Semester One Student Reports & Parent Teacher Interviews

Student Reports will be available via Compass from Friday 21^st June. Our Parent Teacher Interviews are available for booking and will take place on Wednesday 26^th June from 2:00pm – 6:30pm.

Emergency Management

As part of our Emergency Management procedures, last Friday we held a ‘Lockdown’ drill practice. This type of emergency drill keeps the children inside in the event of something happening outside of the buildings. We discussed with the children about our school location being close to an airport and industrial area that may cause scenarios where we have to hold a Lockdown.

Foundation Experience

We held our second Foundation Experience session this week and it was great to see the future preps enjoy participating in a session at school. We have two further sessions in Term 3 on Wednesday 14^th August and Wednesday 4^th September and these are open to any 2025 Foundation aged child. Please contact our school office for further details.

End of Term Arrangements

Term 2 finishes on Friday 28^th June at 2:30pm. Our final Assembly for the term will be held at 2pm.

I’d like to thank the Mentone Park school community for my time as the Acting Principal for the last two terms. I’ve enjoyed working with all stakeholders of the school and getting to know so many of you over the last 6 months. I wish the students, staff and community all the very best for your future ahead.

In the Spotlight

Hello Foundation families! 

What a term we have had!  The Disco was a huge hit last week, what fun the children had.  Thank you for all your support and partnership in educating your child.  Please have a safe and restful school holiday period.

Planning is well underway for next term and we are looking forward to learning next term about how things have changed from the past and how things have stayed the same i.e clothing and toys. We are looking forward to investigating the olden days with our 100 days at school party and an excursion to RipponLea Estate. Information regarding the excursion will be released shortly. 

Please also remember to provide permission at your earliest convenience, via Compass and payment via QKR for our swimming program that begins early next term. 

Please find some other important reminders and helpful information below for the Foundation area: 

Reminders: 

Morning Drop Off:

As we are now half way through Prep please be reminded that drop off of students is at our class line up area outside our Prep doors (next to the picnic tables). Ensuring you say goodbye to your child outside and allowing them to walk in with their class promotes valuable independence skills for your child. We will support your child as they unpack their bag and undertake any other morning tasks. Unpacking their own bag and sorting their belongings is a highly valuable part of your child’s development and your support in this area is greatly appreciated.

Late Arrival:

All children arriving at school after 9am must be signed in by a parent/guardian at the Office according to the following procedure. Sign your child in via the tablet at the office and please take your child to their classroom. Please be mindful that the late arrival of students inhibits the beginning of a productive morning at school for the entire class. This is due to having to take the time to repeat instructions to students that have arrived late, therefore the children that have arrived at school on time, lose valuable lesson time. Please help us to keep the lessons on track, by ensuring your child is not late to school. 

If you do not enter an attendance note advising us that your child will be late and your child arrives at school after 9:30 am, you will receive an ‘Attendance Notification: Student Unaccounted For’ email asking you to enter an approval note on Compass.

Staff Car Park:

We again respectfully ask that you please do not drive, walk and bike ride through the school staff car park, directly in front of the Foundation classrooms. This is to ensure the safety of our school community. Thank You for your understanding in this matter. 

Below are our current focus letters/sounds and words. Your child would greatly benefit from practising these at home!

Letters/Sounds: c,d,h and e

Vocabulary: howled, shuffled, clambered

Writing: We are delving into Narrative and Recount writing and remembering to include capital letters and fullstops in our sentences.  We are beginning to add more detail to our writing and trying to include more than one sentence.

Maths: We have enjoyed looking at measurement and discovering what objects are taller and shorter than each other.  We had so much fun measuring with our carrots and unifix cubes.

Thank you for reading our Foundation newsletter!

The end of term is near! Next Friday, June 28th, is a Free-Dress Day with a gold coin donation. You can purchase a Bakers Delight pizza roll and a juice box for your child’s lunch that day. All payments are to be made via QKR.  

In Term 3, Years P-4 will complete their annual swimming program in Weeks 3&4. It is a 9-day program and there will not be a swimming lesson on the Friday of Week 3. Over the next month, it would be great to practise changing independently and putting their own seat belts on in preparation for the bus rides to and from the pool. 

Additionally, in Term 3 we will be going on an exciting excursion to Rippon Lea Estate in Week 6. This excursion will tie into our history-based Inquiry topic for the term. 

Finally, students will not be borrowing any books from our school library over the holidays so we ask that students return any borrowed books by the end of next week ending the 28th of June. 

Literacy:  

We welcome the parents for Reading back at the start of Term 2! 

Writing:  

Writing and creating rhyming poems 

Learning about rhyming words is a fun and creative way for students to dive into poetry. By playing with words that sound alike, they can make their writing more musical and lively. This helps them build their vocabulary and get better at hearing how words fit together. Once they get the hang of rhyming, they can start writing their own poems, turning their ideas and feelings into catchy, rhythmic lines. It's a great way to make language exciting and enjoyable! 

InitiaLit Year 1: 

Tricky Words (sight words): two, three, four, why, house, because  

Digraphs: ir (stir), ur (surf) 

Terminology: Plural, suffix, base words 

Wow Words: ingenious, devour, scrumptious 

InitiaLit Year 2:  

Trick Words (sight words): lose, father and sister 

Digraphs/Trigraphs:  r controlled vowels (ir, ur, er) and ‘ou’ and ‘ow’ making the /ow/ sound 

Grammar: Reviewing all the concepts previously learnt and beginning work on Verbs. 

Wow Words: pesky, occasionally and scan 

Numeracy: 

Recognise multiplication as repeated addition, groups and arrays. 

We have continued using our special think boards to show our thinking when breaking down multiplication number sentences. For example, breaking down the number sentence 3x5 = 15 to show 3 groups with 5 in each group, an array as 3 rows and 5 columns and repeated addition as 3+3+3+3+3 = 15.  We finished off the week with students applying their knowledge of arrays in a game called ‘The Arrayzing Race’ where students rolled a dice twice to create an array on a grid in turns with a partner to see who could cover the most space on the grid. 

In Week 10 we’ve begun work on telling time to O’clock and Half-Past for grade 1s and Quarter-Past and Quarter-To for the grade 2s, using analogue clocks to practise this concept and apply it in our work.  

Thank you for reading our newsletter and keeping up to date with what’s happening in Year 1  /2. We look forward to meeting with you next Wednesday for parent-teacher interviews. Stay warm and have a great weekend!  

Hello Middle School families,

Can you believe we are at the end of Term 2 already?

The students all had a wonderful time at the School Disco last Friday, enjoying the photobooth and getting their dancing shoes on!

You will have seen that reports have come out, and we are very proud of the progress the students have made this semester. You would have received an email regarding our upcoming Parent Teacher Interviews which are now open for booking. These are to be held on Wednesday 26th June from 2:00pm - 6:30pm and will run for 10 minutes. We look forward to seeing you there.

The students have been hard at work over the past two weeks, completing their procedural texts and showcasing all they have learnt across different writing genres as they begin their writing portfolios. In maths, we explored flips, slides and turns, and then had lots of fun inventing an ice-cream flavour. Students then gathered data from fellow students on which was most popular and used this to create column graphs.

In Inquiry, students have been researching their chosen state or territory and creating a poster or slideshow in preparation to present their information to the class next week.

We hope you all enjoy a nice break over the school holidays, and look forward to what the second semester will bring!

Another busy but fun filled term has almost come to an end. These last 10-11 weeks have flown by and we are incredibly proud of how our students have persevered through this long term. If we don’t get the opportunity to speak to you in the last week of term, we wish everyone a safe and happy holiday break and look forward to seeing everyone back and refreshed for an epic Term 3 on July 15th. 

Recent/Upcoming Events:

• Parvana - To conclude our reading of ‘Parvana’ by Deborah Ellis, we will be watching the animated film adaptation ‘The Breadwinner’ which is currently available on Prime Video (and other streaming platforms). Both Senior School Teachers have watched the movie and found that several events in the film differ from the book. We believe the film to have mild to moderate themes that will be watched in a supportive environment followed by discussion and comparison to the book. The movie has been recommended for ages 11+ and has a PG – 13 rating. The synopsis is below:   

Parvana is an 11-year-old girl who lives under Taliban rule in Afghanistan in 2001. After the wrongful arrest of her father, Parvana cuts off her hair and dresses like a boy to support her family. Working alongside a friend, she soon discovers a new world of freedom and danger. Drawing strength from the fantastical stories she invents, Parvana embarks on an epic quest to find her father and reunite her family.   

This will be watched on the last day of term. If you are yet to give consent, please either CONFIRM or DECLINE permission on Compass.

• Girls Footy Gala Day -  Next Tuesday, 21 of our Senior girls will be participating in the Girls Footy Gala Day at Le Page Park. The girls will be travelling by bus to and from the venue and in addition to their snack, lunch and water bottle, will need the following items: 

• Black shorts 
• School footy jumper (provided) 
• Football Boots (optional but recommended, otherwise runners) 
• Mouthguard

We also recommend warm items such as tracksuit pants and thick jacket for afterwards, a towel and spare socks. A massive thank you to Justin Ando (Stella’s Dad) for coaching the girls twice a week!

• Mixed Netball Team - Our netball team continues to train in preparation for the Netball Victoria School Championships. Our mixed team of 9 will compete with schools from around the state in a round robin competition across one school day in August. The top teams advance to the state championships with the final rounds played at the State Netball Centre in Parkville. A massive thank you to Bree (Mackenzie), Julia (Isla) and Jenny & Peter (Patrick), for supporting our team and helping them train!
• Disco - From all accounts the Disco was a huge success with fabulous costumes and sweet dance moves! Here’s what some of our Senior Students had to say:

• ‘There were alot of cool dancers…Evan was the best by far!’ - James
• ‘So well organised and fun DJ!’ - Jordy
• ‘The best DJ we’ve ever had with awesome competitions & song choice’ - Ben
• ‘Was really funny when all the boys ran out of the room when T Swift came on’ - Alexis
• ‘Loved it when Orlando did the worm during Baby Shark’ - River

Reminders:

• Reports/Parent Teacher Interviews - Student reports will be available this Friday on Compass and parents will have the opportunity to make a booking to discuss their child's progress with their teacher, next Wednesday the 26th. Please be mindful that in order to accommodate everyone, each time slot is limited to 10 minutes. If you feel you have something additional to discuss, please speak to the teacher about arranging a separate time. Thank you for your understanding.
• Last Day of Term - Our last day of Term (Friday 28th) will be an early 2:30pm dismissal for all students. Assembly will be held prior to this at 2pm, with an earlier lunch scheduled for 12:50-1:50pm. For a gold coin donation, students may also come in free dress and there are options on Qkr for a pizza lunch!
• Camp - Thank you to those who completed our expression of interest for student attendance to camp. Our adventure camp to Waratah Beach from August 28th-30th, will be Mentone Park’s first experience at this venue and we very much look forward to it as camp is always a huge highlight of the year! Permission forms and payments will be available shortly and we appreciate your assistance in the return of forms as soon as possible. Camp is always a combination of excitement and nerves, so if your child is feeling unsure about something, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us.
• Health – Ensuring our students are happy and healthy is our number one priority. As you may be aware, we currently have a student and 2 parents in the Senior School who have either recently completed or are still undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Due to treatment, their immune systems are compromised, making them highly susceptible to infection and illness. In the event your child or a close contact of theirs is ill, we encourage you to please consider the following:

• Keep your child at home until recovered or advised by a health professional
• Inform the school of any contagious illnesses such as Covid or chickenpox
• Discuss the importance of personal hygiene and hand washing

Further information regarding infectious diseases and the recommended exclusion times can be found here at: https://www.health.vic.gov.au/infectious-diseases/school-exclusion-table#exclusion-periods-table

We appreciate all efforts to help keep everyone here at Mentone Park safe!

Reading: Reflecting on the  social, cultural and historical context of our novel, ‘Parvana’.

Writing: Editing and publishing informative texts (newspaper reports) using digital technologies.

Maths: Use equivalent number sentences to find unknown quantities.

Inquiry: Identify countries and geographical features of Asia.

Resilience, Rights & Respectful Relationships (Wellbeing): Recognise and apply the concept of emotional intensity.