After 40 weeks of learning, activities and events we are almost at the end of the 2023 school year with just over a week of school left. 2023 has been an eventful year for Fitzroy Primary School and our community has shown a high level of resilience and adaptability in having a successful year.

Some of our highlights include the fabulous fete earlier this term, our amazing art show and Iftar dinner in Term 1, book week parade and dress up, and the return of assemblies. Our students have been able to have a great year of school life, enjoying camps, excursions, incursions, sports coaching in PE, celebration days, performances, concerts, French competitions, buddies, lunchtime clubs and more. There has been plenty of excellent learning in both French and English language across the curriculum taking place throughout. I have particularly enjoyed seeing our students learn, grow and change, and it’s been great getting to know many of them throughout the year. I have been very impressed by our great parent community as well, seeing families join in our events, helping out and volunteering, and being present in our school across the year. We have squeezed a lot into this year, and I would like to thank our students, families and wonderful staff for everything we have achieved in 2023.

The upcoming week will be a very eventful for our Year 6 students. On Thursday they will be celebrating their Year 6 Graduation, a special event marking the end of their 7 years of Primary School and moving to bigger opportunities at Secondary School. Next year they are moving to a wide range of Secondary Schools, including Collingwood College, Kew High School, Melbourne Girls College, and Fitzroy High School. On Tuesday they will experience their first taste of secondary school life during the statewide transition day, and we look forward to hearing about their experiences when they return on Wednesday. No matter where our Year 6s go we know they will take a lot of great memories and friendships with them and we hope to hear about their ongoing successes into the future. We are very proud of our year 6 students and wish them the best of luck for their next steps.

As one group of students prepares to leave us, another is preparing to start their school journey. Our Foundation transition program recently ended with our third session and we know we have a wonderful new group of prep students next year. It is an exciting time for them and their families as they start to anticipate and prepare for a great start to school. I know our Foundation teachers, Fabienne and Lorene, are looking forward to an awesome year of learning next year. Our Foundation classes will start school full time on Monday 5th February 2024, with the 1:1 interviews with teachers taking place the week before. To help manage student tiredness in their first week of school Foundation families can collect their children early at 1.45pm or they can stay for quiet, calm activities after the lunch break. We look forward to having our newest friends starting next year.

The end of the school year is also bringing some news about some staffing changes for next year. Three of our teachers will be taking a break from Fitzroy Primary School for 2024 and will return in 2025. Camelia will be taking a break from teaching for 12 months, Lorna will be heading back to France for a year, and Rebecca will have a break from teaching French to teach English for the year. I am very happy to announce we will have some new staff joining our team for next year:

Ben Foster will be joining us as Disability Inclusion and Mental Health in Primary Schools leading teacher
Lorene Galli and Maelle Sanguinet will be joining as French teachers
Elvira Ralston-Ellis will continue as an English teacher for 2024
Elodie Piquet will continue with us in education support for Term 1, 2024

We are also very excited to hear that Nick Smith will be returning to Fitzroy Primary School in 2024. Nick is a much-loved member of staff and many of our students have told me how much they miss him. I will also continue into the new year as acting principal until the end of Term 1. We wish our staff on temporary leave the best of luck for next year and look forward to their return. We would like to welcome our new staff to our school and look forward to their contribution next year.

OSHC Update

School council have recently concluded the OSHC tender process that began earlier this term. Council has decided to move from Big Childcare to Leapkids Australia as our new OSHC service providers. Leapkids are a family-owned service provider who focus on the northern suburbs of Melbourne. They currently provide OSHC services at Wales St Primary School, Ivanhoe Primary School, Charles La Trobe College, Olympic Village Primary School and St Josephs Primary School in Preston. Council believes that Leapkids have the capacity to provide a service that will cater to our needs at Fitzroy Primary School. Leapkids have been appointed on a one-year contract with their service being subject to review in October 2024, allowing for a two-year extension if we are satisfied.

Big Childcare have informed us they will be terminating the OSHC service at Fitzroy Primary School at the end of the school year. The OSHC service from Leapkids Australia will commence at the beginning of the 2024 school year on Monday 29th January. Parents requiring holiday program during January can access Leapkids program at St Joseph's Primary School in Preston (please note that all excursions and incursions during holiday program are included within the childcare subsidy in Leapkids service, meaning all experiences will be subsidised). Big Childcare will confirm whether they can provide space at nearby programs for holiday care for Fitzroy Primary children early next week.We would like to thank Big Childcare for their support in partnering with us to establish our OSHC program over the past 4 years and look forward to starting the new year with Leapkids. Further information about this change can be found on Compass.

Building Works and 2024 Arrangements

As the year comes to a close, we have been keeping a close watch on the construction works at George St and waiting to hear about the planned project completion. May Construction, the builders, have informed the project team that the building is on track for completion by the end of the year and are expecting to provide occupancy in January.

On the most recent site walk on Monday I saw that the first floor is undergoing final finishes, the ground floor was mostly complete and the external landscaping near the building was well underway. Some works may continue into early January with the projection of the last external items, such as fencing, being completed then. Unless there is an unforeseen change, we are expecting to run both George St and Napier St in 2024.

Our school classroom structure will be slightly larger next year, with approximately 225 students across 11 classes starting the year. Most classes will have a French teacher and English teacher for the majority of the week, and we will continue to have PE, Performing Arts, Visual Arts and STEM as our specialists. Kitchen Garden will return and we look forward to boosting the garden program along with the kitchen program. We will have following number of classes in 2023:

Two Foundation
Four Year 1/2
Three Year 3/4
One Year 5
One Year 6

The classes that will be located at George St will be Foundation classes, Year 1/2 classes, and the Year 6 class. We have decided to have the Year 6s at George St as it will be their last year in the school and we wanted them to experience the upgraded facilities before they finish primary school, especially after experiencing the challenges of the past two years. It will also allow them to finish primary school where they started primary school.

The office will also be located at George St should parents need to see Mary or Julian.

The classes located at Napier St will be the Year 3/4 classes, and the Year 5 class. OSHC will continue to be located at Napier St in the multipurpose space (the current foundation class space at Napier St will be removed during the school holidays).

In preparation for this we have new classroom and art room furniture being delivered and installed in January in George St, along with classroom screens and phones. This will allow us to start classes from our first day on Wednesday 31st January. Across the school most classes will be changing location next year, either to George St or within Napier St, and our staff have begun boxing up items that will be moving. Removalists will take care of the moving in January to minimise the impact on classes before the end of the year. The vast majority of items will be moved by the professionals with some smaller items being moved early in the new year as needed. Boxes will be stored in classrooms until the end of the school year to allow for easier organisation for moving. Students will begin to bring schoolwork and other items home this week as we continue to prepare for the end of 2023.

We are finalising the yard arrangements for 2024 but we expect that all students will have the opportunity to play at both Napier St and George St each day, using the different facilities in each yard and spreading out across both sites. Plans allow for the Foundation-Year 2 students to play together and the Year 3-6 students to play together in different yards. We are currently finalising the processes for safe movement between both sites and within each site, ensuring that students are supervised by staff at all times. Further processes that we are finalising include late arrivals and early pickups at Napier St, breakfast club location, and first aid. Final details of these arrangements for 2024 will be confirmed and shared in Compass before school starts back.

Thank you to everyone in our community for your patience, adaptability and support over the past two years. The school has undergone some challenges with the building works and growth, however we will benefit from some really great upgraded facilities that will serve the school very well in the future.

Lastly, thank you to everyone in our community for a great year. To our students, thank you for your enthusiasm, energy and love of learning. To our families, thank you for your involvement, support and engagement across the year. To our staff, thank you for all of your tireless commitment, energy, support and endless effort for our students. I wish everyone a happy, safe and fun summer holiday break. We look forward to seeing everyone again in 2024 for another great year.

-Nathan Moore & Andrea Hennessey

Community