IEPS Cross Country 2024 – Years 3-6

Firstly, I acknowledge that this information was not communicated to our community at the end of last term. As you are aware we have conducted a communication audit, as part of this audit we are updating our website calendar a term ahead and providing further information for events at least 2 weeks in advance. In this instance, this was not the case due to calendars not syncing correctly and this has been rectified for future events. Our term calendar via our website will be synced tomorrow with all future upcoming events. 

On Monday, April 22^nd IEPS will hold the annual Cross Country run down at Chelsworth Park. This event will commence at 1:00pm and conclude by 3:00pm. This is an event that all students from years 3 to 6 will be involved in and all students are expected to have a go at making their way around the course (whether they choose to walk or run).
In addition, students will be allocated house points for completing the course and all students are encouraged to wear their house colours. The top 10 boys and girls from each age group will be invited to attend IDSSA District Cross Country which takes place on Monday, May 13^th at Chelsworth Park. 

As always, it is great to have parent volunteers to stand around the track as markers and to encourage our students as they make their way around. If you are able to assist please fill out the form via the link below.

Cross Country Volunteers Form

April is Autism Acceptance Month

This year at Ivanhoe East Primary School, Zoe our school psychologist has presented multiple professional learnings to our school improvement team and all staff. Furthermore on Monday of this week during our curriculum day we spent half the day working with Calm at the Forefront who worked with staff on ‘Understanding Neurodiversity. Solution-based strategies for "That moment" and Self care.’ We also have a range of staff who are undertaking Professional Learning in Neurodiversity support in classrooms.

Furthermore we have extended the time fraction of our School Psychologist and appointed Joanna King as a Learning Specialist whose portfolio is based on engagement and wellbeing with a focus on inclusive practices which has bolstered our education support team. In addition we have extended our PIVOT platform from years 3-6 to across the whole school. This is where we gather data on our students' emotional and social well-being and prioritise weekly team meetings with a focus on unpacking this social & emotional well-being data and discussing supports for our students.

Over the next two weeks regarding Autism Acceptance Month, we will be focusing on shifting from mere ‘autism awareness’ to ‘autism acceptance’ which aims to demonstrate to autistic people that they are whole-heartedly accepted with their strengths and differing needs. Unfortunately autistic people have long been stigmatised and marginalised in society, making it harder for them to interact with the world around them – but times are changing! As we become more aware of the strengths and talents of autistic individuals, we’re also learning how to create more accommodating and supportive environments for them.

Over the month of April we will be talking about neurodiversity with a focus on autism. We are mentioning it here in the bulletin, raising it at assembly, having class discussions, and doing activities that will be tailored for each class. To break down the stigma we need to increase our understanding of autism and the many ways people with autism can present. It truly is a spectrum and no two people with autism are alike.

“We should celebrate neurodiversity – the world would be poorer and life duller if we were all the same”.  (Neil Milliken, Global Head of Accessibility at ATOS)

Neurodiversity is a way to describe the differences in the way peoples’ brains work, often referring to people with autism. There is no “correct” way for a brain to work, there are simply different ways that people perceive the world and interact with it. While it is important to acknowledge that autistic people experience challenges, we also need to celebrate and embrace their many strengths.

PTFA AGM

We will be conducting the AGM for PTFA on Tuesday 23^rd of April at 2.30pm. This will be in person as well as the option for interested members to log on online. The AGM is open to any parent or guardian of a child attending the school or any other interested individual of the immediate school community.  Please email me directly by COB Friday to register to be part of our 2024 PTFA and confirm your attendance to our AGM. All office bearer positions will be declared vacant at the Annual General Meeting and shall be open to any Registered Member of the Club/Association. Office bearers will be elected to office for a period until the next Annual General Meeting and those officer bearers will be a President, Secretary and Treasurer.

Communication Audit

Thank you to those of you from our community who provided their feedback on school communication, as we ended up with 35% of our community completing the survey. The feedback is currently being unpacked and will be shared and discussed at our community engagement sub committee meeting, presented to school council and then any changes will be communicated with our community. We foresee the feedback being shared with our community in our Week 3 bulletin, in a fortnights time.

School Council Sub-Committees 2024 (Final reminder)

As part of our 2024 School Council our Subcommittees are advisory bodies to the school council, they assist council with performing their duties and functions, and are established to support school council in specific areas.

Subcommittee membership is open to non-school-council members as we provide the opportunity for the school community to be involved in school council matters. However the school council decides the purpose and terms of reference of a subcommittee, has the final responsibility for decisions and subcommittees cannot make decisions on behalf of the school council.

Our Subcommittees for 2024 are as follows:

• Policy: Currently have 5 members. Will usually be conducted through email correspondence with occasional virtual meetings as required. This committee is overseen by Amanda Dwyer.
• Finance: Currently have 5 members. Will meet virtually in the days/weeks before every School Council meeting. This committee is overseen by Josh Hunter.
• Community Engagement: Currently have 6 members. Will meet either virtually or face to face in the days/weeks before every School Council meeting. This committee is overseen by Tom Boyle.

If you are interested in joining any of the School Council Subcommittees, please inform me via email by COB Thursday 18^th of April.

2024 Fair Committee (Final Reminder)

The Fair date is Saturday, November 30^th. We have 2x staff representatives already in place and we will be engaging with an event manager for the School Fair who will run all of the behind the scenes work. The 2024 Fair Committee will run very differently and will not require the heavy lifting of past committees, instead it will work out the theme, the rides, the food, and in summary what we want the day to look like and feature. We will also be looking to engage with our IEPS community as we have many experts, skill sets, local businesses to support, and this will be another role of the committee.

In the past the role of Class Reps has been tasked with organising the year level stall. Our event manager will be doing all of the main organising in the background and the class rep will be required to put together the rosters for the stall for the day.

If you are interested in joining the Fair Committee please email me directly before the end of this week, COB on Friday 19^th April.

Assembly Update 

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