PUPIL FREE DAYS 2025
- Tuesday 28 January
- Friday 07 March
2024 TERM DATES
- TERM 4: 7 October - 20 December
2025 TERM DATES
- TERM 1: 28 January - 4 April (Students start: Year 1 to 6 - 29 January, Foundation - 30 January)
- TERM 2: 22 April - 4 July
- TERM 3: 21 July - 19 September
- TERM 4: 6 October - 19 December
2025 CAMP DATES
- Year 3 Phillip Island Camp - 27 October - 29 October
- Year 4 Anglesea Camp - 14 May to 16 May
- Year 5 Lady Northcote Camp - 08 October to 10 October
- Year 6 Urban Camp - 15 September to 17 September
It’s hard to believe that there are just three full weeks left in the 2024 school year. A successful one with a very favourable school review, a wonderful school production and the whole school grounds finally ‘open’ with the completion of our Tiger Turf project. Nonetheless still plenty to do before we close the school gates on the 2024 school year and have a well earned rest before we do it all again in 2025. Which is the perfect segue to ….
STAFFING PROFILE 2025 I am now in the position of being able to announce the staffing structure for 2025 as follows:-
Foundation
- Amanda Elliott (Team Leader) - Foundation E
- Bessie Grant (Transition Coordinator) - Foundation G
- Sarah McDonald - Foundation M
- Renee Deeth - Foundation D
Grade 1
- Suzie Doumas (Team Leader) - Grade 1D
- Rhys Tegg - Grade 1T
- Zoe Sakellaris - Grade 1S
Grade 1/2
- Jane McLeod - Grade 1/2M
- Annabell Dransfield (Grade 2 Team Leader) - Grade 1/2 A
Grade 2
- Nicola Triantafillas - Grade 2T
- Sally Stepowski/Jackie Rielly - Grade 2SR
Grade 3
- Kylie Kirkwood (Team Leader) - Grade 3K
- Ashleigh Walker - Grade 3W
- Lucas Prell - Grade 3P
Grade 4
- Kim Moucha (Team Leader) - Grade 4M
- Jamie Ruddock (Learning Specialist) - Grade 4R
- Griff Gavan - Grade 4G
Grade 3/4
- Sophie Noakes - Grade 3/4N
- Phillip Byrne (Learning Specialist) - Grade 3/4B
Grade 5
- Narelle Taylor (Team Leader) - Grade 5T
- Kara Lane - Grade 5L
- Zoe Birse - Grade 5B
- Samah Hamwi/Jessica Ellis - Grade 5HE
Grade 6
- Sharon Groves (Team Leader) - Grade 6G
- Bonnie Boness - Grade 6B
- Sandy Farley (Learning Specialist) - Grade 6F
- Kirsten Yates - Grade 6Y
Principal
- Bill Kersing
Assistant Principals
- Gillian Nicholls
- Patrick Walsh
Business Manager
- Lucy Addati
General Office
- Sue Wright
- Georgeina Fisher
First Aid
- Fiona Crowe
Education Support
- Louise Buissink
- Sarina Sherlock
- Thelma Rigoni
- Kellie Walker
- Melissa Enticott
- Kirtley Searies
- Bree Buszard
- Jodi Lanyon
Educational Psychologist
- Heather Gulliford 0.4
Defence School Mentor
- Georgeina Fisher
Disability Inclusion Coordinator
- Angela Roccasalva
Additional Support
- Judy Course
- Emma Sargeant
- Marina Gourzelas
- Bec Andrew
EAL
- Andrea Cleeve
Art
- Jen Hall
- Bec Andrew
Music
- Renee Davey
- Michael Betson
PE
- Darren Peters
- Michael Betson
Auslan
- Ellen Maxwell-Lopez
- Emma Sargeant
STEM
- Nat Carr
- Pete Walker
SAKGP
- Christine Andreou
Network Administrator
- Puneet Rana
There are a few changes in the ‘line-up’ above and one welcome to make. Welcome to Zoe Sakellaris who joins our school for 2025. We trust your stay with us will be a long and successful one, Zoe. We have two grade shares in 2025 in Grade 2 and Grade 5 with the hope that in both cases there will be one day per week where both teachers will be in the grade together all day – a huge bonus we believe. Kelsey Mentiplay will be back for week one of 2025 before departing to prepare for the birth of baby #2 in the Mentiplay household. Whilst we will also see Karina Russell at different stages during Term 1 her family are not to be outdone with baby #2 also due around April next year.
FOUNDATION 2025 TRANSITION PROGRAM The first session of our Kinder-Foundation program took place last week with our 82 newly enrolled students meeting their new teachers in their 2025 classrooms. Our new students settled quickly with just a few tears to be seen, but those parents settled quickly with a cup of tea and a biscuit in the staffroom!!
SCHOOL CAPTAINS 2025 It gives me great pleasure to announce that the following students have been selected as School Captains for 2025:-
- Girls Captain – Abhi SATHISH
- Girls Vice Captain – Kaiah McLACHLAN
- Boys Captain – Joachim LAI
- Boys Vice Captain – Arjun PINGALA
As always it was a difficult decision to make! Hopefully we will be graced by the presence of our local member, Anthony Carbines, to make the badge presentation in upcoming weeks.
SOFTBALL STATE FINALS On Monday, the boys softball team journeyed out to the Waverley Softball Centre in Wheeler’s Hill, to compete for the title of Victorian Boys Softball State Champions. There were two pools of 4 schools that each played each other in their respective pools in the preliminaries. The top team in each pool then went on to the Grand Final. In our pool, Boneo PS, Swan Hill PS and Viewbank PS all finished on two wins and one loss each, and it came down to the barest of margins to determine the school that went through to the Grand Final. Whilst Viewbank PS had been successful against Swan Hill PS, and Viewbank’s only loss was 17-19 to Boneo, Swan Hill earned the right to go through to the Grand Final on a countback. We are extremely proud of all of the boys efforts. They played with teamwork and determination and were a credit to our school. Congratulations to coach Darren Peters as well, and many thanks to the loyal band of parent supporters who were pivotal in supporting the boys on the day and providing transport!! Great job all round.
That’s it for this week. I hope everyone has a restful weekend.
Kind regards,
Bill Kersing
Celebrate International Day of People with Disability - 3 December Did you know there are more than 5.5 million people with disability in Australia? International Day of People with Disability is a United Nations Day observed on 3 December each year. The aim is to increase awareness, understanding and acceptance of people with disability.
By acknowledging this important day, we can all do our bit to ensure people with disability can take part in and contribute to society. We can help to remove barriers for people with disability and contribute to positive change in our classrooms and our community. Please take the time to chat to your child/ren about the diverse range on people who are a part of our community.
We encourage all students, their families and carers to get involved in this day. Together, we can all take action to challenge perceptions about disability, remove barriers and promote inclusive and respectful attitudes and behaviours in our school and community. For more information about the day, refer to the International Day of People with Disability website.
The following information comes from the Raising Children Network - Australian parenting website. Please follow the link below for further advice on this topic.
Helping children and pre-teens with ADHD develop play and social skills for friendship
Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might need extra support to develop social skills in ways that work for them. It’s important to talk with your child about what they find challenging in their play and friendships and what, if anything, they’d like to change.
Here are skills that can be important in friendships and ideas for helping your child develop them.
Emotions Play can be one of the best ways to help children learn to understand and manage their own and other people’s emotions. Play ideas to help with children’s emotions include drawing, reading, pretend play and messy play.
Rules You can help your child learn about following rules by breaking activities into small steps. For example, ‘In this game, rule 1 is …, rule 2 is…, rule 3 is …’. Your child might learn best by reading rules, or they might prefer to look at pictures. And if your child can tell you the rules, you’ll know they understand.
You can also practise negotiating rules. You could start with a simple card game like Uno and add your own family rules. For example, can the final card played be a Wild card? Or can multiple Draw Two cards be played on top of each other?
Turn-taking If you play turn-taking games together, it can give your child the chance to learn and practise this skill. You could try simple games like ‘I spy’ and build up to card or board games. Praise your child when they take turns but stop when you see signs that your child is losing interest or getting overstimulated. You can try again another time.
Conversations You might need to help your child understand conversations. For example, ‘Sarah, a conversation is when both people get to speak about something. I talk for a bit and then I stop. That means it’s your turn to talk’. You could try doing this in a structured way at family meals or when your child gets home from school.
Problem-solving It’s important for your child to know what to do if there’s a problem with another child, like an argument over whose turn it is. For example, the solution might be walking away if they’re feeling frustrated or talking to a teacher or parent. You and your child could role-play situations like these.
Finding friends for children and pre-teens with ADHD Your child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might need some help to get started with friendships. Here are things you can try:
- Identify your child’s strengths and interests. For example, what does your child like? What is your child good at?
- Help your child to meet children who enjoy similar things. This could be through a special interest club at school or an after-school activity.
- Encourage your child to use safe online gaming to connect with friends. You might be able to use parental controls to allow your child to chat or talk with friends but not other people.
- Talk to your child’s teacher. They might be able to tell you who your child plays with or what your child likes to do at recess and lunch.
- Ask the school about offering structured activities at break times. This can help your child find children with similar interests in other grades.
Have a wonderful week
Gill
PLANNING WEEK Next week, our 2025 teams will be planning for Term 1 – exciting times. As Mr Kersing has outlined above, there are a number of staffing changes for 2025.
Planning days for 2025 teams
As an example of how things are a little different this time, Ms McDonald will be planning on Tuesday with the other 2025 Foundation teachers, not on Monday with the Year 3 teachers.
Staff who are in a specialist or additional support position in 2025, or not with us in 2025, will have their planning sessions throughout the week, on the days that they work.
INCLEMENT WEATHER POLICY The weather has been quite unstable this past week – hot, cold, humid, dry, wet, windy and thundery! Our Inclement Weather Policy https://www.viewbankps.vic.edu.au/forms-policies outlines what we will do. We define inclement weather as extreme heat, rain, lightning, dust, wind, cold or any other condition that is considered by the Principal or an Assistant Principal to be unsuitable for students to be outside. In addition to our normal Yard Duty requirements, all staff are timetabled for inclement weather duty as well.
Last Friday (22 November), the temperature was 35 degrees at the beginning of lunch.
Therefore, students were only outside at lunch for half of the normal allocated time as our policy states:
As mentioned in a previous Viewbank Voice, we also monitor the Melbourne Pollen app (from Melbourne University). This was the forecast for pollen on Wednesday:
We are also very mindful of the potential impact of thunderstorm asthma. At the time of writing this piece late Tuesday afternoon, the below was a forecast on the Melbourne Pollen app (provided by BOM) for thunderstorm asthma risk for Wednesday.
Did you know that there is an official Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) air monitoring site in Macleod? You can access this here: https://go.vic.gov.au/410OHOg
PARENTS AND FRIENDS This is just a reminder to please consider joining the Parents and Friends Committee in 2025, and potentially taking on the Presidency role. This is a School Governance requirement from the Department of Education. All things regarding Parent Clubs (or Parents and Friends Committee in our context) can be found here https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/parent-clubs/policy.
We are very grateful that Narelle Matton stepped into the P&F Presidency role mid-year after Kate Doran stood aside at the end of last year due to other commitments. Narelle made it clear that she could only commit to this for the remainder of this year and that we will require a new P&F President in 2025. Narelle and Kate are more than happy to discuss the position with anyone who may be interested in undertaking this role in 2025. A strong structure has been put in place over the past 3 years, with various sub-committees / working parties formed to organise events, such as the disco. Planning is well underway for Term 1 already!
If you and your family are on the roads this weekend, please be safe.
Have a great weekend!
Patrick
School Saving Bonus: On 26, 27, 28 November, parents and carers should have now received a second email from the Department of Education with their unique $400 bonus code. Families can now start spending on uniforms with A Plus Schoolwear in store or online and/or allocating to school activities.
Dear Parents & Carers,
Viewbank Primary School is excited to embark on another year of excellent teaching and learning and would like to share information about the Parent Payment Arrangements for 2025.
The arrangements for Curriculum and Other Contributions will be accessible on Compass from January. You will receive an email notification as soon as they are published.
Financial contributions from our families are essential in helping us provide the highest quality education and resources for our students. The learning environment and facilities we enjoy today are the result of the generosity and commitment of our parent community over many years. We value all forms of support, including financial contributions, participation in fundraising, and volunteering your time. Thank you in advance for your commitment to our school community.
For your convenience, all classroom supplies will be provided in bulk directly to classrooms, where teachers will distribute stationery and other items as needed.
Please refer to the attached 2025 Parent Payment Arrangements document for more detailed information.
Lucy Addati
BOOK CLUB Issue 8 catalogues have sent home. All orders are due by Thursday 28th of November. Every dollar you spend earns points to buy more books for the Library. Thank you for your support.
Need motivation for a pre-Christmas clear out?
Every year, more than 160,000 people get cancer. The Cancer Council supports all Australians affected by cancer through support, research and prevention programs and we would like to help them to do this.
The JSC will be having a Second Hand Toy Sale on Wednesday 11thDecember, to raise money for the Cancer Council. Every donation counts, and every donation could save a life.
If you have any spare toys that your children have outgrown, please consider donating them by passing on to your class JSC representative.
Thanks a million,
Ashleigh Walker (JSC Mentor) and the VPS Junior School Council
Mango Fundraiser Delivery – Mangoes Are Here! We are thrilled to announce that the mangoes have arrived and are ready for collection!
A big thank you to all the families who have participated in this fundraiser and have already picked up their mangoes from the school’s General Office. We hope you’re enjoying them!
If you haven’t yet collected your pre-ordered mangoes, please drop by the General Office to pick them up as soon as possible.
Thank you again for your support – it’s greatly appreciated!
Lower Plenty Bakehouse provide the school with fundraising Lunch Orders every Thursday. These lunches have been implemented via our Parents and Friends Committee. All money raised will be used towards our major school upgrade.
Our Term 4 Fundraising Lunch Order Dates are:
- Thursday 5th December (Orders closing on Monday 2nd December, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 12th December (Orders closing on Monday 9th December, 3:00pm)
- Thursday 19th December (Orders closing on Monday 16th December, 3:00pm)
Orders need to be placed in advance via Compass Canteen. Ordering will close the Monday before the lunch date at 3pm. All of Term 4 lunch dates are now open for orders and can be placed in advance for the whole term if you choose to do so.
Please see attached a Parent User Guide on how to order via Compass Canteen. Please note a 35 cents order fee will be charged at check out. All food is Halal.
Thank you for your support.
ICY POLE FRIDAY Students are able to purchase icy poles over the counter at lunchtime every Friday. All icy poles cost $1.00 each.
Entertainment Book 20% of the membership goes directly to support our fundraising at Viewbank Primary School. https://www.entertainment.com.au/current-promotion
Help Reduce Waste and Support Our School! - Purchase Your Name Labels Now Are you tired of losing lunch boxes and clothing? Please remember to always label your items so they can be returned to you, helping to reduce landfill. You can easily order labels via this link: https://www.mynamelabel.com.au/discount/VPS0515
This is a fundraising activity, and all funds raised will contribute to making our school more sustainable. You can order labels at any time throughout the year!
Our fundraising code is VPS0515.
Thank you for supporting sustainability at Viewbank Primary School!
Lunches must be ordered online using the CLASSROOM CUISINE website.
.
WEEKLY SECOND HAND UNIFORM SALE - Every Friday 3:00pm to 3:30pm, next to the music room. Jumpers with the school logo, long and short sleeve school polo tops and school dresses will be $2.00. We are currently asking for donations of any unwanted reusable school uniform items to sell at our stall.
SINGING WITH GABRIELLA - Gabriella
- Email: favrettogab@gmail.com
- Phone: 0413 676 733
STRINGS – Jack Cai
- Email: jack3bld@gmail.com
- Phone: 0426 665 044
STRINGS - MR CAI
- Email: cai66@optusnet.com.au
- Phone: 0403 490 078
GUITAR – Luca Brading
- Email: lucabrading@gmail.com
- Phone: 0422 690 842
PIANO/KEYBOARD/DRUMS - Daniel Tucceri
- Email: info@banyulemusicandtutoring.com
- Phone: 0405 667 908
Our school has partnered with an independent provider called TheirCare to provide exceptional Outside School Hours Care services for our school community.
The program is available for all children at Viewbank Primary School from 6:30am until 9:00am in the morning and from 3:30pm until 6:15pm each school day.
During School Holidays & Pupil Free Days the service will operate from 6:30am until 6:15pm.
Families wishing to use this service can visit the TheirCare website: www.theircare.com.au
Families are eligible for a Government Rebate called the Child Care Subsidy which can reduce the cost per session by up to 85%.
More information can be obtained by contacting the school or ringing TheirCare Support Team on 1300 072 410.
TheirCare provides a stimulating and safe environment for all children. During sessions, children develop life-skills, friendships, confidence and creativity through play-based programs.
A PLUS SCHOOLWEAR
Shop Details:
- Unit 3/30 Heaths Court, Mill Park
- T: 9436 4005
- E: info@northernregionaluniforms.com.au
Opening Hours:
- Monday to Thursday 9am to 5pm
- Friday 9am to 3pm
Online Ordering Please Visit: www.aplusschoolwear.com.au