From the Principal
2024 Wrap Up
Believe it or not, we have made it to the end of another school year! It has been a busy one with lots happening. Students have worked hard to improve their reading, writing and Mathematics skills.
A huge area of focus has also been on embedding our school values of Respect, Cooperation, Caring, Honesty and Personal Best in the way we all behave. These are values, not just for LEPS, but for life. We all prefer to be around people who are caring and respectful towards us rather than those who are disrespectful and uncooperative. Sadly, this seems to be the 'norm' at the moment. I was horrified when doing Christmas shopping at the weekend at the way different customers spoke to the retail staff. The lack of respect was staggering! That is why our school values are so important in every day life. It is something we can model all the time to show, not only our own children, but everyone else the way we should all behave so that we can all enjoy living in a peaceful, respectful community.
Thank you
I would like to sincerely thank all the LEPS staff (teaching, ES, Office) for all their stellar efforts to keep putting the students at the centre of all decisions they make. Staff work an incredible number of unpaid additional hours outside regular school hours to create unique, meaningful experiences for the students and to ensure we are best able to cater for their needs.
Some of the work completed in the last two weeks outside regular school hours includes:
editing and finalising the Grade 6 graduation book
ordering food for the graduation
arranging acknowledgements for graduation award winners
filming and editing the grade 6 graduation video
working on class lists
preparing unique 'keepsakes' for students to mark the end of the year
ordering book supplies for 2025
ordering new uniforms
arranging payments to families as part of the School Bonus initiative
arranging end of year class celebrations . . .
This effort often goes unnoticed because staff do not make a big fuss about it. I hope all families can take a few moments to say 'thank you' to staff at some point this week for all their work with and for your child. I think 'thank you' is one of the most powerful words in our vocabulary and even better it is FREE!
I would also like to acknowledge the work of our incredible volunteers throughout this year. Their support is invaluable and we would not be able to achieve as much as we do without their efforts. Our volunteers have supported us in a number of different areas including:
School Council members
Breakfast Club
Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day stalls
Classroom helpers.
2025 Leaders
We were very excited to introduce our new School Captains, Aleena, Artin, Banin and Yousef at our final assembly for the year. It was lovely to see our 2024 Captains, Kassem, Jayla, Linda and Malek, 'pass the microphone' over to the new captains and provide some lovely insights into the new captains for our community.
Kassem, Jayla, Linda and Malek have been wonderful leaders in 2024 and I thank them for all their work in leading the students and community. I hope they all pursue leadership opportunities at secondary school as they have all made a positive difference in the time they have been at LEPS and we would love to see them continue this work in a new community.
Happy Holidays
There is no doubt everyone is pretty exhausted after a very busy and taxing year. Everyone is definitely looking forward to having a few weeks off from having to rush around in the morning, battle the traffic to get to school on time and then do it in reverse at the end of the day.
I hope everyone has the opportunity to just slow down and relax over the next few weeks. Take time to enjoy spending time with friends and family and just recharge our batteries.
I hope everyone stays safe and that 2025 is a positive year for us all.
We look forward to seeing everyone back at LEPS at 9:00am on Wednesday 29 January 2025!
Linda Richards
Principal