Days of Acknowledgement

September 21^st – World Gratitude Day

Although it will be during the holidays, on World Gratitude Day we promote families and students to take a moment to reflect on the things they are thankful for. Whether this be a loving environment, a sense of support, a place that feels safe. IEPS is thankful for its strong sense of community, teachers, families and creating a space where peoples differences are celebrated and individuals feel they belong.

October – Walk to School Month

This initiative was created to encourage healthy and active lifestyles. Being active assists our mental health, our mood and self-esteem and our connection to community. During this month IEPS will not be acknowledging this formally but we promote students enjoying the spring weather – whether this be walking to and from school, participating in sport or simply playing outside and enjoying the sunny weather.

October 5^th – World Teacher’s Day

On International Teacher’s Day, although this occurs during our holidays we reflect on everything our teachers have done for us as individuals and for our school. As we know, teaching is a hugely personal job, these individuals put a lot of themselves into their classroom and supporting students academically and emotionally. We will say another thank you to our teachers on Australian Teacher’s Day later in the month. For now, we hope that our teachers are enjoying a restful few weeks off before preparing for a big and exciting term 4!

IEPS FAIR 2024

Join us for the 2024 Ivanhoe East Primary School Fair - Where Magic Happens!

Get ready for a day of enchantment and fun on Saturday, 30th November, from 11am to 6pm!

This year's fair is packed with exciting activities for the whole family, including thrilling carnival rides like the Super Slide, Cyclone, Teacups and Nerf Van.

Indulge in mouth watering food trucks, relax at our lively bar and enjoy captivating stage performances.  Explore our magical stalls, offering everything from sweet treats at Candyland to beautiful plants and homemade cakes.  Don't miss out on the fun crafts, fair games and even a chance to get your hair and nails done!

The IEPS Fair promises a day full of wonder and excitement.  Secure your tickets now and join us where magic happens!

https://www.trybooking.com/1281888

Fair Fundraising link below:

This year, we have set an important goal: to raise funds to resurface our outdoor basketball court, a space that plays a vital role in the lives of our students and community members. The cost of this process is ballparked at $100,000 so we are well aware that it is going to be no easy feat to achieve this.

We would like to invite you and your family to support this initiative by making a donation through this fundraising page.

Every contribution, no matter the size, will help us create a safer and more enjoyable environment for everyone.

https://www.trybooking.com/au/donate/resurfacebbcourts

IEPS School DISCO - Thursday 17 October

Theme is crazy socks. Tickets include entrance and two glow sticks per student.
Students to bring a water bottle. There will be an area on a table per class for these.
No food will be provided and students are asked NOT to bring food.
Staff will check students in at the door and supervise.

Parents to arrive 15 minutes prior to allow for check in time. Parents to collect promptly.

Junior Disco details below:

https://www.trybooking.com/CVPOV

Senior Disco details below:

https://www.trybooking.com/CVPPB

2025 Enrolments & Exits

As per the Department's timeline, enrolments have now closed for 2025. If you want to enrol your child for 2025, please contact Carmel Sitilidis, our Enrolment Coordinator, carmel.sitilidis@education.vic.gov.au as soon as possible so we can discuss the options in place with you. Furthermore we ask that you let us know if you are moving or have enrolled in another school in 2025. We require this information as soon as possible to establish grade structures for the start of the new school year. If your child is currently in Prep-5 and will not be at IEPS in 2025, please notify carmel.sitilidis@education.vic.gov.au in writing as soon as possible.

Middle School Side Gate – access to Staff Carpark

Students are not permitted to use the staff carpark entry to the Middle School unless accompanied by an adult.

Extension for 2024 Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey

As you may be aware our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey and is seeking your feedback. The survey, offered by the Department of Education, is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement.

On Wednesday, August 21^st in the afternoon we re-sent all parents listed as ‘Parent A’ on Compass an invitation with their unique code to complete the survey via email from Carmel Sitilidis. If you have misplaced this, please reach out and we can resend this invitation to you.

Your opinions are important to us and will contribute to celebrating areas of success and identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies. The department will use the results from the survey for research purposes and to improve outcomes for students.

We currently only have 34% of our community that have responded. As you can see below the %s of representation in some year levels are quite low. I strongly encourage you to complete this survey at your earliest convience, it can be completed on any device and only takes roughly 20 minutes.

Thank you in advance.

Victorian State School Spectacular

OSHClub Holiday Program

Refer to flyer below and if you are intending to book in for the school holiday program, please do so at your earliest convenience so OSHClub can staff the program accordingly.

IEPS Policy Update

As mentioned last week, we have recently completed a Department of Education Policy Audit and we are fully compliant with all Department policies.

Parent Requests for 2024 Classes - (Closes Friday 18^th of October)

As we continue to meet the needs of the students at our school we have already begun the complex task of workforce planning for the 2025 year; considering budgets, teacher requests, staffing changes, and student numbers.

This is the time of the year when we start to explore class structures and carefully consider the best resourcing to meet student needs. As mentioned above, to do this we need to have an accurate understanding of student numbers in each level.

If you know of any families who will be moving into the area and will have children enrolling at Ivanhoe East Primary School for next year, please ask them to make urgent contact with the school. Likewise, please let us know if your family is moving and/or your children will not be returning to IEPS in 2025. 

Throughout October & November, we will be working on our class structures and student combinations for next year. A great deal of thought, planning and time goes into placing students into classes. Every effort is made to place each child in a learning environment that is engaging, caring and productive and each student will be able to nominate up to 5 learning friends for their 2025 class. Also, each student will be guaranteed to receive at least 1 learning friend in their 2025 class.

As you may understand, the allocation of students to new classes is an intricate task and one that requires patience and a great deal of thought. The method used to create classes at IEPS is quite an in-depth analytical process that involves a multitude of variables. These variables include each student’s academics, learning needs, student pairings, behavioural aspects, parent requests, friendship requests and their specific classroom teacher’s observations and judgements. Rest assured even though this is a complex process as mentioned above, each student will have at least one of their requested learning friends in their 2025 class.

Parents may choose to request their child to be with (or not with) another student based on education needs, or if there may have been a past incident or negative history with another student. Parents may request something like having their child separated from a good friend to help them focus or have the opportunity to make new friends. Please note that parent requests must fit the above category and will be taken into consideration, however it is not possible to guarantee that all requests can be met.

Parent input/friendship requests will be open for 6 weeks and will need to be submitted directly to me by 5pm Friday 18th of October (End of Week 2 – Term 4) via email to tom.boyle@education.vic.gov.au. Any request received after this date will unfortunately not be able to be taken into consideration, due to the complexities involved and the strict timeline for class creation.

Please note that while we take any information you provide into consideration, the final decisions regarding your child’s placement rest with the teaching staff and leadership team. Furthermore, once classes are finalised there will be no changes made to those class structures.

School Saving Bonus

Dear parents and carers,

In Term 4, 2024, families with a child enrolled in a government school from Prep to Year 12 in 2025 will receive the one-off $400 School Saving Bonus.

The $400 School Saving Bonus provides families with support for education-related costs, such as school activities and/or school uniforms and textbooks.

The School Saving Bonus is not available for full-fee international students, home schooled students, TAFE students and students attending kindergarten in 2025.   

Actions for parents and carers

Before 18 October 2024, the Department of Education is asking parents and carers to:

• Complete enrolment: If your child, or children are changing government school for Term 1 2025, or starting Prep or Year 7 in 2025. For more information, read about Enrolling in School. 
• Check your contact information: Ensure your email address and phone number is up to date with us. You can check this information by contacting us directly.

We need to ensure your contact information is up to date as the Department of Education will email you twice:

• in October, to verify your email address
• in November, with your $400 School Saving Bonus and access to an online system.

Please check your junk mail regularly to make sure you do not miss an important email.

To learn more about the School Saving Bonus, download the School Saving Bonus Information sheet for government school parents and carers or visit vic.gov.au/school-saving-bonus.

Social media affecting our kids

 By Alicia L 3H

These days a lot of our kids can’t get off their devices. They have been obsessed with social media. That includes Tiktok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. Our kids are now on their phones 24/7. They’re on their phones at home, at school, public transport and anywhere else, you name it.

Creating the apps

People who create social media apps like to make them addicting. That’s also why kids ask for more device time or to buy more devices which cost a ton of money.

The danger of comments

Also, in social media you give comments that could hurt people’s feelings and makes them feel uncomfortable, it makes them want to change themselves to make other random people like them.

Scamming

Scamming. It’s one of the most dangerous things on social media. If you don’t know what scamming (scam) means when someone post something online and you say this table is for let’s say $30 and you pay for it and they say I’ll give you the table tomorrow and they never do so that’s what scamming means.

Cyber bullying

The other danger about social media is cyber bullying. Since on social media you have accounts and you can’t see the real people that comment it’s so much easier to cyber bully.

Look at the bright side

The only good thing about social media is that your kids can communicate with their friends if they live overseas.

I hope you learnt a lot about social media and cyber bullying. Be sure to take care of your kids about all these things.

Lost Bike - Is this your bike?

There has been a bike left outside a house on Warncliffe road. If this belongs to you or someone you know, please contact the school office on 9499 2171.

It was a pleasure coaching the IEPS volleyball teams this term, with Miss Silvestro (subbed for Miss Posar). All players improved and started to develop an understanding of volleyball.

Both teams were excited to make it to finals day, the girls in second spot and boys in sixth. We unfortunately didn't progress past our first games in finals. The girls had a tough game, whilst missing some key players who were at Spec. The boys played one of their best games of the season, pipped by just two points in the deciding set.

Throughout the season, the boys were enthusiastic, tenacious and talkative! Luckily volleyball requires a lot of communication, so that was handy. ?
Ben and Dom moved quickly around the court, calling, digging with control and pushing the ball nice and deep as planned.
Aren was our most consistent server and showed great ball control.
Vinnie and Finn were consistent servers and team contributors.
Harry, Henry and Taj showed their strengths in front court, keeping rallies competitive.
Charlie was a steady server and player, cool and calm.
William's serving developed to being unstoppable and his digging and calling aided the whole team's defence.
Oscar and Jake attacked strongly with spikes that rapidly won points.

The girls' confidence grew as the season progressed. They were positive and supportive of each other, showing friendly teamwork.
Angelica, Kaira and Miya focused sharply when serving, communicated well and contacted the ball well during rallies.
Alexa persisted with her serving and setting, with wonderful growth in confidence.
Florence improved her digging, developing great passes.
Lily led the defence in back court, moved well to attack and performed with consistently strong serving.
Milena and Liliana showed their strengths in front court, contributing well to points.
Sophia joined the team as the sixth player for finals day (filling in for missing players), finding her serving groove with a great run of aces.

I encourage players to continue with volleyball at school in year 7 next year or at local clubs. They will be able to learn a deeper level of volleyball and have lots of fun.

Briony, Oscar's Mum

Reminders

Footy day - 20th September (last day of term 3)

Kelly Sports @ IEPS

Kelly Sports is partnering with Ivanhoe East Primary School and is offering a new multi-sport program from Week 7-10 of this term. 

This will be a Prep to Grade 4 offered program running on Tuesday afternoons from 3.40pm - 4.40pm. Kelly Sports will be using this initiative to see what interest there is at the school before introducing a further 3 programs in Term 4, featuring the possibility of 2x lunchtime activities and adding another afternoon session, as well as keeping their multi sports program.

Benefits for families and the school 

• 40% New Balance voucher for all families that register
• Sibling and Multi program discounts  

More information to come later in Term 3. In the meantime, if the above is of interest to you and your child, we ask that you sign up at your earliest convenience with the first session starting Tuesday week.

Exploring Emotions Through Art: A Rainbow of Feelings

During Art lessons, students from all year levels have delved into the fascinating world of emotions through visual art. Our primary goal has been to deepen our understanding of emotions. By creating art that embodies a ‘Rainbow of Feelings’, we aim to cultivate empathy, encourage self-expression and foster stronger connections within our school community.

During the Rainbow of Feelings unit, Year 3 to 6 students explored various pairs of emotions, using them as inspiration for their artistic creations. This has allowed them to authentically express themselves through different art mediums of their choice. Similarly, Prep to Year 2 students focused on facial expressions, body posture, colour, line and texture to create artworks that capture a range of feelings.

We are excited to showcase the series of upcoming art displays throughout the main school building this term. These exhibitions will showcase the diverse spectrum of emotions explored by our students, reflecting self-discovery and creativity.

We welcome our community to celebrate this demonstration of artistic expression and emotional exploration by viewing some of our Rainbow of Feelings displays in our main building breezeway from Week 5 (12th August).

• Week 5 – 7 (12th to 30th August)             Love/Pride & Scared/Worried
• Week 8 - 10 (2nd to 20th September)   Excited/Happy & Angry/Frustrated

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