PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Welcome back to the final term of the year. It will be an eleven week term full of lots of exciting activities at OSPS.

The 2019 Prep Orientation program will begin, Years 5 and 6 will go on their camps and there will be lots of sporting activities, the Year 2 production, ‘The Night the Reindeer Rocked’ and of course, the Year 6 Graduation. There is so much to look forward to!

I would also like to announce that we were a successful applicant in the ‘Pick My Project’ initiative. We will now go ahead with building a community Robotics Lab. I would like to thank everyone who was involved in making this application happen, especially Katreen Cook who has been the driving force. Your work has been amazing and very much appreciated.

Have a great weekend.

Ron

SCHOOL MATTERS

LOST PROPERTY

Lost property has been sorted this week. Everything left hanging and in baskets is named.

These will be here until Friday 19th October, if they are unclaimed they will be put into second hand uniform shop.

Thank you

OSPS Helping Others in Need

Thank you to all the families who donated 2nd hand glasses and cases.

OSPS Colour Run

Get ready for a blast of colour. We’re turning our event from bland to GRAND with an explosion of colour this year.

We’re excited to participate in the School Run4Fun Colour Explosion on the 13 November 2018. It’s the colour craze that’s sweeping the nation™.

Students have now been supplied with a Sponsorship Form and it’s time to fundraise! How exciting!

Students who raise as little as $10 will receive a prize for their efforts, but why not aim higher? The more money we raise the more we can provide back to the students to.

Sign up now at www.myprofilepage.com.au and create your child a Profile Page.

Use the unique code on page five (5) of the Sponsorship Form and see if you’ve won FREE sponsorship donations. The highest fundraising student in our school will also go into a draw to win a huge Apple Prize Pack. Happy fundraising!

STUDENT SHOWCASE

Thank you OSPS from Tsefa Primary School in Ethiopia in Africa

With just a few weeks to go before Haftu Strintzos finishes Year 12, as his mother, we both wanted to take this opportunity to thank every Oakleigh South Primary School student and teacher who has supported the many hundreds of poor and disadvantaged children and students in Haftu’s community in Tigray, since 2012.

We consider ourselves extremely lucky that upon arriving in Australia in 2011, Haftu was given the opportunity to attend OSPS – initially in the last term of Grade 5, and then for the whole of Grade 6 starting in 2012. His short time at OSPS can best be described as formative, and he loved every minute of it. Its where Haftu learnt to read and write in English, study maths, science, history, geography and Japanese – a language he enjoys, has become proficient in, and is one of his favourite VCE Year 12 subjects.

OSPS is also the place where Haftu discovered his talent for running. From cross country to track, his first state level competition was running  in the Green and White OSPS colours. Though in Grade 6 he found himself at the back of the racing pack, today he is leading the way from the front, and is currently Australia’s reigning U20 Cross Country and 5,000m athletics champion. In August this year, Haftu equalled Robert Castella’s record winning both the Australia and Oceania U20 Cross Country titles in Maleny, Queensland.

Apart from Haftu receiving the best introduction to life and schooling in Australia, he was made to feel at home and respected for the hardships he had suffered growing up an orphan in rural Tigray, Ethiopia. This was powerfully demonstrated when in December 2012, Grade 6 students, and eventually the whole of OSPS responded with extraordinary compassion and generosity towards helping poor children in Haftu’s impoverished community in rural Tigray, Ethiopia.

Seeing firsthand how a few resources, hope and opportunity had changed Haftu’s life, the efforts of OSPS students to change the lives of children less fortunate than themselves, has been extraordinary, transformative, and very moving.

Since 2012, this kind-heartedness by OSPS towards Haftu’s community and his old primary school – Tsefah Primary School – has just grown and grown, and brought about genuine change in poor children’s’ lives.  Thanks to these incredible community-to-community and student-to-student relationships, the following spectacular outcomes have been achieved:

• $20,350.25 raised for various education related projects
• Education packs comprised of exercise books, pens, pencils, text books, erasers and sharpeners provided to over 420 Tsefah School students and orphans on three occasions. Each education pack was enough to cover a student’s needs for at least a year. That’s 3 years of school supplies and books per student!
• Sports equipment (skipping ropes, soccer balls, volleyball net, volleyballs, frisbees) were given to the Tsefah School so that students can play and stay healthy and active.
• OSPS contributed to the development of a water well near the Tsefah School compound so that students no longer have to go to school thirsty.
• Contributed to the construction and set-up of the first ever Tsefah School Library. Built to Government standards, the Library has been successfully built (its beautiful!), and purchase of the furniture and books is currently underway. This is a huge and much needed project that will build the knowledge and know-how of all students; and it’s a legacy of Australian generosity that will live on forever. Equipping of the library is expected to be completed by the end of November 2018.
• Through presentations, displays of Ethiopian cultural items and talks at OSPS assemblies, students were able to learn about different cultures, social justice issues, and how poverty affects the educational outcomes of children in rural Tigray. These events were very successful and motivating, and helped OSPS students understand how in their own way they can make a difference in the lives of children on the other side of the world.

Finally, we have no words to express how grateful and overwhelmed we are by the generosity and love shown to us and the children at the Tsefah School, by the OSPS community.  Every single dollar has impacted the lives of poor children in a very meaningful way.  You can’t imagine the joy OSPS has given to the Tsefah School students – they can now go to school with all the learning materials they need, they have access to clean drinking water, and will soon have access to a proper library where they can study, read and learn new things every day.  This is what we call “empowerment” and “resilience building”.

Truly, we cannot thank OSPS enough.  We feel very humbled.

Maria & Haftu Strintzos

PARENT GROUP

COMMUNITY NEWS

Disclaimer – The organisations advertised in this newsletter are not affiliated with and have no relationship to Oakleigh South Primary School. The publishing of these advertisements does not imply endorsement or recommendation of these products or services by the school. They are provided as a community service.