Assistant Principal's Message

Hi All,

Wow! Not long to go now. With the 2025 academic year winding down, we can all feel the excitement of summer break just over the horizon. There have been so many highlights across the year, and hopefully long-lasting memories have been created for our children. Thank you to our fantastic staff, students and community for another wonderful year…our 151st year in serving the Clifton Hill community.

Big Play Out

As our students know, the CHPS fair is Megan’s favourite day of the year. The Big Play Out has become a major highlight on the yearly calendar for our school community. It was such a huge success, with the beautiful weather and fantastic community atmosphere. There was great on-stage entertainment which was hosted by our charismatic MC. Our buzzing food and drinks precinct kept everyone fuelled and lubricated. There were great bargains at our awesome stalls and silent auction, while amusements and rides kept the children entertained throughout the day. 

A successful fair takes a lot of people to put in a huge amount of time and work. A heartfelt thank you goes to our remarkable Fair Committee, whose dedication and countless hours of planning brought this event to life. A special thanks must go Alison Lewis, Nick Haslett, Giana Laidlaw, Catherine Wilcox and Hila Malka who were the key drivers in the organisation of this event. To our grade parents, staff, volunteers, sponsors and every helping hand who ran stalls, cooked, sold, lifted, organised, cleaned, set up and packed down; your generosity and teamwork were visible in every part of the day. We are lucky to have such an active and engaged community.  Thanks to everyone's hard work we raised $120,000.

Social Media Ban for Children

How to support your child under 16 with the new social media age restrictions

From 10 December 2025, the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 will require social media platforms to:

• prevent children and young people under 16 from having a social media account
• deactivate or freeze existing accounts held by people under 16.

Delaying access to social media protects the health and well-being of young people and gives them extra time to build real-world connections and digital literacy skills.

The responsibility will be on the social media platforms, not parents, carers, children or schools, to implement these new restrictions. Most popular social media platforms will be age-restricted. These include Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Reddit and YouTube.

Messaging services and online games, as well as apps and platforms that support health and education, can still be used.

How to help under 16s prepare for the change:

Parents and carers play an important role in supporting their children to be safe online. To help get under 16s ready for the social media minimum age requirements, you can go to the eSafety website to learn more about the social media age restrictions and find tips on how to talk about social media age restrictions with young people.

What the change means for our school:

At our school, all age-restricted social media platforms are blocked for student use on the school network.

To keep up to date about the new social media age restrictions, visit the eSafety website and subscribe to their newsletter.

Step Up Day

On Monday 15th December, we will be holding our Step Up Day, where students will spend time with their 2026 teacher and classmates. Step Up Day is designed to be a positive and supportive experience, giving students the opportunity to begin familiarising themselves with their new teacher, classroom environment, and peers. Our teachers will be thoughtfully guiding this process to ensure all students feel comfortable, confident, and excited about the year ahead.

Our Year 6 students heading off to government secondary schools in 2026 had their Step Up Day on Tuesday 9th December while those students who will be attending private schools have also recently had their Step Up Day as well.

School Reports

Student reports for this semester will be published on Compass on Friday, 12th December.

Important Note for Year 6 parent & carers:

Your child’s profile will be archived on Compass at the end of the year, and you will lose access to all your child’s reports. It you have not done so, now is the time to download all their reports from the Compass Portal while you still have access to them.

Farewells

We say farewell to the Graduating Class of 2025. They will be celebrating their graduation on Wednesday 17th December with their families. It is an event they are looking forward to and are busy preparing for. We wish them all the best for their secondary schooling and hope that their futures are happy and successful. The next years of their lives will be full of new experiences, new teachers and new friends. 

The end of the school year will see us farewell not only our Year 6 students but also families who have been part of the CHPS community for many years. Each year we acknowledge the families of Year 6 students who are the final member of the family to be enrolled at CHPS.  We also acknowledge the families who are moving to new schools through choice and circumstances. We wish them all the very best for the future and thank them all for their contributions to our school community.

Furthermore, we have several staff who will be departing at the end of the year.  We wish Cassie Troija, Guilaine Andre, Vince Licata, Lizzie Rennie, Ashley Cocks, Tennille Murphy and David Honeybone all the best in their next pursuits and hope to see them around CHPS soon. CHPS thanks them for their contributions - they will be missed very much.

Finally

Just a reminder the school year for students will finish on Thursday 18th December at 2:30pm.

Have a safe and happy break from everyone at CHPS,

Gareth Buck

(Assistant Principal)