Principal's Report

Dear families and friends of MPW

Thank you to our senior JSC representatives, who led our ANZAC Day reflection at assembly yesterday. Their presentation included an explanation as to the importance and meaning of ANZAC Day and the typical ceremony for an observance and ended with a reading of ‘In Flanders Field’ and ‘The Ode’.

Our 5/6 students head off to camp in Anglesea, today and return on Friday. The team have been working hard to finalise groups and arrangements with the camp, we look forward to an exciting and fun camping experience again this year. The Anglesea camp is a beach and water-based experience, where students will have a chance to surf at the beach. Weather forecast is looking good as well. I will be heading to camp with the 5/6's this week, so you won’t see me around until next week.

2026 Foundation Enrolments

Applications for Foundation enrolments for 2027 are now open. The Statewide process has specific timelines where applications close at the end of July.

For families at MPW that will be having siblings join the school in 2027, please ensure that you complete your application for enrolment at this time to help the school with planning for next year.

Please collect your enrolment pack from the office before July.

You can find information and resources, including factsheets, at: Enrolling in Foundation (Prep).

Hats

A reminder that our SunSmart policy ends this week, and students are not required to wear hats outside from next week through to the start of September. As always, we still encourage students to wear a hat on any hot/sunny days. They are welcome to leave their hat at school or in their bags should they need it.

Temporary Fencing on the Tiger Turf

You may have noticed the temporary fencing on the Tiger Turf upon returning this term. Over the holidays, we were attempting to address some raised surfaces near the stairs to the BER building cause by roots from the Jacaranda tree. Unfortunately, when accessing the protruding roots they hit some unexpected asphalt under the synthetic turf. As such, we are now waiting for the arborist to return and be able to finish the works with the required equipment to fix the roots to level the area. The temporary fencing has been erected around this area for safety reasons. We are hoping this will be finalised as soon as possible and we can return the space for play and safe use.

Cold and Flu Season approaches

As we move into cooler weather, we wanted to share some reminders of how we can help keep our school community well. We continue to have measures in place to reduce the spreading of illness by:

encouraging those unwell to stay at home and consult a general practitioner (GP) or health professional as needed
encourage students to cover their nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing into their elbow
encouraging students to wash and sanitise their hands regularly
continuing to use air purifiers across the school in spaces used by staff and students

Upcoming Industrial Action

You may have heard that the AEU is continuing to take further industrial actions as it negotiates with the government. The current actions have a range of implications to reduce workload for teachers until an agreement can be reached. There are two actions families need to be aware of:

Firstly, written comments for Term 2 reporting will not be provided to parents/carers. There will be further information provided to parents via a Compass notification regarding the full details of this action, including what will and won’t be provided as part of our reporting this term.

Secondly, there is a scheduled half-day stop work action that will take place on Wednesday 6th May, where staff participating in stop work action will not be onsite in the morning half of the day. There will be further details sent to families via Compass regarding the impact of this stop work action for next Wednesday as soon as details are confirmed, but we are expecting a similar disruption to the morning half of the school day as the recent full day stop work action last term.

Please keep an eye out for updates on these two areas in the coming days when details are finalised and confirmed.

Upcoming Mother’s Day Events

We have the following events planned in recognition of Mother’s Day coming up. Thursday 7th May will be the Mother’s Day Stall. We will again be looking for parents to help run the stall throughout the day. A roster has been sent out.

Friday 8th May we will have our classroom open morning, where we invite our mums (or a special person for those without a mum) into classrooms for a Mother’s Day activity with their child(ren) in the first session of the day.

Regards,

Jarrod Sutton

Principal