Principal's Address

WEEK 10 | TERM 4

PRINCIPAL'S AWARD

Our final newsletter for 2025 — and I can hardly believe we’ve reached the end of what has been a truly extraordinary year. Our school community has grown immensely, and we’ve shared a year filled with wonderful learning and fun, sometimes challenges, and — most importantly — deeper connection through cultural events, fundraising, and shared learning.

To our students: your resilience never ceases to amaze me. Each day you come to school ready to be challenged, learn, and grow — and your development into critical, creative thinkers, with growing awareness of the world and yourselves, has been an absolute joy to witness. We are all so proud of your hard work, progress, and achievements.

To our parents: thank you for your ongoing support and trust. We deeply appreciate everything you do to help ensure your children’s learning is focused and meaningful. Your feedback, your involvement in teaching and learning, and your participation in fundraising and volunteer activities — it all makes such a difference. Thank you!

And finally, to our amazing teachers and staff: I want to express my heartfelt thanks to each of you. This year has been quite a journey, and your dedication, passion, and commitment to our school and our students have been nothing short of inspiring. The support you’ve shown me and the leadership team has meant so much. I hope you all enjoy a well-deserved break filled with lazy mornings, good times with family and friends, and plenty of laughter.

A sad goodbye…

It is with much sadness that I must also acknowledge a bittersweet change: some of our wonderful colleagues are leaving Deanside Primary School to pursue different paths. We thank you all for everything you have contributed and wish you the very best on your next adventures. We say goodbye to: Jade Farrar, Mitch Johnston, Lanie deCastro, Svetlana Markovic, Karman Price, Simon Radford, and Leanne Dimovska.

We also wish safe travels to Milan Dhungal and Emma Marcetic, who are taking a year off to travel. We look forward to welcoming you back in 2027.

Deanside Babies

Wishing Mrs Jess Galea and Mrs Tara Lindsay a safe delivery of their baby girls in 2026. We wish you a home full of love, laughter, and precious first moments. We can’t wait to meet your little ones when you’re ready. 

 Parent volunteers

I would like to acknowledge and thank our parent volunteers who support our programs and students throughout the year, such as our Breakfast Club, Book Fair, Kitchen Garden program and fundraising efforts. Without your support, our programs would not run as smoothly as they do.   Thank you to: Amelia Dungo, Riana Popczyk, Harleen Kaur, Huong Ding, Jacinta Wooley, Liza Bagong, Melanie Reinmuth, Moises Dingo, Munaza Ishaq, Ronald Moss, Sauna Choudhary, Simrat Kaur, Tutu Salypod, Vesna Filipovic, Chitra Muthu, Jasna Brkic, Kylie Farrugia, Robert Taylor, Catherine Tozer, and Emma Moore. 

Our End of Year Celebration

What an amazing time we had celebrating the learning of all our students at our annual End of Year Celebration. I would like to thank Mrs Ises Lay and our incredible team on all the effort in ensuring our celebration was a hit, and what a night it was. From our choir and dance performances to the face painting and games, it was such an incredible turnout from our community. Thank you all. 

2026 Step Up day and 2026 Grade Structure

This week, we held our annual Step-Up day, as all students transitioned into their new classes in preparation for 2026. Our new double-story buildings were not complete, but these will house our Grade 3 and Grade 4 cohorts next year. 

We have worked tirelessly in recruiting our new teachers into our ever-growing school. We will be welcoming 23 new classroom and specialist teachers for 2026, with this number growing as our enrolment numbers continue to rise. As we say each year, our number one priority is keeping class sizes down, so moving into 2026, we will continue to recruit teachers to ensure that we can provide the best learning environment for your children. 

This means that there will be times next year that we will need to split classes, as our enrolment numbers grow. We will ensure we are transparent with our communication to you, and work through a clear process to ensure all students are placed in classes that suit their learning needs as well as their social and emotional needs.   Compass will automatically change next year to show your child’s new grade. We will send out information prior to the beginning of the new school year with a map of classes to support our first day of school. 

2026 Important dates 

Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th January: Staff Inductions and Curriculum Days

Thursday 29th January: First school day for all students in Grades 1-6

Thursday 5th February: First day of school for our Prep students

Curriculum days in 2026 – students do not attend school on these days

Friday 20th February: Student-Free day

Monday 18th May: Curriculum Day

Wednesday 15th July: Student-Led Conferences (students attend their conference time only)

Friday 14th August: Curriculum Day

Monday 2nd November: Student -Free day

Thank you all again for another amazing year at Deanside Primary. 

Merry Christmas to all our families who are celebrating and wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday break. See you all in 2026.

Lina Stephens

Acting Principal