Principal's Report

We were thrilled last week to receive communication from the Hon. Ben Carroll MP, the Deputy Premier and State Minister for Education. Mr. Carroll confirmed that Gardenvale will receive $11.7 million State Funding to complete Stage 1 of our Master Plan. This project means that our main Senior Campus building will be upgraded and modernised. This will be the largest building project Gardenvale has been involved in since the two campuses were built. Dimi and I have been working with Perkins Architects and the VSBA, over the past 18 months to complete the planning and design stages. With the allocation of this State Funding, it is confirmed that we will be moving into the building phase of the project. Areas that will be completely renovated and updated include all administration areas, library, classrooms, additional learning spaces, staff room and amenities.  From the street we will largely maintain the same exterior of the school, apart from the main entrance, which will convert back to the original arched entrance way! I will keep you updated as more information comes to hand!

Working Bee

We had perfect weather for our Year 1 and 5 Working Bee last Sunday. It was terrific to have many of our students come along and work alongside their parents, particularly our Year 5 students.  We definitely could not maintain our school grounds to the standard that we do without the support we receive from so many of our school community. 

Dimi and I are extremely grateful to the following school community members and families for helping to make our entire school look extra neat and tidy or gave a donation: Ignacio Arancibia, Simon Balmer, Alisa Bezhenar, Cara Bredebusch, Sam Burns, Luke Buzaglo, Sylvia Cao, Chai Family, Dan and Elysia Ferguson, Rob Forrester, Galinksy Family, Barry Goldman, Esin Guler, Jenny Gwynne, Marlena and Vitaly Kiner, Adrian and Kate Koenig, Esther Lauretti, Jaehee Lee, Fairlie Mahemoff, Mayank Maini, Beth Muir, Tom Nguyen, Phill Nixon, Ed Nucci, Luke Papatheohari, Phillips Family,  Beth Poulter, Lisa Reiner, Katya Shramkova, Simon Stainmagen, Katherine Williamson, Jonathan Yap, Adrian Zandberg, Amit Ziv Kenet and Vincent Zhang. Sincere apologies if your name is not on this list but we appreciate your help all the same! 

Our next Working Bee will be for our Prep and Year 4 Families on Sunday 17th August .

The date for the final working bee for this year is as follows: -

Term 4 – Year 3 and Junior Campus – Sunday 19th October  

Parent Teacher Conferences 

Parent Teacher Meetings are taking place next week.  There has been a great response with most parents booking meetings with their child’s/children’s class teachers. This year our Specialist Teachers are also available for parents to meet with. The meetings provide the opportunity for parents to meet with their child's teachers to discuss progress, academic performance, and address any concerns or questions. 

Walkathon Morning Tea

Thank you to all the parents for supporting and helping your children to raise funds for the walkathon. We are thrilled with the amount of money raised, which will certainly be put to good use to improve our play spaces on both campuses.  Our Year Level winners thoroughly enjoyed their special morning tea at Zest today!

Road Safety

We ask parents and grandparents to adhere to the 2-minute parking zones, ‘No Parking’ zones and the designated spaces for people with a disability.  If you are in the ‘2-minute parking zone’ you can get out of your vehicle to quickly help your children, get in and out safely however we strongly request that you do not walk away from your vehicle. This allows for more families to have prompt and safe access to ‘drop off’ their children at school.  For the safety of our whole School Community and local neighbours we are strongly requesting that our parent and carers be respectful and do the right thing when they are delivering or collecting their children to or from school.

Students arriving late to School

A reminder, any child arriving to school after 9am must be accompanied by their parent to the office to sign in as well walking them to their classroom. 

Balaclava District Cross Country

Our 48 students that participated in the Balaclava District Cross Country did us proud with their sportsmanship, camaraderie and endeavour to do their very best! Gardenvale came in 3rd place when all the individual results were tallied.  Seven of our students received first, second or third placings. We are proud of the 13 students that made it through to represent Gardenvale at the Beachside Division Cross Country today! They all tried their absolute best, a big congratulations to Gus G for making it through to Regionals in June!

Lunchtime Clubs

Many clubs are held at lunchtimes on both campuses for our students to be involved in. The clubs are led by staff, parents and/or students and include - Lego, Gardening, Games, Netball, Drawing and Craft. If you would like to be involved in either running or helping out a lunchtime club, please contact either Dimi or myself. 

2026 Preps

We are endeavouring to firm up our Prep numbers for next year.  If you have a little one starting school at Gardenvale PS in 2026, please download an enrolment form from our website and return completed forms either by email or to the Junior Campus Office.

Curriculum Day

A reminder that tomorrow, Wednesday 28th May is a Curriculum Day, therefore pupil free. Team Kids will operate a long day program on this day; you can find the details on their website.

Have a lovely week,

Janine