The Big Birthday
What a last day of term 4. A fantastic fun assembly for our Principal’s BIG birthday. He was seen later in the day walking around in a daze mumbling something about 60 being the new 50!
News
Around the World in One Day
What a day! Our countries arrived at the airport and went through the pre-flight checks. Our flight was delayed for 5 minutes while waiting for a late passenger. Pre-flight checks were completed with our stewards demonstrating flight safety. We eventually took off from Ferny Creek Multi-Purpose Room Airport early Thursday morning. Throughout the remainder of the day many flights continued around the world with stop offs at Mexico, Brazil, Madagascar, Great Britain, China, New Zealand, Greece, France and Italy. Passengers used their passports in all these countries to gather various facts to take back to their home country! We all landed back at Ferny Creek MPR Airport at about 2.45pm, just in time to close the Ferny Creek Olympic Games! What a day!!
Fathers Day / Pie & Footy Day
The annual parents v kids footy game is on! Fathers Day / Pie & Footy day rocks!
Japan Trip 2016
Goodbye and Goodluck! A group of our Year 5 & Year 6 and Toshi our Japanese language teacher are off to Japan for two weeks – including a week at our sister school in Mito Japan.
Friendship Chair
We’re so excited to introduce our new Friendship Chair to the playground. Every Ferny Creek Student has welcomed it with their own thumb print, and in return our Friendship Chair welcomes anyone feeling a little low or lonely to come and pause for a moment and find a new friend!
Education Week & Open Night
Education Week 2016
Each year we are very proud to show our community what our school is all about.
Wednesday 25th May: ‘Open Morning’ 9:00-10:00am
Parents, friends, grandparents invited to visit our classrooms while children are working.
Thursday 26th May: ‘Teddy Bears Playdate’ 2.30-3.15pm.
Our 2017 Foundation students will be attending a Teddy Bears play date, having games and songs with some of our current Foundation students. 2017 Foundation parents are invited to partake in a tour with Matthew during this time 2.30-3.15pm.
Thursday 26th May: ‘Open Night’ 6:30-8:00pm
Our last two years Open Nights have been a huge success and we are sure that this will be again. Our focus last year was history and this year it’s going to all about the whole curriculum. Families will get a booklet with a question related to each grade (they have to visit every classroom to find the answer and then submit their booklet to have the chance to win a prize).
Choir will perform at 7:45 in the multi purpose room and we will end the night at 8:00. Tea/coffee and biscuits/cake will be available in the multi purpose room. We will have a café set up for families to sit and have a break if they wish before the choir starts.
Year 6 : Class of 2016
Very proud of our Year 6 group for 2016 – excellent achievers! They are just as proud to wear their special Class of 2016 polos and hoodies.
2016 School Leaders
Very pleased to have our local Member for Monbulk, Deputy Premier and Minister for Education James Merlino at assembly today to speak to the school and present our weekly awards. Most importantly he also presented this year’s school leaders with their badges.
According to James, Ferny Creek assemblies are among the most fun in the state!! We think so too!! Congratulations once more to our school captains and house captains!
Easter Bunnies
Very egg-cited to be front page news this week on the Ranges Trader Mail paper.
Don’t forget that last day of term – Thursday 24th March – is also our annual Easter Bonnet parade!
Fundraising Fun! Mountain Bush Dance : 19th March
Ferny Creek Primary & Mount Dandenong Primary Schools are Co-hosting a big fun night of dancing and music for the whole family – from little ones to grownups – come and enjoy a social, relaxed night of entertainment that your kids will remember for years to come. All are welcome – please invite other friends and families along too!
We encourage families to buy your tickets now – available online here.
Whilst not included in the ticket price, there is inexpensive and fantastic food available on the night. Vegetarian choices alongside the mountain’s best hot beef rolls. Plus yummy barbecue delights and freshly crafted salads en-masse – all delectable dishes!
A variety of excellent beers, wines & soft drinks on offer too (no BYO please).
The funds will go to very good use towards both schools’ respective fundraising programs.
Whole School Picnic : Friday 12th Feb
A whole school picnic is happening on Friday 12th February! It’s a wonderful way to get the school ‘together’ so soon in the school year. Last year’s picnic is featured in the photo we use on this website!
Parent helper/s from each grade are wanted to accompany and assist us on our walk to the reserve from school on Friday 12th February. Please let your child’s teacher know if you can help us. Please also note that if you would like to leave the reserve early with your child, please make sure you notify your child’s class teacher.
Foundation children need to be picked up from the reserve. A separate notice will have been sent home with Foundation students.
Remember to pack:
- School hat
- A labelled water bottl
- Snacks and a packed lunch
- All in a small backpack to carry to the reserve.
Hope to see as many of you as possible at this Whole School celebration.
2016!
Welcome to all of our new families in Foundation and out other grades – and welcome back to all of our returning students & staff!
Christmas Concert : Thurs, 10th December
Another fun filled evening is heading our way! It’s the annual Ferny Creek Primary Christmas Concert. All grades perform, as do the class bands. It’s a rocking Rudolph kinda night! Look out for jingles, tinsel & sizzle…
5:00pm : Evening kicks off with food / drinks and catching up with one & all!
6:15pm : Kids to be ready to perform…
6:30pm : Class performances begin!
See you there with your sleigh bells on!
Reminder : Prep Transition Monday 16th Nov
Reminder : Last prep transition next week Monday 16th Nov 9:15am to 10:45am – It’s buddies day – always exciting!
Reminder : Prep Transition this week!
Wednesday 14th October – 2:15pm – 3:15pm – PE session
See our transition page for full information
Production Photos Available!
Photos from Pirates of the Curry Bean are now available.
Orders can be placed from 14th September through until 9th October.
All prints will be sent home via your children or available for collection from the office later in Term 4.
Pay using PayPal or Offline (bring payment to the office).
Thanks again for supporting the production and fund raising at Ferny Creek Primary
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See Tiqbiz for login details – or ask at the office.
http://fcps.photographyorder.com
A Piratical Thank You
Thank you everybody for your wonderful efforts, not only over the past few days, but for the long journey since around this time last year. I mentioned some key people on Wednesday night but I want to reiterate their efforts, and the efforts of many others, in writing.
The work Doug McKay and Cheryl Martin have done with sets and props has been remarkable. Cheryl has always also been thinking of the so many obvious things that need doing that I don’t think of! Thank you both of you for your late nights and weekends working up at school this term! Not too many of us know about the number of hours you have put in! Thanks also to Jim and Elizabeth Green for the beautiful beach box! Stunning.
We started costuming with Karlene Banfield late last year and she set us on the path to complete this huge task. As circumstances changed we welcomed Becky Barlow on board. Their work with Emma Jenning’s creative ideas and their team of dedicated sewers, cutters, gluers, etc. has again surpassed all expectations. Weren’t the actors’ faces so well made up? Another brilliant effort from Mal Gajdek and Karina Phillips and their team of helpers!
Emma Jennings. What a creative genius! Thank you for your inspired designs for both our costumes and sets. Thank you for the whispers in my ear to ensure everything was ‘shipshape’!
Thankyou to Coby Beatson for her wonderfully warm and creative directing of our senior cast. It was wonderful to see the students enjoy themselves and be so willing to step out of their comfort zones. To watch their growth over the term was very satisfying.
Kristy Foskett and Beth Byrne were always with us when needed. Beth has always been such a great help during all previous productions and continued to be so through this production. Kristy has lived through her first Ferny Creek production and survived. Her assistance with direction on Coby’s ‘days off’ was also a factor to the show’s success.
Tracey Hedger was also with us from the start with prompting the kids and letting us know when and where improvement could be made. Your work as prompt on the nights was again so valuable Tracey. Thanks.
Melody Peterson. Wow! Two days a week as Performing Arts teacher and you prepared our students so well. You created two songs yourself and taught all of the others to every grade. Your choreography of items and arranging ex student Mitch Chapman and Mums Cassie O’Sullivan and Cassandra Waker to choreograph others is another task you completed with terrific results. Thanks choreographers! You managed to form the show band and have them ‘trained’ up beautifully! Music teachers Dean Moore, Evan Lineham, parents Grant Cummerford and Jamie Saxe, and Don Laughton again proved that a live band adds so much to the show. Thank you all.
Carly Massey and Karlee Code and their team of photographers have produced another brilliant ‘album’ reflecting all stages of the production. I have had teachers from our local high school and a local primary tell me that the photography on display was better than anything they have, or ever could, produce. And that was only with viewing the photos in the theatre foyer! Wait until they see all the rehearsal, costuming, backstage and show pictures. We have such a wonderful photographic archive of another great show. We can’t wait for the DVD to be completed. Another wonderful parent in Brian Baker has taken this on board for us again. Thank you Brian.
As we got closer to show week, the pace quickened. Jill was calmly managing the office area with many enquiries and demands. Jane Marsden stepped in to manage the printing of fantastic Paul Gilliot designed souvenir program for no cost to the school. Thank you Jane. Sets and props slowly began to be completed, costumes were tried on, restyled, resewn and tried on again. The kids continued to work hard and we continued to be so pleased with their positive attitude. We had full rehearsals without costumes, dress rehearsals, rehearsals with the band, long all day rehearsals and short sharp rehearsals. We pulled out grades to work with the senior cast, we spent Monday at the theatre. We pushed on to our first
performance on Tuesday night. We packed all the sets and props, loaded them onto the truck and set up for the shows. Costumes were also carefully packed and transported to various dressing rooms at Burrinja.
I set this scene because I don’t think we recognise enough all of the background people who now stepped up and worked flat out so tirelessly for the next two days and nights.
No one would have seen Anna Moulday hidden up the back in the control room doing all the sound effects and working with our lighting director, especially on the wonderful – student designed- backdrops. Thank you Anna.
Bec Cranmer has quietly liaised with Burrinja Café for all our restaurant and kiosk needs. Thanks Bec.
Rhian Jessup, with help from Lynda Russell and others, setting up the wonderful foyer display I have mentioned before.
The teams of helpers backstage – that’s all the Mums and teachers and student teachers.
Then we have Beth Byrne, Katrina Lockett, Doug McKay, Cheryl Martin helping Coby and I at side stage, Nat Bates, Allen Kropp, Adam Crotty, Kristy Foskett and Helen Ainsworth in the senior dressing-room areas and Heather Pickett, Rhian Jessop, Natalie Wood, Kelly Jacob, Alison Allison, Toshi Takahashi and our student teachers willingly taking on the hardest role of all – managing all F-4 students in the black box change rooms upstairs Thankyou!!!
We had over 100 parents, grandparents, older siblings and school staff on our helpers list. Many of these also contributed on at least one night upstairs in the black room, in the main dressing rooms, and backstage during the shows.
What an example of community working together to create something of such high quality. Enough said, except thank you, thank you and thank you!
Matthew Coyle
Pirates of the Curry Bean News
Hi me hearties – it verrrrry harrrd not to talk like a pirate – aharrr – when we have allllll this exciting news to sharrrre – arrrrrr!
Read our production news page herrrreee… Arrrr….