Secret Santa

Each year we have Secret Santa, otherwise know as Kris Kringle. Everyone in the school - staff and students - are given the name of a person they are asked to do kind things for and to buy a present for. We do this because we are a whole school community and because we want to reduce stress for families on buying staff presents. We encourage children to make something for their Secret Santa person, or to limit the cost to $5-$10. Please do not spend any more than this! Students are asked to bring their present to the office by Friday December 12th, with the name of their person clearly labelled. Please don't just drop off the presents - Eloise, Kahu, or Kitty will need to check off your name to ensure that  no one misses out! Thanks for your support in continuing this much loved Chewton tradition. Presents will be given at our picnic (on Wednesday December 17th). If you are not going to be here, please let the office know!

December events

Strap yourself in, December is full of lots of great things at Chewton

12 December: make sure Kris Kringle gift is in the office

12 December: Grade 5-6 Kangaroo Safety Posters on site in Main St Chewton 11:30am

15 December: School Captain speeches 2:30pm

16 December Xmas Carols outside the Chewton Post Office at 10am. Bring your camera and your singing voice!

17 December: Whole school picnic and Year 6 Graduation. 5:30pm-7:30pm

19 December Pool party at the Chewton Pool 12-1:30pm Collect your child from the pool at 1:30pm. Please let Bernadette know if your child will be travelling home on the bus.

Can you help?

• Weeding garden beds

• Take our soft plastic to the Castlemaine Transfer station?

• Raking leaves and leaf litter 

• Assembling student desks next week in the library (still waiting on delivery!)

New school policies

Please visit our website to find our new Child Safety policies

Chewton Primary School Policies

School Council Update

Dear parents and carers,

Earlier in the year, the School Council asked you to participate in a survey about your bushfire relocations experience over the 2024/2025 summer school period. As you will remember, we had many relocations in the first few weeks of the year which caused much disruption for the entire school community. 

We also noticed our relocations were excessive compared with similar schools in neighbouring local government areas and—although many relocation days were in fact necessary and within the scope of expectations—the weather did not always match the extreme rating for the day, making some relocations seemed excessive and unnecessary. This prompted us to find out more about how the system worked and how we could make the summer school weeks both safe and more reasonable for the wellbeing of the school community.

We had an incredible amount of parents, staff and students responding to this survey. Thank you to everyone for your time and perspectives. We were able to share all results during ongoing discussions with our local State MP Maree Edwards, Minister of Education Ben Carroll, the Department of Education's Emergency Team, Emergency Services, CFA and Mount Alexander Council. These discussions culminated in a meeting between all stakeholders at our school in winter this year.

Our main asks were:

1. The 'Extreme' trigger for relocation to be moved to 75 as per the old system. Currently the Extreme trigger sits at 50. OR

2. The Mount Alexander Local Government Area rating be reviewed, since our LGA consistently sat at 10 points higher than our neighbouring LGAs, due to circumstances outside of CPS control and related to vegetation right across the LGA, not around the school. (It should be noted we have done all our clearing and vegetation management required by DET).

We are pleased to report we have had some success with our second request. Under recommendation from the DET Emergency Team, the Mt Alexander fuel type was reassessed and re-tested. Recent information from DET is that "this should result in far less relocations for your school community this fire season."

They are unable to share more details on the result of the testing with us. However, as we enter this bushfire season, we hope relocations will have less of an impact on our school community, while we remain committed to staying safe and enacting our emergency management plans when required.

We also requested clearer communications from DET around bushfire relocation systems, and they have promised to share something with us soon.

With thanks,

School Council.

Bushfire relocation information

Chewton Primary School is  a Bushfire at Risk Rating (BARR) 2 school. This means that if our local government area (Mt Alexander Shire Council) is given an extreme fire danger rating, we are required to relocate to Winters Flat Primary School for the day. Communications are sent out to parents as soon as we know we will have to move, via text, Compass and email, with instructions and information. Parents drop off and pick up their children at Winters Flat Primary School.

Bernadette and the DET Student Support Services psychologist have prepared a Relocation booklet for children to assist with the relocation process. 

Teachers have made workbooks that we will use at Winters Flat on relocation days. Students who are unable to attend and are supported at home by their families will also recieve this workbook to complete. We are hoping that this will assist with continuity of learning, reduce stress on our staff, students and families and build resilience.

A big thanks to school council for their work in lobbying the DET and government, which resulted in a fuel assessment being undertaken in our LGA.

News from P-1

We’re well into the home stretch of the school year, but our Prep/1 learners are continuing to stay busy and engaged. Students have continued exploring a variety of persuasive writing techniques. Students discovered how powerful adjectives can be when they applied for positions on Erin’s Pirate Crew! Each child wrote a job application for a role on the ship—such as cook, gunner, or navigator—and then participated in an interview to persuade Captain Erin to hire them. Thankfully, every applicant was successful and no one had to walk the plank!

In Mathematics, we have been revisiting measurement concepts. Students have been estimating and then measuring the length of classroom objects, using scales to find mass, and exploring the capacity of different containers.

Excitement is building as we prepare to open our Prep/1 Mini Golf Course. Final construction and modifications are underway, and we look forward to welcoming our visitors next Thursday for a round of golf. Stay tuned—more details are on the way!

We also celebrated another fantastic milestone after collecting 100 SWPBS cards. For this celebration, students chose to have a “Swap Hour,” where they became the teachers and Erin and Luke became the students! In small groups, students planned Maths, Reading, Spelling, PE, and Art lessons—complete with worksheets—to put their teachers to the test. It was great fun for everyone and gave us all a deeper appreciation for the challenges of both teaching and learning.

Mini Golf

Prep /One students were very proud to share their Mini Golf projects with families, staff and other classes today! What incredible work they did to design and construct these amazing mini golf courses. Thanks Prep/One!

Jirrahlinga

So much fun at Jirrahlinga! Thanks Kath for organising this as part of our First Nations Ways: Country and Place learning. 

Don't forget..

Our Xmas carols at the post office on Tuesday at 10am

Our Year 6 Graduation and whole school picnic 5:30-7:30pm

Arrive at 5:15 as we are commencing at 5:30pm sharp with Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony

Year 6 Graduation

Family picnic

Special visitor  in  a big red truck visiting!

Secret Santa/ Kris Kringle presents

Songlines and Seasons Exhibition

Dumawul, Hargreaves Mall, Bendigo

 First Peoples connections and information

You can find out more about Yoorrook here

https://yoorrookjusticecommission.org.au/ and Four Corners have an excellent program on Yoorrook. 

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/four-corners/series/2025/video/NC2503H008S00 

You may have heard that Djaara have begun Treaty negotiations with the Victorian government.

Sushi Dates for 2025

http://www.schoollunchonline.com.au 

14/2

14/3

16/5

13/6

8/8

12/9

24/10

14/11

12/12