Principal’s Report

As with many of our Emerald Primary School families, we were surprised and disappointed to hear that the before school and after school care program would not be continuing after the end of this term. We were initially told it would be at the end of the year.

Since hearing of the potential closure of the program, I have been beginning the process with the Department of Education to see if we can run a similar program ourselves, or accommodate a program on our school grounds. School Council has supported this and I will be reporting back to them soon with the processes involved. Thank you to all of the parents and carers who have sent emails to me. I will try to reply individually, but all my replies will be informing you as per this message. The main challenge for us at our school is finding an appropriate space for the program to support the students and the staff that would be involved, whilst also ensuring we do not encroach on the current classroom learning spaces.

I am aware that there are other options in the surrounding community being looked at, but I will continue with these investigations and keep our families in the loop. Thank you to those families who have shared their concerns and queries. I will be back in touch once I have some more information for you.

All families who have applied via the Student Insight Platform to enrol their Prep 2025 students at Emerald Primary School should have a notification email now and can proceed to accept the offer and enter the required information.

We are looking forward to meeting all of your new (and returning!) families! If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at school.

Following are the instructions on how to accept the enrolment offer, taken from the Digital Enrolment Parent/Carer Quick Reference Guide.

Accept or do not accept an enrolment offer

IMPORTANT NOTE: Enrolments must be accepted via the portal.

  1. A notification will be sent via the portal and email when a school makes an offer of enrolment
  2. Navigate to the VicStudents Enrolment homepage
  3. Navigate to the application section
  4. Select View on application(s) with a ‘Place Offered’ status
  5. Select Accept Offer to accept the enrolment offer, and you will be prompted to provide additional information Note: Any applications you may have submitted to other schools have been closed.
  6. Read the Privacy Collection Notice and select Continue to proceed
  7. Enter details for each section (including documentation upload)
  8. Read the Review and Declaration and check all details have been provided and are correct, then tick the confirmation boxes
  9. Read the confirmation of review and select Proceed with Submission NOTE: The student’s personal and health information will be shared with the school once you have accepted and completed the full digital enrolment form
  10. When the school finalises the application, you will be notified via email and the status in the portal will be updated
  11. If you received multiple enrolment offers, or you no longer wish to proceed with your enrolment application:
  • Select Do Not Accept (for each offer to be declined)
  • Enter a reason and the application will be closed.

WE WANT OUR PARENTS / CAREGIVERS / GUARDIANS TO TELL US WHAT THEY THINK!

Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies.

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open online from Monday 5th August to Friday 30 August 2024.

All families are invited to participate in the survey.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones.

The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages. Resources are also available in additional languages to assist parents / caregivers / guardians who speak a language other than English at home. Please reach out to your child’s teacher, or the school directly for survey guides in your language.

The survey results will be communicated to parents / caregivers / guardians through annual reporting and via the school website.

  • Friday 23rd August – for Science Week, dress up as anything to do with Science, STEM or as a Scientist!
  • Friday 20th September – favourite sport, athlete or sporting team.
  • Thursday 22nd August – Parent Battle of the Bands @ 7pm – Sooki Lounge Belgrave
  • Friday 23rd August – Science Week Dress Up
  • Tuesday 27th August – CFA Visit Preps
  • Wednesday 28th – Friday 30th August – Melbourne Rocks- Times Tables Rock Stars competition
  • Thursday 29th August @ 7pm – School Council Meeting
  • Friday 30th August @ 2.30pm – Fathers Day Sausage Sizzle
  • Friday 30th August @ 3.10pm – Whole school assembly
  • Saturday 31st August @ 1- 3pm – Working Bee
  • Wednesday 4th September @ 1pm – Matinee Grade 6 Production ‘Whats the Crime Mr Wolf?’
  • Thursday 5th September @ 6.30pm – Grade 6 Production ‘Whats the Crime Mr Wolf?’
  • Friday 6th September @ 6.30pm – Grade 6 Production ‘Whats the Crime Mr Wolf?’
  • Monday 9th September – EDEC Girls Football (Gembrook)
  • Friday 20th September – Favourite sport, athlete or sporting team dress up day
  • Friday 20th September @2.30pm – Finish Term 3

Emma Clark

Principal

This week …

ATTENTION ATTENTION!

Our school’s Parents Band “The Tall Ones” is participating with a number of other local primary schools including Mt Dandenong PS, Kallista PS and Menzies Creek PS in the 2024 Yarra Ranges Parents Battle of the Bands on Thursday, 22nd August at The Sooki Lounge in Belgrave!!

It’s an awesome community event where the funds raised are used to expand the performing arts/music education programs for participating schools. 

All proceeds will be redistributed pro-rata of parents’ attendance/number of tickets sold by each school, which means, the more parents of our school show up, the more money we raise.

 The real winners are the schools that sell the most tickets!  It is a fun night of great music and quality entertainment – legendary if you ask previous crowds!

 Head over to @parents_battle_of_the_bands on Instagram and Facebook to see what the fuss is about AND click on the link below to purchase tickets;

https://tickets.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/99680298-57e8-4937-a27e-910ab607d111

 Hope to see you all at Sooki on Thursday, 22nd of August, 2024 to support our fabulous school. 

Attention students in Year 3-6…We are excited to announce that we have entered our school in the Melbourne Rocks- Times Tables Rock Stars competition. This will take place on August 28th to August 30th 2024. Students will have up to 60minutes per day, for the 3 days, to log on and answer as many times table questions as they can. The competition will be able to be completed on any device connected to the internet at school and home.

Every correct answer that a student gives, in any game type, between the hours of 7:30am AEST to 7:30pm AEST each day will contribute to their class and school score.

Your teachers will be sending more information home over the coming weeks in the lead up to the competition. Also keep your eye on dojo for any announcements from Mrs Porter.

Competition Video:

https://youtu.be/SEAFhwHSkms

What an amazing Book Week with the theme, ‘Reading is Magic’ we had last week!
Students have enjoyed the CBCA shortlisted books over the past few weeks and voted for their favourite book. We are looking forward to finding out the official CBCA winning book of the year, and comparing it with the EPS’s favourite book at our next assembly!

In the library, students tried working out Which Witch is Witch? This is a special display where the EPS staff pose in photos as witches reading books with only their eyes showing. Many students participated by completing entry forms and winners were drawn out at our special Book Week Assembly. The winners are: Nate from 2W, and Anna from 3C Congratulations! They received a special prize! These students guessed the 53 staff members all correctly -what an INCREDIBLE effort: Alyssa, Kobe, Mikaela, Angus (and Mrs Cahill) from 5/6P and Olive and Ollie from 5F. They will all also receive a prize! Find out who all the witches are this week when you visit the library, as they are now all named! Thank you Mrs Weerasinghe for making this stunning display!

It was super exciting to see everyone dressed up for our Book Week Parade, even the pre-school children! We loved the P-2 Japanese performance – what talented Japanese speakers and actors! Thank you Sonia Sensei for teaching and directing this clever piece! The highlight of the day was definitely our staff performance of Bowerbird Blues, one of the CBCA shortlisted picture books this year! Thanks to Eden Byron-Thomsen for being the brains behind this performance and directing it, to Kerrie Eva for creating our extraordinary Blue Bower and Peta for collecting blue props. Amberlie Porter told us some interesting facts about Bowerbirds that she had researched. Then we were so entertained by our extremely talented performers, Mr Roma, Mr Mac Eoin and of course the stars of the show, Mrs and Mr Appleby, the Bowerbirds! Thanks so much to you all, we all absolutely LOVED it!

To finish off a wonderful Book Week, later in the day the WHOLE SCHOOL sat in the stadium, listened to Mrs D read us a lovely story and then we all read, read, read for 15 minutes! The atmosphere was so special, with over 500 people, all sitting reading silently!

Thanks so much to everyone for a fun Book Week!

Year 5 Academic success in Japanese!

Congratulations to Grade 5 students Grace Y, Eleanor J, Lachie A and Savannah L for their outstanding performance in the recent Japanese Speech Contest. These students spent many hours preparing for the competition – writing a speech, memorising it and working on pronunciation and expression. Competing against 12 other schools, they certainly shone as the bright stars they are, bringing home bronze medals! We are so proud of you all. Many thanks to the students’ parents and Yumi sensei, our Japanese assistant, for their efforts to help the students prepare for this nerve-wracking experience.

Socks and shoes in Japanese classes

In Japanese class, we try to incorporate Japanese culture so we do some things differently to other classes. Firstly, students take off their shoes before entering the room. Then we sit on the floor in classroom instead of on chairs. Having shoes off means that the carpet stays relatively clean for us to sit on.

With this in mind, we ask that students wear shoes that are easy to put on for their Japanese specialist day – velcro is great, high top sneakers are not. This will help us to keep transitions between classes quick and smooth. It’s also a good day to ensure students are wearing nice clean socks.

Japanese Day is coming!

Also, just a heads up that Japanese Day will be held early in Term 4. The last Japanese Day was a huge success and this one is shaping up to be amazing too! We’re planning lots of activities over the day so if you have any special skills (martial arts, crafts, music, cooking etc) that would link well with Japanese Day, please get in touch with Sonia Sensei via the front office or the school email. You might like to start talking to your child about possible costumes for the day but please don’t purchase a costume especially – be creative and try to use what you have at home.

Arigato,

Sonia Sensei

On Monday, our boys and girls soccer teams took on the best schools in the Eastern Region.

Girls Results:

Emerald 0 Donvale Christian School 1

Emerald 0 Livingstone 3

Emerald 1  St Bede’s 9

It was a tough day for the girls but they never gave up and the highlight was scoring against the eventual champions!

Boys Results:

Emerald 0 Sacred Heart 1

Emerald 0 OLGC 2

Emerald 1 Canterbury 0

The boys had 3 very close games. The highlight was defeating Canterbury PS, who amazingly were the eventual champions!

Thanks to Mr Kolb and Mauro for coaching our teams and the wonderful mums for washing our uniforms!

Mr Stella

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