Important Dates

7 March Meeting Place

8 March International Women's Day

10 March Public Holiday 

11 March Volunteer Inductions 9am, 3pm

14 March Sushi

16 March Working Bee 9am-1pm

17-23 March Neurodiversity Week

17-23 March Cultural Diversity Week

21 March Harmony Day Wear Orange 28 March AFL/ Netball Grade 5-6, Skills 3-4 (TBC)

27 March AGM and School Council meeting

4 April Meeting Place

4 April Last day of term - 2:30pm finish

From the Office

Parent/ Teacher/ Student conferences

If you have not scheduled your conference time, please contact your child's teacher

Fundraising

Our wonderful spring bulbs fundraiser is back again!

Share the link with family and friends. Flyers with QR codes will be sent home with students.

Orders can be placed online here. 

If you are able to help put up posters in Chewton and surrounds, please let Kitty know.

Changes to newsletter in 2025

In 2025 there will be some changes to the newsletter. Every second week we will have our main newsletter with samples of children's work and what is happening in our classrooms and across the school. Week 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 will be the longer newsletter week.

The alternate week will be a short information newsletter with any updates of coming events. 

Volunteer Inductions

11th March 9am, 3pm

From Parents Club

Here is what is in the works…

Term 1

- Bulb fundraiser (no help needed)

- ⁠Market stall

Term 2

- Reconciliation walk (30 May)

- ⁠Lantern walk / soup night (19 June)

- ⁠Market stall

Term 3

- Music trivia night (29 August tbc)

- ⁠Market stall

Term 4

- School production (17 Oct)

- ⁠Market stall

- Toilet paper fundraiser (no help needed)

I have put my hand up to lead the coordination of the music trivia night which will be our main fundraiser for the year. I will be seeking people to help specifically with raffle, food, bar and music and will reach out early next term to get support. But please let me know if you already know you’re keen!

In addition to this we need the following roles filled throughout the year…

Market stall coordinator/s - to organize 4 market stalls during the year, one each term

Reconciliation walk assistant - to assist Bernadette with coordination of event and volunteers

Lantern walk and soup night coordinator/s - to organise this event including sourcing of soup/dessert donations and volunteers for the night (I am happy to help on this too but don’t want to lead it)

School production - seeking Theatre, music and tech people (you know who you are!!) to put together our biennial school show!

Lots going on as you can see and we need as many hands on deck as we can get! 

From Krista

School Council AGM Thursday 27th March 6pm

The key functions of school council with regard to the school are:

• to establish the broad direction and vision of the school within the school's community

• to arrange for the supply of goods, services, facilities, materials, equipment, other things or matters required for the conduct of the school, including the provision of preschool programs

• to raise funds for school related purposes

• to regulate and facilitate the after-hours use of the school premises and grounds

• to exercise a general oversight of the school buildings and grounds and ensure they are kept in good order and condition

• to provide for the cleaning and sanitary services that are necessary for the school

• to ensure that all money coming into the hands of the council is expended for proper purposes relating to the school

• to provide meals and refreshments for the staff and students of the school and make charges for those meals or refreshments

• to inform itself and take into account any views of the school community for the purpose of making decisions in regard to the school and the students at the school

• to generally stimulate interest in the school in the wider community

• to prepare the School Strategic Plan and review the Annual Implementation Plan — to be signed by the president and the principal

• to report annually (the Annual Report) to the school community and to the department on the school’s financial activities, the School Strategic Plan, and any other matters that are determined by the Minister

• to manage the hire, licence and shared use of school facilities

• to determine the dates for the school’s student-free days:

  • in accordance with the number of student-free days each calendar year specified by the Secretary of the department

https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/school-council-powers-and-functions/policy 

This year we have two positions that are open. The current councillors are happy to continue. If you would like to nominate and there are more people than vacancies, we will hold an election. Please chat to Maz or Bernadette if you are interested in running for school council. Nomination forms are available at the office from Tuesday.

Waste audit

Serena is working with all students and staff to try to reduce our waste. We have some packaging from our brekkie club milk, soft plastics that are a concern. If you have any idea on how to reuse tetra packs we would love to hear from you! If you are going towards Macedon and can put them into the recycling bin there that would be amazing!

Our new veggie garden design

What's happening in P-1?

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks in the Prep/1 room. Everyone enjoyed a very fun and successful swimming carnival. Thank you again to Patsy and Kahu for the amazing swimming lessons!

Last week in Literacy, the Preps began their reading journey and were introduced to Milo the Monkey. The Preps practiced sounding out /m/ and found words that begin with this letter. They enjoyed making a Milo the Monkey craft. This week they met two more of Milo’s friends- Sally the Snake and Felix the Frog. We did lots of practice making the /s/ and /f/ sound, practiced writing the letters, and more character crafts!

The Grade 1s have been busy reviewing some sounds from last year. We first reviewed the sound /ck/ as in duck, lucky, and trick. We followed with reviewing the /ai/ & /ay/ sounds, as in play, snail, train, and day. We practiced writing words and sentences using these sounds, as well as reading our focus books. The Grade 1s have also started work reading their leveled cards from our new Comprehension Reading Boxes. We knew these boxes were a hit when the Grade 1s kept asking to read another card!

Both the Preps and Grade 1s enjoyed our mentor text: Jabari Jumps. We made connections to times in our own lives when we felt nervous to try new things- especially in a swimming pool. They created some lovely drawings to reflect these connections and wrote a sentence about a time when they felt brave.

In Numeracy, the Preps continued to explore the numbers 1-5 and used manipulatives (counters, popsicle sticks,etc) to represent these numbers. The grade 1s continued to explore numbers up to 120. They looked at different ways they can represent a number, including number lines and with the use of manipulatives.

And if that wasn’t enough… We've also been having a lot of fun in our amazing specialist classes! We’re making some marvelous mushrooms in Art with Kate, we created some beautiful ochre drawings of Country with Kath, we’ve borrowed lots of books from the Library, and have learned lots of new words in Auslan with Bernadette.

We also held a class election to choose one Prep and one Grade 1 student to represent the class on the SRC (Student Representative Council.)

What's happening in 5-6?

In the 5/6 room in maths we have been working on number patterns, factor trees and have converted common metric units of length to ‘scale up’ an object demonstrating ratio.

In writing we have been working on introducing ourselves through “anecdotal” letter writing to the 5/6 class at Taradale School and exploring landscape and weather adjectives for our descriptive narrative writing. Meanwhile we have been busy completing assessments in all domains for the beginning of 2025.

Congratulations Quincy and Xanthe, yarram yarram house on receiving their House Captain badges

What's happening in First Nation Ways: Place and Country?

Kath comes in each week and has been sharing teachings. The children have shared their favourite part of Country, who is in their community and their ancestors. They have made beautiful ochre paintings.

Today we were really lucky to have some First Nations visitors from Canada join the P-1 class.

Grandmother Shirley is a proud member of Alderville First Nation and is Turtle Clan. She is a descendant from a long and strong line of Anishnawbe and Haudenosaunee Ancestors. Their ancestral legacy of resilience through the colonial, institutional regime has gifted her the position to humbly stand on their shoulders as she works to support Indigenous well-being for the next seven generations. Reclamation of her familial circle in the present is foundational to her work within Indigenous communities and her work supporting educational practitioners on their journeys toward Truth and Reconciliation. 

Dr. Jennifer Brant, first and foremost a mother of two boys, belongs to the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk Nation) with family ties to Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. Jennifer is a Mother-Scholar and an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

 First Peoples connections and information

Community Notices