Specialists Updates and Celebrations

Visual Arts (Yearly Recap)

The students at SMPS have had another truly spectacular year in Visual Art!

In Term 1, we explored the 7 Elements of Art and created artworks inspired by these elements using both drawing and painting skills.

During the first half of Term 2, students learned about Aboriginal Australian art—a special focus in our program each year. In the second half of the term, we introduced something new with our International Cultural Art Studies, exploring the art of Japan, India, Greece, Mexico and China.

Most of Term 3 was spent developing a new application of a familiar medium—paper collage—before finishing the term with an exciting focus on clay sculpture.

Term 4 (Miss Phoebe’s favourite term!) featured our spectacular Art Show. The students put in an incredible amount of work behind the scenes to make the day as special as it was. In the second half of the term, group artworks were the focus for Prep to Year 2 students, while Years 3–6 created their own Personal Projects.

I would love to take this opportunity to thank every family member who inspires their wonderful children to be creative and imaginative. I am so lucky to do what I do, and your children inspire me every single day!

A special thank you also to the parents and family members who generously volunteered their time at the Art Show. Your support helped the day run so smoothly, and I truly couldn’t have done it without you!

Environmental Education (Yearly Recap)

Environmental Education in 2025 has been exciting and impactful for our SMPS students. They have learnt about places and animals, how humans influence the environment, and the actions we can take to care for the Earth.

We began the year by exploring the strong connection Indigenous Australians have with the land. Students investigated the local places within our community and discovered the plants and animals that live there.

In Term 2, students learnt about plants and animals, linking closely with their classroom learning. They explored life cycles, food chains, and animal adaptations, deepening their understanding of how living things survive and grow.

In Term 3, students focused on waste and recycling. They learnt about different types of waste, where it goes, and how it affects the environment. After seeing the real impacts of waste, students strengthened their knowledge of what belongs in each bin.

In Term 4, Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 students learnt about our world through maps and continents. They took imaginary flights across the globe and discovered landmarks, foo and languages from different places. Years 4, 5 and 6 developed practical plans to help reduce waste at school, while Year 3 completed a gardening unit.

Across the year, students in Years 3-6 also took turns completing our edible garden program. They helped plan, plant and care for the garden, successfully growing herbs, sprouts, tomatoes and sugar snap peas, and even enjoyed tasting them!

Our students have become environmental superstars, helping make our school more sustainable. Miss Bec is excited to see how they continue using their knowledge to care for the environment.

Music/Performing Arts (Yearly Recap)

2025 has been a fantastic year for the Music Program. Students have engaged in rich learning opportunities covering a diverse range of themes and topics. Our junior school students have developed their skills with several of the elements of music including beat, rhythm, pitch, tempo and dynamics. Our senior school students learnt about the history of music through genres, and they also completed a large unit of work focussed purely on rock music.

Our focus has been for students to learn skills on instruments. They have learnt prescribed pieces of music as well composed/created their own original music.

School wide performances have been a highlight this year. Rockstar Day, the Rock Band and Marimba Band playing at assemblies, Art Show Singers performances, Mother’s Day Marimba Group and the Father’s Day Drum Group. We look forward to our upcoming Christmas concert to finish the year off.

Thank you to the South Melbourne Primary School families for supporting the Music Program. We look forward to an exciting 2026!

Physical Education (Yearly Recap)

It has been such an amazing year for PE in 2025. This year, students have been able to take part in a wide range of sports, learning key skills and movements in order to play them with confidence and success.  

For our preps, we have focused on different ways of movement and key skills such as throwing, catching, passing, receiving, kicking and striking. We have had lots of fun this year taking part in many different activities and it has been brilliant to see the progress we have made.

In Grades 1 and 2, we had an initial focus of fundamental movements and basic skill development. This included, running, jumping, hopping, leaping, throwing and catching. We then progressed these skills further by learning the basic skills for sports such as cricket, soccer, gymnastics, rugby, tennis and basketball.

In Grades 3 and 4, we had a clear focus on developing skills and movements to play different sports throughout the year. We a key focus on skill development and being able to access sports matches through repetition and improving our individual skills. The sports included were cricket, tennis, t-ball, soccer, rugby, AFL, basketball, netball, frisbee and athletics.

In Grades 5 and 6, we focused on developing our individual and team skills in order to prepare us for matches. We started each session by working individually or with a partner to improve our skills before using them in game-based activities. Our units this year included cricket, t-ball, tennis, AFL, soccer, rugby, volleyball, basketball and athletics. 

We also had other opportunities to develop our sporting talents further at our District Gala Days. These Gala Days allowed our children to showcase their sporting skills against other schools within our district. The Gala Days included soccer and frisbee (Grades 3 and 4) and t-ball, AFL, rugby and volleyball (Grades 5 and 6). 

Furthermore, we hosted our Sports Day at Murphy's Reserve where the children took part in a range of fun sporting activities including dodgeball, number soccer, javelin, shot put, netball, obstacle, egg & spoon and sprint races. A fun day was had by all of our children.

A huge thank you for all the volunteers and staff members supporting our children on these days. We really appreciate all your help and support for our students, staff members and community. We are all looking forward to seeing the PE program progress into 2026!

Library - Term 4 Library Highlights

In Term 4, Year 1 to 6 visited the library every week. During these sessions 2,629 library books were circulated. Classes with the most books borrowed were: 

The top borrowers for each class were:

The most popular graphic novels were:

The most popular picture story books were:

The most popular nonfiction books were:

The most popular Accelerated Reader books were: