Newsletter 39, 17th December

the lyrebird word
17th December 2014
Learning to Live & Learning to Learn
Responsibility * Respect * Resilience
School Mission: Upwey South Primary School’s mission is to provide a safe, engaging, and challenging environment
where students develop life skills, are supported to reach their full potential and strive for excellence in learning.
School Vision: Our vision is to create happy, proud and confident learners who are well prepared for the excitement and
challenges of the future.
CALENDAR—TERM 4 DATES
Thursday
18th December
Level 5 & 6 Big Day Out
Friday
19th December
Final Assembly 12.45pm
Last Day of Term 4—1.30pm
dismissal
2015 Dates
TuesdayThursday
27th-29th January
Friday 30th January
Office open from 9.30am-3.00pm for 2015 Parent Contribution payments
First Day of School for students
Thursday
12th March
School Photos
Monday—
Friday
16th March—27
March
Swimming Program
Wishing all our families a very
Merry Christmas and a safe and
Happy New Year.
Enjoy your break and see you in
2015
Upwey South Primary School, 91 Morris Road Upwey Victoria 3158
Telephone: 9757 0200 Facsimile: 9757 0299
Website: www.upweysthps.vic.edu.au Email: [email protected]
Year 6 Graduation
This very special event was held on Monday evening at Marybrooke and every part of the evening was just fabulous.
It was a privilege for me to join teachers, family and friends. Mr James Merlino (Member for Monbulk, Deputy Premier
and Minister for Education) made time in his very busy schedule to speak at our graduation and award the LaTrobe
Shield. Mr Bernie Feely (Belgrave Rotary) presented the 3Rs Award and our School Council President Chris
Wanless presented the Bendigo Bank Award as Luan Hanlon was unable to attend on the night. We certainly
appreciate the support of these organisations. Our students introduced each other with great confidence and the
award presentations were followed by dinner, disco and ‘finale’ student performance for families. (Come to assembly
on Friday and you can all enjoy this
Special thanks to our Year 5-6 teachers Leahanne Griffiths, Lee Reich and Mel Rowe for their fantastic organisation
of this memorable event. (Unfortunately Leahanne was unwell and unable to attend the evening.) The 5-6 team were
assisted by Gary Monopoli, Judyann Hocking and other staff members. We also send our thanks to Aspen Clarke who
took photos and Julie Lodding who choreographed the dancing and coached our students.
Congratulations to the following ‘Special Award’ winners:
LaTrobe Shield - Students of the Year: Tessa Bygraves and Jai Sheehan
3Rs Rotary Award: Tayarna Bolger
Bendigo Bank Award: Reka Ropolyi
Academic Excellence Awards: Casey Ros and Rory Sinclair
Visual Arts Award: Clover Johnston
Japanese Award: Billie Cousins
Performing Arts Award: Guy Brooks
Physical Education Award: Oskar Svihla
‘You Can Do It’ Awards: Ricky Armstrong (Confidence) Jhenardt Mischon (Getting Along) Paris Heymann
(Organisation) Georgia Glover (Persistence) Mitchell Stokes (Resilience)
Well done to all of our graduates. We wish there was an individual award for each and every
one of you! This is part of the message that I sent to all our graduates via their Graduation
Yearbook.
As you come to the end of your primary school journey and reflect on the past while looking to
the future, I hope that you are moving on to your respective secondary schools and colleges
with a high level of optimism and great self-confidence in your individual abilities. To achieve
your personal aspirations for the future will involve hard work, perseverance and determination.
You never know what the future holds for you especially when you are faced with a broad
range of choices along the way. The decisions you make will form the basis of your life in the
future and your areas of passion will guide your way.
You have made us all very proud and I would like to congratulate you on your many academic,
artistic and sporting achievements. I commend you for the way that you have tried your best
and approached your learning in a positive manner. You have certainly been a credit to
yourselves, your families and our school.
On behalf of all of us at Upwey South Primary School, I would like to send you a message of
thanks for your valued contributions to our school over the years. You have left your personal
mark on our school in the 50th Birthday mural. We will remember you every time we gather on
the outdoor stage for special celebrations and when we use the new technology that you all
raised funds for at the 2014 Spring Shindig.
We hope that you have many happy Upwey South memories to take with you into the future.
Please drop by to say hello in 2015 and beyond to let us know how you are going. Good Luck
and I hope that all your personal dreams for the future come true.
Reports and 2015 Classes
I hope that families enjoyed sharing their child’s end of year reports and portfolios last night. So much great learning
to celebrate! A key area of the report is effort and behaviour. If there is room for improvement in either of these areas,
then a fresh start in 2015 with an increased level of effort and positive behaviour will be a terrific foundation for future
learning. Well done to all our students on their personal learning growth throughout 2014.
Our ‘Meet your 2015 teacher and classmates’ session went very smoothly yesterday. Even if students were initially
disappointed that they were not with ‘all their friends’, I hope that they soon realised that not only will they be able to
maintain these friendships in 2015, they can also get to know other students who they may not have been placed with
before. Mr Weaver and Mr Monopoli dropped in to meet their grades which was greatly appreciated. I wish all of our
2015 staff and students a wonderful and rewarding year ahead.
Assembly Monday 15th December
At Monday’s assembly we heard some wonderful poems that were created by our
Year 1-2 students. Well done! Mr Cunningham helped to present ‘Student of the Week’
Awards and we also congratulated the following students with Principal Awards for
always embracing our school values and showing kindness and consideration to
everyone at school. Teagen W (FC) Rily M (FP) Pippa L (1-2S) Amelie T-E (1-2E)
Ryan H (1-2H) Adam G(3-4H) Ben Y (3-4O) Carly T-E (3-4M) Jordyn P (5-6G) Bailey
C (5-6R) and Oskar S (5-5M) You are certainly a credit to your families and great role
models for other students.
We commended Oskar S who reached the Victorian School Boys Tennis
Championships this week. A wonderful achievement Oskar. (You may see Oskar on
the TV telecast of the Australian Open in January. He is looking forward to being one
of the ‘Ball Kids’ and seeing some of the world’s tennis greats up close.)
You are most welcome to attend our final assembly for 2014. (Friday at 12:45pm) We will wish Ms Stanley and
Mrs Pan all the best for their year of extended leave in 2015 and thank Toshi Takahashi for his wonderful
contributions to our Japanese program. The main agenda item will be the “Final Farewell” to our Year 6 students.
They will repeat their wonderful graduation presentation for us.
Upwey High School Visitors
We received a lovely surprise this week when a group of Year 7 and 8 Upwey HS
students (some ex-students of Upwey South) presented our staff with morning tea and
home-made Christmas goodies. This was a ‘Thank you’ for supporting UHS programs this
year including their Cross-Aged Tutoring Program. It has been wonderful to work closely
with these fine young people this year, and many have volunteered to help out around the
school over the final days of 2014.
Help Still Needed in Our Library!
Are you free this Thursday afternoon between 2:30-3:30?
If you have a spare hour tomorrow afternoon, we would love your assistance in re-shelving library returns and
checking the shelves so that all books have been located correctly. This is an onerous task and many hands
will make light work of it.
(Last Friday morning Dennise and Harry Wanless did a great job in the Library. Thank you!)
Please look out for our school over the holidays
You may have heard the sad news that our school was vandalised last weekend. Several large windows were
smashed and the gym was broken into. If you happen to be up around the school over the holidays and see any
individuals or groups vandalising the school, please call the Belgrave Police immediately on 9754 6677. We are all
hoping that we have no further wilful damage to the school over the holidays or anytime in the future.
Thank you Toshi, Good Luck Mrs Pan and Ms Stanley and Happy Holidays!
I would like to extend my appreciation to Toshi for the great work that he has done in building upon our Japanese
language program. Japanese Day 2015 won’t be quite the same without you. We will miss your smiling face at Upwey
South but feel better knowing that you will be staying in touch as you support our new Japanese teacher Masae.
(Masae helped Toshi this year on Japanese Day.) Good luck to Mrs Pan and Ms Stanley for your year of leave. We
hope that 2015 is fabulous as you both pursue other exciting endeavours for the next 12 months. We look forward to
hearing about your adventures when we catch up throughout the year. Toshi, Kylie and Jacqui…..we will miss all of
you! Take care.
Best wishes to everyone – staff, students and parents - for the Christmas and New Year holiday season. Thank you to
all members of our school community for your support, hard work and efforts throughout 2014 to ensure that Upwey
South continues to be the best possible school for our students. Our school is a “team effort” and your individual contributions are valued.
If you happen to be travelling anywhere over the holidays, I wish you safe and happy travels. (I am fortunate to be
flying off to Europe with my husband on Saturday. I’ll be back on deck at school on the 22 nd January) Thank you so
much to the kind families who have volunteered to water our new gardens and care for our chooks.
Have a most well-deserved and relaxing break from work and school and I hope you all come back in late January full
of energy and enthusiasm for a fantastic 2015 at Upwey South Primary School.
Warm regards
Anne
Thank You Toshi….Sayonara!
We say farewell to the following families and wish
them all well in the future.
Bygraves, McDonald, Bolger, Maloney, Johnston,
Waddingham, Browne, Moeschel, Kirkmoe,
Armstrong, Gabriel, Payten, Williams, Anderson,
Field, Mischon, Phelan, Ropolyi, Ros, Smith, Culloty,
Walker and Braack-Noon
Please be aware that there will be no
lunch orders or Sushi Express orders on
Friday 19th December
A DATE TO REMEMBER FOR 2015
Welcome Morning Tea
An Invitation
I have invited our Foundation parents to a ‘Welcome to 2015’ school community
morning tea on Monday 2nd February from 9:00am in the LLLC. I extend this
invitation to all parents and carers. I hope that you can make it along to help me
welcome new families to our school.
Happy Birthday to all those children who celebrated their birthdays during the last week’s of
2014.
Lewis H, Madeline A, Byron VH, Susanne M, Aria S, Parri W, Will J-P, Sola R, Henry D, Carly T-
ASSEMBLY AWARDS
Name
Grade
In recognition for
Elizabeth C
FC
Striving to do her best at all times
Alina G
FP
Working hard to produce excellent results in all curriculum areas
Lorelai D
3/4H
Working hard to complete her workd and being a role model for listening attentively to others
Sienna A
3/4H
Consistently showing kindness and care for her classmates
Charlotte P
3/4H
Completing an excellent dreamtime picture storybook as part of her portfolio
Isaiah R
3/4M
Making an effort to make stronger behaviour decisions
Jai S
5/6R
Japanese
Award
Always showing respect and doing your best. I can’t wait to teach you again at Upwey High
School
Extend OSHC at Upwey South Primary School
Welcome to the last week! How exciting! This week we have plenty of exciting activities, including crafts,
science experiments and Secret agents game with our new money incorporating lots of counting into the
hundreds!
One of the exciting activities was the worm homes we made on Monday although, we'll have to keep them
and look for more worms after the some rain. We are also very excited about our end of term party and look forward to some
Merry Merry holidays!
Extend Vacation Care Info:
We look forward to seeing some familiar faces at Extend Vacation care starting Monday 12 th January, not only USPS but also
from some friendly schools in the community, so there's lots of opportunities to make many new friends. Our excursions
include a fun trip to JUMP DECK in the first week and then CHESTERFIELD FARM in the second week. Incursions include
Build-A-Clock and Lego Robotics. How awesome!
In between these will be a huge array of fun activities including: 'get to know you activities', crafts, games, science
experiments, lots of cooking and our most favourite thing during this time of year; lots of WATER games!
So please, if you are coming, make sure to read the white board for what to bring such as spare change of clothes, a towel
and slippers on one day!
Our favourite activities from last week
Monday: Silent ball comp and Movie and Popcorn.
Tuesday: Cooking cupcakes and painting creations.
Wednesday: Drawing your favourite food and games in the gym.
Thursday: Lazy day, not so lazy though, use your imagination day!
Friday: Pancakes and movie and secret agents game.
Ruby G: I liked the movie because it was funny! (Santa Clause)
Jude I: I like to play Monopoly Millionaire because it's fun!
Charlie J-P: I love to make choc cupcakes because we get to eat them!
Lorelai D: I like to draw, especially animals because I love nature! :)
Photo opposite: Ruby and Cody getting into nature having fun looking for
worms to put in the home they made for them.
We hope you have a fantastic holidays and a happy and safe new
year!!
Amy, Mollie and the team!
Carpentry Services
Door fixing, tiling, bathroom renovations, carports,
pergolas, concreting, repairing or installing windows &
skylights.
No job too small!
For quotes and enquiries ring Andrew on 0457 025 329 or
send an email to
[email protected]

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