Principal's Report

 Dear HPS Community, 

It has been a busy week as we tip over the halfway mark of the term. The pupil free day on Wednesday provided our teaching staff the opportunity to delve deeply into the new Victorian Teaching and Learning Model (VTLM 2.0), where collaboration and connecting new learning to current teaching and learning practices was explored.

The 3 Way Conferences held this week provided another opportunity for collaboration and connection as families, students and teachers reflected upon and discussed the individual goals and strategies to support the growth and progress of student's in their learning. Thank you to staff, students and parents/carers who participated. It is wonderful to have the focus of support and guidance as positive and as a collective as this promotes greatest impact!

We wish our Year 4 students, teachers and volunteers a wonderful time at their camp next week. Buses will depart from Cape St Wednesday morning and arrive back Friday afternoon. Please be aware of the disruption to parking in Cape St this will create at those times.

Children's Book Week turns 80 in 2025

Children’s Book Week is The Children's Book Council of Australia’s (CBCA) key highlight national event of the year. This year’s celebration will run from Saturday 16 to Saturday 23 August. The 2025 theme is Book an Adventure!

Book Week dress up day and parade for the whole school on Monday 25th August. This will be instead of the usual whole school assembly. We look forward to seeing all the creative ideas and book characters being brought to life.

Victorian Inter-school Ski Championships

Congratulations to Archie D who represented Heidelberg Primary School at the  Victorian Inter-school Ski Championships this week.

Archie competed in two events,  Alpine Giant Slalom and Ski Cross.

Monday he competed in ski cross and placed  87th out of 190 kids.  9.72 seconds off the winning time which we were very impressed with.  He was happy to be in the top 50% of kids.  It was the first time he had ever skied in a ski cross race. 

On Monday night Archie proudly carried the HPS sign in the opening ceremony.  It was awesome to see Heidelberg represented. 

On Tuesday he competed in Slalom where he came 115 out of 200 kids,  27.5 seconds off the winning time over two runs.   

Well done Archie, we are all so proud of your achievements!

Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey

Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies. 

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open online from Monday 18 August to Friday 19 September 2025. All families are invited to participate in the survey.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones.

The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Resources are also available in additional languages to assist parents / caregivers / guardians who speak a language other than English at home. Please reach out for survey guides in your language if required.

More info and the link to the survey was sent out via a Compass newsfeed.

How old are these trees?

Whilst it is sad we needed to have some trees removed for the construction of the new learning centre, our fabulous Fairbrother Construction site manager, Peter, kept some pieces of the trees and thought the HPS community might be curious to see if they can work out the age of them. The bigger timber is from one tree and the two smaller pieces are from the same second tree. 

We have set up a display in The Gallery area of the main building if you are interested in seeing a photo of the trees in their location prior to removal, read some information about those types of trees and to get an up close look at the cross sections.

We hope this sparks some great conversations, research and new learning at home among families. 

If you would like to submit your calculated response and reasoning of how you came to that age to me, I will see if I can find a prize or two to award!

2025 Camp Dates:

Year 4 - Wednesday 27th - Friday 29th August

School Council Meeting Dates: Start time 6pm, Conclude by 8pm 

Term 3

Tuesday 9 September

Term 4

Tuesday 28 October 

Tuesday 2 December

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend and a great week ahead!

Naomi Ivers

Principal

Heidelberg Primary School