Principal's News

A Taste of Spring 

I hope everyone has enjoyed a great fortnight, our school has had many highlights over the last few weeks, in and around our classrooms. We have also seen some evidence of some spring weather emerging with some sunshine and pleasant conditions for our students to enjoy our outdoor learning spaces. Outside of our school environment, it was wonderful to see our Matilda’s team enjoy such a positive result on Monday defeating Denmark and booking in a quarter final against France on Saturday night. There were over 75,000 in attendance and live sites including Federation Square were packed. This is such an exciting time for our country, a home quarter final in a home World Cup. The Quarter-Final game is scheduled to be held at the (student friendly) time of 5pm on Saturday night, a great opportunity for our students to cheer on our Matilda’s. 

Parent/Carer Opinion Survey

We actively welcome the opportunity to take feedback from our school community via the annual Parent/Carer Opinion Survey, this is currently open to all families and takes about 20minutes to complete, as per Department of Education guidelines, I am unable to post the link and pin number in our newsletter, but I would ask that you reference the reminder that was sent out via Schoolstream on Monday and once again this afternoon (Friday). My sincere thanks to those families that have already completed the survey. 

Active Paths

We received confirmation this week, from the Bicycle Network Victoria and Glen Eira Council that our Active Paths program will be formally opened at our Assembly on the 28th August. We recently took receipt of our large mapped poster identifying our walking paths and decals and graphics are in the process of getting printed onto the sidewalk in our local streeets  to plot these routes to school. We look forward to sharing more of this work with you over the coming weeks. 

Teach the Teacher

Our Junior School Council (JSC) met on the 2nd August to work through our second session of the Teach the Teacher program delivered in conjunction with the Victorian Student Representative Council. Working towards having relevant influence and agency in the school, our JSC have identified a project that they wish to work towards over the coming months. They will prepare a learning session for our staff to inform us of their scope of work and how we can support them with this. We look forward to sharing more with you over the months ahead. 

Principals’ Day

The Victorian Principals’ Association earmarked 4th August as Principals' Day, Morioka sensei and I spent this day at the Bayside Peninsula Principal Forum with colleagues. We were treated to a wonderful surprise on Wednesday morning with a special morning tea arranged by staff and students. From my own experiences, in my time working in regional and central office in the Department of Education and in school leadership roles, I feel very privileged to be working alongside Morioka sensei and our staff in leading such a wonderful school community at CPS. I am always taken aback by the care, compassion and hard work that our teachers and education support are putting into their work and the strong relationships that they build with our families, carers and most importantly, our students. Our classrooms are engaging and fun learning environments and I am very proud of the work that is occurring within them. Principals’ Day allows me the opportunity to say thank you to our school community and our staff for creating such a positive environment and one that I feel very fortunate to call my workplace each day. 

Staff Car Park and Prep Rooms

An apology but an important grumble, could we please ensure we are not using the staff carpark located off Poplar Street in the morning and afternoon as a pickup and drop off zone for vehicles. Some of our youngest students are entering and exiting from this area of the school and I would ask that this is free from cars at all times and is purely used for pedestrian access for families. We have received reports that this is sometimes used as a drive in drop off and collection point which is not allowed nor safe for our students.  

Bayside Peninsula Principal Forum

As highlighted above, Morioka sensei and I attended the Bayside Peninsula Principal Forum last Friday and were provided an opportunity to receive a system level update as well as hear from school leaders highlighting achievements in local areas. Deputy Secretary David Howes identified the 13 major priorities from the Department of Education moving forward including: 

All of these items are system and school priorities and address ways that our school can ensure we are unapologetically maintaining high expectations and high standards for our work as a community facing organisation. All of these priorities guide the way Morioka sensei and I work within our school. 

Counting Down

We are counting down with just over 100 days to go to our School Fete, please be sure to check in to our CPS Fete page on our school newsletter for acknowledgements for our sponsors and partners that are supporting the day. My thanks to our hardworking parent committee that are putting in a great deal of work behind the scenes to make for an exciting day for our students. 

Welcome

Throughout this week, we have had the pleasure of hosting Nao and Ayane. Nao is a TOBITATE Japan scholarship recipient that offers Japanese high school and university students the opportunity to experience practical experience in a field that they may wish to study in. Nao and Ayane have spent the week in our Japanese and English classrooms and have worked to develop a greater understanding of the role of a teacher in an Australian school. It has also provided our students with the wonderful opportunity to develop their oral language with native speaking visitors. 

Thank you for engaging with our school over the last two weeks, we have a superhero day, book week parade and ongoing production rehearsals to look forward to over the coming weeks. Be sure to pop over to the Community News section where our PFC have put together details for an exciting Trivia Night event. We hope to see you at our Assembly on Monday morning or alternatively around the school. Go Blues! 

Enjoy a great weekend, 

Edward Strain 

Principal

With Thanks, 

Edward Strain

Principal