Principal's Desk
2027 Financial Contributions (Family Payments)
At this month’s School Council meeting, the 2027 Financial Contributions were finalised. I’m pleased to share that, thanks to careful planning and budgeting, there will be no price increase for 2027 for the curriculum contributions portion.
As in previous years, once payment is made through Compass, resource packs will be delivered directly to your child’s classroom from mid-November, with all additional items supplied by the school, during 2027.
This year, you will notice more items in your child’s resource pack. In previous years, some of these items went straight to the classroom teacher.
At the start of the school year, please send the full pack to school with your child so their classroom teacher can store it. Teachers will hand out items throughout the year as your child needs them for their learning.
All student computers and iPads will continue to be provided by the school, ensuring every child has access to the necessary technology for learning.
Full details can be found on Compass under ‘Course Confirmation’.
Supporting Positive Communication: Respecting Our Right to Disconnect
As a community, we value open and respectful communication, knowing that strong relationships between families and our staff greatly contribute to our students’ success. This year, we’re placing an extra focus on balancing this vital communication with the well-being of our staff, aligning with legislation—the "Right to Disconnect."
The Right to Disconnect, introduced to support work-life balance, means that employees have the right to disconnect from work communications outside of their regular working hours. For our school, this means that our dedicated teachers and staff are encouraged to focus on their personal time and recharge once their workday ends at 4:30pm.
We understand that sometimes you may need to reach out to a teacher with a question or a concern. We encourage you to do so during regular school hours whenever possible (8:30am until 4:30pm). If you send a message outside these hours, please know that our staff may not respond until the following school day. This respect for boundaries helps ensure they return to work refreshed and able to give their best to your children.
For urgent matters, please contact the school office directly. Our team will ensure the message reaches the appropriate staff member as soon as possible.
Thank you for your support as we implement these changes. By respecting the Right to Disconnect, we’re all working together to create a positive, healthy environment for our students and our staff alike.
Swimming program
Later this week, we will see the Year 1, 3 and 5 students begin to participate in the swimming program, at Paul Sadler Swim School. The skills our students will learn during the program will provide them with a swimming and water safety foundation that will enable them to safely enjoy aquatic activities in a limited range of environments. The school swimming and water safety lessons cover 4 key components:
Underwater Skills
Entries & Exits
Stroke Development
Water Safety
Thank you to Miss Skye Booth for organising this 7-day event.
Seeking Support - 2026 Student Learning Groups
Next week, we will begin to work with students, to identify five (5) students in their year level that they work well with.
I ask that you also have the same conversation with them at home as well. We all know someone we work well with is not always our best friend and it may also be someone in another class.
By having those conversations at home, it prepares them to understand the importance of providing the best 5 names to assist in their development as learners. Furthermore, these 5 names are not preferenced but a list of names in which we will match at least one of them (in most cases multiples). If you have sent a request in over the last few weeks and included names of children to be paired with, please have the same conversation with your child to ensure these names match-up.
I strongly encourage all families to take the time to have these small but important chats. By doing so, it not only goes a long way in helping us in making the best learning environments for 2027 but also it significantly assists us in formulating the best class groups we possibly can based on the information we have available.
It is important to note, that now that the class placement process has begun, it is extremely difficult to make changes after the fact. My hope is that families recognise and respect the huge process in formulating grades, using the information provided to us and understand that changes cannot be made once the communicated timelines have passed. In the interest of fairness, should any requests from parents be made in which is outside the parameters that were clearly communicated (such as not to include specific teacher names), will not be taken into account when formulating classes for 2027.
As in previous years, our goal for 2027 is to keep class sizes as small as possible and to continue offering straight grades. Straight grades means students are taught in single year level classes, rather than mixed year levels.
The number of classes we can offer each year is set by the funding provided to us for staffing, which comes from government allocations. We are working hard behind the scenes to make the most of every dollar, and as we move into workforce planning for 2027, our commitment remains the same: the smallest class sizes and straight grades that our funding allows.
Safe Socials - For parents and carers (Primary)
The Department has created resources and advice regarding how parents can support their children as they navigate the online world, specifically on how to stay safe and the potential risks of social media. See link below for some great advice and tips.
https://www.vic.gov.au/safe-socials-parents-and-carers-primary
School Community Safety Order Scheme: Statutory Review
A report and recommendations from the statutory review of the School Community Safety Order Scheme are now available.
While the majority of parents and carers work well with schools to resolve concerns, sometimes there is harmful behaviour affecting our school staff and students. The scheme allows principals and other authorised persons in Victorian schools to make School Community Safety Orders to stop or limit parents, carers and other adults who behave in harmful, threatening or abusive ways towards people in the school community.
For more information on the review, refer to Independent statutory review into the School Community Safety Order Scheme.
For more information on the scheme, refer to the School Community Safety Orders webpage
2026 Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge
Congratulations to our students who have successfully completed the 2026 Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge. All students who completed the challenge this year will be provided with a certificate, recognising their achievement. Park Ridge students are among the 66,000 school students who completed the Premier’s Reading challenge this year.
Together, they read a remarkable 2.9 million books in total.
Supporting children’s reading is one of the most important things we can do to encourage their love of learning – opening a gateway for them to find out more about the world around them. The Premier’s Reading Challenge wouldn’t be possible without the support of our passionate and dedicated teachers, support staff and Miss Ashlee Grouios who coordinated the challenge, and our parents and carers who supported their children’s reading at home.
Planning for Next Year
We are well into planning our school and classes for next year and need to have a clear idea of exactly who will be here. This information is very important for us as we form classes, so we can ensure that our classes are balanced in all aspects including friendships. One child moving away can leave another child without a friend in the new class. If you know that your child will be moving away next year, please send us an email to park.ridge.ps@education.vic.gov.au letting us know where your child will be attending school next year.
Wishing you a great week ahead. As always, feel free to drop in for a chat with Carrie or myself. Our doors are always open!
Take care,
Mr. Dale Blythman