Principal's Report

Harmony Day

It’s my favorite day of the year at Lyndhurst today, Harmony Day. A very good friend of mine came to one of our Year 6 Graduations a couple of years ago. After seeing how incredibly well our diverse group of graduates blended, collaborated, performed and celebrated their own and each other’s achievements, his comment was, “The whole world needs to come here and see this and learn from it.” It was true then, as it is true today, as I watch our children celebrate the diversity in our community and cement the “oneness of humanity” that brings us all together.

Our friends “across the ditch”, the wonderful people of New Zealand and their inspiring Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, have also shown that “oneness of humanity” in the way in which they have dealt with the recent tragedy. They have shown that meeting evil with love, peace and compassion is the way we should all be living. In the face of such devastating heartbreak, they and their leader have shown grace, humility and strength of character, bringing their people together instead of tearing them apart.

Our own leaders here in Australia could learn from that example. In fact, the leaders of our country could learn a great deal from the children of this school and this community. Perhaps I’ll invite whoever is the new Prime minster after the next election, to come along to Harmony Day 2020 at Lyndhurst Primary School. I’m proud of this school, I’m proud to serve this community and I am so, so proud of our incredible students.

Student Leaders

We have finalised the selection of our student leaders with the appointment of class Student Representative Council (SRC) Reps. They were proudly presented to the school community at this week’s assembly. Our SRC plays an increasingly important role in our school as we try to elevate student voice and agency in our school.

They are a wonderful source of student feedback about our school and about the teaching and learning that happens here. I look forward to hearing their ideas about how our amazing school can become even better.

Our SRC Representatives are:

Halogen Young Leaders Day

I have had great reports from our student leaders who attended the recent Young Leaders Day in Melbourne. They enjoyed mixing with the many hundreds of other student leaders from across Victoria and were able to listen to an incredible list of inspiring and articulate leaders from the community. They were, as we have come to expect from our Lyndhurst students, a shining example and terrific ambassadors for our school.

Walker Learning Study Tour

Tomorrow we are proud, once again, to be showing off the wonderful work in our early years classrooms as a group of teachers from around Melbourne visit as part of their Walker Learning accreditation. As a Walker Learning Study Tour school, we have become an example school for others to visit to see what really effective play-based learning looks like as a rigorous, learning focused pedagogy. Our talented teachers and our wonderful students will really be on show and I’m confident our visitors will see the very best of what we have to offer in our early years classes.

Dental Van

I hope parents are taking advantage of us having the dental van in our school. It’s a wonderful opportunity as we know that dental health levels in our children are falling. We also know that poor dental health can have a much broader impact on children’s lives and their learning, so I encourage all parents to access this free service.