"Welcome back, everyone! Our term has started with thrilling news as we unveil our latest addition: The new building!

Our learning environments have reached new heights with state-of-the-art facilities, fostering creativity and excellence. It was lovely to see our students embrace the new play spaces and enjoy interacting with their peers. Seeing our students dive into the term enthusiastically and with vigour is fantastic, setting a promising tone for the weeks ahead.

Here's to an exciting and successful term ahead!

Twilight Movie Night

Last Friday night we held our Twilight Movie Night. What a terrific event for our school community. It was wonderful to see so many of our families all rugged up, with their comfy seats, beanbags, pillows and warm blankets, to enjoy ‘Lego Movie 2’. There was a great selection of food on offer including sausages, choc tops, popcorn and lollies! The glow sticks helped light up the night. We would sincerely like to thank Donna Hanson who led our Fundraising Team to coordinate this event. Donna, like many of us, works full-time, has three children (all at CPS), but somehow finds the time to organise these events. Donna coordinated a team consisting of other parents who also juggle work and home, including Mel Gabrys, Pennie Sabatino, Younch Sefton and Tanya Whiteside. Thank you! In addition, the team recruited  Janosh Biczok, one of our new parents with a daughter in Prep. Janosh organised the BBQ, rounding up a team of volunteers consisting of more new Prep Dads. Thank you to our BBQ team! Thanks also goes to our Admin Team, Jacky, Ledam and Tania, who help behind the scenes with ordering. It certainly takes a team. We appreciate the efforts. Our next event is our Mother’s Day Stall. If you can lend a hand on Friday 3 May any time between 8:30am and 2:00pm, please email tanya.whiteside@education.vic.gov.au .

Building Respectful School Communities

When parents, carers and school staff work together as one team, our students do better. Everyone at school, particularly staff and parents/carers, play a role in making school a better place for learning and work.

Our teachers and staff will continue to work with our students in explicitly teaching those behaviours aligned to our school's SWPB, so each student understands each element clearly. We ask that parents and carers continue to support the school by reinforcing these learnings at home.

Parents, carers and school staff have a relationship that can last many years. This is an opportunity to work together to create a positive relationship in the child's best interests. When this relationship is built on respect and trust, students learn better and feel like they belong in the school.

Everyone in the school community has a right to a safe and healthy learning environment and workplace. All school staff have a right to feel safe at work and protected from any aggression, violence or behaviour that presents a safety risk.

Instances of violence and aggression towards school staff from parents, carers or other adult members of the school community can have a significant impact on the health, safety and wellbeing of the person who experiences this. The impact can also be felt by the wider school community. No one should be threatened or intimidated at work or school.

Respectful Behaviours within the School Community Policy | vic.gov.au (www.vic.gov.au) describes the positive behaviour expected from parents, carers, and other adults in Victorian school communities. The policy sets clear standards of behaviour to create a safe, respectful, and inclusive learning environment for students, staff, and adults. There are also resources to support safe and respectful relationships in our school community. You may also see a Safety at Work poster displayed around our school, promoting positive behaviour.

Complaints policy

Our complaints policy provides advice on how to raise a concern or complaint. It also outlines timelines for responding to complaints as soon as we can (usually within two days) and seeking to resolve complaints in a timely manner, depending on the complexity of the complaint.

After COVID, it became apparent that a good work-life balance benefits all of us. Teachers and school staff are no different. Having some flexibility to enjoy our hobbies and interests and precious time with our kids, family, and friends makes us better at what we do. For this reason, I have outlined below our teachers' work hours schedule and when they are available.

Teacher's work schedule:

• Monday to Friday, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

After-hour emails or messages will be responded to during the above times where possible.

Teachers attend three weekly meetings:

• Monday morning from 8:30-9:00
• Monday from 3:45-4:45 and Tuesday from 3:45-4:45.

If you need to schedule a meeting with a teacher, we ask that it be organised outside the meeting times outlined above.

We appreciate your ongoing support and your help in ensuring we provide the best possible education for every child in our care.

Kind regards,

Taylor

CSEF
The Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund helps eligible families to cover the costs of school trips, camps and sporting activities.

If you have a valid means-tested concession card, such as a Veterans Affairs Gold Card, Centrelink Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card, or are a temporary foster parent, you may be eligible. There is also a special consideration category for asylum seeker and refugee families.

Payment amounts this year are $150 for eligible primary school students. Payments are made direct to the school to use towards expenses relating to camps, excursions and sporting activities for the benefit of your child.

If you would like to apply, please download the form on Compass or ClassDojo. Alternatively, you can collect a hard copy form from the school office. When submitting your application to our school email address chelsea.ps@education.vic.gov.au or at the office, please supply a copy of your valid means-tested concession card.

To find out more about the program and eligibility, please go to the Department of Education and Training’s Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund web page.

Check with the school office if you are unsure, and please return completed form to the school office as soon as possible for processing.

Our foundation students have kicked off Term 2 on a high note! It's been fantastic witnessing their enthusiastic arrival in the classroom, filled with excitement and readiness to learn.

Phonics and Literacy:

In phonics, our foundation students have been diving into the world of letters and sounds. They have been reviewing their letter sounds and practicing writing CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. Through fun and interactive activities, our students are building a really strong foundation in phonics.

English:

In English, our focus has been on creating simple sentences. It is wonderful to see the students identifying the who, what and where in the sentence. Students are beginning to understand that sentences begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop.

Mathematics:

In math, our students have been exploring teen numbers. Using manipulatives like numicon and visual aids such as number lines, they are gaining a deeper understanding of numbers beyond 10. By engaging in hands-on activities, our students are developing their mathematical skills and problem-solving abilities.

Integrated:

Students are finishing off our integrated studies unit from Term 1 on the Aboriginal Dreamtime. This week we enjoyed learning about Tiddilick the Frog.

Wellbeing:

This week in our classrooms we having been reviewing our Wellbeing Lessons from Term 1 on ‘Setting Up for Success’.

Looking Ahead:

As we continue through Term 2, the foundation teachers are excited about the learning opportunities that lie ahead.

Welcome back to Term 2!

The students have settled back into school life and are loving our beautiful new building. The new learning and play space has created a buzz of excitement and we can feel a great energy in the air. It’s fitting that we have a schoolwide focus on ‘Responsibility’ this term, a perfect opportunity to remind our students to take responsibility for their learning spaces and shared areas.

Late last term we had the junior school swimming program. We were thrilled with the high participation rate and thank you all for your support with this program. Whilst an exhausting two weeks, we saw such fabulous growth in the children’s skills and confidence in the water.

This term students are continuing their Inquiry units from last term on ‘Countries, Continents and Maps’ (Grade 1) and ‘Ancient Greece’ (Grade 2). It’s been fabulous sharing our knowledge of the world and learning about new and interesting places. We’ve loved hearing students and teachers share their cultural and travel experiences. A highlight was when Miss Bardis and her family were able to share their traditional Greek cooking with the class.

Thank you to all the families that attended our movie night last week. It was a very successful community event and great opportunity to gather as a school.

We have a few dates on the calendar for term 2…

April 30 – First Aid program for students

May 3 -  Mother’s Day stall

May 27 – Curriculum Day

June 10 – King’s Birthday Public Holiday

Thank you for your ongoing support, if you have any questions please reach out and we’ll be happy to help. Please keep an eye on Dojo for regular updates and events.

Just a reminder, if you have a message that needs to be given to your child, please contact the school office directly, as sometimes we don’t see Dojo messages throughout the day.

Kind regards,

The Grade 1 & 2 team.

Year 4 has had a great finish to term one and started term two with energy and enthusiasm.

We have concluded our Core Knowledge Unit on Chinese Dynasties and have discovered many interesting things about this ancient culture. We learnt about their amazing achievements in construction, art and government. And explored the amazing inventions and social initiatives, from paper and fireworks, to unifying a country with a common language, currency and measurement standards. We finished off the term with our own scrolls, adorned with illustrations and a Confucius proverb written in Chinese calligraphy.

For Anzac Day, Mr Pepe and Mr Hewet shared some stories about their connection with the Australian Defence Forces. Mr Hewet shared a valuable 100 year old ANZAC book, and a tale of his Great Uncle who landed at Gallipoli and became a casualty at the battle of Lone Pine.

And Mr Pepe recounted his time in the armed forces and shared pictures and his personal story of his Afghanistan tour.

In term two, the year 4 students are embarking on an adventure, as we read the novel Treasure Island, and explore the maritime history of the world.

Regards

The year 4 team.

What an awesome start to the Term! We are so impressed how each Senior student has come back in and gotten straight into learning! It has been amazing to see our student guiding and nurturing the junior students around the new building and supporting them when they have become lost or have lost a friend.

English and Maths

This term, both the Grade 5s and Grade 6s are completing a Novel study-based Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman. We will be using this Novel to tie into creating information reports and working on our speaking and listening skills through debating. For Maths we will be working on fractions for the first part of the term whilst developing our problem-solving skilling using CUBES (Circle the numbers, Underline the question, Box the keywords, Evaluate and Eliminate and Solve and Check).

Humanities

Last week we started our Geography unit by exploring the world map and identifying the continents, oceans and finding specific landmarks. Our main task for this will differ slightly to last year where the students will have a home-based project that they will present to the class at the end of the term. We will be handing this out next week and all the student are super excited to get to work.

Sport

ISS will be starting back on the 3^rd of May. All the students have selected their sports and we have had a training session each week so we are more than ready for the first round!

Well done to the students who qualified to Run for Chelsea at the upcoming District Cross Country on the 10^th of May. Go Chelsea!

Coming up ahead

The next few weeks are busy in the Senior school as usual!

Next week we have two incursions. Each student is having the opportunity to participate in a first aid session which will cover DRSABCD and basic first aid. The Year 6’s will also have the local police coming in to present about rail safety as lots of student will be catching trains to Secondary School next year. Camp is coming up (8^th-10^th) of May and we are so pumped! We also have our whole school Athletics scheduled for the 17^th of May.

Thank you!

Please stay in touch with us with any questions, queries or doubtful points, Your Senior School Team: Mrs Jakon, Mr Munday, and Miss A.

Students have made a wonderful start to STEM this year. Their enthusiasm, curiosity and creativity is always impressive.

Preps

The Preps started the year with a design challenge, where they were tasked to build the tallest free-standing tower possible. During our Chemical Science unit students developed their science inquiry skills by participating in guided investigations. These inquiries focused on making observations, identifying and changing materials. Students were given the opportunity to design and make binoculars, their own toy and participate in a Three Little Pigs building challenge.

This term students will be focusing on Physical Science where they will explore the way objects move. Students have begun investigating forces as they made paper aeroplanes and investigated push and pull.

Grade 4’s

Grade Four students also focused on Chemical Science, where they worked on classifying different materials as solids, liquids or gases and how materials changed with the decrease and increase of temperature. Students had the opportunity to explore oobleck, a colours influence on a crayons melting point and how heat speeds up the skittle experiment. Students identified what makes a safe science laboratory and used their knowledge of materials and the mass-production of toys to design and make their own toy.

This term students will be focusing on Physical Science. Students have begun to investigate heat energy and will be exploring light, electrical energy and forces throughout the semester.

Grade 5 and 6’s

Grade Five and Six students developed their science inquiry skills by focusing on the properties and behaviour of solids, liquids and gases. Students were given the opportunity to investigate the behaviour of gases, the viscosity of a liquid and the impact of changes in temperature on the three states of matter. Investigations also explored condensation, the water cycle and mixtures of solutions and suspensions. This unit was supported by an incursion with Twisted Science where students were excited to experiment with chemical reactions further.

Our focus on sustainability was our connection to the ocean where students observed the impact of plastic waste and what changes could be made to decrease this issue. As students increased their knowledge of the water cycle they followed the path a drop of water takes in Chelsea.

This term students will be focusing on Physical Science where they will be investigating light, movement and forces.

John Monash Science School:

We were excited to find out that CPS was accepted in to the 'Little Scientists, Big Science' program run by John Monash Science School (JMSS). Each trimester four students from CPS will attend sessions where they will work through experiments and content ranging from biology, chemistry and physics. Our first group of scientists have decided to undertake their own research project which they will be presenting at an upcoming JMSS Science Fair.

iSea iCare:

Our iSea iCare ambassadors – Cara, Calvin, Matilda and Tommy had a wonderful day at their first iSea iCare workshop this semester. Where they presented their learning to a foundation class from St Joseph’s School. Our ambassadors were inspired to share their experience during assembly and they will be running a workshop with the preps in the coming weeks. Their enthusiasm and commitment has been so impressive to see.

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