From the Principal's Desk

Congratulations to all our students at MPS on a fantastic year! You have achieved so much growth both inside and outside the classroom and we are all very proud of your accomplishments.

To our families, many thanks to you all for your continued support of our school and the important role you play in the lives of your children. We hope that you have an opportunity over the summer break to reflect on the progress your children have made at school, the many achievements they have made and celebrate that together. 

REPORTS-

Next Monday you will be notified on Compass when your child's report becomes available to read. Our staff have spent a great deal of time assessing and moderating the achievements of all the children before making their teacher judgements and writing their teacher comments.

End of year reports are really a wonderful way to capture not only the second semester of progress and learning but an overall way to celebrate the success of the year as opposed to mid-year reports which are designed to inform families of the next steps and goals in their learning, hence why schools coordinate parent teacher conferences in Term 3. We hope that you enjoy reading your child's report and take the time to discuss them with your children and celebrate this together.

GRADUATION-

This week I had the privilege of attending my first Year 6 Graduation for MPS at Truffleduck which was a wonderful celebration of the journey these Year 6 students have made in the journey of their formal schooling. We celebrated many awards that students achieved and were recognised for and heard from our school captains as they also reflected on their time at school.

I wanted to thank in particular Erin Gleeson, Kirsty Rixon and Jared Smith for their support and coordination of the evening. As always the staff at MPS go above and beyond and their care for the students in their classes is clearly evident. 

SCHOOL CAPTAINS 2024-

The last few weeks we have completed the process to select our school and house captains for 2024. This year we have combined the opportunity for self nomination, public speaking and student voice and agency together to allow both staff and students the opportunity to select the captains. As I mentioned to all the students, the quality and level of presentation this time around was exceptionally difficult to select only a handful of students to represent the school and ALL students who ran for a captain role should be very proud.

Please see below our successful captains for 2024.

School Captains

Evie White, Bonnie Courtney, Clancy Langtip,  Lincoln Chealuck

House Captains

Kidman- Harry Fields, Xavier Partridge 

Farrer - Luella Moro, Kaitlyn Dunbabin 

Macarthur - Ruby Curtis, Alice O’Connor  

PARENT HELPERS-

Thank you so very much to all the wonderful parent helpers that have supported the school not only this year but also in previous years. Your contribution where it be in the classroom as a helper, on excursions, canteen orders, special event days and even attending our school assemblies, it just adds to the wonderful community feel at our school. I look forward to working with many of you in 2024 as well.

SCHOOL COUNCIL-

I would like to formally acknowledge our school council members that do a wonderful job of meeting with me each term and discussing the many different items that crop up in school that require school/community consultation. I feel very blessed to work with such great families- Katie Chealuck (President), Dan Dwyer (Vice-President), Mick Stahel (Treasurer), Christine Graham and Kerrie Charlesworth. 

Next year we will have two vacant positions which we must fill with both Mick and Dan hanging up their metaphorical council boots and in the new year will be asking for nominations from parents who might be willing to join me and the wider team on our school council. In particular, we will be looking for a new treasurer, so if there is anyone out their considering this, please keep an eye out in the new year when we make the nomination call. If you have never been on council, please don't feel concerned, we have opportunity for some informal training and meets occur twice a term after school at a time that suits the council members.

I would like to formally thank both Dan and Mick for their work on council, which has been ongoing for many years from both of them! We really have appreciated your support of our school and thank you very much.

EXITING STAFF 2023-

I would like to personally thank and acknowledge some staff that are either finishing up at Moriac PS this year or who are heading off on long term leave. These staff have made a significant contribution to our school and community and have supported the students in their classrooms during 2023. 

Courtney Hobbs is taking 12 months leave to explore the world and do some travelling with her husband and Kirsty Rixon is also taking 12 months leave to focus on and spend much needed time with her family. Both Mike Nelson from 3/4A and Daniel Black from 1/2B are heading off to other opportunities in 2024. 

We wish them all well in their future endeavours! 

STAFFING PLAN 2024-

Next year at MPS, we are fortunate enough to have re-structured our middle leadership team to create some roles that will lead our P-2 and 3-6 team separately. This will mean more support for our teachers and their work in creating engaging classroom programs, but also another person that our families can work alongside when wanting meetings or support for students as the need arises.

Please see below what that will look like in 2024 as well as who is teaching what class, our specialist staffing profile and also where our education support staff are based. To enable this new profile to occur, we have some teachers that will be backfilled on particular days as is normal practice in schools as well as combining some part time staff. I am hoping that our staffing profile will remain as is, however in schools there are often last minute changes that are unforeseen and if that occurs, I will keep families updated as much as possible.

We have quite a few new staff joining us for 2024, with many existing staff heading off on long term leave, chasing the sun and other adventures. All our new staff come from many different school settings, some with lifestyle changes moving from Melbourne and some across town. The new team members are all experienced teachers and I am excited to bring them into the MPS fold. 

SEESAW, Compass & iNewsletter

Next year, along with Compass, all staff will be utilising Seesaw as a digital portfolio platform which will just be a sharing device with our families. It will be designed to be a window into classrooms with teachers sharing student work, videos and driven by what learning is taking place. We will send out QR codes to sign into your new class next year and hope that this will continue to be a way to share what your child is doing throughout the year. Compass will continue to be utilised for attendance, permissions, payments and communication etc. 

Our iNewsletter will also be published on our school website in 2024 and on our Facebook page once appropriate photo permissions are completed for the new year.

Merry Christmas to all our Moriac families! We hope that you have a safe and magical time, that Santa brings you something you've been hoping for, that your time with your families is relaxing and well spent and that you switch off from the craziness that this time of year brings. We look forward to seeing you all in the new school year!!

Thanks everyone,

Mel