Principal's Report

2025 Preparations

Work has been well underway for 2025 and we are looking forward to an amazing year ahead. Carlton Gardens Primary are making plans to go from strength to strength with some key priorities trickling down from the Department and being tailored to meet our very unique context.

New Curriculum

One key area that has a range of implications for our work in 2025 will be the commencing the implementation of Curriculum 2.0. The suite of resources that are becoming available are enhancing the way in which we design our teaching and learning programs to ensure that students are being met at their point of need - more details and information on this work will be shared throughout the year.

Victoria's Reading Approach

Another key area would be Victoria's approach to reading, where all Victorian government students from Prep to Grade 2 will be taught using a systematic synthetic phonics approach as part of their reading programs, with a minimum of 25 minutes daily explicit teaching of phonics and phonemic awareness. Thankfully, we are well on our journey to include these important approaches to teach reading. One big challenge that we will be working to conquer, early in the year will be the resourcing of specialised decodable texts for our students. We have been purchasing a lot over the last couple of years, but we will be looking get even more through the funds raised in the parent contributions for 2025.

Wellbeing, behaviour, engagement and inclusion

Next year will be a year where we can truly embed a range of initiatives that have commenced this year. We will be investing significantly in our programs that support wellbeing, behaviour, engagement and inclusion across the school to ensure that we can embed as part of the fabric of our school. You will see the next iteration of SWPBS, Respectful Relationships, emotional literacy, bully prevention and eSafety. Our team of resident experts will be leading this work to improve the experience for all learners at CGPS.

Reports

Reports go live this week and, as you will see, lots of work goes into composing and curating them. As we move into next year, with an updated curriculum, we will be looking to ensure that our reports meet the intended purpose:

Student reports comprise high-level, point-in-time judgements of achievement and progress that are determined through analysis of a range of assessment evidence. The report must be a written report (print or digital) in an accessible form and be easy for parents/carers to understand.

I will be keen to chat with parents/carers about our reports and how we might enhance them to ensure that they are easy to understand and highlight what your children have achieved. Please consider the following questions when you are reading your child's report - What is most valuable? What is most difficult to understand? What could be better? Are there any parts unhelpful?

Exciting news for Monika and our System

It is with great excitement that I get to announce that Monika has been successfully appointed the role of Expert Teacher in Residence for 2025 at The Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership. This is an important executive position at 'The Academy' that Monika is going to be wonderful at for 2025. This is a 12 month secondment from CGPS, which means she will not be with us for 2025. Although, I've ensured that part of her contract for this role had to enable her to come and visit us - so we look forward to congratulating Monika (in person) in Term 1.

Acting Assistant Principal for 2025

We have been very fortunate to have had Pagen join us for the last few weeks of this term. She has gone above and beyond in the role of Acting Assistant Principal, although there is definitely no 'acting' about an acting role. Thankfully, we hadn't scared her off and we can confirm that Pagen has been appointed to the acting position for 2025, whilst Monika is at The Academy. Pagen's experience and leadership is going to be a tremendous asset to our work in 2025.

School Captains 2025

What an awesome election period we had this year. Our 3 new school captains (Amelia, Tess and Audrey) are going to do an amazing job, with their roles becoming even more influential next year. We are looking forward to them leading more across the school in 2.

RMIT Project

Last Monday, I had the pleasure of attending an exhibition at RMIT University that was showcasing some work completed by our year 6 students. Students were tasked with designing a new street scape for Cardigan St, following a number of specialised learning provided by RMIT. This included visits to the university to have exclusive access to some of their learning spaces. It was a great evening, supported by our wonderful community and also key members of Melbourne City council and the State Government.

January Newsletter!!

We hope that everyone has a wonderful Summer break, enjoying time with family and friends! In January, we will publish a Special Edition Newsletter that will have some very important information ahead of the start of school - you will be notified through Compass when it is available.