Principal's News

Up and Running

We are now three weeks into Term 2 and have well and truly hit the ground running with plenty going on inside our classrooms and around the school. May was always going to be an exciting and very busy month of the school year and by this stage in the year our classrooms have established and embedded routines and really high expectations. It is so incredibly pleasing each morning to walk around our school and see our students on task, engaged in their learning from 9am onwards. All staff are doing a wonderful job to ensure there isn’t a wasted minute throughout the day and they are offering some really exciting opportunities for each and every child to reach their potential in every lesson. 

Working Bee

A reminder and a call for help, this Saturday (tomorrow) we are scheduled to host our first working bee for the school year, this will begin at 9am and run until 12pm or until our list of jobs are complete (whichever comes first). There are no specialised skills required, aside from a willingness to get involved and lend a hand. Morning Tea and coffee/tea will be offered and families are welcome to attend with their child. We look forward to seeing everyone in the morning and in advance, we greatly appreciate your attendance and look forward to working together tomorrow morning. 

Garden Club

It is really exciting to be able to return to offering our students activities to support their engagement in our school outside of the classroom. We have established our 2022 Gardening Club and students jumped into this on Wednesday afternoon to plant out some of garden beds at the front of the school. In addition to this we have seen our students engaged in Chess Club, Running Club, Friendship Groups, Taiko Club and School Choir. All of these activities are driven by the goal of engagement and connectedness, a target the school identified in our Annual Implementation Plan. Importantly, could I also thank the staff that run these opportunities on a voluntary basis, each of whom give up their lunchtime or before school time to offer these opportunities to our students. 

Mother’s Day

Thank you kindly to our PFC Co-Presidents, Jenni and Kylie for organising a wonderful Mother’s Day raffle and stall. Most importantly, we do hope all our CPS Mothers enjoyed a wonderful day and were spoilt throughout Sunday. Thank you to all families for supporting our raffle and stall and the fundraising associated with this. The raffle was kindly supported by local business, could I extend my sincere thanks to Wonder Flowers, Talk of The Town, Obleeka, Mr Cedar, Grumpy Betty, Expose Café and Gary Peer for their generous support of our school. 

Walk Safely to School

Next Friday morning, all students have the opportunity to take part in our Walk Safely to School morning. Staff will be on duty before school and standing on our gates to welcome your child into the school and our PFC is kindly organising breakfast for our students who are asked to bring along their own bowl and spoon. We will conclude the day with a special assembly on Friday afternoon to announce class prizes and winners from our poster competition and after tallying our walk to school totals. Even if your child arrives by vehicle to school, families are encouraged to park around the corner or perhaps walk some of the way on that morning. This is a great community activity and a nice way to start the beginning of the school day. 

NAPLAN

Could I please acknowledge and congratulate our Year 3 and 5 students, families and staff for the manner in which they have tackled their NAPLAN tests this week, we are effectively half way through the testing period, with our Conventions of Language and Numeracy tests to be completed on Monday and Tuesday of next week. This is the first time that the tests were completed online throughout the country and I am very happy to note the manner in which our students have applied themselves during these sessions and importantly note that our I.T infrastructure has stood up to enable tests to completed without issue. A NAPLAN report will be issued for each child later in the year, whilst noting that NAPLAN provides a snapshot of where students are performing at the time and on that given day. It is one aspect of our commitment to making informed judgments using multiple sources of data, summative and formative assessment to support every child. 

Professional Learning

One of my initial takeaways from working at Caulfield Primary School is the strong commitment from all staff to improve upon and develop in their own ability and engage in professional learning. I really admire this approach and the commitment from all staff. Noting this, I am thrilled to identify that all teaching staff undertook a Term 2 learning walk to observe another classroom and enter in data to allow us to look at whole school improvement. 

Our focus during Term 1 and 2 was around the consistent use of Learning Intentions and Success Criteria as a visible reference point for students in every classroom. We recently reviewed this data as a whole group and noticed some considerable shifts in practice to promote consistency from Prep – Year 6. 

Further to that, the school was accepted into the intake of Department of Education and Training Professional Learning Communities Program, this will allow us to work with other schools and develop our own approach to data literacy and the data inquiry cycle. Four staff will be offered the opportunity to lead this work and be trained as instructional leaders to support us to introduce this program throughout the school. 

Additionally, this term, I was asked by the Department of Education and Training (DET) to deliver a professional learning course for teachers and school leaders in the South East Victorian Region. From our school Miss Gianarelli will work alongside teachers and leaders from our network school to engage in a professional learning course around Significant Reading Difficulties and Dyslexia.  

This is a great opportunity for this knowledge to be shared back to other staff in the school. From my end, as a school leader, supporting students with additional needs is something I am extremely passionate about having delivered these courses for the DET since 2013. 

Positive Relationships

Can I please acknowledge the efforts of our staff that have delivered many wonderful opportunities for our students throughout the beginning of the school year. 

Families are encouraged to work closely with us to support your child and we are entirely comfortable with taking feedback (both positive and potential areas for improvement) on board. In saying that, all our staff work to ensure that all communication is delivered respectfully and we do ask that this is offered back in return. 

The Statement of Values and School Philosophy provides a summary of expectations for myself, teachers, parents and students. Namely that communication is undertaken politely and respectfully with all members of the school community. 

The Complaints Policy identifies further expectations including the need to communicate, raise and discuss issues in a courteous and respectful manner. I would ask that all families are aware of these expectations and also note the wonderful work our school staff are doing to support our students each and every day.  

Morning Routine 

It is really pleasing to see students enter the school at 8:45 each morning, they have begun to use that time to catch up with a friend or have a quick play in the school grounds. Our School Council met on Tuesday evening and once again highlighted the increased resilience that is evident amongst their own children and validated by teaching staff by maintaining the independence that is offered by having our students enter their classrooms on their own. Parents are welcome to bring their children into the school grounds but please be reminded that we have seen noticeable independence in all year levels as a result of our families maintaining our approach and privileging our classrooms as learning environments for our students and teachers.  

Curriculum Day

A reminder that next Wednesday 18th May the school will undertake a student free day, this will allow all staff the opportunity to engage in professional learning aligned to the Respectful Relationships Program that is delivered as a part of the Victorian curriculum. I look forward to working with our staff and sharing this learning back to our school community in the coming weeks. 

Open Day

Our first Open Day of the year was held last Saturday with a really engaged group of prospective parents welcomed into the school. Six of our student leaders welcomed our visitors and combined with Morioka Sensei, Miss Klein, Mrs Newman and myself to provide a thorough snapshot of the school and our priorities. Importantly, the feedback was incredibly positive about the school and our student leaders received glowing praise from families for the manner in which they delivered the information and worked alongside our prospective prep students in and around our classrooms. Our PFC ran a very successful Sausage Sizzle and Cake Stall on Glen Huntly Road. A great way to start our 2023 campaign, you may notice our billboards around the school promoting our next Open Day scheduled for June 18th.

Volunteer Week

Could we lean on National Volunteer Week to kindly acknowledge the volunteer support we are provided at our school whilst also rallying for some further support over the months ahead, we are greatly appreciative of the support offered by our families and volunteers to assist us. Further opportunities to contribute to our school are offered tomorrow at our Working Bee and next weekend at our Sausage Sizzle for the Federal Election. Any assistance is greatly appreciated and we look forward to seeing some friendly support over the coming weeks. Thank you in advance! 

EDWARD STRAIN

Principal