After a longer term, school will finish on Friday 4 July at 2:30 p.m. School resumes after the holidays on Tuesday 22 July, as Monday 21 July is a student-free day. TeamKids will offer child care on that day, if there is sufficient interest. 

Finally, a timely reminder to all families to please register for TeamKids Out of School Care. Registration is free and it's essential to register your child/ren before you ever need to use this service.

Our Vision:    Learn   •   Thrive  •   Contribute

The last component of our Capital Works project, the reinstatement and extension of the Northern Playground, is in its final stages. Carpenters and landscapers have installed the timber walkway, concrete paths, irrigation system and extensive rock work and terracing over the last few weeks. Drainage and planting is being completed and, once the grass can withstand student use, we will reopen this area.

         

Over the break, concrete slabs and an outdoor shed will be installed on the western side of the Senior School building, near the bike shed. This will become our new 'Play Pod', filled with outdoor construction equipment for lots of student collaboration and fun.

• Replacement of the synthetic turf on the Sports/Basketball court adjacent to the Senior School. Synthetic turf has a limited life and we set aside funds each year to replace these areas. After replacing the running track in 2022, it's now time to rejuvenate this area. As our oldest area of turf, it has started to deteriorate.
• Rejuvenation of the Sensory Garden near the northern ramp to the office. We will remove some sections that have emerging safety concerns, as well as replacing these with new sensory equipment and a rubberised surface. Our Parents Group has chosen this as their major fundraising focus this year. Thank you Parents Group!
• Restoring the soccer area to the space between the oval and sports court. The soccer goals were removed in 2023 to allow temporary classrooms on the oval. This area will now be levelled, finished with synthetic turf and lines, with the soccer goals reinstalled. Fantastic!

Our Vision:    Learn   •   Thrive  •   Contribute

Learn more about Mel, the LPS TeamKids Director of Service, by clicking here.

More details about TeamKids can be found on our new website TeamKids page, under the "Our School" tab. We have recently added Family Handbooks and Vacation Care flyers to that page.

Registration is free, but essential, before your child can attend the service from 7 July 2025.

New to TeamKids?

• Visit www.teamkids.com.au, select our school’s program, and follow the enrolment instructions to register your child and add bookings.
• Our school's direct link is 
  https://www.teamkids.com.au/venues/laburnum-primary-oshc/
• Parents can now register and book in for Before, After and Vacation Care.

Used TeamKids before?

• Contact TeamKids’ Customer Service Team to link your account to our school. Once linked, you’ll just need to add your desired bookings.

TeamKids’ friendly local Customer Service team is always ready to assist. If you have any questions or need support, please reach out via:

• Email: info@teamkids.com.au
• Phone: 1300 035 000 (press #1)

Our Vision:    Learn   •   Thrive  •   Contribute

• A semesterly written report in an accessible form that is easy for parents/carers to understand.
• (As previously) schools must report directly against the Victorian Curriculum F–10 achievement standards.
  In 2025, our teachers will report against the new English 2.0 and Mathematics 2.0, as well as parts of the new Performing Arts 2.0 curriculum (Drama, Dance and Music this year).
  Other curriculum areas are required to be phased in next year, including EAL 2.0 (English as an Additional Language). Until then, we will continue using our previous report arrangements for these areas.
• Both student achievement and progress must be included in the report, as we have previously done. This means that for each curriculum area taught, the report includes:
  • a teacher judgement (score)
  • an indication of progress since the curriculum area was last reported on
  • a five-point scale.
• Opportunities for parents/carers and students to discuss the school report with teachers and/or school leaders. To enable this to occur as soon as possible after reports are published, we are moving our Term 3 Parent Teacher meetings to Weeks 1 and 2 of next term.
  Our teachers will be ready to discuss next steps for your children, particularly in English and Maths, in place of the written comments previously provided.

• Personal and Social Capabilities will have teacher comments, reflecting their overall importance and impact on learning;
• EAL (English as an Additional Language), which will list next step/s;
• Inquiry/Science.

Attendance will continue to be profiled.

Reports will be published to Sentral on or by Friday 4 July.

Our Vision:    Learn   •   Thrive  •   Contribute

Student Reports 

Please click here to view instructions on how to access your child's Semester 1 report, available through Sentral by the last day of this term.


Dates for Parent - Teacher Meetings:
Thursday 24 July & Tuesday 29 July
Thursday 31 July & Monday 4 August (with EAL interpreter) 

In Weeks 1 and 2 next term, we are offering appointments via Webex for parents/carers to meet with their child’s teacher individually. After your child's Semester 1 Report is published on Sentral at the end of this term, the July and August meetings provide an opportunity for you to discuss the next steps in their learning.

These appointments will run for 10 minutes, as usual, and parents should wait in the online 'Webex lobby' for teachers to admit them to the meeting. Change-over time between meetings will allow the teacher to be ready for their next Webex meeting.

As specialist teachers have limited appointments available, please only book to meet with your child's teachers if you need to. Specialist bookings are one per family, not per student. 
Please note the following specialist areas will be available for appointments: 
* PE with Shazan Marikar, only for those students he teaches
* Performing Arts with Jenny Simmons
* Art with April Farlow
* Library with Wendy Keogh
There are no interviews for PE with Ms Rachel Yue, who is on leave for the remainder of the year, or Spanish, as Mrs Jami Richards is teaching Year 2A.

If you need more time with a particular teacher for any reason, you are welcome to arrange a separate meeting or phone call outside of these dates and times.

If you require an interpreter, please notify the office via email by 4 p.m. on Wednesday 23 July. Meetings with our Chinese interpreter will be held during the day on Thursday 31 July and Monday 4 August. Hui Lin will email those parents with details. 

Except for EAL interpreter meetings, all other families should book online:
Visit the Sentral Parent Portal and click on the Parent-Teacher meetings tab.

Opening and Closing Dates

Bookings will open on Friday 11 July 2025 at 5:00pm. 
Bookings will close on Sunday 20 July at 5.00 pm.

Please note that the Webex meeting link for each teacher can be found in your meeting confirmation. 

• Prep - Wednesday 2nd July at 2:45pm
• Years 1 and 2 - Thursday 3rd July at 9am
• Years 3 and 4 - Monday 30th June at 2:45pm
• Year 5 - Wednesday 2nd July at 2:45pm
• Year 6 - Thursday 3rd July at 3pm

Our Vision:    Learn   •   Thrive  •   Contribute

Our Year 1s have been very busy bees recently. In phonics, we have been reviewing when to use the grapheme ‘ck’. We have learnt that ‘ck’ comes after a short vowel sound. This generalization helps us write words like stuck, trick, and check. This week, we found examples of the ‘ck’ generalization in our books and practised writing them on our whiteboards.

In Maths, our focus has been skip counting by 10s and 5s. We used our hundreds chart to help us visualise and describe the pattern skip counting creates. Next, we applied our understanding to answer a question; how many fingers are there in our class? After that, we challenged ourselves to represent our skip counting patterns with physical objects and post it notes.

Our unit on shape has just begun. So far, we have been learning some new vocabulary to describe and classify shapes, such as curved lines, quadrilaterals, regular vs. irregular, and turns. There is always so much to learn in Year 1!

In Maths, Year 2 have been busy collecting data, creating questions and taking surveys to display information. We created column graphs, picture graphs and even turned our data into a graph using the computer! We have learnt the importance of displaying our data accurately and labelling the parts of our graph so it’s easy to interpret the information.

In inquiry, Year 2s have been exploring multiculturalism by sharing our own cultures and exploring others. During Education Week, we had our families visit and created a ‘Family Tree’ displaying our unique heritage and celebrating what makes us different. We also made a world map to show just how many different places we come from. Come and take a look in the Year 2 corridor!

Curiosity  •   Respect  •  Integrity  •  Resilience

We are excited to introduce The Stand-Up Project (SUP), a valuable initiative designed to enhance our school’s efforts in fostering a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for all students.

SUP takes a whole-school approach to reducing discrimination, harassment, and bullying by bringing students, teachers, and parents together. One of the key features of this program is its peer-led approach, where selected Year 5 students will take on leadership roles, guiding their peers in strengthening our respectful and supportive school culture.

We believe that involving students in this way helps them develop crucial life skills, including leadership, empathy and teamwork. As parents, your role is vital in reinforcing the program’s values at home through ongoing conversations and by attending upcoming information sessions with us.

To learn more about this initiative, and how you can support our students on this journey, visit The Stand-Up Project website at this link. 

Laburnum Primary School SUP Family Session
When: Monday 28th July at 5.30pm
Where: Staff Community Centre

Please complete the RSVP form below:

Our Vision:    Learn   •   Thrive  •   Contribute

Year 3
As part of our Allies for Inclusion inquiry unit, Year 3 students have been learning about accessibility and the different ways people with diverse abilities experience the world. Mr Carter’s mum, Janet, shared how she navigates the world with a visual impairment. Students reflected on what they had learnt.

It was interesting to hear that Janet doesn’t just see black, but her vision is like a kaleidoscope as she sees lots of colours. – Jason

Janet uses a guide dog to help her and when she needs other people to know she is vision-impaired she uses a cane, as her eyes look well. – Evie

We learnt that vision-impaired people don’t usually tell you their dog’s name because you might distract the dog, but we were lucky to find out the name of Janet’s dog. - Myra

I hadn’t thought about challenges that technology has for the vision-impaired, for example the touch screens at McDonalds are hard to use. We need to think about different ways people can order food to include everyone. – Abhi and Shane

Students were excited to learn what it’s like to rely on a wheelchair for movement. They had a fantastic time playing wheelchair basketball, Octopus, and racing each other in wheelchair relays.

It was fun and cool. I loved it but wheelchair basketball is tricky. – Elyse

I think it was really fun, but it did make my hands sore. It would be hard to be in a wheelchair every day. – Maddie

Using a wheelchair is harder than walking on two legs. It will be hard for people to go up the stairs. - Christopher
  
 

On Thursday the 5th June, Year 4 had the opportunity to meet Janet, who talked to the students about how accessible and inclusive the world is for people who are blind. The students had the chance to ask questions about how the world could be more accessible and discuss some of the difficulties she faces on a regular basis. This was a great session for the students learn from someone who has first-hand experience.

As National Reconciliation Week was held from May 27 to June 3, the Year 4 students met up with their Prep buddies on Friday and shared some of their favourite Indigenous stories. The Year 4s read these stories to the Preps to strengthen the relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider Australian community. Some of their favourite stories included ‘The Echidna and the shade tree’, ‘Why the Emu Can’t Fly’ and The Milky Way’.
 
 

Curiosity  •   Respect  •  Integrity  •  Resilience

The ICAS test (International Competitions and Assessments for Schools) is an independent, skills-based assessment program, designed to match and test skills in key curriculum areas. 

You can read more about the ICAS tests here.

This year Laburnum Primary School will again participate in the ICAS competitions for English, Mathematics and Science. 

As ICAS is an extracurricular activity, entry is available to LPS students in Years 4, 5 and 6 ONLY.

Testing sessions will be held before school on the following dates:

• English ICAS test – Wednesday 13 August
• Science ICAS test – Wednesday 20 August
• Maths ICAS test – Wednesday 27 August

Families enrol their child through the ICAS Parent Payment System. Follow the link below, and use the school access code to enrol your child. The Parent Payment System will close on Monday 28 July. Please understand that we will not be processing any registrations after this date.

Your parent page link is: https://shop.icasassessments.com/pages/pps

School access code: ZPF593

More information will be provided closer to the test dates.

Our Vision:    Learn   •   Thrive  •   Contribute

This term has involved us moving into our ‘Dance Era’. A main goal has been for students to realise that we can all dance. When wanting to learn a particular dance style such as ballet, tap or hip hop then lessons are needed to learn that particular technique. 
Our sessions have consisted of exploring the five elements of dance: Time, Space, Energy (dynamics), Relationships, Locomotor and Non-Locomotor movement. In addition, we have been investigating how and why dance is important for people, communities & culture. Each class has had their own cultural dance as a focus.

Prep
Students have been learning about the importance of moving safely, as an individual and with others. They have explored the meaning of personal, shared and crowded space and what it means to work within these domains.  Our sessions have concluded with learning the Heel and Toe Polka and learning about how this came to be a popular bush dance in Australia.

Years 1 & 2
The element of Space (where the body moves and the shapes it makes) and the pathways it creates has been the focus this term.
Year 1 have been Irish dancing and appreciating that, unlike other dance forms, Irish dancers do not move their arms or hands and relies on accented footwork. Year 2 have been learning the Zorba. Today, the Zorba is an activity that brings guests at festivities together and invigorates the soul with spirit, joy and passion.

Years 3 & 4
The element of Relationship between the body and the connections that it makes during dance has been explored this term.
Year 3 have been learning and choreographing a Bollywood dance. A modern style of Indian classical dance, this emerged following the creation of Indian movie musicals. Year 4 have been sharing their own knowledge and experiences when creating a Chinese Dragon Dance. A particular highlight was when Xavier brought in a Lion head dress for the students to try.

Years 5 & 6
Focussing on the element of Space, students have been exploring making shapes and creating these using low, medium and high levels.
We have continued gaining an appreciation for history and the way dance develops and is inspired by what came before it. These historical conversations continued as each class had their own dance to learn which reflected a particular time in Melbourne’s history. Students were immersed in what Melbourne life was like during the 1950s - 1980s and how this was linked to the dance style of these times. Classes worked with me to choreograph a dance to bring this all together, and have been dancing to Elvis Presley’s 'Rock around the Clock', Chubby Checker’s 'The Twist', 'Stayin Alive' by the Bee Gees and Michael Jackson’s 'Beat It'!

Curiosity  •   Respect  •  Integrity  •  Resilience

Click on these links  below for Community News or information:         

Click on the OSHClub logo to read this week's OSHClub news. OSHClub Registration - please register your child - it's free to register and you'll always have that option for childcare, even in unexpected circumstances.

Please click Chess Club image for registration

Please click here to view information and registration for Digimaker.

Please click here to view information for holiday program.

Please click here to view information for after school basketball Terms 3 & 4.

Our Vision:    Learn   •   Thrive  •   Contribute