Principal's Report

Welcome to our penultimate newsletter for Term 2. I want to focus on a very important matter today, mental health. 

It is approaching one year since we lost a beloved father in our local community. A commitment we have since made as a school was to talk about mental health with our community, as well as to start a ‘Dad’s group’ in support of our local community. The statistics for mental health concerns amongst men remains alarming; however, men who feel connected to friends and their local community had significantly better mental health and were less likely to be depressed, experience anxiety or any suicidality.  

Mental health does not discriminate and no matter your gender, background, age or how happy or connected someone may appear to be, we can all be vulnerable to periods of mental health illness or disorder. 

As an action last year, a group compromising students, staff and parents joined together to complete the ‘2XU Wellness Run’, a ‘fun run’ event starting in St. Kilda. All funds raised from this event go towards the charity ‘Beyond Blue; specifically, to ensure that Beyond Blue has the funding to maintain the 24/7 support services they provide to support the community. 

This year we have again started a ‘Caulfield South Primary School’ team for the event that will be held over 5km, 10km or 21.1km (half-marathon) on December 1st. Last year, our CSPS team was in the top-5 fundraising teams at the event, led proudly by the fundraising efforts of the Surkis family. 

I encourage as many of you as possible to join our team for the day. To register for our team, click the link here and if you have any questions that you would like to ask, please reach out to me via email. If you would like to join our ‘Dad’s Group’ WhatsApp group, please click and follow the link here.

Our school has a strong student wellbeing team, led by our Assistant Principal, Georgia Despotellis, alongside Labreni Pappas (Learning Specialist – Wellbeing), Lauren Jordan (Social Worker) and Liz Saddler (Education Support Team Leader). This group leads a focus on mental health for our students and staff and I thank them for their dedicated efforts in this area.

Georgia and I make a simple commitment to greet our students and families at the gates each morning and afternoon. Please do not hesitate to stop for a chat. We will always ask how you are going; it’s ok to say you’re not going ok. We’re always here to chat.

Thanks for your ongoing support and keep doing your best.

Rohan Cooper

Principal