SCHOOL COUNCIL REPORT
Hi Parents/Carers,
As 2023 draws to a close, I would like to acknowledge the hours and hours our parent/carer reps have put in voluntarily to make positive changes to our school and thank them for their dedication and commitment. Without Anna - Lisa Tewma, Briohny Voss, Grant Voss, Helen Skendaris, Jenny Archibald and Josie Benfari, we wouldn ’ t have been able to have our Mothers Day & Fathers Day stalls, Easter Raffle, our fundraising raffle at Production and Fathers Day breakfast. I would also like to shout - out to Katrina Hartley and Karen Gilchrist who also have assisted with 2024 fundraising activities more recently, together with Silvana Bizimovski who helped with the Mothers Day and Fathers Day stalls. The sense of teamwork has been truly remarkable. I would also like to thank our Executive Leadership team of Bill, Bonnie and Marcus and our Business Manager, Dale, for their wonderful support of suggestions/ideas/initiatives that Council reps have brought to the table, together with the admin support Karen and Dana have provided when we have needed it, and Kitty ’ s assistance with promoting our activities. Thank you to our student reps Nash and Adele for the invaluable student insights they provide at our meetings and to George and Michelle, our staff reps. Looking ahead to 2024, parent/carer engagement and strengthening our community will continue to be a focus. Parents/carers are an important part of our community, and the school needs your support in initiatives and events. Whilst we have one more meeting in our Council term in February, it is timely to remind parents/carers now that the call for nominations for representatives for the new School Council term will go out early in the new school year. Being on Council is a great way to have your input on our buildings/grounds/maintenance program; our fundraising and social activities; and general governance of the school from a strategic viewpoint. If you would like to self - nominate or have any questions about what it involves, please reach out to me at amanda.farrelly@education.vic.gov.au Congratulations in advance to our graduating Year 6 cohort next week and to our Year 12 Valedictorian and all of the award winners at our School Awards Night on December 14. Lastly, I would like to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday break – hope you get a chance to relax and rejuvenate and School Council looks forward to seeing everyone again in 2024!
As indicated in my Inspire reflection recently, School Council have achieved a lot in 2023! Specifically, the momentum gained in 2022 to re - focus School Council continued on into 2023 with improving our school ’ s facilities and creating a greater sense of school pride remaining at the top of the agenda. Landscaping and new carpeting on both campuses; installation of CCTV cameras on Secondary; wall partitions on Secondary; and, a refurb of the Prep/1 toilets on Primary are just some of the improvement works completed this year. Not only has landscaping at the front Secondary created a new usable space for students at lunchtime, together with the landscaping at the front of Primary, both campuses now present a fresh new look to our local community. We are extremely excited that partitions to enclose our classrooms (when needed) will be installed on both campuses in the coming months, together with the refurb of the second toilet block on Primary. The process to install the eagerly awaited synthetic basketball courts on Primary has inched further ahead and fingers crossed these too will be done in the first half of 2024! School Council met for the final time for 2023 on 21 November. At this meeting we:
Endorsed the Indicative School Budget for 2024. Any final amendments to the budget will happen in late February once our final enrolment numbers are confirmed; Endorsed amendments to the Digital Learning Policy, which focuses on our 1:1 personal device program, expected student behaviour when using digital technologies and the school ’ s commitment to promoting safe and responsible use of digital technologies; Heard from Jaz Hayton who provided an update on the inaugural Colour Run and what the funds raised will be going towards; and Prioritised suggestions on new building and landscaping projects for 2024 from our brainstorming session at the October meeting. Tons of suggestions were received from School Council members, students, staff and the June parent/carer survey and together we worked through what suggestions were priority to be funded in 2024.
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Unfortunately, we received the news that our request to the City of Whittlesea to have pedestrian lights installed at the crossing on Gordons Road was not successful. However, conversations around student safety and traffic concerns on Gordons Road and The Lakes Boulevard are continuing.
Cheers,
Amanda Farrelly School Council President
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