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Principal: Mr Graeme Cupper Address: Commercial Street, Merbein, 3505 Phone: 03 50252501 Email: [email protected] Website: www.merbeinp10.vic.edu.au
PRINCIPAL’S REPORT Mr Graeme Cupper
END OF TERM I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the outstanding contributions of students and staff this term, ensuring a very smooth and productive start to the year. Even though Merbein P-10 enrolments have continued to increase significantly over the last few years, the inclusive and respectful culture of the school has not been affected. Many highlights have been packed into this term, including the Year 8 Surf Camp, Year 7 Grampians Camp, Year 9-10 Advance Camp and the Year P-6 STOMP Program. These are all large undertakings that require detailed planning and involve high levels of legal responsibility so I thank teachers, support staff and volunteer parents for giving up family time to ensure our students can enjoy these rewarding experiences. I wish everyone a safe and enjoyable term break.
REGENERATION FUNDING REPORT Many in our community may not be aware that next month will mark the 10th anniversary of the historic announcement (made in May 2009) that the four local state schools in Merbein had decided to officially combine to become a single P-10 College. As a consequence, Merbein P-10 College officially commenced on 1st January, 2010. Under the merger agreement, the community was promised that all facilities would be replaced, and while the school has undoubtedly benefited from significant facilities improvements there is still unfinished business. Since 2011, numerous representations have been made to Governments of both political persuasions to complete the final stage. The school was successful in receiving a further $3.35m in 2016, which resulted in the new Technology centre and some refurbishments (Library, FLO, Gym). On behalf of the School Council, I have again written to the Education Minister, James Merlino requesting funding to complete the replacement of several remaining items including Administration, Library, Science and Canteen facilities. A replacement Gymnasium was also promised. Merbein P-10 College has undergone dramatic and transformative change since those early days and the significant increase in primary and secondary enrolments in recent years suggests that Merbein P-10 College has earned the confidence and trust of the local community. Our current enrolment of 764 now places Merbein P-10 as one of the larger district schools.
LEAVE As I mentioned in a recent newsletter, I will be taking Personal Leave next term. Chris Grimmer (currently Principal of Cardross Primary School) will be taking over as Acting Principal in Term 2. Chris is a highly respected and capable leader. I know he will be welcomed by all staff.
NEWSLETTER 2019 Thursday, 4 April
201920192019201920192019201920192019201820182
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Successful Students – Strong Communities
DATES TO REMEMBER APRIL 5th Friday -Last day of Term 1 -Whole School Assembly at 10am -Easter Egg Competition at Recess -Earlier dismissal of 2.30pm -OSHC finishes at 5pm
23rd Tuesday -First day of Term 2
24th Wednesday -ANZAC DAY Assembly
MAY 1st Wednesday - ‘Teeth on Wheels’ Visit
2nd Thursday -‘Teeth on Wheels’ Visit 19th Sunday -Pri ‘Walk Wentworth Sing’ Choir
JULY 31st July – 2nd August -Yr 3-4 Ballarat Camp
AUGUST 2nd Friday -Yr 3-4 Ballarat Camp Returns
NOVEMBER 11th – 15th -Year 5-6 Lake Cullulleraine Camp
18th,19th &20th -Whole School Variety Nights
2019 TERM DATES Term 2: 23/04/19 - 28/06/19 Term 3: 15/07/19 - 20/09/19 Term 4: 07/10/19 – 20/12/19
STUDENT DENTAL SERVICE Sunraysia Community Health Services 137, 13th Street Mildura, phone 50210944. visit www.dhsv.org.au
Chris will be well supported by our Office staff and our Leadership Team, which includes a group of outstanding Learning Centre Leaders who provide both wellbeing and educational support for students on a daily basis. Chris will also be aided by our dedicated Assistant Principals, Sandra Luitjes and Rob Morgan who make an enormous contribution across all aspects of school operations. On a personal note, I am very proud of what we have achieved since becoming a P-10 College in January, 2010 and I would like to take this opportunity to make special mention of my colleagues, Greg Rhodes and Sandra Luitjes with whom I’ve been so privileged to work throughout the past nine-plus years.
GENERAL NEWS
STUDENT ARRIVAL TIMES Students should not be in the school before 8am. Breakfast Club is only open from 8am onwards. There are no staff members on duty in the secondary section until 8.15am. Therefore, secondary students who arrive between 8am and 8.15am are to be seated in the canteen area. For Primary students, staff members are on duty from 8.40am. Therefore, primary students who arrive between 8am and 8.40am are to be seated in the canteen area.
WHOLE SCHOOL ASSEMBLY – R. Morgan Our Whole School Assembly will be held on Friday 5th April at 10am. Students will be presented with Student of the Month Awards.
CASUAL DRESS DAY Tomorrow, Friday 5th April, the last day of term, will be a whole school casual dress day. Please bring a gold coin donation, which will go toward the Student Representative Council (SRC) fundraising goals.
LAST DAY OF TERM Reminder that students will be dismissed at the earlier time of 2.30pm tomorrow, Friday 5th April. We hope everyone has a very happy Easter and a safe holiday break. School will resume for Term 2 on Tuesday 23rd April.
STUDENT ABSENCES If your child is away from school, please notify the school before 10am in the morning. A text message will be automatically sent to your phone after this time if your child is not at school and the school has not been notified. The school can be notified of absences by phone or by sending an email to the following email address: [email protected]
BUS PASSES - REPLACEMENTS Buslink have informed the school that if a student requires a replacement bus pass, they will be required to pay $10.00 either to the school or to the Buslink office. The new pass will not be printed out and issued to the student until the payment has been received. Please remind students to take care of their bus passes to avoid this additional cost.
MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE’S BACH COMPETITION The Melbourne Recital Centre’s Bach Competition is dedicated to young musicians passionate about J.S. Bach. The competition repertoire needs to be any work of J.S. Bach not exceeding ten minutes in total duration. Soloists and ensembles of up to five members who are 17 years of age and under (at 1 January 2019) are welcome to apply. Applications close on Wednesday 8th May and the finals will be held at the Melbourne Recital Centre on Sunday 16th June 2019. Cash prizes of up to $2,000 are available to be won. For further entry information and competing guidelines, students can visit - melbournerecital.com.au/bach2019/
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER - EMAILED The school distributes a weekly school newsletter to
families via email. If you have not received a
newsletter by email, please notify the
school to either of the following email addresses: [email protected] or [email protected], with the subject Newsletter Email, so this can be rectified. Students in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 who would like to take home a printed copy of the newsletter each week, can collect one from the main office every Thursday at 3.15pm.
UNIFORM SHOP School uniforms can be purchased from the school’s main office between the hours of 8.45am and 4pm during the school week. If these hours are inconvenient for you, please ring the school to make an alternate arrangement.
SCHOOL BANK ACCOUNT DETAILS BSB - 063 714 Bank Acc Number – 10060535 Account Name - Merbein P-10 College Official Account.
STAFF CONGRATULATIONS A fantastic achievement. Jarrod was announced joint Winner of Mildura Rural City Council's Youth Volunteer Award at the 2019 Youth Awards. Congratulations Jarrod!
BREAKFAST PROGRAM The Merbein & District Community Bank & Merbein Development Association are financially supporting the Breakfast Program. Foodbank Victoria also supports the breakfast program with donations of food. The following organisations provide volunteers to assist with the program; Merbein P10 College parents, the Board & Staff of the Merbein & District Community Bank, Merbein Development Association, Merbein Lions Club, and Merbein Uniting Church. The Breakfast Program is held in the school cafeteria. All students are welcome to come along between 8.00am and 8.45am each morning if they would like a FREE tasty breakfast to kick-start their days learning.
If you have time to volunteer for this
community service from 8-8.45am on school
days, please contact the school, we would
love to hear from you. Please note that volunteers will need a Working with Children’s Check.
PRIMARY NEWS
YEAR 2-3 ‘COLD WRITE’ – W. Finn A few weeks ago, the Year 2-3 Unit had a surprise. A golden egg was right in the middle of Mulberry St, our open space. The students had forty minutes to write why they thought it was there and what might happen to it. They had ten minutes of planning their narrative first and ten minutes of editing time once they had finished. There were many great narratives to explain the golden egg. But this morning to our delight, the golden egg has hatched! Lots and lots of Easter Eggs were coming out of the egg. The Year 2-3 students had to estimate how many eggs there were. After a massive counting effort there were 78 larger eggs and 112 smaller eggs, 190 in total. Our dilemma now is what to do with all of these eggs!!??!!?? Happy Easter Everyone from the Year 2-3 Seussville unit.
STOMP REPORT – W. Finn A huge thank you to everyone for a brilliant STOMP night! It was incredible to see so many families there to watch the performance. The students had so much fun on stage performing! Congratulations to all the students on a fantastic performance and thankyou to our dance teachers. Well done everyone!
YEAR 3-4 BALLARAT CAMP – ‘EXPRESSION OF INTEREST’ FORM – W. Finn The Year 3-4 Ballarat Camp will be held from 31st July – 2nd August. The cost will be approximately $300.00 per student, depending on the number of campers. A Camp ‘Expression of Interest’ form was sent home
with all Year 3-4 students. Please check that
your child’s form is returned to school as
soon as possible so the co-ordinators can
budget for the numbers attending. LATE TO SCHOOL - W. Finn Primary students who are late to school need to be signed-in by their parent/guardian at the Green Office. Michelle is our Green Office staff. Teachers mark the rolls at 9am. Those students who have been signed-in late are added as present on our
Compass Program by Michelle. If a late student
has not been signed-in by the parent, our
Compass Program will send a text to the
family after 10am in the morning, so please
sign-in your child if they are late to school.
AUTHOR VISIT REPORT – K. Grimmer Recently, the primary students were treated to a fun-filled performance by Martin Chatterton, an acclaimed children’s author/illustrator. During the visit, Martin created amazing caricatures of some of our students and staff members. He discussed his inspiration for writing and informed students of the most important aspects of creating a narrative. As an added bonus, the Year 4-6 students were given the opportunity to purchase a signed copy of Martin’s latest book, “The Brain Finds a Leg” at a greatly reduced cost. Approximately 70 students grabbed this offer and are now proud owners of a treasured copy of the book. It was a fabulous performance that was thoroughly enjoyed by students and parents alike.
AFTER SCHOOL CARE PROGRAM (OSHC) OSHC finishes at 5pm on the last day of
term, tomorrow Friday 5th April.
Cheryll Hodge is our school’s OSHC coordinator and can be contacted on 0428 258035 if you have any queries.
LIBRARY NEWS Please ensure your child returns their books each week and brings a waterproof Library Bag for their Library books on the following days. Year 4-6 students have Library on Mondays Year P-3 students have library on Thursdays Year 2-3A students have library on Mondays Year 2-3Bstudents have library on Tuesdays Year 2-3C students have library on Thursdays
MERBEIN COMMUNITY BANK SCHOOL STUDENT BANKING PROGRAM If you wish your child to participate in this program, please send your child’s bankbook along to the Green Building Office every Thursday morning. The Bank will collect and process your child’s banking and then drop the bank book back to school before the end of the school day.
SECONDARY NEWS
YEAR 10 SHARE MARKET GAME UPDATE – H. Hankinson The Annual Year 10 Share-Market Game is at the end of Week 4. This game is undertaken in the Year 10 Humanities Program each year. The aim is to help students learn about investment options and the long term benefit of investment in the share-market. Fifty teams are entered, either as groups or individually and students have $50,000 to invest over the eight week game. Short term investment in the market is risky as gains are more likely made over long term. This has been evident with the market spending the first three weeks trending down. Week 4 has been more promising. We now have thirty-two teams out of fifty with more than the original $50,000. The leading team as of Wednesday evening was Big Red (Mr Cormick) with $53,512, a profit of $3,500-this breaks down to approximately $850 per week profit; 2nd team is Hman (Mr.H) with $53,160 and finally a student team in 3rd place, Chook & Bell (Keiran Barnes & Jacob I’Anson) with $51,809. The leader in Australia has $57,442 with a $7442 profit in four weeks which
breaks down to an approximate $1900 per week profit. Not a bad effort. Interesting to see two teachers planning for their retirement and investing well. Also note that a 3rd teacher Mrs Dawson is 49th having lost over $3000 in four weeks. First prize is lunch in Mildura at a place of the winner’s choice with their Humanities teacher.
MATHEMATIC NEWS – D. Ebbels Textbooks - Firstly, I would like to convey my appreciation for the number of Parents/Carers that purchased a textbook this year. However, there are a number of students that are not taking very good care of this valuable resource. There are a number of steps that you could consider, that will enable you to sell your book for a good price at the end of the year. Covering the textbook in clear contact will help protect the book. Writing your name on the inside cover will assist in it being returned if misplaced. Refraining from writing in the textbook and overall just taking care of it. Calculators - Many students have not yet purchased calculators. These are a required resource for Mathematics classes and students will find it more and more difficult to carry out complex operations without them. Mobile phones cannot be used in all tests and exams. There are preferred calculators available to be purchased from the office at school. Students in Year 7 and 9 will soon be completing the NAPLAN Testing and will require a calculator for the numeracy section. Your assistance in purchasing a calculator sooner rather than later would be appreciated. Homework - Nearly all students from Years 7-10 should be bringing home homework sheets for Math. The number of sheets may depend on the teacher they have. If you are unsure about how much homework your child is getting, please feel free to contact their teacher.
‘BACK TO MERBZ’ REPORT – C. Blackie Our thanks and gratitude go to the twenty-five Year 11 and 12 students who came to our ‘Back to Merbz’ this week to talk to our Year 10 students about their experience of transition to Mildura Senior College and offer advice on subject selection and preparation for Year 11. We miss you and it was great to see you!
SCHOOL JUMPERS – PLEASE NAME CLEARLY As the weather is cooling down please check that your child has the uniform school jumper and that it is clearly named. A few items have been left in the gym already with no names on them. When the items have names on them we can return them to the students. DOCTORS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS Remember our doctor’s room is open every Tuesday from 10am–3pm for secondary students. Student appointments can be made through staff at the school or by calling the Merbein Family Practice on 03 5025 2511 or students can simply drop into the rooms at recess or lunch on Tuesdays. This is a great service, not just when students are sick but for things like prescriptions, asthma and anaphylaxis plans, catch-up immunisations, mental health and any other issues
facing secondary students. Students will need to
give their Medicare Card details to the GP
clinic. An easy way to do this is for the
student to take a photo of the card on their
phone. Parents do not need to attend appointments with students but are very welcome to come along if the students wish.
COMMUNITY NEWS
YOUTH SERVICES SCHOOL HOLIDAY PROGRAM AGES 12-16 Bookings for the School Holiday Program in April close 5th April. Full payment and enrolment must be submitted before the closing date. Maximum of three activities per week per participant.
8th Street Art – No Cost
9th The Waves – No Cost
10th Aqua coaster & Putt Putt Cost $15
11th Movies and Pizza Cost $15
12th Games Day - $15
15th Laser force - $15
16th Fishing Day – No Cost
17th Inflatable World - $15
18th Art Day - Free
For more information, see the School Holiday Fact Sheet http://www.mildura.vic.gov.au/Services/Youth/School-Holiday-Activities or phone the Mildura Rural City Council Youth Services 50188280.
FREE BOWLS PROGRAM FOR UNDER 18S Bowls that is fast and fun for Under 18s at the Mildura Bowls Club on Wednesdays’ at 4.30pm. Starting on 17th April. For boys and girls. No experience needed food, drinks and music. Free to play. Coaching and equipment provided. Contact Chris Mitchell on phone 0409248600. Registration day is 3rd April at the Mildura Bowls Club, Cureton Ave from 4-6pm.
SCOUTS AUSTRALIA Congratulations to Claire Nokes in Grade 3 for earning the Joey Scout Promise Challenge with the 2nd Mildura Joey Mob.
COME AND TRY BASEBALL Saints Baseball Club is having a come and try day on April 2nd at Chaffey Park Merbein between 5pm and 6pm. There is a free Sausage Sizzle and drink. Activities and Games will be held for Age Groups Under 7, Under 10, Under 13, Under 15 and Under17 For more information contact Greg – 0438 519 069 or Kirrilly – 0427 942 255 or email [email protected]
MERBEIN LIBRARY SCHOOL HOLIDAYS ACTIVITIES Tuesday 9 April 10am to 4pm: Pine cone and seed pod creatures FREE Wednesday 10 April 10am to 4pm: LEGO Session FREE Thursday 11 April 11am to 12pm:Tricky Turtles $2.00 Friday 12 April 10am to 4pm: Creation Station FREE Tuesday 16 April 10am to 4pm: Paper craft eggs FREE Wednesday 17 April 10am to 4pm: LEGO session FREE Thursday 18 April 11am to 12pm: Bunny bunting $2.00
ADVENTURE CLUB HOLIDAY PROGRAM Adventure Jam. A fun filled School Holiday Program. Games, Stories, Crafts, Live Music, Awesome Meals and lots more. For more information contact Josh on 0417 554 341 or email [email protected]
EASTER EXPRESS AT WONDERFEST Monday 8th April from 1-4pm at the Sacred Heart Primary School. Book via www.malleekidswonderfest.com.au
SCHOOL HOLIDAY DRUM WORKSHOP Held Wednesday 10th April from 11.30am-12.15pm at the Merbein Studio, 198 Third St, Merbein. Cost is $10 per child. Book now https://www.sunraysiaartsandlearning.com.au/enrolments/registration/ or phone 0420939229. NAB AFL AUSKICK Register now. Visit play.afl/auskick
MERBEIN GOLF CLUB – CHILDREN’S ‘COME AND TRY’ Merbein Golf Club is conducting children’s ‘Come and Learn Golf’ afternoon on Tuesday 23rd April. Children are invited to attend and participate in golf lessons with Dean Dixon, PGA Professional from Golf Australia. The Merbein Golf Club is located at 355 McEdward Street, Cabarita and is a family orientated, volunteer run club. On Tuesday April 23, the club will also have the ‘Snag golf castle and golf activities to come and try day’ from 3-5.30pm. The club will also run a school challenge where the winning students can win a junior membership to the club and their school a free ‘MyGolf’ session at their school for their class as part of Physical Education conducted by a Community Golf Instructor. The session times for lessons can be found on the Merbein Golf Facebook page and students can register their preferred time. There will be prizes for the children and also a Sausage sizzle will be operating. In Term 2 the Merbein Golf Club will be conducting the ‘MyGolf’ program on course starting Sunday 5th May for four weeks. If you have further enquiries about the ‘MyGolf’ program or the ‘Come and Try’ session held on 23rd April, please don’t hesitate to phone 0447 790 949.
HEADSPACE MILDURA MOVIE FUNDRAISER Family movie night featuring ‘Wonder Park’, to raise funds for local youth mental health activities. Held at Mildura Wallis Cinemas on 11th April at 7pm. Cost $15.
PARKS VICTORIA SCHOOL HOLIDAY PROGRAM KINGS BILLABONG PARK / MERBEIN COMMON/ KARADOC All Junior Ranger activities are free and are suitable for children aged 6-12 years. Bookings are essential. Please visit www.juniorrangers.com.au
8th April 10am
Investigate wildlife at Kings Billabong Park home.
10th April 10am
Learn about Australian Spiders at the Merbein Common Sandbar
15th April 10am
Nature Treasure Hunt in the bush and discover clours, paters and textures at Kings Billabong Park.
16th April 10am
Bring a fishing rod and bait and help remove some Carp from Kings Billabong.
