Well, what another huge two weeks at ENPS! Term Four always seems to happen so quickly and so much is always going on! Can you believe it is the end of Week Two already AND there is only nine weeks until we are finished again for another school year? How crazy!

We've had two wonderful Thursday lunches to start the term too. Last week was with our end of Term Three token winners Maia, Aarna, Charlie and Aral and their friends Torvi, Alessia, Hunter and Billy while yesterday was a lovely lunch with Elisa, Kaiden, Lucy and Elisha as our Week One recipients and their friends Autumn, Tanishq, Ella and Jizel! I look forward to our Thursday token winner lunches each week and I love hearing all the fabulous ideas for improving our school!

It is such an exciting time of year; the Year Fours had a great few days on camp this week, our Year Sixes are working hard on preparing for their Exhibition - their final showcase of learning for their primary school years, while we welcome our 2027 Foundation students beginning their school orientation and transition program last week.

Foundation Orientation Program

On Friday morning last week, we had 86 of our new little people come along to start familiarising themselves with school for story time. I had such a blast reading to them along with some of our Year Four future buddies. Reading stories is one of my absolute favourite things to do and I just loved starting to get to know our future students and their families. We also had the Foundation Parent Information Night last Wednesday, while also this week some of the new students had a play session after school, as a part of the transition program on Monday or Thursday. The play session is a great way for them to become familiar with the Foundation classrooms, while we also get to know them all better. We look forward to seeing more of them next Thursday for their play session! With 35 of 88 new Foundation students being siblings with older brothers or sisters already at ENPS, this year we will also be holding a special sibling session on Monday 26th October too.

Former Prime Minister Visits ENPS!

While last Friday started with story time, the day got more exciting with a very unexpected school visit from former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Ms Gillard came to ENPS along with Victorian Premier Ben Carroll, both spending some time with 5JG and 6AI answering questions and talking about being leaders and working in government.

Given our Year Fives and Six students had just completed their inquiry units into 'Democratic systems empower people' (Year Five) and 'Australian citizens have legal rights, responsibilities and civic duties' (Year Six) it was very timely and there were lots of great questions asked.

Sporting Achievements

Next week will also be another big week for ENPS when we have three big sporting events ahead for our students. On Tuesday we have eight athletes competing at the Regional Athletics Carnival in their individual events; on Wednesday our Year Six Volleyball team take on the Regional championship; while on Thursday our Year Three/Four Hoop Time team also compete in the Regional Tournament! Good luck to them all! We are super proud of your achievements already and will be cheering you all next week!

Staffing Update

From the start of Term Four we officially welcomed Morgan Carver to our ENPS and PE team. Morgan has joined us three days a week in Term Four and will be full time in 2027. In Term Four, Morgan will be working in PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays. Welcome Morgan!

Capital Works News

In the recent State Budget, the Victorian Government announced a $24.005 million investment in our school to upgrade and modernise the school, including an upgrade of the main classroom wing.

Over the past two weeks we have continued the early consultation phase with the Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA) and the architect team from McIldowie Partners to develop the Asset Management Plan (AMP).

The AMP provides a high-level overview of how our school’s buildings and facilities can support our educational vision. It considers our educational needs and priorities, assesses our existing facilities and identifies potential future works, some of which are subject to future funding.

We will continue working with the VSBA and the architect on the next phase: schematic design for the funded stage of the project. This phase will translate the initial concepts into a preliminary design, helping establish the overall design direction before moving into the more detailed design development phase.

It has been great to already have the voice of our students, staff and School Council included in the process to date.

2027 Planning

As you can appreciate, it is the time of year when we are establishing our grade structures and staffing for the new school year ahead. We are already well into our recruitment process and aim to have our 2027 staffing finalised in the coming weeks.

With that we will then confirm our Foundation team in line with our Foundation Orientation program, as well as our Year One to Six teaching teams as soon as we are in a position to do so.

In 2027, we have a projected enrolment of 594 students. We can confirm that we will maintain our model of straight year levels however the number of classes will be determined by the cohort numbers at each year level. At this stage it may be a case that some year levels with lower numbers may reduce to three classes at each year level.

Now is also the time that if your child has special educational needs that you believe require special consideration when determining class placement in 2027, to please let me know about this in writing. Please note this is not about requesting or selecting your child’s teacher, rather that we are aware of any additional factors that need to be taken into consideration for 2027. Please email me directly by Monday 9th November.

A reminder that we ask that if you and your family are planning on leaving ENPS at the end of 2026, please let the school office know as soon as you are in a position to do so. (This excludes Year Six students.)

Have a wonderful weekend, stay safe and thank goodness for daylight saving! I hope to see many of our families next Wednesday for our fabulous Family Maths Afternoon too from 2:20pm! And don't forget next Friday 30th October is World Teachers' Day too so let's make sure we show our appreciation next week for our remarkable teachers at ENPS!

Kate Barletta

Principal

Year Five

Our Inquiry Unit