Arrival times

Just a note on the start of the day. We run a soft start each day with students invited into their classroom between 8.45 and the official start of learning at 9am. On occasions there will be times students arrive after 9am. This is understandable with so many things that can get in the way each day. On those days it's simply a matter of checking in via the Compass kiosk in the office and then heading to class. 

However, what does become difficult is when these late days continually add up. Being 10 minutes late every day adds up to over a week of learning in a year. Over the course of a student's entire school, it's equivalent to an entire term of lost learning. Arriving late on a regular basis means a student will miss the important initial instructions of a lesson, requiring additional support to get on track and meaning the rest of the class is impacted. My message is if you are finding that it is difficult to get your child to school by 9am please reach out to see if we can help you. There may be some ideas or supports we can put into place to make sure your child can boost their learning time.

Trivia night

Good luck to those competing in the Parent Trivia night this Saturday. In reality, it's not really a competition, but a time for parents to let their hair down and have fun. Thank you to the organisers and we hope everyone gets home safely!

Somers Camp

Next Tuesday, August 19th, 27 students from Years 5 and 6 will be heading off to Somers Camp. Somers is a Department of Education run program which combines students from a number of primary schools to be part of a 9 day camp. We participated as a school before COVID, so it's great that we have been able to re-join. Accompanying the students will be Belinda Treseder and Issi Pellissier, so along with a whole bunch of new faces, our students will be there with teachers they know. Parents are invited to visit on the weekend, and we will be seeing students back at school Thursday, 28th of August. We wish them all the best on this big adventure and thank Belinda and Issi for giving up their time to go on what is a very looooong camp!

Parent Opinion Survey

Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies. 

All families will receive an email with an individualised PIN to access the survey. The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open online from Monday 18 August to Friday 19 September 2025.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones.

The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Resources are also available in additional languages to assist parents / caregivers / guardians who speak a language other than English at home. Please reach out to your child’s teacher, or the school directly for survey guides in your language.
 

Communicating the Preventing and Addressing Racism in Schools Policy 

Racism is not tolerated in APS

Ashburton Primary School is committed to fostering a welcoming, inclusive environment where racism is not tolerated. Racism harms students’ mental health, learning and sense of belonging. We celebrate the diversity of cultures, ethnicities and faiths of all our students. It is up to all of us at APS to make our school a place that is free of racism and where everyone feels respected and can learn in a safe and inclusive environment.

What APS is doing to prevent racism 

Ashburton Primary School follows the Department of Education’s Preventing and Addressing Racism in Schools Policy. We are building a culturally safe school with inclusive learning for everyone by working with staff, students, families, carers and communities. We will: 

• provide programs that teach about and celebrate diversity, inclusion and the impact of racism to build understanding and empathy
• use practices that support all students to thrive
• implement anti-racism efforts to prevent and address racism effectively
• make sure everyone feels safe, with clear and accessible pathways to report racism

What to do if your child experiences or witnesses racism at school

If your child experiences or witnesses racism or religious discrimination at school, please let us know. You can tell your child’s teacher or email ashburton.ps@education.vic.gov.au and your concern will be directed to the appropriate person/s i.e. the Assistant principal and Principal.

Report Racism hotline

If you don’t feel comfortable reporting racism to school, or you are not happy with the school’s response, you can report racism to:

• the Department of Education’s Report Racism hotline via email report.racism@education.vic.gov.au or phone 1800 722 476 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm)
• Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Inc. (VAEAI) via email vaeai@vaeai.org.au or phone 03 9481 0800 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm)
• Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC) online, via email complaints@veohrc.vic.gov.au or phone 1300 292 153 (Monday to Friday 10am to 2pm).

For additional support following an incident of racism:

• First Nations students, staff or families can contact Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Inc. (VAEAI)
• Jewish students, staff or families can contact the Jewish Community Council of Victoria
• Muslim students, staff or families can contact the Islamic Council of Victoria

For more information about how to report racism to the school, and to get information in community languages, visit this website: Report racism or religious discrimination in schools.

If you need an interpreter to call the school, please use the details available at: Guide for Families: How to use an interpreter to contact your school.

How APS will respond to racism

When you report a racist incident, Ashburton Primary School will:

• take your report seriously and act quickly
• give you ongoing support
• investigate and respond safely and appropriately
• keep you informed, while respecting privacy
• review the incident to help avoid it from happening again.

Ashburton Primary School is celebrating book in Week 5 (next week!)

Beginning on Monday, the Great Ashy Book Swap will take place at recess each day and run for the duration of the week. To participate, students can bring a gold coin donation and a second hand book in good condition to swap for a different pre-loved title. All funds raised during the book swap are for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. 

Additionally, on Friday 22/8 students are encouraged to dress up as a character for our Book Week Parade. The theme is Book An Adventure. Students will show off their costumes during assembly from 2:00pm.

There will be a number of other exciting activities happening in the P-2 and 3-6 classrooms and some competitions taking place as well. We look forward to celebrating! 

It has been an exciting couple of weeks in Year 3!

In Literacy, we’ve been deep into Charlotte’s Web, exploring the story and its characters while also working on our own narrative writing. Students have been planning and beginning to write suspense-filled stories, focusing on strong settings, engaging characters, and events that keep the reader hooked.

In Maths, we’ve been exploring unit fractions and learning different strategies for finding the area of shapes. Students have enjoyed challenging themselves and sharing their problem-solving ideas.

This week, each year level attended a special art incursion organised by our wonderful Parents’ Association. Each year level worked together to create their own unique collaborative artwork, and Year 3 loved adding our ideas and creativity to the mix.

In Week 5, Year 3 students will be heading out on Wednesday for a walking excursion around our local Ashburton community. It will be a great opportunity to explore and learn more about the area we live in.

Some Student highlights so far:

“Maths is fun and challenging”

“I enjoy learning about tips to help my narrative writing”

“It's been very fun to learn different things in Maths”

“Connected Learning has been fun, we are learning about different things”

Week 4 Term Three

What a fun filled couple of weeks the Prep cohort have had! The students have participated in an Art incursion, making their very own houses and streets to be put together into a class art piece for the Art Show. They participated in Science Week activities with their Yr 5 Prep Pals and did lots of dancing and singing during the Cultural Dance incursion on Wednesday. If you would like to come in and share about your family’s culture to the Preps, please see your child’s teacher. 

Other learning experiences in Prep over the past two weeks have included:

• Developing reading fluency with their fluency pairs during Reading sessions. 
• Making the whole and then taking some away to solve subtraction problems in Maths sessions. 
• Identifying and describing the features of 3D shapes in Maths. 
• Asking Questions to understand texts in Reading sessions. 
• Using the 4 Ws (Who, What, Where, When) in their Recount writing. 

• Learning about celebrations from cultures around the world like Diwali, Lunar New Year and Eid during Connected Learning sessions. 

   

Owl Awards

At our latest assembly, 4 students were presented with our new Owl Awards. Owl Awards are for students who display the attributes of a good audience member  -  students who are showing all the good behaviours of a good audience member. Their eyes are pointed at the front, they are listening to the speakers, they are joining in when they need to be and not disrupting others

Four of our assembly ACT members were in charge of a quarter of the crowd, and at the end of assembly they choose

Seb (Year 6)

Maddie (Year 3)

Natalie (Prep)

Camille (Year 3)

Look out for more Owl Award next assembly!

It’s been another busy fortnight in Year 1!

In the last 2 weeks, students have been working on : 

• In SMILE, we completed activities that helped us with our listening and cooperating skills, how to work together, communicate effectively and give feedback.
• In Maths, we have continued working on sharing into equal groups.
• Also in Maths, we have been learning about shapes and their features.
• In Reading, we have been learning about the purpose of texts.
• In Writing, we have been writing recounts about our excursion to CERES and our fabulous art incursion where we painted butterflies.
• In Connected Learning, we are learning about countries all over the world. We have a passport and we pretend to fly to different countries. This week it was Vietnam. It was amazing!

We have had a great two weeks. 

Container Deposit Scheme Update

Before we update the latest tallies for each house for the container deposit scheme let’s go over what we can bring in again. We can’t take glass or alcohol containers. We can take other plastic and carton containers. As long as they have the 10c mark on them we can take it!

Now on to the tallies. It’s been a big 3 weeks so far, and we have already been able to collect 810 containers which works out to $81! Well done. Let’s look at the house break down - 

Big result for Bunjil this cycle, get out there everyone to help your house this month! The bins are located on the right edge of the main building on Fakenham Rd. Look for the colourful bins to deposit for your house.