Mentone Park Primary School acknowledges the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which we learn and play.

We value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and cultures’ and recognise their connection to lands, waters and communities.

We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

Thank you to everyone for making me feel so welcome in my first term as Acting principal of Mentone Park Primary School (the best school ever!). What a privilege it is to arrive at MPPS each day and be greeted by smiling faces and happy students.  

It has been a busy and productive term, with so many highlights, from our students getting into the spirit of all our dress up days (Book Week, Olympics & Footy Days), our3/4 and 5/6 students and staff attending the 3-day camps, celebrating national Tree Day and our Living Culture Inclusion, just to name a few!    

Congratulations to Hugo Jefferies for his selection in the Victorian Primary School Track and Field Team! Hugo has qualified for the 100, 200m, Long Jump and the 4x100m relay- what an outstanding achievement and talented athlete Hugo is. Also, we will be thinking of Jordan Allen who will be representing Victoria in Softball over these school holidays and wish her family a lovely time together in Cairns. Good luck Jordan!

We are getting to the time of the year when we begin planning for 2025. I would appreciate if you could inform our office if your child is leaving the school at the end of this year. This will support us in ensuring we can organise a thorough transition process for your child with their new school. Also, if you know of anyone, who plans on sending their child to Mentone Park Primary School in 2025 please make sure they contact the office as soon as possible. The Enrolment date for our 2025 Prep’s has now passed. This means any Prep applications will be subject to our enrolment policy for acceptance. Of course, this prioritises those who live in our designated school zone, but we can still allow for some students out of the zone. We encourage interested families to get in touch as soon as possible. 

A reminder that starting Term 4 our students will begin wearing their school hats. In line with the MPPS SunSmart Policy, children are required to wear their hats when playing outside. Hats are available for purchase at PSW in Cheltenham.

The last day for this term is Friday 20th September. As it is the last day of term, there will be an early dismissal time of 2:30pm. We are very excited to finish the last day watching our wonderful students at their STOMP performance, that will start at 1pm.

I wish everyone a relaxing and restful holiday, and to enjoy the time with the people that matter the most. I look forward to welcoming everyone back on the first day of term 4 on Monday 7^th Oct.

Take care,

Leisa Higgins

In the Spotlight 

Hello Foundation families! 

Who can believe it is the end of Term 3!!  Thank you so much for your continued assistance and support.  We wish you a safe and restful couple of weeks ahead.  We are looking forward to a great Term 4.  Next Term we will be looking at Weather and different dress in cultures from around the world and animals around the world as our Inquiry topic.  We look forward to continuing our Initialit lessons and learning new things and consolidating our knowledge in Mathematics.

There have been many highlights these past two weeks.  I want to thank Cheryl, Aston’s mum who so generously supplied us with Mooncakes and Lanterns to celebrate the Autumn Moon Festival.  It was so wonderful to see the children engaged and learning about different celebrations and were so grateful for the Mooncakes!  Thank you Cheryl.

Sarah, Eden and Kate’s mum so kindly bought their Bearded Dragon Delilah for a visit.  The children discovered where Delilah lived, what she ate and patted her soft spiky skin.  Thank you Sarah for bringing in Delilah!  

Jason (Lena’s Dad) and his team from Fire ED were amazing and we really appreciated them coming and teaching us how to be safe when there is a fire.  The highlight was definitely beating the firefighters in a game of Tug of War and getting to spray the firefighter’s hose.  Thank you Jason for coordinating this and coming in and sharing what you do with us.

We are looking forward to our Stomp Concert to end our Term, we have practised hard.

Footy Colours Day was an amazing celebration and lots of tiring fun.  The children paraded their team colours and then participated in 8 different activities.  It was so great to see the children in mixed groups F-2 and having a great time.  

General Reminders: 

Daily Reading Helpers: 

This Term we have made a slight change to reading with parent helpers, due to a timetable change, this will continue in Term 4. We now warmly welcome grandparents/parents to come in from 8:50 - 9:05am each day to read with individual students from your child’s class. The importance of reading for children cannot be underestimated. Reading can benefit a child’s education, social and cognitive development, their wellbeing, and their mental health. Some children take to reading and some struggle, for lots of different reasons. A little extra help can make all the difference to a child by helping them to learn to love reading and reach their potential. Please ensure you are signing in at the office and have an up-to-date WWCC that is provided to Jen in the office. 

Arriving At School on Time: 

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.

HATS BACK ON!

The beginning of Term 4 means hats need to go back on heads.  Please ensure your child has a hat with them every day.  No Hat means children will have to remain under cover and won’t get to play out in the Sun.

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

Letters/Sounds: sh,ll,zz, z, w, ff, qu, v,x,y.  We have learnt that two letters which make one sound are called digraphs.

Vocabulary: quick, decided, generous, magnificent, bellowed

Writing: This fortnight we have continued focusing on Recount as our writing genre.

Maths: We have been looking at time and sequencing events and deciding where they would fit in our day.  We also started learning to tell O’clock time and some of us looked at half past.

Thank you for reading our Foundation Newsletter!   Have a great holiday!

The end of term 3 is finally upon us and what a term it has been, especially for the year 1/2s! We’ve had our wonderful swimming program in which the students showed us their water safety skills and swimming ability. Our fabulous excursion to Rippon Lea Estate where the students got a taste of what life was like nearly 200 years ago. Our performing arts program STOMP has been a fantastic opportunity to learn some new dance moves and all work together to create a masterpiece! We’re sure all the parents are looking forward to seeing their children get up and dance!

The STOMP performance will be held on Friday the 20th of September from 1 pm to 2:15 pm on the basketball courts followed by a 2:30 pm dismissal.

Year 1/2 Costume: Any sporting attire e.g. basketball, football, gymnast, dancer etc. Students need to wear their STOMP costume to school on Friday.

General Reminders: Until further notice, 1/2B and 1/2C will enter and exit through the main door rather than their classroom door. This is due to the severe weather we have been experiencing and student safety.

Literacy: 

InitiaLit Year 1:

Tricky Words (sight words): only, great, their, didn’t, can’t, don’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t

Digraphs: eer (deer), ear (hear), ear (bear), air (stair), are (care)

Grammar: Adverb, homophone, contraction

WOW Words: dreadful, delightful, commanded

InitiaLit Year 2: 

Trick Words (sight words): around, could and couldn’t, favourite

Digraphs/Trigraphs: Plurals ending in ‘s’ and ‘es’

Grammar: Prepositions and Conjunctions

Helpful Words: newcomer, precious and scatter

Writing: 

WALT: Write a persuasive text with reasons to convince the reader of their opinion

Students have been hard at work learning the structure and language of persuasive texts. We have been using ‘strong words’ such as: outrageous, unacceptable, definitely, must, harmful, and cruel to convince our readers of our opinion. This week, our persuasive text topic was ‘Junk food - should it be banned at school?’ Students did a fantastic job planning their arguments and writing strong and convincing reasons for why (or why not) junk food should be banned at school. 

Numeracy:

WALT: Complete vertical subtraction problems and apply their knowledge in worded problems and maths games.

The students have been completing subtraction sums in vertical form as a new strategy to complete the sums. We have been working on regrouping, carrying over numbers and correct place value positions. Additionally, students have been applying their knowledge of addition and subtraction in worded problems and maths games including a crowd favourite Get out of my house! Here is a link to a YouTube clip on how to play the game, it’s a great way to test your child’s addition and subtraction knowledge with a bit of fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQdiRTHWhwI&ab_channel=MichaelMinas 

There is an extension version if things get a bit easy, the link below is a version of Get out of my house! That involves multiplication, to test their knowledge even further.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkPU-dkUV9c&t=53s&ab_channel=MichaelMinas 

Thank you for reading our newsletter and keeping up to date with what’s happening in Year  1/2. Have a very happy and safe holiday!

Hello Middle School families,

We are sure you would have heard all about our fun and action packed Sovereign Hill Camp by now! We are so proud of the independence and resilience students demonstrated, and the way they represented Mentone Park Primary School while out and about. A highlight was the night show, AURA, which immersed everyone in the story of gold, exploring the creation, discovery and impact of the precious metal from indigenous times to the rebellion, gunfights, triumphs, and tragedies of the gold rush era. Students also enjoyed going down into the Red Hill Mine, watching gold being poured into an ingot, and learning how traditional boiled lollies are made. We were so lucky that our Sovereign Hill experience linked so well into our Term 3 Inquiry topics! Another highlight for many students was the surprisingly good camp food, and the shopping expedition on the last day. 

Back at school, In Maths students have been learning about time, including telling time to the quarter hour or minute and writing digital time as analogue (and vice versa). In Reading, we have been continuing making inferences from both books and short movie clips. In Writing we have been studying syllables and rhyming patterns in Australian poetry including fourteen syllable poems (Mulga Bill) and poems with rhyming couplets. 

St Kilda AFLW visit

It was a pleasure to have Serene, Rebecca, Jaimee, Steph, Nat and Molly from St Kilda AFLW visit us on Monday afternoon. The players discussed what it takes to become an AFL/AFLW player and answered lots of questions posed by our students, ranging from “what’s your favourite food” and “which one of you is the oldest” to “how much training do you do each week”! At the end of the session students lined up for an autograph session and thanked the players for their visit.

STOMP! 

We are making final preparations for the STOMP Performance on Friday! All students have been doing an amazing job during rehearsals. We are hoping families are able to join us on Friday for the performance. This will be held on the Basketball Courts and go from 1pm-2:15pm.

Footy Colours Day 

On Thursday students enjoyed coming to school dressed in their AFL colours or favourite sports gear. The coin line was a great success, and all proceeds will be donated to the Fight Cancer Foundation. All the classes participated in some fun footy themed rotations run by the Year 6 cohort which everyone enjoyed! 

WALTs:  - To make inferences while reading and viewing texts to strengthen our comprehension.

Writing - Plan and write a recount about our favourite camp experience.

Maths - Read analogue time to the quarter-hour, five minutes, and the minute, and convert between units of time. Calculate elapsed time to five minutes, and the minute.

Inquiry - Reflect on our learning this term.




 

Another incredible and fast paced term comes to a close, with a well deserved 2 week holiday break for our Senior Students. Once again they have impressed us with their resilience and efforts this term, participating in a variety of activities and representing MPPS so proudly! We look forward to an AMAZING final term for 2024 and hope you all have a happy and safe break!

Recent/Upcoming Events:

• Inquiry - Thank you for everyone's support in assisting your child/ren to answer questions about their ancestry. The responses have sparked some incredible conversations and further questioning. It’s been wonderful to have students so engaged in the topic as it was integrated across Literacy and Maths. 
• Green Gang - Massive congratulations to our Green Gang members; Curtis, Jordan, Ava and Hazel, who were supported by Mrs Zienow-Sy at the recent Big Green Schools Conference. Their phenomenal video about sustainability at MPPS won our school ‘The Golden Chook’ award, which will sit proudly near the office until next year's conference.
• STOMP -  Our STOMP End of Term Showcase is fast approaching and will be held on the basketball courts at 1pm on Friday 20th of September. The Senior Students are performing a 90’s inspired hip hop number and are asked to wear items on the day such as: a mixture of colour baggy clothes, denim on denim, bandana, caps or flannelette around the waist etc. Try and use items you or family members have at home, search Op Shops or borrow from friends. We have some accessories that will be provided to students prior to the concert. The enthusiasm put into all of the performances is incredible and we can’t wait to show them off!
• WANTED - In preparation for our new novel study next term, ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ by Jules Verne, we are seeking some possible assistance. We have PDF copies of the text, however some students prefer to read hardcopies. We were wondering if there were any second hand copies that people may have at home that we could use or if people could please be on the lookout at Op Shops over the school holidays. 
• Term 4 - Our final term for 2024 brings with it many exciting opportunities and events for our Senior Students. Early in the term we will be communicating important information via our fortnightly newsletter and Compass, about the following:

Year 5 - 2025 Leadership Opportunities and 2025 Graduate Wear

Year 6 - Transition to Secondary School and Graduation Events/Celebrations (Requires Parent Helpers)

• Respect In Person & Online-  As always, but especially at times of potential heightened tension, it is vital that all members of the school community treat each other with respect, understanding and sensitivity. In particular, students should be reminded of the school values all students are expected to demonstrate and that: 

• disparaging language should never be used, either in person or online, in relation to another person’s race, religion or cultural background
• schools need to be a safe place for all, and all students should take care to avoid being hurtful or offensive to others, even if that is not their intent

Often current events and distressing material posted on social media can trigger strong reactions, therefore we encourage you to have discussions with your children around safe internet use. If you would like some support, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any MPPS Staff members on 9583 4935. 

Some alternate places you can seek help include: 

• Lifeline on 13 11 14 or lifeline.org.au 
• Parentline 13 22 89
• Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 or beyondblue.org.au 
• Kids Helpline, for 5-25 year olds, on 1800 55 1800 or kidshelpline.com.au (webchat is also available) 
• Headspace, for 12 to 25 year olds, on 1800 650 890 or headspace.org.au. 

In the event your child should come across distressing content online, please refer to this Fact sheet or visit https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents for more online safety tips.

Reminders:

• 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: Making social, cultural and historical comparisons between, ‘Boy Overboard’ & ‘Girl Underground’.

Writing: Researching and writing biographies about well known refugees and their experiences immigrating to Australia.

PhOrMeS: Read, spell and define homophones.

Maths: To gather and organise data to answer questions about our world.

Inquiry: Develop questions about immigration and identify and explain reasons behind people’s

immigration to Australia.

Banqer: Explore how students can earn an income within the classroom and relate this to the real world.

Resilience, Rights & Respectful Relationships (Wellbeing): Ask, Listen, Encourage Action & Check In - the 4 steps to effective conversation when connecting with peers.

Students in grades 3-6 have been working hard over the past two terms on a research investigation project in STEAM. They have worked in partners or teams to design and test a series of experiments based one of the following topics:  3/4s- What are the best conditions for plant growth? What is the quickest way to melt a solid edible object (ice or chocolate)? What are the best conditions for a long-lasting lava lamp/ glitter bottle?  5/6s- Energy: exploring movement or magnetism, Plant growth and Matter: exploring chemical and physical changes with mixtures. Our amazing scientists would like to invite you to view their presentations in a museum or gallery style format which will be held in the STEAM lab and corridor of the admin building on Thursday and Friday afternoon in Week 2 of Term 4, from 3:30-4pm. We hope to see you there to celebrate their learning.