I hope this message finds you well and that the start of the school year has been filled with excitement and optimism for your children.

As we continue to strive for excellence at Glen Iris Primary, I wanted to take a moment to share with you some important improvements we are making in two key areas that are central to our school’s ongoing development: stretching and extending our learners and embedding our wellbeing initiatives. These initiatives are vital for ensuring that all students reach their full potential while feeling supported, happy, and confident at school.

1. Stretching and Extending Learners

At GIPS, we believe that every child should be challenged and engaged in their learning. To achieve this, we are focusing on strategies to stretch and extend our learners, ensuring that they are not only meeting but exceeding their academic potential.

We have implemented a more individualized approach to learning, ensuring that students are engaged at a level that meets their needs, whether they require more challenging tasks or additional support. Teachers are working to identify the strengths of each child early in the term, offering tailored enrichment activities in reading, writing and maths that are at their developmental level. If you think your child needs more support, please let your classroom teacher know.

2. Embedding Wellbeing Initiatives

At Glen Iris Primary, we are committed to nurturing the emotional and social development of all our students. This year, we are focusing on embedding our wellbeing initiatives further into the fabric of school life. We understand that a child’s emotional wellbeing plays a crucial role in their academic success, so we are making sure that every student feels safe, respected, and valued.

Our Wellbeing Program has been designed to support students in building resilience, emotional regulation, and a positive mindset. Our wellbeing initiatives are not only integrated into the classroom but also form a key part of our extracurricular activities, promoting mindfulness, social skills, and emotional intelligence. Specifically, this term we are continuing to embed the Berry Street Education Model through initiatives like morning circle, what went well, and ready to learn plans. We also are continuing to embed our work in the Zones of Regulation.

Our school’s emphasis on wellbeing is aligned with our vision to provide a holistic education. By focusing on both the cognitive and emotional growth of each child, we are setting the stage for them to flourish in all aspects of life. If you believe your child needs more wellbeing support, please reach out to your classroom teacher or request a referral for our school psychologist Dr Meg.

Looking Ahead

As we move forward, we will continue to evaluate and refine these strategies to ensure that we meet the evolving needs of our students. Our goal is to provide a supportive and challenging environment that nurtures each child’s growth, both academically and emotionally.

We are deeply grateful for your ongoing support in these initiatives.

Thank you for being an integral part of the Glen Iris Primary School community. Together, we are creating an environment where all students can thrive.

Warm regards, Maddie Witter

In our classrooms

Prep

Prep families came together last week to enjoy the Prep Barbeque! They enjoyed delicious sausages and refreshing icy poles after school. Despite the rain, families and Preps enjoyed getting to know one another and celebrating the beginning of the school year.

Thank you to the Whitelaw family for your generous donation to the school and Year 1 families for helping BBQ!

In Grade 1

Our Grade One students have been diving into the Zones of Regulation as part of their social-emotional learning journey. This framework helps children understand and express their emotions in healthy ways by identifying four different "zones." The Green Zone represents calm and ready-to-learn feelings, the Yellow Zone indicates feelings of excitement or frustration, the Red Zone shows intense emotions like anger, and the Blue Zone signifies feelings of sadness or tiredness. Through engaging activities and discussions, the students are learning how to recognise their emotions and use strategies to stay in the Green Zone, where they feel focused and happy.

In Grade 2

Grade 2 Celebrated Ayyám-i-Há on Thursday

Ayyám-i-Há is a time when people who follow Bahá religion celebrate with joy, kindness and giving. We were very lucky to have Rima and Amara speak to us about the celebration and how they celebrate.

As Ayyám-i-Há is all about spreading happiness, we made cards for elderly residents at a nursing home to brighten their day. We had lots of fun!

In grade 4

Year 4 students have been exploring the topic of "Endangered Animals" with great enthusiasm. As part of their learning, they discovered the inspiring story of Molly Steers, a 10-year-old girl who launched the "Straws No More" campaign to combat the harm plastic straws cause to marine life. Inspired by her initiative, the students brainstormed both small and significant actions they could take to contribute to saving our planet and its precious animals.

Also, over the past two weeks, our students have been diving into the world of place value. To make learning fun and engaging, they've been practicing their skills with interactive games like "3 Guesses." This hands-on approach has helped them grasp key concepts in a lively and interactive way.

In 5/6

Students in 5/6SB worked on a cooperative problem solving task in mathematics, sharing clues to find a subtraction algorithm that used all the digits from 1 to 9 exactly once.

In performing arts

The grade 5/6’s have begun to explore and discuss our first element of music: texture! They’ve also been learning how to play chords and chord progressions on the Ukulele.

Last week, the grade 3 and grade 4’s were introduced to ostinato’s! The ostinato’s that they wrote were tremendous, and they all performed them wonderfully.

From our art room

In Art all students have been looking at themselves! Students from Prep to Year 6 have all been creating a self-portrait. Students have looked at artwork by American artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. We have also looked at the Archibald Prize and the Young Archie, Australia’s Portrait Art Prize. These wonderful works will begin appearing throughout the school so pop in and have a look. What a great start to art this year by everyone!

Parents and carers are welcome to assist in the Art room, help is always appreciated with busy art classes. Check your child’s class time with their teacher or email Justine.Synman@education.vic.gov.au

In our staffroom

Building mathematical thinking

Last year under Shanae Hill's leadership, staff built a developmental scope and sequence in number sense. This year we are embedding that curriculum map. Students in multiple year levels have been working on place value as a foundational concept across the school. They have used hands-on materials, written expressions, and visual prompts to display their understanding of how numbers are made in different ways. Through collaboration with their peers, they are explaining their ideas and asking questions of each other.

Sand toys needed

Prep students are loving the sand pit and would love some sand toys. If you have sand toys that are no longer used at your house, can you please bring them to the prep rooms. Thank you!

Help needed with decodable books

New sets of decodable books are one step closer to daily use in our classrooms! Over 5000 new books have now been sorted and organised into book boxes. The next task is to add our colour-coded sticker dots and label each individually. If you would be willing to assist with this, Meagan Cofield will be holding a mini working bee next Monday 3^rd March in the Year 1 infill. If you are available to help from 2:40pm to 3:30pm, please contact the office at glen.iris.ps@education.vic.gov.au.

Here are some of our Year 1s exploring the new decodable books.

From Lisa's Corner

“Feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement, but this impact can be either positive or negative.” – Hattie & Timperley (2007)

I am currently reviewing the Assessment Schedule for Glen Iris Primary School, and it reminded me of the changes in practice that have taken place in this area since I (or members of our broader community) were at school themselves. There has been significant research conducted on assessment and the impact it has on the learning process, which has been embedded in the educative practices of our teachers.

We place a great deal of emphasis on formative assessment, gathering data that informs the development of future learning programs, teacher pedagogy (the way we teach), content, goals, foci and even pace of delivery. This information is gathered in many and varied ways including (but not limited to) classroom observations, student work samples or direct testing. It occurs at every stage of the learning process to provide us with qualitive feedback that teachers then use to inform and adjust their teaching strategies, with the emphasis on maximising student progress and student achievement.

Summative assessment provides data about student achievement after instruction has occurred. It provides a source for self-reflection by both learner and teacher, as well as feedback. We have learnt that ‘correction’ which was a traditional method of providing feedback to students with a red pen in their workbook, has very little impact on student learning and can instead hamper learning motivation. Dylan Wilian provides commentary about this practice;

“Of course, the idea is that what the teacher has written on the student's work improves the student's learning. But as many studies have shown, students often learn less when teachers provide feedback than they do when the teacher writes nothing (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). The apparently simple process of looking at student work and then giving useful feedback turns out to be much more difficult than most people imagine. We could make the whole process considerably more effective by understanding one central idea: The only important thing about feedback is what students do with it.”

• The Secret of Effective Feedback

Essentially, feedback is only successful if it improves student performance of their learning. Wiliam describes the role of providing effective feedback as detective work, developing a young persons ‘critical eye’ as they review a piece of writing and determine how they edit for improvement, or re-examine their response to a question to discover where they went wrong in their thinking. As educative detectives we need to constantly make decisions, streamlining feedback to avoid overwhelming a young person while directing them in a supportive manner to a successful self-correction and learning moment.

You are doing the same at home, choosing when improvement is necessary for your child and providing them with feedback, while also electing what to overlook. Hopefully it runs smoothly at your house, but it didn’t always run smoothly at mine!

Having outlined the difficulties in getting the balance right, Rebecca Louick gives us 7 tips for providing effective feedback to our children in the parenting space.

1. Pause before you give feedback – Take a moment to reflect on the intent and the necessity of your words.
2. Focus on the “How” – How we deliver feedback to our children is every bit as important as what we say.
3. Make your feedback specific – For feedback to be constructive, it must also be specific and user-friendly.
4. Ask for permission and give control – “I have some information that might be helpful, are you ready to hear it?”
5. Focus on the process – Praise the effort and hard work that went into their successes and celebrate mistakes as an opportunity to learn.
6. Focus on actions not their personality – “What you said sounded rude to me”
7. Model It – Set up a task that your child can evaluate you in. How to Give Positive Feedback to Kids – Big Life Journal Australia

I encourage you to use the link to her Big Life Journal and I wish you luck – you are sure to be like us all and find opportunity in learning from your mistakes!

Sending you my warmest thought,

Lisa Gough.

In our community

The over head railing tree screen has now been fixed so Grade 5/6 have been enjoying the deck again!

Evening on the Green

Friday night was a celebration of our GIPS community at its best. So much fun for our kids, a laid-back evening for families – and we raised over $2,500 for our school.

Evening on the Green aims to build a sense of belonging and community early in the year – in line with our vision: Growth through belonging; a community where every child thrives.

Huge thanks to Claire Hare and Tom Hare who poured in enormous effort to make it all possible: leading and coordinating everyone and everything to come together.

Sincere thanks to these supporters:

- Cannings donated the sausages

- Bakers Delight donated the bread

- Team Kids entertained our kids with craft. Thank you to our Director Maggie

- Academe Time led the circus activities

- Scorpions Basketball

- and Marshall White and Glen Iris Cricket Club lent marquees

To the Grade 5/6 volunteers in the canteen: bravo and thank you for contributing to your school community. That’s leadership in action!

To the 40+ families who volunteered: thank you so much. Our GIPS community thrives when we share the load and all do our bit:

Joe Porter, Dimi Jinadasa, Shane Miller, Kirsty Watts, Shane Watts, Kate Richmond, Stu Grant, Samantha Halpin, Earlene Silvapulle, Jessica Nevile, Amy Brown, Lisa Kelly, Stella Diao, Ineke Lam, Shae, Kym Blyth, Rosemary Bateman, Jess Wong, Donna Wetherall, Tyla Millerd, Sarah Cowlishaw, Georgie Logie-Smith, Kenton Steicke, Ryan Hill, Rachel Smith, Chris Wylie, Linda, Brooke D, Kate Pilven, Sarah Perry, Diana Steicke, Jane Cooper, Campbell Logie-Smith, Ainsley Aldons, Jess Mason, Wen Yue, Michael Bulner, Bec Steer, Alex Pocock, Rosie Guardiani.

Thank you as always to Maddie, Deb and the school office team for your crucial support.

If you have ideas to improve future Evenings on the Green, please share them with me, the school office or a School Council Member.

Please look for ways that you and your family can get involved in future events: it’s a great way to connect with our community, and helps your child belong and thrive.

Kirsty Watts

School Council President

Kirsty.Watts@education.vic.gov.au

Prep BBQ

We had a lovely prep bbq this year, despite the constant light rain. It was a lovely time to connect with families and have a bit of fun.

Thank you to the Whitelaw family for your generous donation to the school and Year 1 families for helping BBQ!

School Council Update

Your new School Council met for the first time on Wednesday evening, with a lovely mix of new and existing members. We're a group of school staff and parents volunteering our time to support our school.

Continuing President Kirsty Watts chaired an efficient meeting to form committees for the year:

• Finance: Claire Hare, Kirsty Watts, Maddie Witter, David Patmore
• Buildings and Grounds: Alex Pocock, Rosemary Bateman, Deb McDermott, Kate Watycha, Maddie Witter
• Community Partnerships: Jacqui Williamson, Susan Mayes, Gareth Darlow,, Ashlee Patterson
• Fundraising : Rosmery Alfonso, Eliza Lewis, Juan Pablo Caceres Vasquez

Our Principal Maddie gave a comprehensive presentation on the school's Annual Implementation Plan. We celebrated progress on multiple actions to improve our children's literacy and numeracy, develop their social and emotional well-being and build student agency.

One highlight was the investment made last year in “decodable readers”, books that help our kids’ literacy through structured synthetic phonics. At $8 per book, we spent nearly $100,000 to build a library of these to set our kids up for success. Government funding for schools does not cover this, so thank you to everyone who paid their fees or helped raise funds last year to make this possible.

This year we will develop a new 5-year strategic plan to build on our current one.

How you can help:

• You can be on a committee without being on School Council. It’s just 8 committee meetings a year plus whatever actions you have capacity to take on. Could you help out on Fundraising, Buildings & Grounds, or Community Partnerships?

• Are you an accredited translator for Mandarin, Korean or Vietnamese? Could you help with occasional translations to help us better engage with our families for whom English is a second language?

Please contact Kirsty if you can help with any of the above.

Do chat with any of your School Council members if you have queries or ideas to help GIPS Aim High! - Jacqui Williamson

Gardiner Preschool

There are currently kinder spots available at Gardiner Preschool.

Come and try Taekwondo Classes free of charge

Stingers basketball Prep, Grade One and Grade Two

From Team Kids

GIPS Container Scheme

GIPS now has a container deposit scheme donation code where you can donate your 10c container refunds to the school, this is a fantastic way to recycle while also raising funds for the school.

It is an easy 3 step process:

1. Collect eligible containers (can's, bottle and juice boxes) check for the 10c mark, often near the bar code HINT: you can keep lids on
2. Find your refund point HINT: CDS Vic Depot Oakleigh at 37-41 Oxford St Oakleigh is close by
3. Donate HINT: at the machine select "enter zone ID" and scan the GIPS barcode (the friendly depot staff can also help)

See attached poster for more information.

From

School Council