Principal's Message

Principal's Message

Welcome to the start of Week 3. I hope your life is going well and you are managing to recognise the positivity in your world. At the school level, it has been a very busy start. We are in the middle of our School Review (held every four years). It is a two-day process, with the first conducted on the Thursday just passed. We also conducted interviews to fill the vacant position of Business Manager. 

I am pleased to announce that Colin Mountney is our provisionally appointed Business Manager in place of the wonderful Tess Duerden.

Many of you will know Colin as our ICT guru. He will leave that position to undertake the Business Manager's duties and we will conduct further interviews to fill the ICT position he vacates. Colin is not only technically adept, he has a wonderful logistic and business mind so we are so lucky to have him join the team full time from July 31. I know you will join me in welcoming Colin to the team. Tess has moved onto her promotional position at Williamstown High School and we could not be happier for her. Testament to her character as she was back at SMPS training up Colin in the systems she set up so masterfully. 

This week, we also welcome back our Learning Specialist Jen Davies who returns to work three days per week after her family leave hiatus. Her lovely, little daughter Addy was born last year and we are excited and lucky to have Jen rejoin the team. Please welcome her when you see her smiling face.

Back to the School Review...there were so many positives shared about the success of our school. The panel interviewed many stakeholders and found an overwhelmingly positive response to their association with SMPS. Our student learning outcomes are the envy of the state and rank consistently higher than our Network schools. We have a very high achieving Network (group of schools geographically located around us) and we outperform them all basically. It is an incredible effort! Staff, parents/caregivers and (especially) the students have done so well. We have crunched some comparison data and we are outperforming many high fee (and high profile) private schools who have select-entry students. Humble, little South Melbourne PS is celebrated as a high-achieving school for good reason. We thank you all for your efforts in achieving those outcomes. 

Lastly, please look at the sub-article below regarding our upcoming Bush Dance. Please keep the date/evening free and jump on board the fun! Our community doesn't have the chance to get together very often - please make the most of it!

NAPLAN Released

Congratulations to the students in Grades 3 and 5 for completing NAPLAN. Students were handed their results in hard copy on Friday and you should all be proud of their efforts. The results are truly outstanding. We will share some of the detail soon - but suffice to say that we set high expectations - and they were well and truly exceeded. Our children and staff are hardworking and talented and the results speak for themselves, really.  Check out the Learning Page in this iNewsletter for more details.

Community Bush Dance - Billy Tea Bush Band

On Monday 4th September, we will be hosting The Billy Tea Bush Band at SMPS! Students will have an hour during the day at school to work with other year levels on learning some fun traditional bush dances. Then in the evening (approximately between 6:00pm-7:00pm) families will get a chance to try these bush dances out with their kids at the incredible Planetshakers venue (where we have had our School Production)!

More details to come out closer to the time, but for now keep the date free! 

Click here to read more information about The Billy Tea Bush Band