Principal's Item 

Dear parents, carers and friends of EEPS,

Monday was a fantastic start to our week with our Assembly performances from the Stretto Strings and also the Year 3 and 4 EEPS of Talent finalists for Term 1. Thank you to the large number of parents and carers that attended. Well done to all of those students.

NAPLAN Disruptions

Last week there was a national glitch with the NAPLAN testing on the first day, Wednesday. There was only minimal disruption for us. The Year 3 and 5 teachers handled this with their usual calm and proactive attitude. Whilst the VCAA and the Department did provide schools with suggested communications to families, due to a low stress, relaxed approach to the disruptions, I didn’t feel the need to send out a direct newsfeed. There were also other schools that had more significant impacts.

New EEPS OSHC Framework

I am very excited to announce a new framework for our school-run EEPS service. The framework is complete with a Vision, Mission, and Four Pillars, alongside our school values and foundations. Whilst we have a great facility this new EEPS OSHC framework will provide a very solid base as we strive for continuous improvement.

Planned Industrial Action

Parents may have heard of a planned Australian Education Union strike on Tuesday 24th March. As always, I will do my best to minimise disruptions throughout the school, however, I won’t know what impacts there will be until very late this Friday afternoon, in line with the Department’s timelines around the strike. I will communicate more when it becomes clear. 

New Initiative - Mentor Groups

From next Monday we are trialling a new initiative at EEPS. Every second or third week, in place of assembly, we are introducing Mentor Groups. These will be mixed groups, Prep to Year 6, spending the session before lunch with one of the classroom teachers. The purpose is to build and strengthen connections throughout the school, between students, students to teachers, and to provide another teacher who hopefully can become another trusted adult in the school for the children in that group. The focus initially, will be getting to know each other, and then move onto continuing to develop social competencies with links to our Stand-Up project next term. Later this term, we will publish the schedule for Assemblies/Mentor Groups for Term 2 

3 Way Conferences

The booking system has already opened for the upcoming 3 Way Conferences on Monday 30th March. This is a great opportunity to hear from your child and their teacher, around your child’s learning and social progress, so far this term. Please remember that children only attend school for their conference time.

Looking Forward

On Wednesday 18th March - I am attending a student leadership conference in the city with our student leaders and Mrs Vescio and on Thursday we have the Regional Swimming Sports.

On Friday 20th March - we have the 2026 school Cross Country for our Year 3-6 students, and the National Ride or Walk to school day. 

Friday 27th March is Movie Night - Zootopia 2. Please organise your tickets through Compass and let the office know if you are available to help or can donate any items to the very worthwhile raffle fundraiser.

TeamKids, our vacation care providers are also gearing up for the upcoming holidays; information on how to access the program is in the newsletter.

Only three weeks to go in the term!

Have a great week of Learning and Growing Together.

Kind regards

Warren Lloyd

Principal