Message from the Principal 

THANK YOU WORKING BEE LEGENDS

Thank you to all of our Working Bee Legends. A G.R.E.A.T. turn out - possibly a record!? A special mention to our students who all worked so hard on such a hot day! It is this commitment that helps us keep our grounds neat and tidy. Our next Working Bee will be in Term 1 next year where we plan on developing the garden area in front of the main office into a special “Yarning Circle / Campfire Gathering Space”. Stay tuned for more details next year and hope to see you there.

GRASSED OVAL WORKS HAVE STARTED

We are pleased to announce that the project to resurface our oval has commenced. This will involve the installation of a large fence in front of the portables and behind the goal posts, a new concrete mowing strip, leveling and hydroseeding of the oval. An irrigation system will also be installed which will feed off the water tank at the back of our new gym. We will also be segregating an area along the northern fence line that will become a designated place for cubby building and adventure play. The temporary fencing has been moved which will reduce the play area during this time. To offset this, we are opening up the Djila Djerring (gym) on a rostered basis at lunchtimes. This has involved having an extra area to supervise and I thank our staff team who have willingly taken on additional duty to help our students. 

Greenhills Primary School will be curious, creative, open to challenge and have a positive impact on all.

FAMILY EDUCATION EVENING – TUESDAY 26th NOVEMBER 6.30pm – 7.30pm

Our Family Education Evening is all about a positive transition. This is your chance to participate in your child’s education and find out a little bit more about what next year will look like! We will launch into the fun and activity at 6.30pm and your challenge is to complete 3 different 15-minute sessions in the classrooms your child/ren will be in 2025. For example, our current Year 1 students will be able to join in with their parents through 3 different Year 2 activities, all of approx. 15 minutes so that we finish at 7.30pm. 

This evening will be very active, hands on and a wonderful way to get that Greenhills experience as a family. 

If you have any questions about this event, please contact me: james.penson@education.vic.gov.au 

PLANNING FOR 2025

Preparations for next year are well underway. The next phase of transition into 2025 continues with our Prep Orientation sessions that started on the 11th, 18th November and continue on the 25th of November and 2nd December. 

Once again, we have ensured that our Transition program has a whole school focus. This includes Yr. 6 High School Experience Day on 14th November and Family Education Experience Evening on 26th November.

We will also turn our whole school into 2025 for 2 x Meet the Teacher sessions on the 5th and 10th of December. 

The Leadership Team is also embedded in school organisation and work force planning for 2025. This includes staffing requirements, positions, and class structures etc. We recently completed a recruitment process and can now officially welcome Suzanne Burger to our staff team for next year. Suzanne will join our Prep Team along with Abby and Andrea.

In 2025, we will be continuing with our existing Executive leadership model and structure. This includes Principal, 2 x Assistant Principals, 2 x Learning Specialists and 1 x Business Manager. The continuation of our dual assistant principal model is made possible next year and beyond through the funding that is part of the Tier 2 Inclusion Model.

Other funds associated with Tier 2 Inclusion and Mental Health will be used to release a teacher for one day per week to support our staff to implement both Disability, Inclusion and Wellbeing initiatives that are part of DET’s requirements. Additional Education Support Class time has also been allocated for the added layers of administration that schools must comply with.

Tutor Learning Initiative (TLI) funding which has been reduced for next year, along with our small equity funding will be used to support Sharon Draper’s Literacy Support Role.

All Principal Class roles will have a teaching load each week along with some possible Tutor Learning as well. This equates to over 2 days of staffing which will help to reduce the large deficit we are managing. 

Our Learning Specialists will continue to be classroom teaching roles 0.8 (4 days a week) and 0.2 (1 day a week) time allowed for curriculum leadership, coaching, mentoring and working with all teams across the school to deliver our improvement strategies. Each Learning Specialist will also have core responsibility around our two Strategic Plan goals:

• To optimize student learning growth 
• To strengthen student voice and agency. 

Each teaching team (PLT) will also have 1 x team leader who will join as a School Improvement Team. The other members of each team will join one of our SSP Goal teams to provide a working party to assist each of our Learning Specialists. All of these teams will work the Exec leadership team to drive and implement our 2025 Annual Improvement Plan.

21 Classes

The Victorian Government Schools Agreement 2022 requires that class sizes are planned on the smallest possible within the following guidelines: 

1. Prep - Grade 2: an average of 21 students per class.
2. Grades 3-6: an average of 26 students per class provided that the average class size of 21 at P-2 is maintained.

Greenhills Primary School will have six classes at Year 1 and Year 2 with 22 or 23 students, three classes at Year 4 with 27 or 28 students, two classes at Year 6 with 27 students. This has occurred following consultation with the sub-branch and consultative committee. These classroom teachers will receive additional time release provided on a pro-rata system each semester for each student above the VGSA ratio. 

This will involve consultation with the consultative committee.

Greenhills 2024 Class Size Average = 23.61 (*23.04 in 2024)

Greenhills 2024 Class Size Average P-2 = 21.11 (*19.4 in 2024) & 3-6= 25.5 (*26.2 in 2024)

**Please note that this may change into and throughout next year.

We will also operate with 5 specialist subjects for the full school year. These are Italian, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Physical Education and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Maths). 

The full list of staff for next year and their roles along with a map of where each classroom will be located will be published to the whole school community in a special edition of Contact on Thursday 5th December. This is the same day as our first Meet the Teacher session

TERM 4 MID TERM MEET THE PRINCIPAL TEAM

Last week, we held our final Mid-Term Meet with the Principal Team session on Webex. Thank-you to all those families that were able to attend. Janine, Brad and I really value these sessions as they provide a wonderful opportunity to connect with you and do what we can to support and grow our partnership. Sharing information is a big part of this, so you truly are an integral part of our school. 

Our favourite part of these evenings are the ideas, feedback and suggestions you provide. Parent input is incredibly important to us.

We use this event as the first opportunity we have to share our class / school structure with the community. In terms of school organisation, this is the earliest time we can do this and the timeline works as follows:

1. 2025 school funding model released to Principal’s & Business Managers last day of Term 3. The school holiday period is then a time where Prinipal’s and BM”s work through a range of different options. This year, I developed models based on 23, 22, 21 and 20 classes. 
2. Term 4 – Week 1: Class models are presented to Consultative Committee and Union Sub-Branch for feedback.
3. Term 4 – Week 2: Class models presented and discussed at School Council Meeting
4. Term 4 - Staffing model confirmed including recruitment processes if required. This year we needed to employ one additional full time teacher.
5. Term 4 – Week 5: Workforce Place presented to all staff at meeting.
6. Term 4 – Week 6: School Council informed of final class and school structure.
7. Term 4 – Week 6: Information shared with school community.

WHAT STRATEGIES WILL WE PUT IN PLACE TO ENSURE OUR SCHOL STRUCUTRE WORKS IN 2025

When we confirmed that we need to have a Year 1/2 composite class as part of our 2025 structure, we provided some additional information to our school. This included sharing some of the specific strategies we will put in place to ensure our model can be as successful as possible.

This includes building in common planning time so that the Year 1/2 teacher can meet with both the Year 1 and Year 2 teams each week to plan, assess and target learning. All 6 of our Year 1 and 2 classes will be located in the bottom level of the main building (Preps are moving into the 4 x portables currently housing our Year 2’s). This will help facilitate close communication and connection for our staff and students. 

Our whole school will also be implementing a two -year inquiry model. This means that the students across Years 1 and 2 will complete units of learning over a two-year cycle. This will also be the case in Years 3 and 4 and Years 5 and 6. This will help to future proof us in case we need to run composite classes in other year levels.

Our Year 1/2 teacher will also be our School Improvement leader which means they are part of our school improvement and leadership team. We have also very fortunate across our school to be able to have such strong teaching teams and our Year 1/2 team for 2025 is a G.R.E.A.T. example of this.

With any change, there is always a level of apprehension. As such, I provided my contact number to families in Prep and Year 1 this year so that these questions can be directed to an official source and followed up, as opposed to the range of unofficial communications where some incorrect information can often become published.   

It has been commented to me that our single year level classes are the biggest draw card when selecting a school.

The feedback was that the majority of the parents admitted one of the biggest, if not number one draw card for choosing Greenhills over neighbouring schools is the single year level class rooms, they absolutely love this. Now the fear is, will 2025 be a trial and that we will fully roll composite classes throughout the entire school? Or will this particular year level be the only ones affected but it will carry all the way through until Year 6 for them? Or, will it all go back to normal in 2026 and we just have to get through the next year? 

My response to this is that I am always very open and transparent around this. My focus as Principal will always try to build a school structure on smaller and dynamic teams of teachers. This will involve maintaining “single” level teams / classes where possible. But as I always say on every tour – school structure is subject to many factors each year and we can never guarantee that this will always be the case. The biggest factor being the finances we are given to manage our school each year and the particular number of students enrolled at each year level. For example if we had an enrolment year of 34 students, this would always require a composite structure as we could vene afford to run 2 x classes of 17 from Prep right through to Year 6.

Whilst we have a range of models of class structure in future years, our school structure will always be finalised based on a year by year plan. This will be communicated as early as possible to parents like we have done previously and this year.

I can also confirm that our Year 1/2 class will contain both a mix of both boys and girls from both year levels. At this stage the mix is 5 x Year 1 girls, 6 x Year 2 girls, 6 x Year 1 boys and 6 x Year 2 boys. 

As I mentioned, we understand that some of our parents may be anxious around this. One of the comments I have heard is that some parents are praying that their child is NOT selected into the composite class and that they will feel unlucky if this is the case. From my perspective, I think all of us won the lottery with being able to have our children enrol at Greenhills Primary School. I can’t think of any class next year where a parent should feel that they have lost out. All of our teachers are amazingly dedicated, knowledgeable and passionate. They are also amazingly supported by Brad and Janine.   

James Penson,

Principal.