Principal's Item 

Dear parents, carers and friends of EEPs,

I hope that everyone has settled into the rhythms and routines of the school term as we move through week 2.

Well done to our EEPS Netballers, who yesterday performed so well at the Division Netball competition. They won two out of the 3 games, but once again, displayed both pride and passion and the true essence of EEPS values.

Respect For All

At assembly on Monday, I spoke to the students about the need to collectively think hard about how we can show respect for our garden and play spaces around the school. Unfortunately, there have been some trees completely destroyed in the kitchen garden in recent times. The kitchen garden is a quiet space.  We ask that children stay out of garden beds and stay within designated areas. We have had several reminders about the respectful use of this space with some ongoing issues continuing. Due to this I took the reluctant decision to temporarily close the kitchen garden this week while we work together with the students to brainstorm some ways that we can together improve the respect and enjoyment when using this space. 

I also spoke to the students about racism, what it is, and that there is no place for racism in our school community. For most children understanding about different cultures is a respectful, harmonious and lifelong endeavour. Whilst racism at EEPS is certainly not a widespread occurrence we do have incidences from time to time and it was a timely reminder at our first assembly in the term.

National Tree Day

Later this week our year 3 and 4 students will participate in the National Tree Day activities at school and will be planting again, in and around the school. We have been fortunate to have a couple of small grants that have gone towards tree planting. Please make an effort to read the ‘Sustainability’ update in the Newsletter because there are lots of really great things happening at EEPS at the moment.

Process - Lack of Food

Just a reminder that when a student has forgotten their lunch, the first step is for the school office to make contact with parent/s to see if anyone is available to bring the lunch up. If this isn’t possible, then we provide a small bag of rice crackers and/or an Up and Go drink. Lately we have had a few students who have come to the office asking for more lunch. Can I please ask parents to work with your child/ren collectively on packing lunches so that they have sufficient food for them for the day. We will work with the students to help them remember that the office is not a lunch box filling service!

Emergency Management

Later this week we will have another practice emergency evacuation drill. This is timely as all schools have begun the process of updating their Emergency Management Plans for 2024-2025, which begin again on September 1st. The purpose of this date is to ensure that plans have been reviewed before our summer bushfire season. In addition to this the Department has recently centralised the annual safety and emergency and fire safety devices inspections, which we are hoping may streamline the processes in time.

Parent and Carer Opinion Survey

Please look out for a separate Compass Newsfeed this week about the 2024 Parent and Carer Opinion Survey. This is an open invitation to all EEPS families.

OSHC Educator Day

Next Wednesday, 31st July, is OSHC Educator Day. We are lucky to have such a great school run OSHC facility, with excellent staff, so please make every effort to thank them on this day!

Lastly, there will not be an assembly next week (Monday 29th July) but we will resume our assemblies at full strength on Monday 5th August to celebrate our 61st birthday!

Have a great week.