How lucky are we at Havenview Primary School to have such a magnificent environment that truly enables us to be able to experience the changes of seasons so closely. As the days stretch out, our gardens are definitely springing to life and I encourage you all to take the time to walk out track and notice with your children the changes that you see in our environment.

Speaking of changes, those occuring to our buildings are also well underway. The Open Learning Area is complete, and staff are eagerly awaiting an improvement in the weather so we can start to introduce students to this great addition to our school. The contemporary classroom work is also progressing, but unfortunately the works around the 2/3 class have become rather noisy, making a  move to the hall a necessity for the interim. A huge thank you to Mrs Costello, Mrs Mason and Jeremy for their work in making this move and also to the 2/3 class for the responsible way they have dealt with the change. We need to ask that parents are mindful of the move and the proximity of these students to the CAFÉ; as such, from now on could you please use the staff toilets in the main building to minimise the movement through the hall and any potential disruption to the class.

Recently there has been some discussion around school uniform. It was noted in our Monday Morning Meeting that our students always look fantastic with the top part of their uniform – a wonderful sea of blues and maroon. Given the challenge of getting clothes clean and dry, especially during the winter months, we are highly appreciative of the efforts of our parents to achieve this. However, the bottom half of our uniform is not meeting the standard of the upper half. As such, could we please remind everyone that navy is the identified colour for pants, shorts and skorts. In regard to footwear and socks, please discourage the wearing of those socks and shoes that ‘stand out.’ Mr Murfet and Ms Maartensz both love a good pair of socks with golF clubs for Mr Murfet and dogs for Ms Maartensz being the preference, however, we are not advocating for their presence at school. The wearing of uniform demonstrates our sense of belonging and pride in ourselves as a united community of learners; it also removes the potential ‘elitism’ and feelings of shame that can be felt when choice in clothing becomes the accepted norm in a school. I recently became aware of a student who felt so pressured that their shoes were not a popular brand that they used all their ‘birthday money’ to buy a pair of ‘trendy’ shoes. Imagine the heartbreak this child felt when they were told their shoes were fake anyway. Additionally, experienced teachers will quickly identify ‘out of uniform’ days as ones where unexpected student behaviours escalate – as such, we do not wish our uniform standards to slip and seek your support in this matter.

The School Satisfaction Survey is now available for families to complete. We would be grateful if you completed our online survey about Havenview Primary School. Your feedback is very important to help us inform our school-planning and decision-making. Last year we had a whopping 54 families complete the survey. With a focus on continual improvement, you will not be surprised to read that we are aiming for a greater number of families to complete the survey this year. The link to the survey is provided below. Once you have completed the survey, please encourage others to do the same.

Here is the online survey Link.                                                                                                                                  

Alternatively, copy and paste this web address into your browser: https://ncv.microsoft.com/QJ1cWZDXBQ

Finally, a reminder that 3-minute noodles (and the like) can only be brought to school, if they are in a thermos, with the water added at home. This eliminates the safety risk of students moving throughout the school with hot boiling water.