Dear Craigslea Community,

I hope all our Craigslea Dad’s had a wonderful Father’s Day last Sunday.  It was great to see so many come into school to enjoy the OSHC BBQ breakfast and coffee. Thanks to the OSHC and P&C teams! This week starts our last fortnight of term 3. Our students and their teachers are busy finishing off this term’s learning.  It is exciting to see our students proudly share their learning at our Show & Shine afternoon again this term.

Once again, this term we will be using a speed dating style of interviews with all interviews taking place in the hall.  We ask that parents and families are respectful of interview times and ensure any children who attend interviews are sitting quietly with or nearby parents for the duration of their interviews.  I would like to extend a very big thank you to the P&C on behalf of the staff for providing our dinner for the evening.

STAR Team
This year our staff are working in teams to undertake action research to build their professional knowledge and skills and to enhance our school wide processes.  This week our teachers had their final STAR team meeting for the term.  As I visited each group it was wonderful to see our teachers actively leading research in a chosen field that will benefit the learning and school experience of our students.  Our teams are undertaking action research into:

• Inquiry learning
• Inclusion
• Reading
• Engagement
• Social and Emotional learning

Next term the teams will share their work with the whole staff and their learnings and recommendations will be fed into our 2025 improvement priorities.

Prep Playground
On Tuesday our prep students were very excited to have their first play in their upgraded play space.  It has been a long time coming but our preppies had a wonderful time exploring their new space. On Friday our 2025 Prep students will have an opportunity to play on this new playground as part of their transition into Craiglsea.  We are very appreciative of the support of our P&C to enable this upgrade to our play space.  

Year 6 Legacy Project
Last week, I spoke with our Year 6 cohort about a special project to leave behind a piece of their legacy as our 2024 seniors. We have engaged a mural artist to collaborate with the Year 6 students to design a mural that will cover the cool courts side of the OSHC building. Students and teachers are working together to gather design ideas by the end of this term, with the mural set to be planned and painted in the first half of Term 4. I am excited to see what our students create to represent their time as seniors at our school.

R U OK?  Day

On Thursday 12 September we will make time to ask R U Ok? R U Ok day reminds us of the importance of connecting with each other and letting each other know we are there to listen and support if and when it is needed.  Every meaningful conversation we engage in builds trust and normalises talking about what is going on so that we can reach out when we are struggling.

This is the last newsletter for Term 3.  Where oh where did Term 3 go!  It has been a term filled with many wonderful experiences and learning adventures for our students.  I would like to congratulate our staff and students on their efforts this term and thank them for their commitment to learning.  It is hard to believe term 4 is just around the corner.

Have a wonderful fortnight and a lovely spring holiday.

“Creativity is the ability to look at the ordinary and see the extraordinary” Dewitt Jones

Yours in Learning,

Melanie Rehm