Friday 19th May 2017

News from the Principal NAPLAN Our Year 3 and Year 5 children worked very Student Attitudes to School Survey hard throughout last week’s NAPLAN testing As a school we highly value ‘student voice’. period. We are very proud of their efforts. Understanding what our students think about Well done Year 3 and Year 5! the school helps us improve student engagement, wellbeing and learning outcomes. Results for Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation, To find out what our children think of our Reading, Writing and Numeracy testing will be school, we’ll soon be implementing the Student available later next term. Attitudes to School survey. June Reports The Attitudes to School survey is an annual As this term progresses, teachers are turning student survey offered by the Department of their attention to reporting on student progress. Education and Training to assist schools in Reports will be made available in late June and gaining an understanding of students' will highlight how each child is progressing with perceptions and experience of school. Our their learning. school will use the survey results to plan programs and activities to improve our school We will have a ‘Parent / Teacher’ evening for our children. Students from Year 4 to 6 at towards the end of this term so that parents our school will participate in the survey. and teachers can discuss together the progress of each child. This year the Attitudes to School survey will be conducted at our school over the period Attendance Monday 22 May to Friday 23 June. The survey Week 1 of this term was not a great week in only takes 20-30 minutes to complete and terms of student attendance with the school occurs during your child's class time. dropping below 90%. However, the last three weeks have been solid with results of 93.8, Children will be provided with a unique login to 93.6 and 94.3% attendance. We are still complete the survey. The survey is 100% hoping to average above 95% attendance. anonymous and no student can be identified in the results reported to schools or in any other report of the data.

Please speak to your child’s teacher if you would like more information or visit the Department of Education and Training website: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/princip als/management/Pages/performsurveyat.aspx

amount of homework children currently receive is just right. Some parents suggested they would like to see more homework provided and others suggested they would like to see less homework.

School Banking – Can You Help? Our school banking program has been on hold for a period of time now. We would love to offer the service once more on an ongoing basis but this service does require a parent or carer volunteer or two to help with the processing of deposits. This role is reasonably straightforward and involves an hour each week at school to count the money, fill in the deposit slip and deliver the money across to the Commonwealth Bank at the Dandenong Plaza.

If this role is something you would be interested in taking on, please drop in to see me at school. It can be a useful experience to have on a resume when applying for work and I imagine it would be a rewarding role to take on knowing you are contributing to the lives of the children and families in our wonderful school community... Parent & Carer Survey Thank you very much to those parents and Ardoch Youth Foundation Partnership carers who have responded to our Parent & We are excited to announce that the school is Carer Survey. We have had around 40 partnering with Ardoch Youth Foundation. responses which is great. Ardoch has worked with many other schools over many years to develop and deliver a The survey asked for your views around what whole range of innovative and learning the school is doing well, what it could do better wellbeing programs. and what parents expect in terms of homework for students. Some examples of their work with other schools include the training and sourcing of The results were overwhelmingly positive volunteers to schools, funding and facilitating which is nice to see. of special programs such as breakfast clubs, excursions and other learning experiences. In terms of what there is to like about Dandenong Primary School, many parents Stay tuned for what develops from our highlighted the warm and friendly school partnership with Ardoch. For more information environment and the work of the school staff. about Ardoch, visit www.ardoch.org.au Several parents also highlighted the school’s cultural diversity and inclusiveness. Mother’s Day Stall Thank you very much to some amazing In terms of what the school could do better, Dandenong Primary School mums including there were a number of different ideas from Narelle, Lucy, Sam and Athena for making last creating an effective email communication week’s Mother’s Day Stall a big success. The system between teachers and parents, children were excited to pick out something improving parking, developing the outdoor special for the mothers in their lives and I hope environment and bringing back school banking. that the mums of Dandenong Primary School enjoyed their gifts. The stall raised around Parents views around homework for children $1600 for the school. Well done! were varied. Some parents suggested the Anti-Bullying Policy & Procedures If you have changed numbers, have a new As a school community we take a strong home or email address or wish to update your stance against bullying and other negative child’s emergency contact details, please see forms of behaviour. Donna in the office.

If your child talks to you about bullying or if you La Trobe University & Year 3/4 Planning have any questions about the school’s anti- and Design Work bullying policies or procedures, please do not hesitate to contact me at school.

On Friday 5th May, our Year 3/4 students teamed up with La Trobe University Community Planning & Development students to work on potential designs to improve our playgrounds and outdoor areas.

Our students learned about planning and design processes and then put this learning into practice. The La Trobe University students have taken this work away and are busy preparing a report to present to the school in the coming weeks. We’re very excited to see the results of this fantastic work from the Year 3/4 children and from our friends at La Trobe University. The Importance of Emergency Contact Details This work was made possible by School On Wednesday of this week, a very brave Council President Knowles Tivendale and La student in Year 4 injured his arm in the Trobe University Senior Lecturer Julie Rudner. playground and was taken to Dandenong Hospital. He is quite sore but will be ok and Speech Pathology Students will make a full recovery, which is great news. Dandenong Primary School has begun to host two La Trobe University speech pathology Thankfully, the student had his personal details students who’ve been working alongside our up-to-date because at the time of the injury the school-based speech pathologist, Pam Thuan. school was not able to contact the student’s The work of Pam and the two speech parents so we needed to get in touch with the pathology students is enabling the school to student’s ‘emergency contact’. enhance its language and literacy development in the Prep to Year 2 area of the school. This unfortunate incident was a very important reminder about the need for all students to have their personal details up-to-date in the event of an emergency.

Bob Greaves School Review Retired Monash University arts lecturer Bob Our school will undergo a Department of Greaves OAM has been back in the school Education & Training review early next term. working with our Prep children and staff. This process will enable the development of the school’s next 4-year ‘strategic plan’. This is Bob came along to talk about his favourite toys an exciting time for the school but also a time as a child from many years ago and worked where all staff are busy preparing a ‘pre review with the children to create the pictures and self-evaluation report’ which is a great photo frames below showing our student’s opportunity to celebrate the great things we do favourite toys today. at the school and to begin to identify the areas we wish to improve on.

Hoseah Partsch in The Voice Top 12 We are very excited for Kiana in Year 4 whose brother, Hoseah is currently impressing all with Mum & Me Morning his performances so far onThe Voice. We are Our Mum & Me morning was a fantastic event hoping that the very talented Hoseah will soon last week and plenty of fun for children and be able to visit and perform for us at school. parents alike. You can cheer Hoseah on Sunday evenings on Thank you to the parents and friends who were Channel 9. Go Hoseah! able to come along to make our morning together very special. I hope that you enjoy Ramadan the photos in the newsletter and as well as the Ramadan will begin on the 27th May. This is ones we have put on our school Facebook significant month for many children and page at families in our community. To those who will www.facebook.com/DandenongPrimarySchool be fasting over the next month, I say happy Ramadan!

Daniel Riley Principal

We also encourage the senior students to help any younger students in case of any bullying they come across.

Thank you

School Council On Monday 15th May we attended the Dandenong Primary School Council meeting to present our school captains report to the council.

We spoke about how all the children in the school were using the ‘Three Rs’: respect for self, respect for others and respect for the environment.

We talked about the need to encourage everyone to pick up more rubbish to keep our school environment clean and to show that we take pride in our school.

We also talked about some ideas we had to improve our school. One idea included getting some new soccer nets for our soccer goals on the oval. Mr Riley has encouraged us to do News from the School Captains some research into the cost of new soccer nets. We will update you on this work soon. Heroes Day We recently spoke at school assembly about Thank you ‘Heroes Day’ which is also known as ‘anti- bullying day’. Manya, Ramin, Zahra & Luka Dandenong Primary School Captains 2017 Heroes Day is a day to celebrate and popularise our stand against bullying. Your role model need not necessarily be Batman or Superman. It could be someone whom you meet and see in your daily lives like your teacher, parent or anyone special in your life. Someone whom you respect and like.

It is also a day to highlight the dangers of bullying and to learn to be an ‘up-stander’. You can do that by making sure no one gets bullied and being kind to others.

And the best part of the Heroes Day is to dress up as our favourite hero and portray the characters that we like best in our heroes.

So let’s all come together on Thursday 1st June, dress up as our favourite heroes and have a great time. Photos from Mum & Me

It’s not too late to order photos…