Principal's Report

 World Education Support Day

Yesterday we celebrated World Education Support Day, with a special morning tea for our amazing Education Support Team. These incredible people are a daily embodiment of our school value of Inclusion, working tirelessly to ensure all students in our school receive equitable access to education and school social life.

At the morning tea, representatives from each class in the school presented each ES team member with a card as an expression of our appreciation for their work and expertise.

As further recognition of our ES team, the Department of Education's North Eastern Regional team have excitingly nominated our team for the Education Support Team category of the annual Victorian Educational Excellence Awards. This is a tremendous honour for our school, regardless of the eventual outcome, with recipients announced in Term 3.

Winter Warmers Donations

Thank you to those people who have already donated jackets and warm clothing to the annual Winter Warmers collection, organised by RMPS parent Kim Jones. The box has already been filled and emptied a couple of times, but there is still time to donate, so please have a rummage around in the cupboard and bring any good-condition unwanted items to the office by the 5th of June.

School Council Public Reporting Meeting & New Dogs at School Policy

Wednesday evening saw the 2025 Annual Report presented at the School Council Public Reporting Meeting. Thank you to members and guests for your attendance as we recounted highlights, data sets and financial reporting from the 2025 school year. There were many items to celebrate as well as some areas that we will continue to focus on as we strive for ongoing improvements in all areas of our school operations. The Annual Report is now publicly available in the policies and documents section of the school website.

Among the regular business of the School Council meeting, in response to some recent feedback, School Council considered the introduction of a new policy around pet dogs in our school grounds. The debate around this policy was extremely thorough, with all perspectives considered and many options worked through.

In the end, the recommendation from School Council to be included in the policy was that "no pet dogs are permitted on school grounds on school days between 8:45am and 4pm". School Council acknowledged that while many families will welcome this new rule, there will also be families who will feel disappointed about the decision. In the end, the School Council recommendation was made in line with our school value of Inclusion and with the health and safety of all community members in mind.

As an extension of the policy, we would also kindly request that any dogs tied up outside school be left away from high-pedestrian-traffic areas such as the main school entrances.

The new policy can be downloaded from our website in the Policies and Documents section.

Projects Update

Our playground expansion project is nearing completion, with the Victorian School Building Authority hopeful of a handover before the end of May. The next stage of works will be laying a rubberised surface over the middle part of the area, around the existing climbing structure.

A few other plans ongoing at present include:

• Playground expansion ongoing - was expected to be finished next week, now looks like a mid-June handover at the earliest. Builders will also rectify the damage to the asphalt between the playground and the gym.

• Replacement of existing gas heaters in the gym with a heating and cooling system - approved by School Council, details of the accepted quote being finalised.

• A company has been appointed with the approval of School Council to replace the floor coverings in all student toilets.

• The revitalised garden area above the playground is transforming - next stage is some flat-packing - please see Steve Roche's Compass post if you think you can help!

• With our new shade structures now in place (thanks to the PFA!), we are looking at re-purposing some of the stone blocks left over from the playground project to use as seating around the Gaga Pit, and/or other areas of the school.

• Our annual tree audit has been completed. No trees have been declared immediately hazardous, with the VSBA now managing the identified potential risk category tree works.

• Our handyman, Mick, has installed some better ventilation on the main student toilet doors. He is also going to repair our soccer goals in the coming weeks.

Peter Watson

Principal