenge, you eat similar rations to Syrian Refugees. The rations include rice, lentils, dried chickpeas, tinned sardines, tinned kidney beans and vegetable oil. This is all you get for 3-5 days!

This year Ella Ryan in Year 6 will be participating in the Act for Peace Ration Challenge.  She will be doing this with her family, Mrs Jones and Mr Pearce, under the banner of Aspendale Primary School. 

Dates: - Monday 19th - Wednesday 21st June

For more information about the challenge, go to the Act for Peace Ration Challenge website:

https://actforpeace.rationchallenge.org.au/

If you would like to support us and donate to the cause, the link to our fundraising page is below:-

https://schools.rationchallenge.org.au/t/aspendale-p-school

Statement of commitment to child safety

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