Principal’s Report

Our whole school “Step Up” Transition Morning, for students to be in their new 2025 classes and meet their teachers for next year, will be held next Tuesday 10th December. Our Grade 6 students also head off for an experience at their new schools on that day too, with our new 2025 Preps joining us also for the morning. The Grade 6 Graduation event is fast approaching on Friday 13th December. The Leaps and Bounds Awards Assembly for this term is on Friday 20th December at 9.15am, which is also our Final Assembly for the year. I will look forward to seeing everyone around at many of these events to finish off a great year.

The year has flown by!  As we head into the last few weeks of the school year, when look forward to reflecting on students’ achievements and the fun we have had through the year, here are the arrangements to finish up the term:

  • Tuesday 10th December – EPS “Step-Up to 2025” morning
  • Friday 13th December – Grade 6 Graduation
  • Thursday 19th December – Student Reports available
  • Friday 20th December – Last day of term; Assembly at 9.15am; School finishes at 2.30pm.

The Victorian Government is delivering the School Saving Bonus (SSB) – a one-off $400 support for government school students from Prep to Year 12 in 2025.

From Tuesday 26 November 2024, you will receive an email from the Department of Education with your unique $400 School Saving Bonus code.

The School Saving Bonus will help families cover the cost of uniforms, textbooks, excursions, activities and more.

If you have multiple children enrolled in Victorian government schools for 2025, you will receive one School Saving Bonus code email per child. These emails might arrive on different days. Please make sure to check your spam/junk email folder.

Parents and carers can use the School Saving Bonus code in store at school-nominated suppliers. Parents and carers can also choose to access the School Saving Bonus online system, where they can allocate part or all the $400 bonus to use at school nominated-online suppliers or for school activities.  To learn more about the School Saving Bonus, visit   School Saving Bonus | vic.gov.au   (www.vic.gov.au). A step-by-step user guide will be available on the webpage on 26 November.

If you have not received your School Saving Bonus code via email by Friday 29 November, please contact the Department of Education by emailing school.saving.bonus@education.vic.gov.au

NB. At EPS, we are currently working on addressing a glitch on the school side of things, to ensure that a some or all of your SSB money can be used at our uniform shop, so we have had to pause uniform sales using this method at the moment – our apologies.

Sadly, we have a few teachers leaving us at the end of the year and I want to thank them very much for all of their excellent contributions to our school and continual support of EPS students to achieve their best: Eden Byron-Thomsen, Sascha Opperman and Jo McDonald.

Jo McDonald has been at Emerald Primary School for 22 years, and is not only leaving EPS, but retiring from teaching overall after 44 years! She has taught many people who are still local to the area, and who now have their own children attending our school! Jo’s love of literature and art has been evident during her time at our school – she has been a classroom teacher, Art teacher and English Leader over her time at EPS and has instilled a love of literacy, art and learning in many students over the years. We wish her all the very best with all of the exciting adventures awaiting her next!

Sascha has taught at EPS for 26 years and will be teaching at a school in Gippsland next year. We thank her for all of her wonderful time spent at EPS in the general classroom, teaching Art and teaching Science, and wish her well for her endeavours in 2025.

Apart from being a classroom teacher for a few years now at EPS, Eden has helped to run our Gather and Grow activity this year, been strongly involved in the Kitchen Garden Program, and been our English PLT Leader also. We thank her for all of her work in these areas and wish her good luck for her 2025 adventures – which will involve living and teaching in Tasmania!

In the lead up to Christmas, which we know will be a difficult time for some people in our community, we are conducting a food collection drive, in liaison with St. Luke’s Church. The team at St. Luke’s Foodstore will distribute the food in coming weeks to those most in need. Please see the info/flyer in this newsletter regarding what items are suitable to donate. Last date for donations to be made at the Front Office will be Thursday 19th December. Thank you to Hollie Boniface for her support with this project.

What a wonderful day again this year where we welcomed many grandparents and special friends to visit our school. Thank you to Peta Woodyard and her team of volunteers for their excellent sausage-sizzling skills on the day. We look forward to this day every year, and it was lovely to see the students showing their guests around and enjoying the time together.

Thank you to all families who supported the Book Fair this year – we hope you all managed to get some goodies and gifts! Thank you very much to Kerrie Eva, supported by Peta Woodyard, for all of their efforts in co-ordinating the Book Fair this year. All purchases have a percentage donation which comes back to the school, which is used to purchase more library resources. We will let you know this figure once it is finalised.

Thank you to the EPS community for their gold coin donations last week towards the EB “Blue Day” Fundraiser – we managed to raise $468.30, which was wonderful and much appreciated by Charlotte S. and the DEBRA Foundation, in the fight to find a cure for EB and support children living with this disease. For more information, please follow this link: https://www.debra.org.au/

Please be aware that the Canteen closure date (last day of opening) will be Tuesday 17th December. Lunch orders and over the counter purchases will be available up to and including this date. So, the Canteen will not be available for lunch orders or any buying on Wednesday 18th December, Thursday 19th December and Friday 20th December.

  • Tuesday 10th December – EPS “Step-Up to 2025” morning
  • Friday 13th December – Grade 6 Graduation
  • Friday 13th December @9.15am – Whole School Assembly
  • Thursday 19th December – Student Reports available
  • Friday 20th December @9.15am – Whole School Assembly
  • Friday 20th December – Last day of term 4; School finishes at 2.30pm

Emma Clark

Principal

Star of the week!

Has had a fantastic week with his writing! What a writing Star!

For an amazing diorama of the midnight zone in the ocean. Very impressive. What a super star!

For her AMAZINGLY written Cold Write. You are an adjective using, idea making superstar!

For her positive attitude, hard work ethic and friendliness to everyone! What a fabulous year you’ve had! Congratulations.

For doing a great job with his spelling in our phonics sessions.

For accurately and actively including contractions into her writing.

For an artistic work of genius alongside gripping, detailed captions for his diorama of gold panning. What a STAR!

For great focus and resilience during her construction project.

For providing insightful responses for his sketchnote and presenting it with effort & detail. Jackie French would be so proud

For his easy-going, relaxed attitude, calmly accepting any challenge and always doing his best to overcome any obstacles in the way of his learning! What a STAR!!

For your ‘can do’ attitude in Garden Club. You were an impressive worker!

For the effort and attitude, she has shown in achieving her Maths Masters Belt. Top Job!

For your fun-loving energy and never-ending science facts.

For her amazing slam poetry. So well worded, well written and well performed!!

For Showing such pride in your achievements in year 1 and eagerly showing them all to your Grandparents Day visitor!

For your wonderful focus and always striving to be the best you can be. You are all amazing.

For being such an engaging host for her guests on Grandparents Day!

For her enthusiasm and hard work and for always being a helpful class member. What a sensational year!

For doing such a wonderful job researching for her celebration project.

For working hard to understand the relationship between multiplication and division.

For being her happy, cheerful self. Always willing to help others.

For increased focus and effort during learning time. We’re seeing some good outcomes from your choices!

*STUDENT AWARD*

For being an independent worker who completes all activities to the best of her ability.

For the calm and confident manner that he tackles challenges, diving headlong into the learning pit!

For your diligent and studious attitude towards everything you do.

For her wonderful sense of humour and her participation and behavour in our classroom.

For working creatively to create and present his SLAM poem in front of his peers.

For always trying her best in class and her amazing thoughtfulness.

For always being such a focussed learner in class. You are an excellent role model to others. What a star!

For his amazing addition and subtraction skills. You are a fluent fact star!

For looking after his guests so well during Grandparents and Special Friends Day! 10/10

For your absolute AWESOMENESS at our Weed Busting Day at Emerald Lake! Thank you for making our community a better place to be. You are all SUPERSTARS!

For doing a great job working on his celebration project.

For outstanding creativity and historically accurate descriptions of her Gold Rush diorama. Indie you are a STAR!

For amazing progress with her spelling.

For focus while in reading sessions. Your reading fluency has increased through your great focus! Keep it up!

For her positive attitude towards her work and persistence in every activity! What a STAR!!

For his excellent focus when working on his fractions work. Great job for jumping into the learning pit Will.

For showing a willingness to overcome her fears and concerns, whilst on camp, especially on the camp out!

For always bringing a smile and joy to our classroom.

For his amazing bravery and can do attitude at our grade six camp.

For always being respectful and trying hard in the classroom.

Community News

FREE PARENTING/CARER SUPPORT PROGRAMS scheduled for Term 1, 2025

We are currently accepting registrations from interested parents.

For any queries or additional information, please feel free to contact the Group Work Practitioners (Mon – Thur) at 03 9704 8377 or groupwork.south@vt.uniting.org

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Canteen News!

Friday Meal Deal

Curried Sausages

and rice

+

Python in a pond jelly

$7.50

As we approach the end of the school year, we wanted to advise you that some items in the canteen may become unavailable as we begin to wind down stock levels for the holidays.
We appreciate your understanding and encourage students to have alternative options in case their preferred items are unavailable.

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