School Council News

School Council Meetings

Our next School Council meeting will be held on Wednesday 17th May @ 7.30pm 

The dates of the next Committee meetings are as follows:

Parent Association: Thursday 4th May @ 7.30pm (Bree Stevens and Cherie Paterson)

Education & Policy: Tuesday 9th May @ 6.30pm (Cadell Duke & Ben Parker)

Buildings, Grounds & Sustainability: Wednesday 11th May @ 6.30pm (Robyn James)

Finance: Monday 15th May @ 6.30pm (Vicky Cai)

Grants Working Party:  TBA (Cadell Duke & Ben Parker) 

All committees and School Council meet in the staff room, unless otherwise advised by the convener.

Please contact the office if you would like to join any of the committees so your details can be passed on to the convenor.

It’s hard to believe term 1 is over and Easter and the holidays are upon us. Before I forget; Happy Easter! A great opportunity to regroup and rest those tired children (and you).

This newsletter I introduce 2 more of our School Council members

Felicity Fast is joining as a new member of School Council in 2023 and is looking forward to working with the school community and being part of the Education and Policy Sub-Committee. She has a daughter in Prep, and a younger daughter who can't wait for her turn at Malvern Primary in a couple of years. Felicity is an Executive Director at the Victorian Department of Justice, focusing on reforms relating to child safety, family violence and mental health. 

Dennis Petrie has been a parent of Malvern Primary kids for the last 7 years and has children in grades 6, 4 and 1. He has been on the Malvern Primary School Council since 2022. He is a Professor of Economics at Monash University. His research focuses on understanding the causes of inequities with a focus on improving health policy decisions. He plays tennis socially with a number of past and present parents of Malvern Primary.

A question parents have been asking. When does the school engage Casual Relief Teacher (CRTs)?  If you are anything like me, when your child tells you they had a CRT today, I wonder why. Teachers can be away from the classroom for many reasons; most obvious is being unwell or taking other leave entitlements. They could be undertaking professional development training and engaging in special school activities such as a camps/excursions or high level meetings to name a few. Another one that may take teachers from their classrooms, new to this year, is when they accrue time in lieu.  Teacher can rack up a lot of time in lieu, especially on school camps. I know on the recent grade 6 camps, teachers were up at 7am and many nights still going at 10pm. So CRT’s will need to be engaged when time in lieu is taken. This is a new challenge for schools in general and the MPS finance committee has their keen eye on how much this new workplace agreement will impact the school budget, since the new reforms are not fully subsidised. 

Sarah Meachem

School Council President