The inaugural competition kicked off with a card game in Maths called ’31’ where winners gained points for their respective houses.

Then, on Friday afternoon the House Captains organised a soccer tournament where all Year 6s enjoyed the chance to play a round-robin fixture of matches. In section 2, McLeod defeated Davis in an entertaining final with a successful free kick from Jensen deciding the game. In section 1, there was a three-way tie between Bengalat, McLeod and Dan Dan Nook and the two grand final positions had to be decided via a tense penalty shoot-out with Mr Martino in goals. Dan Dan Nook and McLeod won their way into the final and after regular time (and the bell to go home), the scores were locked at 0-0. This game will be completed this week.

Yesterday, we also had our first House Spelling Bee with all Year 6s giving their best efforts at spelling a list of commonly misspelt words. In what was a trickier than expected exercise, we had three victorious students (Liam, Meg and Vianne) claim 20 valuable points for their houses.

Upcoming competitions will include Dodgeball, Debating, Chess, Basketball, Netball, Bootball, Times Tables and many others.

At this stage, the current standings are

McLeod – 110
Dan Dan Nook – 105
Davis – 80
Bengalat – 55

We had a great first week back in school. What stood out for me most was how confident the children were being back in school once their initial excitement / nervousness had worn off. This is a testament to the support the children received at home during remote learning. However challenging it was, and it was challenging in some form for everyone, the children have retained their confidence as learners. Thank you.

Now that the children are back in school we will be working out exactly where they are in their learning and working on a program to fill in any gaps. This is not a simple fix. Rather it is something that will take dedication and focus across the next five terms through to the end of 2021. Please be reassured that we will not lose our commitment or focus to delivering this.

In common with all Geelong government schools, Drysdale Primary will be closed for the Geelong Cup Holiday on Wednesday October 21st and again for Grand Final on Friday October 23rd.

We will be open on Thursday October 22nd which is also our Book Week dress up day. We have investigated holding our final pupil free day on the Thursday. However we have significant plans for this day which require it to be later in term 4 (Wednesday December 2nd).

Four of our students have been accepted into the newly launched Victorian High Abilities Program. Owen, Vianne and Guy in Year 6 and Axl  in Year 5 started their online lessons at the end of last week and the beginning of this week.

Drysdale Primary is well known for the quality of its Inclusion Program. Our over representation of students in this High Abilities Program shows that Inclusion extends to children working outside the average range at both ends of the spectrum.

In between everything else, it has ticked round to Term 4 and daylight saving. During this term children must wear their hat outside during recess, lunchtime and any sport activities. Please can they also bring their drink bottle especially on Phys Ed days.

We are accepting enrolments for Prep in 2024.

Our catchment has been extended to include any family living in Drysdale / Clifton Springs with a 3222 postcode.

Please visit this page of our website to access all the information and forms that you will need to enrol your child for 2024.

Each year the Department of Education runs a Parent Opinion Survey to give the parents of children attending government schools an opportunity to provide feedback to the school on a range of questions. This will be taking place over the next three weeks. Some parents, who have been selected randomly, will receive a link to the survey.

We are expecting to be able to reopen the Drysdale Market in November (15th). This is subject to restrictions in place at the time. It is exciting even to begin planning for a new market season. Jac Absolom is our market coordinator and has done a wonderful job continuing to liaise with the many market stall holders throughout the months of lockdown and other restrictions. The Drysdale Market was created by staff at Drysdale Primary School and has been run by staff and School Council ever since. This is one of the school’s main fundraisers. The money raised each year supports our well-being program.

At the end of last term the school had some automatic doors installed to the main building to improve accessibility for all. They look fantastic and have certainly been a talking point for staff and students as we have returned to onsite learning this term. The main office, disabled toilet and entrance points to both corridors from the undercover quiet space near the music room are now automated and have made our school even more inclusive for everyone.

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Due to COVID, we are having to be creative in ensuring our students receive a version of school photos for 2020. We will ensure that Prep and Year 6 students have individual and a class group photograph to mark the beginning and end of their primary school journeys, while Years 1-5 will receive a class group photo. Families will receive a digital copy of these via the Sentral portal to download. Please ensure that students are in full school uniform. A big thanks to Mr Kennedy who will be demonstrating his amazing photography skills and to Mrs Croxford who booked, rebooked and rebooked with Arthur Reed in the hope we could get the pictures taken! Unfortunately it wasn’t to be.

Year 6- Individual photographs and leaderships groups will be taken TOMORROW October 14th.
Prep- Class group and Individual Photographs will be taken October 27th.
Years 1-5- Class Group photographs will be taken October 28th.
Year 6- Class Group photographs will be taken October 28th.

Please find attached the Drysdale Primary School Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) information for students in Years 4, 5 and 6 in 2021. If your child already has a device, you do not need to buy a new one.

This is information for Years 4-6 in 2021 that do not have a device and students new to the school.

Please contact Nicole Alonso if you have any further questions.

BYOD 2021 Family Letter

JBS BYOD Parents Toolkit FINAL

To ensure that we keep our school community safe, please adhere to the guidelines that the Department of Education and Training, Safe Care Victoria and the Department of Health and Human Service Victorian have advised.

If your child is unwell or has cold symptoms however mild they must stay home.

Please read the attached information about how we can slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) in our school community.

Managing Illness in schools

Last week the Prep children celebrated ‘100 Days Brighter!’ We celebrated by dressing up in brightly coloured clothing and having an activity morning. We made ‘100 Days Brighter’ glasses and headbands, wore special ‘100 Days Brighter’ badges, participated in some maths activities involving the number 100 and we enjoyed some PE activities – we did 100 exercises!

Our celebration morning ended with an awards ceremony where each student received a certificate celebrating their achievement of being ‘100 Days Brighter’ and a special treat bag.

Please read more to see some photos

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The ANZ Tennis Hot Shots Racquet Roadshow is again providing 30,000 racquets to Foundation students around Australia, thanks to ANZ and Tennis Australia. We are one of 832 lucky schools to be receiving racquets.

It’s a great opportunity to get our kids moving, both at home and at school! The Foundation students have also been given a special certificate to take home to celebrate their new tennis racquets.

It’s that time of the year where we need to finalize our school magazine orders! If you want to order a school magazine or confirm that you have ordered one, please email the school at drysdale.ps@education.vic.gov.au. The magazine costs $18, all orders need to be placed and paid for by end of October.

Guess what is coming soon to DPS?!

It’s our annual Book Week dress up day! Book Week will be held in Week 3 this term and our staff are possibly even more excited than our students!

Students are invited to dress up on Thursday, 22nd October as their favourite character from a book (don’t forget that Wednesday 21st and Friday 23rd are Public Holidays and the school will be closed on those days).

We remind families that due to the Covid-19 situation we will be unable to host our usual, highly anticipated parade in the school hall. Staff are developing a plan so that all students can enjoy the morning and still see all the amazing costumes worn by other students!

In Year 6 this term, we are looking at using social media and the internet for positive purposes. This has has been such a critical topic as so many of us have had to rely on technology to learn, connect and socialise over the recent lockdowns.

This coincided perfectly with both World Mental Health Day (10 October) and a recent global report regarding online abuse that was prominent in the news last week.

The Free to be Online report surveyed 14,000 girls aged 15-25 from 33 countries. In Australia, the poll found that two-thirds of the 1000 young women had experienced some form of online harassment, with most girls starting to experience this from the ages of 12-16.

After reading through the findings of the report and discussing what we could do about it, we then looked at six simple tips on how to use social media in a positive way from Beyond Blue. These tips are very simple and are a terrific tool to reframe anyone’s (not just kids) social media use to ensure that it is a positive experience rather than a negative one.

Following on from this work, we are excited to have Project Rockit delivering an incursion sequence of four half-hour webinars that support our students to explore how to safely and positively engage with the digital world. Practical strategies will be shared to build digital wellbeing and learn how to grow awesome friendships and connection – on and offline. Through engaging exercises, our students will grow their leadership skills to create positive action online, in a time where all of our actions can make a difference.

It has been so good to see children back at OSHC, many children have been enthusiastically reuniting with their friends that they haven’t seen. The children are certainly eager to head off to class at the end of Before School Care at the moment, eager to catch up with their classmates once again. The children have been enjoying engaging in many different activities at OSHC, including Tennis, Friendship Bracelet Making, dramatic play, scoop catch, chalk drawing and playing card games against each other. We celebrated being back together at OSHC with a balloon party (balloons were only blown up using a pump to avoid spreading of germs). We’re going back in time this week at Before and After School care with our theme for this week being Dinosaurs.

We ask that parents please wear their masks when dropping off and collecting their children from the service, and to avoid touching things while in the OSHC to minimise the risk of spreading. We also would like children to fetch their bags from the bag area, rather than parents. It is possible that we may need to have the OSHC door locked during session times and have some sort of doorbell system for parents to alert educators that they are there, but we are still looking into the logistics involved in this.

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