07-Oct-2022
Dear Families
It has been wonderful to be back at school and seeing so many students and families back on-site again after the break. I hope that the time away from school was rewarding and enjoyable.
Term 4 is a longer than usual Term (12 weeks) and it is packed with learning, events and excitement. Please take the time to check out the calendar to see what’s on
Term 4 Calendar 2022 (as of 10/06/2022)
Of considerable importance are the events scheduled for the morning of Friday December 16 when we will launch on new School House names following a smoking ceremony and Welcome to Country from a Bunurong Elder. Our student leaders have invested considerable time and energy to get to the point we are at now, and on Tuesday they will present our journey so far to our school Council. I encourage all families to stay around after school drop off, grab a coffee and witness how our students have upheld this year’s Reconciliation week motto – Be Brave. Make Change.
For our Year 6 students, this will be their final term with us before moving on to Secondary school and for a number of our staff, it will likewise be their final few months with us.
Why is this Term a 12 week term and why is the last day of the Victorian School year on a Tuesday?
School term dates are determined by the Minister for Education in 5 year blocks to assist school planning.
The Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017 require the Minister for Education to determine the days on which a government school is required to be open for attendance by students.
No two School term dates are ever the same and this year is no exception. Our students’ last day is on Monday December 19 – with the following day being a Student free day with a focus for staff on data and assessment analysis and preparation for the start of the 2023 year.
Tuesday December 19 marks the 200th day of the school year as well as our 4th official Student free day.
The length of Term 4 is a result of a shorter than usual Term 2 this year (9 weeks). You may notice in the dates included below that Term 1 in 2024 is super short (8 weeks) and the start and end dates are based around the following criteria:
- there are four school terms
- the school year is 200 days
- the Australia Day holiday occurs before students return to school
- the first term vacation is to coincide with Easter
that, as far as possible, a consistent pattern be maintained from one five-year block to the next.
One example of the sometimes odd dates occurs next year when our students and staff will return from the Easter
break for 1 day before there is an ANZAC Day public holiday.
More information is on the Department’s website: School term dates and holidays in Victoria (education.vic.gov.au)
and future school term dates are included at the end of these notes.
Student Free days
This term we have 2 Student free days. The first of these is on Monday October 31 with staff undertaking professional learning on Writing.
The last of our allocated student free days will be on the final day of the term – Tuesday December 20 – with a staff focus on assessment and data analysis of their new classes in preparation for 2023.
These dates have been identified to cause as little disruption to student learning as possible and acknowledges the length of the term and the fatigue that many students will experience because of the cumulative effect of interruptions to learning over the last 2 years.
TeamKids will be available on both days if required.
NAPLAN Results
The tables below indicate the percentage of students who have achieved results in the Highest 2 bands on each domain of the NAPLAN testing. It is included here as the figures are well worth celebrating. Consistently our students have outperformed students in similar schools (same student numbers and socio-economic backgrounds) and while not perfect, they help to show we are on the right track with plenty of our programs and teaching methods. There is still work to be done – and we’ve started to do that work , but for now let’s applaud our students and staff for their efforts.
Furthermore, the data shows that over the last 5 years, this year’s is the highest it has been in 8 of the 10 Domains-AMAZING!
Top 2 Bands Year 3
The mean scores of our students this year in all bar two of the Domains are the highest they have been at any point over the last 5 years. A very pleasing data set that gives us a great base to build on in the coming months and years.
The mean scores for our school over the last 5 years Year 3
The mean scores for our school over the last 5 years Year 5
An interesting news item appeared during the week and in the interests of student safety, it is worth noting the focus of the article that informed us about the increasing use of electric scooters and the legalities around these. We absolutely love our students riding and scooting to school and making use of our bike compound. It certainly helps reduce traffic in the area and above all else we want our students to travel safely to and from school. Our year 5s will embark upon a Bike Education program as part of our safety measures and we encourage anyone whose child rides an electric scooter to read information included in this link from VicRoads.
Future term dates
2023 Victorian school term dates |
||
| 2023 Victorian school term dates | ||
| 2023 | Start date | Finish date |
| Term 1 | 27 January (students start 30 January in government schools) | 6 April |
| Term 2 | 24 April | 23 June |
| Term 3 | 10 July | 15 September |
| Term 4 | 2 October | 20 December |
2024 Victorian school term dates |
||
| 2024 Victorian school term dates | ||
| 2024 | Start date | Finish date |
| Term 1 | 29 January (students start 30 January in government schools) | 28 March |
| Term 2 | 15 April | 28 June |
| Term 3 | 15 July | 20 September |
| Term 4 | 7 October | 20 December |
2025 Victorian school term dates |
||
| 2025 Victorian school term dates | ||
| 2025 | Start date | Finish date |
| Term 1 | 28 January (students start 29 January in government schools) | 4 April |
| Term 2 | 22 April | 4 July |
| Term 3 | 21 July | 19 September |
| Term 4 | 6 October 19 | December |
Enrolments
We will be close to the 500 mark in 2023. We will still have 23 classes and there is still plenty of interest in enrolling at our school- we welcomed 7 new students on Day 1 of Term 4.The ‘school zoning’ that is being enforced for us in 2023 means that new students must be ‘in zone’ or have a sibling currently enrolled with us at Edithvale. The numbers below may change slightly with families arriving or departing and the table is provided as a guide.Whichever way we slice and dice the placement of classes, it can not be perfect next year and as much as we try and group grades geographically, one or two Year levels will have classes in different buildings.
We continue to lobby the department for more buildings and significant infrastructure funding to help us manage the ever changing (and growing) school landscape
Kind regards,
James Whitla
I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet, the Bunurong- members of the eastern
Kulin Nations – and pay my respects to elders past present and emerging. I wish to acknowledge all First Nations
people in the room and pay respects to them. I note further that these lands were never ceded and are, and always
will be, Aboriginal Lands.