Principal's Item 

Dear parents, carers and friends of EEPS,

As always there are lots of things going on at EEPS. It was great to accompany our EEPS Cross Country team to Eltham Lower Park last Friday. Our students displayed a positive attitude and we finished with really great results. To our delight we won the district shield again. Well done Team EEPS!

Preps in Action

Last Thursday it was fantastic to welcome many 2025 students and families to our Preps in Action afternoon. Equally as wonderful it was lovely to see many younger siblings in attendance. The 2024 prep students and teachers enjoyed sharing their learning spaces and interacting with our visitors. Thank you to Miss Claridge for organising the afternoon.

National Simultaneous Storytime

Today is National Simultaneous Storytime for 2024. This is an annual event that was introduced a few years ago. This is the day when children all around Australia are encouraged to read the same book. This year the book is ‘Bowerbird Blues’ by Aura Parker. Mr Dunne, Mrs Joseph and I have narrated the book for the students to enjoy. Thank you to Mrs Egan and Mr Dunne for putting this together. It is always uplifting to provide engaging and interesting literature activities for the students.

School Review

Yesterday and today are the ‘Field work’ days for the School Review. They are certainly busy days with the panel talking to all members of the community, examining curriculum documentation and observing lessons throughout the school. I want to sincerely thank the parents who were available and able to attend the parent forum yesterday afternoon. The panel was enormously appreciative to hear the voice of parents.

Delta Dog

We were very pleased to welcome Catherine and Xena from Delta Dogs recently. This wonderful team will visit EEPS regularly and work with different groups of children. This is another great initiative, combined with others such as the Kids Hope mentors, and the year level workshops such as U R Strong and Reach, that all add and enhance our practices for social and emotional wellbeing and engagement. You can see a picture of Catherine and Xena in the school office.

World Bee Day

Monday was World Bee Day! It is thanks to Mrs Jackson and the genuine excitement that she is helping to promote in our Biodiversity and Sustainability Year 3 /4 subject that World Bee Day is a ‘thing’! This was the Facebook post from earlier in the week:

Today is World Bee Day. It’s a day to spread awareness of the significance of bees for our survival. In Sustainability and Biodiversity, Year 3 and 4 EEPS students ventured into the kitchen garden to track the number of bees they could find. Later this term, students will be designing, building and installing pollinator homes, and then collecting more data to see if bee numbers have increased. We are also launching a bee colouring competition today to celebrate. Have a bee-autiful day! 

Thank you to Beatrix and Audrey, two of our Year 3 students, who confidently stood up in assembly and told us all about the day.

JSC Positive Posters

Our wonderful Junior School Council have been working hard to create “positivity posters” and a “compliment challenge” throughout the school. Please look out for these posters when you are next visiting. Thank you to the JSC for their constant efforts with positive ideas and initiatives this year, also to Mrs Vescio for her guidance.

Child Safe Policy Feedback

Schools have a lot of policies that we must continually update. Some of central DE policies whilst others are locally created. Most policies come with a regular schedule of review. You may recall that 2 years ago the government required all schools to update their Child Safe policies. These policies have gone through School Council for review again this term but are available for feedback from parents and carers. If you would like to view them or provide feedback, then please do so under the ‘Child Safe Compliance’ section on our school website.

Staff Update

I am very pleased to congratulate Garry Wynne, our Facilities Coordinator, for his 50 years’ service in the Department of Education. Congratulations Garry and what an amazing commitment to several generations of children. 

Workshops - Reach and Choir

This Friday we have special workshops for our Year 5 and 6 students from the Reach Foundation. We also have a choir rehearsal workshop for the 2024 Boite school choir, we are looking forward to both of these.

IDAHOBIT Day

Last Friday was IDAHOBIT day. This is what we had on our EEPS website:

Today is IDAHOBIT day...International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. As a school, Eltham East Primary School, is proud to have a Statement of Inclusion whereby we warmly welcome, respect and embrace all our community members and our rich diversity of beliefs, cultural backgrounds, abilities, gender identities and family structures. However, beyond the Statement we strive hard to embed this level of respect in our practices.

It is my sincere hope that all our rainbow families feel welcome and valued by EEPS.

I wish all our students who are auditioning tomorrow for speaking parts in Heroes all the very best of luck - thank you for being brave and having a go. It is going to be a really challenging process for Mrs Vescio and Ms Owen to decide. Fingers crossed!

Have a great week of ‘Learning and Growing Together’.