Principal Report
Good afternoon NLPS families,
May is one of my very favourite months of the year - I love the crisp air and clear, blue skies of late Autumn mornings, wearing my boots and cosy jackets again, as well as walking through the crunchy falling leaves. Plus, it's also my birthday month, which is exciting as long as I don’t think too hard about my advancing age!
Traditionally, the month of May, and Term 2, can be difficult when working at a school, where the combination of the drop in temperature, an end to daylight savings, increasing occurrence of illness and a heap of assessment and reporting to get through, means everything becomes just a little bit tougher! On the other hand, students and teachers have well established relationships and expectations so teaching and learning routines should be going smoothly. To assist stress levels, we introduced Staff Wellbeing Month in 2023 and it continues this May, when we encourage and support staff to focus on their physical, mental, and social wellbeing. So, if you see us walking in a group to get a coffee at lunch time, or dressed in Active Wear, or bringing yoga mats to school, you know why! With student wellbeing being a constant focus here at NLPS (and the whole department through the Framework for Implementing School Outcomes 2.0 - see diagram below), it’s nice to be able to provide support to all our staff as well. It also means we are better placed to support our students with their wellbeing.
School Values
Hopefully, you are all familiar with the current Newport Lakes Primary School school values, and the catchy song that Tracey J created for us!
Resilience - We keep on trying.
Critical Thinking - We solve problems and use our minds well.
Responsibility - We take care of ourselves, our community and our world.
Compassion - We always treat each other well.
Respect - We think about and act in a positive way towards each other.
You may be interested to know that the school vision and related values were created collaboratively with the entire school community in 2016. We use these values as a basis for our classroom expectations and agreements, our restorative discussions, and many of our health and wellbeing lessons. We ask all our staff and students to model these values in their actions and interactions, to help embed them fully in our daily life at school.
We have also fostered a culture of meaningful recognition and celebration that aligns with the shared vision and values. Recognising individuals, or groups, who exemplify the values through student awards (e.g., class, values, principal awards etc.), staff shout-outs, ‘green’ Compass notifications, and other regular acknowledgments reinforces their importance and encourages others to embrace them.
As the educational and social landscape evolves and new challenges arise, our shared vision must adapt accordingly. As part of the leadership group that completed the 2022 School Review, we made the very deliberate decision to keep the existing vision and values as we returned to the classrooms after the interruptions of Covid-19. We did make a change to the ‘Values Matrix’, making it more student friendly in its descriptions of the values and also incorporating the words, ‘These are the ways that everyone in the school community demonstrates our values, at school and online’ as we recognise that parents and families are also part of this learning journey as well, and support this important learning for life. If we are all consistently modelling and promoting our values, both in words and actions, we create a culture where they become ingrained in the fabric of our entire school community. Thank you for your support.
2026 Foundation Tours
These tours began in Week 1 and will continue until late May, including an information session on the evening of May 27th. We have had strong response from the community again and would like to remind families that enrolment is required to be done by July 25th, so we can plan for 2026 with confidence - of course, enrolment can also be done earlier. If you have a sibling of a student that attends here already, please do not forget to get this done by the due date.
2026 Year 7 Applications
Year 6 families would have received information regarding the Year 7 application process via Compass yesterday.
Preference forms must be returned to the front office by Friday 9th May.
If you have any questions regarding the process, please contact Brodie in the front office, who is co-ordinating the Year 6-7 process.
Lost Property
If your child seems to be missing an article of their school uniform or personal belongings, there is a strong chance that it has found its way into the school’s lost property area. Students are welcome to look through the items during the play breaks and it is a good opportunity for them to practise our school value of responsibility.
If parents are at the school, please feel free to call in anytime between 8.45am and 4.00pm to see if any of the clothing, lunch boxes, drink bottles etc. belong to your child. There is quite an assortment of items in the box there, so allow yourself a good 5-10 minutes to rummage through all the uniforms.
Interestingly, there has been an increasing amount of unlabelled items, especially lunch boxes and drink bottles, so I urge you to check that all your child/ren’s items are currently labelled, just in case they do misplace them. Members of our wonderful Parents' Club volunteer to go through and sort the uniform items regularly and, if there is a name on it, it will inevitably find its way back to the right person!
Pupil Free Day
A reminder that on Wednesday 28th May, no student is required to be at school, as all staff members are participating in a Professional Practice Day (PPD). The current EBA requires that all teaching staff get one PPD a year and, rather than rely on CRTs, schools can select to have them all on one day instead, which the NLPS Consultative Committee has agreed to do, just like last year. This year, we decided to hold this on a Wednesday, as this is the day that the majority of our staff are here, and we already have classes missing two Monday specialists with the Easter Monday and King's Birthday public holidays.
There will be no school for children on this day. Childcare is available and further information and bookings can be made by contacting the school’s OSHC provider Quantin Binnah on 9742 5040 or via email admin@qbcc.org.au.
Goodbye and Good Luck, Carolyn!
A reminder that our beloved First Aid Officer, Carolyn Brien, is retiring and will be finishing up this week. The whole school community has a chance to say goodbye to Carolyn during our face to face assembly on Friday 9th May, beginning at 2:30pm. Hoang Dang, our new First Aid Officer, will start with us on 23rd May.
Enjoy your fortnight! Happy Mother’s Day to those that will be celebrating on Sunday! Thank you to the NLPS Parents' Club for resourcing the cute activity for all our students to complete for their special person, and for organising the community event this coming Friday morning, 7:45-8:45am.
Carly Bannon
Proud NLPS Principal