DATES TO REMEMBER December Fri 16th Gr 6 adventure park

Mon 19th Whole school Assembly 2.45pm Gr 6 Graduation—Geelong High 6.30pm

Tues 20th Farewell parade for grade 6 students from the court yard commencing 2.05pm Thurs 22nd Santa will be visiting the streets of leopold from 5.30pm

Tuesday 20th LAST DAY OF TERM 2016 -2.35PM FINISH

January 2017

Wednesday 25th

9am-6pm Office open for booklist day.

Tuesday 31st

Grade 1– 6 commence school 2017

February 2017

Thursday 2nd: Grade prep commence school 2017

Leopold Primary School

Leopold Lines

NEWSLETTER NO:23 Thursday 15 December 2016

Leopold Primary School Learning for Life

1 Kensington Rd, Leopold 3224

PO Box 42 Leopold 3224

Email : leopold.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au

Web: www.leopold.vic.edu.au

Phone: 52501233

Fax: (03)52503369

OHSC: 52501292/ 0400 085 976

Wishing all families of the L.P.S community a very merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

Another rewarding school year is about to end and there are so many memorable 2016 moments to reflect upon and celebrate!

Everyone within our community will have their own list of school events, some small and personal and others large and audacious, all which brought a smile! On behalf of the LPS staff I would like to pay tribute to our families and the support given to our school. Our school is strengthened when students, families and teachers intersect. Our students love to share and explain their achievements to family members and they simply love the praise received in return.

We appreciate that to attend some of our school and classroom events you turn your orderly weekly timetable upside down and we thank you for the work adjustments made. This year we have enjoyed sharing with families: - open classrooms, student led conferences, YCDI concert, assemblies, house sports, a myriad of sporting events, study turf and learning portfolios etc. And dare I mention it, our glorious splash of Colour in the Colour Dash, all which displayed our collective grit, determination and ‘have a go’ attitude.

We are continually appreciative of the community support provided by our school

families and the extended local community. We consciously strive to repay the community’s kindness and generosity by ensuring that our township knows what the ‘junior citizens’, are doing within our school. To this end we have reached out to the community to paint the Telstra building, visited Kindergartens and aged care facilities and adorned our shopping centre with happy faces.

We have taken our collective IT skills to a new level with the highly engaging and academically challenging exposure to coding, programming and 3D printing.

Our learning Mantra this year has been, ‘Mission possible Secret agents of change’. The secret agent theme has provided us with many memorable moments. Many learning missions have been successfully completed and all agents will be safely in HQ at the end of the year.

Staff – To our teachers and educational support staff, thank you for your dedication, professionalism and teamwork. Our LPS staff always place students at the heart of all curriculum decisions and each year lift the bar in regard to curriculum develop-ment. I am privileged to work with such a talented, responsive and generous team.

School leaders-- We wish to thank Presley Johannesen, Alexia Athanasiou, Mason Blyth Josh Abbott , our dynamic student leaders and valued school ambassadors, for their leadership. Many adults find public speaking daunting however not our Presley, Josh, Mason and Lexi , as they regularly address hundreds of students each fortnight at our assemblies.

Our grade 6 students will be front and centre next Monday night within the Geelong High School hall at their graduation ceremony. At the ceremony our school community will pay tribute to our magnificent grade 6 team by acknowledging their individual and collective con-tributions to LPS. All the students have the skills and knowledge to make a positive difference within their secondary colleges. At our final assembly on Tuesday 20th (2:05 pm) in our court yard when we act upon a tradition of a Grade 6 passing out parade under an archway created by the grade 5 students.

School Council - Our team of fifteen school councillors have met continually throughout this year to guide school governance, review and develop policies, endorse current processes, generate new opportunities for our school and build friendships. The work of the council has been diligent and extremely rewarding. We wish to acknowledge the leadership and advocacy provided by our school council president Deb Duncan. Deb works diligently to generate and focus the conversations that enable our stu-dents, families and staff to, ‘Go above and beyond’.

Parents’ Association- What a fabulous team! We have been the recipients of many rewarding and entertaining parent associa-tion events. Happy memories, generated by these events, are dotted throughout our 2016 calendar. This effective and well or-ganised team, capably led by Alison Merrett, has raised $15,342.00 for our school this year.

Our Parents Association has recently purchased digital externals for our school e.g. Makey Makey, Osmo games and also ground works which include terracing and synthetic grass at the basketball court and the bike track extension. Thank you!

Farewells -- At the end of this year four of our fabulous teachers are leaving our school to take up teaching roles in other schools or to pursue opportunities. We farewell:- Lee Jarvis Truganina South PS, Jenn Stirk – Truganina South PS. Susan de Lange – Westgrove, Luc McKay perusing educational leadership at a Singapore international school. Also Martine Adair and Erin Clements– who both will be pursuing career opportunities in 2017.

Brenda Hart – Student wellbeing - retirement –

Brenda has provided for many years a consistently strong wellbeing focus for our students, families and teachers. Through our ups and downs of life Brenda has provid-ed a shoulder to lean on, words of wisdom, directions to take and empowered us to move forward. Thank you Brenda and enjoy a well-earned rest!

Lynn Mc Manus – Indonesian language program - retirement –

Our fabulous Bu Mc is to retire at the end of this year. After 46 fabulous years Lynn has decided to down size to one day a week, officially retiring now and then returning to teaching one day a week (Indonesian) in 2017.

In my position I am privileged to see and feel the impact Lynn makes to the academic, social and emotional lives of so many of our students. Lynn is not only a skilled teacher of the Indonesian language but also an advocate for, and initiator of, learning in so many other areas . With Lynn at LPS our extra curricula activities flourish as exampled by her leadership in :- Debating, CHIP, Chess, Geelong College challenge, Choir, Launch/ leap/ bungy jump into Leopold .YCDI - Foundations layer for the development of our relational culture and values.

Thank you Lynn and we looking forward to working with you again in 2017.

Our kind and patient crossing supervisors say -Thank you for crossing our roads at the

crossings and for sharing a smile and a daily hello’. “Seasons greetings and have a safe and relaxing holiday. See you at the crossings again in 2017’.

Thank you Graeme, Chris, Loraine and John and happy holidays to you too!

Parents Association

Well it seems like the LPS Colour Dash was a great success. We hope everyone enjoyed the day. Thank you to everyone who helped out on the day, we couldn’t have done it without you. A huge thank you to our PE teachers, Lee Jarvis and Chris Wil-liams. The day would not have been possible without the amazing amount of planning and work they put into the course. Thank you to Danni Moore and Jenn Stirk for allowing us to use their Art time to make powder. Lastly thank you to Jan Rollinson and all the teachers who supported this event and helped the day roll along.

Thank you to all the families who raised money through their sponsorships, the total came to just over $10,000! What an amaz-ing effort by our school community. Most of the sponsorship prizes have been delivered to classrooms, there are just a few that we are waiting for which will be delivered as soon as they arrive.

Parents Association have many things we would like to do in 2017 but to do this we need new members. If you are interested in helping out or you know any new families that might be interested please look out for information on our first meeting early in Term 1. We are also desperately in need of someone to take over as President of Parents Association. If anyone thinks they would like to do this or if you know someone who would be interested please contact Alison Merrett. We would need to start handing over in 2017 before our current President leaves the school.

Thank you to all our families for their continues support throughout 2016 and we look forward to another exciting year in 2017. We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year.

2017 Grades and teachers

Prep-Jo Philp, Matt de Been, Cathryn Blennerhassett, Claire Owen, Maddie Salt, Rebecca Kearney. Grade one- Marta Balboni, Collette Hampshire, Nada Williams, Peter Renkin, Stephanie Bostock, Heidi Carlini /Janeece Cummings. Grade two- Kim Hair, Haydn Marshall, Robyn Garnham, Anita Elliott / Sarah Warlond. Grade three- Jane Preston, Corinne Reid, Ilona Sliwa, Jodie Bish, Sheree Cook. Grade four- Josh Lees, Luke Daffy, Vicky McKay, Jenny Wilson / Simone Williams. Grade five- Naomi Stewart, Emma Rogers, Lei Bao, Trevor McMurrich, Adam Heenan. Grade six- Denise Baird, Jenny Clissold, Sam Sharkey, Eric Stribley. Specialist Science- Dani Moore and Kathleen Moreno PE- Chris Williams and Amanda Hotchin Arts-Danny Moore and Ashlee Littlehales Indo Lynn Mc Manus and TBA

.

Leopold Primary School would like to wish all families a

Merry Christmas and a Safe and Happy New Year!

We look forward to seeing everyone back at School in

2017