We are into August, the weather is warming up, the days are getting longer and we are already a few weeks into Term 3 with plenty happening around the school. Thanks for getting involved throughout the school over the last fortnight, please find some snapshots of highlights and upcoming events shared for the coming weeks.

100 Days of School

We were joined by our preps at our online assembly on the 28th July, celebrating their 100 days of school. There are so many things to celebrate and our families and staff have done a wonderful job to ensure that those first 100 days of school were memorable and positive. Well done to our preps on all they have achieved in their first 100 days of school and to our teaching staff for the work that they have led to support them each and everyday.

Wellbeing Morning

Come along to a relaxed wellbeing morning tea next Wednesday morning, joining our wellbeing leaders Morioka sensei and Mrs Weston as they look to build relationships with our families and share the many elements of our wellbeing approach at CPS. Mrs Weston is eager to put a face to a name and connect with many of you, we have also paired this up with a coffee van onsite in the morning, so grab a morning coffee with us and come join us to begin your Wednesday.

Yoga

A reminder that we have some exciting ways to support our families and wellbeing this term, we are offering four free slow flow yoga classes, two of these on Friday afternoon and two further opportunities on Friday morning. No experience is needed and it is open to all abilities, ages and interests. If you are able to bring along your own mat, that would be fantastic. We look forward to bringing some flow into Friday for our school community.

School Pick Up

Teaching staff are aware of students waiting to be picked up afterschool out the front of the school on Olive Street between 3:30 - 3:45pm. Could we please ask that if students are waiting to be collected that they do so in the school grounds where afterschool Yard Duty is in place until 3:45pm. It is very difficult for staff to supervise out the front of the school and this request is made to support Child Safety. Parents are asked to obtain a carpark and collect their child.

School Council

On Tuesday evening, we held our first school council meeting for Term . This was a valuable opportunity to engage with our school council members and detail and discuss student learning, wellbeing, policy and governance. I am greatly appreciative of our school council for working through such a positive meeting. Topics covered included:

Naplan performance
Preliminary report from our school review
Sub-Committee Reports including finance, buildings and grounds, education and policy and school engagement.

The final school council meeting for this term is held on the 9th September.

Monash University Alumni Support

A wonderful acknowledgement for one of our teaching staff with Miss Pyrcz asked to present at the Monash University, Faculty of Education Open Day over the holiday break. Miss Pyrcz is a member of our Year ¾ team and in her second year of teaching, prospective Monash University students were able to hear firsthand experiences of her studies and early teaching career. Congratulations Miss Pyrcz.

Professional Learning

Our staff are continuing to find ways to improve their practice, learn and develop their capacity. I am very proud of their work and committment to professional growth.

Did you know:

We are currently in a parternship with an Inclusion Outreach coach developing inclusive practice in our school.
We are currently working with a School Wide Positive Behaviour Coach to implement School Wide Positive Behaviour with fidelity as a whole school framework.
Two of our education support staff are engaging in professional learning targeting Learning Difficulties including Dyslexia (LDiD)
Two of our teaching staff are developing their leadership capacity in a formal leadership professional learning course

Parent Opinion Survey

The 2025 Parent, Caregiver and Guardian Opinion Survey will be available to complete online from Monday 18 August to Friday 19 September 2025. The survey seeks feedback on school climate, community engagement in learning, teaching practices for student engagement and outcomes, and attitudes towards school attendance. Further details will be shared via schoolstream.

Events and Activities

Part of our wellbeing program is providing our students with structure and some added opportunities for play, movement and building relationships and social emotional learning. Our school week is awash with opportunities for our students to join in any number of activities before, during and afterschool. Every event that is offered during school hours (recess and lunchtime) is free and is kindly made available by the voluntary efforts of our staff, many of whom forfeit their lunch break to provide these opportunities for our students.

We are also opening up our ‘Chill and Mattari’ or Chill Out Space on Tuesday and Thursday as an added element of our wellbeing program which is really exciting.

Book Week

We are partnering with Avenue Bookstore to hold our CPS Book Fair next week, with students given the opportunity to browse and purchase books. This partnership provides a direct benefit to our school with a percentage of sales made providing the school with a balance to purchase further literature for our library.

We also have two exciting opportunities for our students, our Prep – Year 2 students working with a Japanese author and our Year 3-6 students having the chance to listen to some slam poetry by a famous poet.

Mobile Phones Aged Under 13

Last week a story was doing the rounds in the media about a recent study into the use of mobile phones by children under the age of 13. The study, published in the Journal for Human Development and Capabilities, discusses the global rise in smartphone and social media use and how it has dramatically reshaped childhood and adolescence. It looks at the effects of smartphone ownership before the age of 13 on mental health and wellbeing. The results showed that the relationship between earlier smartphone ownership and poor mental health outcomes in early adulthood, particularly among females, especially when paired with access to algorithmically curated social media (which is pretty much all social media), profoundly diminishes mind health and wellbeing and is associated with increased symptoms and diminished functioning across a range of domains, with consequences extending into education and civic participation.

Accessing social media and smartphones is often an unsupervised gateway that disrupts key developmental activities such as person-to-person relationships and sleep. It also exposes children to harmful content online including violence, ideologies, deepfakes and inappropriate images. As the age at which children receive a smartphone continues to decrease, the “data suggests a concerning trajectory toward a population with higher rates of aggression, suicidal thoughts, feelings of detachment from reality, and diminished self-worth, emotional control, and resilience.”

The study found that, “globally, the age of access to social media accounts for approximately 40% of the overall association between age of smartphone ownership and mind health. Other significant contributing factors include poor family relationships (13%), cyberbullying (10%), and disrupted sleep (12%). Notably, 68% of the negative impacts associated with poor family relationships and 63% of the negative impacts associated with cyberbullying are downstream of age of first social media account.”

The authors of the study call for restrictions on the use of smartphones and social media, similarly to what we see with tobacco, alcohol and driving, based on a child’s developing mind and body during these critical formative years. This is of course what Australia will be introducing later in the year with a world first ban on social media by the Federal government.

Connecting with other people is the essence of humanity. School is one of the best places to achieve that, but so too is joining a club and actively engaging in in-person social activities outside of school hours. I would encourage all families to look into the study and make an informed choice regarding smartphone access for primary school aged children.

One option that all parents have right now is to empower themselves when it comes to their child’s use of technology. Setting boundaries and limits early can have many positive benefits over the long term.

ThinkUKnow

As a follow up the information shared above, our school has partnered with Victoria Police and the Proactive Policing Unit and Youth Resource officers to work with our students this term delivering three sessions to our Year ½’s, Year ¾’s and Year 5/6’s. ThinkUKnow presentations for students are aligned to the Victorian curriculum to ensure they are age-appropriate and relevant to students’ learning.

Topics included within the presentation are specifically aimed at educating and increasing awareness about online child sexual exploitation including avoiding inappropriate contact, online grooming, self-generated content, sexual extortion and how to get help. It is wonderful opportunity to engage with experts in this area and allow students the opportunity to ask questions, seek answers and find out a little more about what they can do to be safe and aware in online environments.

Enjoy a great weekend, I look forward to seeing you around the school over the week ahead.

Edward Strain

Principal

Caulfield Primary School Newsletter

Excellence, Respect, Diversity, Responsibility, Kindness, Honesty

Issue 13 · 08 Aug 2025

In this issue