The Grapevine Newsletter 16th May 2025

PRINCIPAL' S MESSAGES

Dear Parents and Carers
It has been a busy few weeks at Robinvale College with many highlights.

Inter School Cross Country                                                                                                                                                                            We are very proud of the way you represented both yourselves and our school. Congratulations to the Primary students Violet Kaisuva, Tima Kaisuva, and Darcy Jenner and our secondary students who have qualified for the regional finals in St Arnaud on Tuesday 27th May.

Mother's Day Assembly                                                                                                                                                                                    Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend last weeks special Mother’s Day assembly. The students absolutely loved having you there.

Education Support Day
Education Support (ES) day is Friday the 16th of May. Thank you to our dedicated Education Support staff for the invaluable work you do each day with our students. Your commitment, patience, and care make a significant difference in their learning, confidence, and overall wellbeing. Your support helps create an inclusive and nurturing environment where every student can thrive. We are lucky to have such a wonderful ES team!

Mother’s Day Stall
There were many excited students last week as they went shopping for the Mother’s and Special people. This event was a massive success! Again, I want to acknowledge the efforts of Rosa and her helpers who made this event possible. We absolutely love seeing the happy faces of our students as they go shopping!

Year 10 Work Experience
Next week all our Year 10’s will be out with local employers getting a taste of life after school and experiencing many different opportunities and work pathways. Work hard and enjoy the ‘real world’. A huge thank you to all our local employers for giving our students this wonderful opportunity.

Prospective Preps 2026
Very soon we will be posting information for our prospective Prep families for next year. During the year we will be holding sessions for parents and a transition program for our students to make sure that your child has the very best and happiest start to their primary education. We look forward to welcoming new families to our community next year.

Facebook
Don’t forget to follow Robinvale College on Facebook. We love to share all the wonderful and special things that happen at our school.

Pupil Free Day Friday 23rd May 2025                                                                                                                                                          Please note that Friday, 23rd May will be a Pupil Free Day. There will be no school for students on this day as staff will be participating in a Professional Development Day.                                                                                                    However, VET students who attend classes in Mildura on Fridays are still required to attend their VET classes in Mildura as usual.

Mrs Lyn Coulter 

SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR

Scholastic Book Fair to be held in the Robinvale College library next week. The Book Fair will run on Tuesday 20th, Wednesday 21st, and Thursday 22nd May. It will be open from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm on each of these days. Students from Foundation to Year 6 will have the opportunity to browse the fair and create their wish lists. The library will accept both cash and EFT payments. We look forward to seeing you there!

PARENT / CAREGIVER / GUARDIAN INFORMATION AND CONSENT LETTER

2025 Student Attitudes to School Survey

Dear Parent / Caregiver / Guardian,

This letter is to inform you about the 2025 Student Attitudes to School Survey (AtoSS), which all government school students in Years 4 to 12 will be invited to complete.

About the survey

The AtoSS is a voluntary student survey offered by the Department of Education every year to help schools and the department understand students' experiences of school. We will ask your child about their thoughts and feelings about their school, their learning, relationships with other students, resilience, bullying, health and wellbeing, physical activity, and life in general.

ORIMA Research Pty Ltd has been contracted by the department to manage the collection of the online survey and will provide support to schools through a telephone hotline and email.

This year, the survey will be conducted at your school from 19^th May to 9^th June.

What are the benefits?

Young people enjoy having a say! This survey has been running for nearly 20 years and helps schools plan programs and activities to improve your child's engagement with school, their wellbeing and their learning. The survey data also helps the Department of Education understand how to improve student learning.

What are the risks?

We don’t expect many risks of participation, but some students may find some questions personal or sensitive. If you agree for your child to take part, they can still skip questions or withdraw at any time whilst completing the survey if it makes them upset or uncomfortable. A teacher will be present during the survey to support students.

The questions come from validated survey instruments used in Australia and around the world. They focus on your child’s strengths and are designed for each year level group.

What will my child be asked to do?

Your child will be invited to complete the survey online during class time using a purpose built secure online survey tool. We are not “testing” your child. Please note:

• Students can choose if they want to take part, skip questions if they don’t want to answer, and can stop doing the survey at any time.
• There are different versions of the survey to let all students take part.
• The survey will take around 20-40 minutes to complete.

How is my child’s privacy protected?

A teacher will give your child a unique login to complete the survey. This unique student login is an assigned identifier that will be used by the department to link data for analysis and research only. Some student demographic data such as year level, gender, age, and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status are provided to ORIMA research, and linked with the unique student login ID to administer the survey. This information helps to support analysis and research, to paint a clearer picture of how Victorian school students are faring.

ORIMA Research will only use student personal information for research purposes to facilitate the administration and data collection of the Attitudes to School Survey. To keep your child’s survey answers private, ORIMA Research won’t include any personally identifiable data in the survey answers file that is provided to the department.

 All data is stored on servers located in Australia, and only staff who are working on the project can access it.

All information collected about your child will be handled in accordance with the Privacy Data and Protection Act 2014 (Vic), the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) and the Public Records Act 1973 (Vic), as well as the Department’s Schools’ Privacy Policy. Please note that consistent with the above legislation and our policy, there are instances where we may be required by law to share information provided by your child. For example, where there is a threat to your child’s health and safety.

How will results be reported?

The department will only use aggregated state-wide survey data to report on initiatives and this data may also be used in public discussions of issues about student engagement and wellbeing. An example of how survey data has been previously used includes reporting levels of student engagement in the Performance Summary in the Annual Report to the School Community. The department will not share any identifiable student data with any other party.

Your child’s school will only get reports about groups of students. Information about individual students and the student answers data file will not be shared with schools. If there are low numbers of student answers to a question, the report will not show results for this question to protect the privacy of those students.

Your school may share the survey report back to you.

For more information about this survey, including the questions your child will be asked to answer, please visit the department’s survey information page.

If you would like more information or have any concerns about the survey, please speak to your child’s teacher, or contact the department at school.surveys@education.vic.gov.au.

Yours sincerely,

Department of Education, Victoria

PRIMARY INTER-SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY

Violet Kaisuva, Tima Kaisuva, and Darcy Jenner all competed in Mildura for Inter-School Sports cross-country.      All students competed well from reports as you can see their placings on their hand in the attached photo.            Top 12 from each race receive an invitation to attend the Loddon Mallee Region Cross-Country Event Tuesday 27^th of May in St Arnaud. All 3 of our students are keen to participate!  A big thank you to Nikki for taking the students to Mildura for the event. 😃

SECONDARY INTER-SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY

Congratulations to the following student who participated in this week's interschool Cross Country event in Ouyen  Molly  Bivolcheff, Dylan Costa, Christian Garreffa, Hamish Jenner, Riley Jenner, Dionica Matalau and  Logan Smith🏃‍♂️ A huge well done to: 🥇 Hamish  – 1st Place,  🥈 Dionica– 2nd Place and 🥉 Logan  – 3rd Place.                             You have made our school proud with your outstanding performance and sportsmanship! All the students have now earned the opportunity to compete in the next level at St Arnaud on the 27th of May  as they all finished in the top 12. Best of luck as you take on the next challenge!

DOLLY'S DREAM DAY

Dolly's Dream aims to change the culture of bullying by addressing its effects, including anxiety, depression, and youth suicide, through education and direct support for young people and families. To support this cause, students were encouraged to wear blue to school. A fundraising event was held at lunchtime, featuring a cake stall and balloon pops for lollies, with the  SRC representatives  organizing activities for students during lunch.

MOTHER'S DAY ARTWORK

"Ms Ford  and her 1/2 students class  created special placemats in Art for their mums to celebrate Mother’s Day."

CELEBRATING MOTHER'S DAY

The F–6 community celebrated Mothers and Special Friends on Friday morning with an open morning event. The day began with an assembly featuring a special performance by the Foundation students, followed by fun classroom activities shared with mums, grandmothers, and special friends. The celebration ended with a delightful spread of treats for all visitors

Morgan Valinoti-Marks who had his Mum Tiffany and Great grandmother Norma Cocks.

The morning was a great morning of mums, grandmother, special friends socializing with the children and the teachers

COURAGE TO CARE

On Monday Robinvale College was visited by Courage to Care. 6 speakers visited our school to share some stories of the Holocaust and how prejudice and racism has led to genocide.

Everyday were surrounded by people living diverse faiths, cultures, and beliefs.  Sadly, we still see instances of discrimination, racism and hate speech throughout our communities.  Living a cohesive and peaceful society requires understanding, acceptance, and inclusion.  Our kids shouldn't have to navigate this on their own.  That's where the Upstander Programs comes in.

Upstander programs align with the principals of the Victorian and Australian Curricula learning areas and capabilities. Students were taught the following.
ethical Capability
intercultural capability
personal and social capabilities
respectful relationships
critical and creative thinking capabilities