Communications

Our wonderful Parents and Friends (PFA) were hard at work last Saturday getting our Bike Shed reorganised. The Bike Shed had been used to store materials from recent building works, and was in need of a good clean out. Improving our Bike Shed is also a special project for our Student Representative Council (SRC), who have raised money for some additional bike racks. Linking both our PFA and SRC is a great way to achieve a result. On behalf of everyone at Amsleigh Park PS I want to say thanks to the PFA for their great support of this worthwhile project, and congratulate our SRC for achieving this important student led goal. Awesome work Amsleigh Park PS!

Anyone visiting our school in the past couple of days would have seen our students enjoying our new friendship garden, which opened on Friday. This new space offers lots of different play options, both passive and active, and we can already see our students enjoying rolling down the grass hills, exploring the musical pipes and constructing in the sand pit. The central feature, the walking labyrinth will be completed when we have better weather, and promises to look sensational. We are looking forward to a special visit by the Minister for Education, the Hon. James Merlino, on Wednesday this week who will officially open the garden on behalf of our school.

Welcome to Education Week at Amsleigh Park Primary School. This week we are highlighting both the wonderful work done at Amsleigh Park PS, and also the fantastic State Education system we belong to. The theme for this year is ‘Celebrating Careers’ and today we are looking forward to a special careers expo by our parents. On Wednesday we have ‘Open Night 2019’ commencing at 5.30pm with a special focus on Science in our classrooms, followed by special performances at 7.00pm in the Gym. There will also be tours for prospective families by our student leaders. On Thursday the annual Grandparents day is always a great highlight for our students and staff, starting from 12.00noon. It’s going to be another great celebration of Education Week in 2019, hope you can make it along.

Last week the Grade 4 classes set off with excitement to visit Melbourne Aquarium and Albert Park Lake. We were greeted by brilliant sunshine for our visit to the Lake, and enjoyed exploring this environment, and the abundant bird life. Our aim was to further our understanding related to our Term 2 Inquiry question: How do living things survive in changing environments? Our students were amazed and mesmerised by the marine creatures within the Aquarium, and it was a delight to watch their faces light up. Our guides were fantastic at keeping our students engaged, answering many thoughtful and curious questions. These experiences are now being utilised in the classroom and have generated many questions and interests that the students will look into further. A huge thank you to the parents who volunteered their time – these special excursions are only possible with your help!

We are all watching with great excitement as our huge new garden takes shape. The new sandpit is complete, and is already filled to the brim with new washed river sand, and the light tunnel structure is taking shape as well. Pictured today is the dry creek bed and bridge which connects to the walking paths. The garden has been designed to engage the senses, so many of the features link to this such as the herb garden (Smell) and light tunnel (see). There’s also lots of fun to be had as children explore the walking labyrinth and pathways.

Our Grade 3 and 4 students have been exploring the properties of matter and classical mechanics in their first term STEM classes. Through a guided engineering project they constructed a balloon powered racing car, which was then tested through experimentation and discussion in order to build up scientific thinking. Our learners also had the opportunity to re-design and re-engineer their race car so it could travel further than previously. Sharing their racers through data collection was great fun!

There’s nothing like a working bee to get our community out in force, and last week’s event was no exception to that. A large group of volunteers came along to assist in cleaning up the front area of our school, which was in real need of a spruce up. Many bags of leaves later and the whole area was looking much better. We want to thank all the mums, dads and kids who came along to help out on the day, it was much appreciated. Thanks also to families who generously provided some treats for the workers. It’s funny, but when you work together for these kind of things it does not feel like work at all!

“Last Thursday, 29th of February the Grade 3 and 4 classes set off for their first excursion of 2019! We headed into the city to explore Captain Cook’s cottage in the Fitzroy Gardens and a First Peoples exhibition in the Melbourne Museum, to further our understandings related to our Term 1 Inquiry question: Australia – what can we learn from our history? Students were in awe of how tiny the Cook’s family cottage was and there were just so many things to look at and read about in the museum that they almost didn’t know where to look first. These experiences are now being utilised in the classroom and have generated many questions and interests that the students will now look into further. A huge thank you to the parents who volunteered their time, these special excursions are only possible with your help.”

Huge thanks to everyone who came along to our annual school picnic last Friday. It was an absolutely glorious day, and great to see so many families along for the event. There were numerous games, sporting activities and of course the adventure play equipment was a huge hit, especially the swings. It was also lovely to see our ‘big’ buddies interacting with their prep friends, which is great Amsleigh tradition. What a great way to kick off another school year!

All children love it when someone reads to them and our staff love to read, so what better way to celebrate Bookweek than to have a bedtime stories night. This event is a great favourite and it was no wonder the learning street in our Junior Learning Centre was packed full of happy smiling faces. Teachers read their favourite books, and children even got involved by reading along as the illustrations were displayed on the big screen. This event is a great way to promote the joy of reading, as we don’t just want children to learn to read, we want them to love it! Many thanks to the families who attended and special thanks to our awesome teaching staff for providing the entertainment.