BEFORE SCHOOL PROCESSES

With the opening of the new building and the new AstroTurf and handball courts, we have changed some of the before school processes.

• All parents are asked to wait with their children only under C Block before school. Students should be sitting with their parents at this time. We kindly ask that you do not wait under E Block as this is the thoroughfare to the boys’ toilets and easier to monitor with no parents and students waiting in this area.
• When the bell rings at 8:45am, Prep students will remain under C Block and line up for Mrs Egerton, Mrs Nelson and Mrs Rossiter/Miss Enoch. Lines will be painted on the concrete to help the preppies to see where to line up.   Parents are to say goodbye to their children downstairs and help them to line up to walk up to class.  Parents are asked not to go upstairs with the students as it causes congestion on the stairs and on the veranda, which is unsafe.
• When the bell rings at 8:45am, Year 1s are to walk to under A Block (near the Uniform Shop) to line up for Mrs Kent, Mrs Boone and Miss Hunt.
• Students are not to deliver bags to their line up areas when they arrive at school, but to keep them with them until line up time.
• All students without parent supervision are to sit and wait under D Block. From 8:30 these students are permitted to play handball or skip on the AstroTurf, if they choose. When the bell rings, students are asked to return their skipping ropes and handballs to the Year 5/6 volunteers and return to under D Block.  The staff on duty will then release one year level at a time to move to their line up areas.
• Year 3s are to walk via the library to their line up area, not through the new building breezeway.
• On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Mr Woodrick is running a Kilometre Club for students in Y3-6 who want to train for the upcoming cross country.

 Front Gate

In trying to be helpful, some students or parents are using a rock from the front garden to hold back the front gate on South Pine Road leaving it wide open!  This is very unsafe for our new preppies who may wander off and see the open gate that leads to a very busy road!  Please ensure that you keep our front gate closed at all times.  Thanks for your help with this.

Hats and Water Bottles

During these hot summer months, please remember to ensure your child is coming to school with their hat and a water bottle every day!  It is easy for students to become overheated and dehydrated if they are not drinking water throughout the day.  As always, please ensure your child’s property is clearly labelled.

Facebook

Our school has a very active Facebook page with daily posts to keep our school community informed of what is happening in our school.  Our events are posted throughout the term to allow parents time to be prepared for the term ahead.  We encourage all of our parents to follow our page so you can enjoy the wonderful experiences our school has to offer.  The more you interact with the page by liking and commenting on posts, the more our page will appear in your newsfeed.  A reminder that Facebook is not the best platform to ask questions that you need immediate or urgent replies to, as we don’t always see questions in the comment sections of a post.   This is best done by emailing the teacher/admin or calling the office.  Facebook is also not a site for posting complaints or negative comments about staff or school processes.  If you have some constructive feedback for the school or an issue that you would like to raise, we would respectfully ask that you make an appointment to speak with the Principal to discuss your concerns.   Any inappropriate or derogatory comments will be removed from the platform.

Stop, Drop and Go

A friendly reminder to parents that to ensure the Stop, Drop and Go Zone at South Pine Road (in the car park) is successful, it is essential that drivers proceed all the way to the first gate closest to the library. Parents are unable to leave their vehicles in this area to walk their students into under the buildings, as it causes congestion to the flow of traffic and becomes a safety issue. Please do not drop your students at the first gate either as this causes cars to have to go around your vehicle and again causes issues with the traffic flow. This gate is locked in the mornings for safety. Thanks for your support with our safe drop-off.

The expectation is the same for Laurel St Stop, Drop and Go.  Please do not park in this zone and leave your vehicle as it doesn’t allow for the traffic to flow.  It is important to continually move your car to the front of the zone to allow cars to move in behind you.   Our staff are working hard to ensure the safety of our students as they leave the school grounds and we appreciate your support with this by following our pick-up and drop-off processes.

Pillar Practice

Our three school pillars including Safety (Be Safe); Relationships (Be Respectful); and Learning (Be a Responsible Learner).  Each fortnight at Assembly, a Pillar Practice is shared with staff and students that becomes our focus behaviour improvement.  This fortnight, our Pillar Practice is around Be a Responsible Learner.  All class teachers are provided with a poster for their classroom and will explicitly teach our school expectations around the relevant pillar and behaviour.   Students are reminded daily about our focus behaviour with the goal of improving this behaviour across the school.  The Student Engagement and Behaviour committee reviews behaviour data across the school at their meetings to discuss future focus areas for identified behaviours of concern.   This process is documented in our Student Code of Conduct and is part of our explicit teaching of behaviour in our school.  You can support us by being aware of the current Pillar Practice and discussing the expectations with your children at home.

Bike Racks

With many students riding bikes and scooters to school, our bike racks have become quite full.  To overcome this issue, we are asking students to fill the bike racks from the back.  Many students who arrive first are putting their bikes at the front of the cage, making it difficult for the later students to get past to the back racks.  We are also looking at ways that we can fit more racks in the bike cage.  Also, we are investigating upgrading the path beside the pool to make it safer for students wheeling bikes into the school.

A reminder please that all bikes are to enter through this gate and not via other entry points.  Students and younger siblings are asked not to ride scooters or bikes in the school grounds to ensure everyone’s safety. 

School Dress Code

At the beginning of the school year, it is a good time for parents to reacquaint themselves with our School Dress Code.  This Dress Code was developed collaboratively with the school community and supports the wearing of a school uniform to promote a sense of belonging and school pride.   It also promotes a supportive environment fostering mutual respect among individuals at school by minimising visible evidence of economic, class or social difference. Thank you for your support of our school Dress Code.

Some points of interest:

Footwear - Students are expected to wear ALL black closed in shoes (no boots) and plain white socks that cover the ankles.

Jewellery – Watches, studs and sleepers are acceptable but only one earring per ear is to be worn whilst at school.  No other form of jewellery is to be worn, except for medical, cultural or religious purposes.