Principal Report

Congratulations to Tobias! At our first assembly for the year last week, we congratulated Tobias, whose artwork was one of fifty selected from 10,000 entries in the Camp Australia termly art competition. Suranga runs a fabulous before and after school care program at Albany Rise PS – and depending on your family’s subsidy, it is very affordable. Please contact the office for further information.

School & House Captains. We were delighted to present our School Captains and House Captains to our school at our first assembly last week. We are looking forward to your leadership and we are proud to have you representing our school. We will let the community know shortly when the badge presentation ceremony will occur.

Student Voice Team Representatives Elections are currently underway in Year 3-6 classes for the Student Voice Team (formerly JSC and Student Voice Team combined). There will be one elected student from each 3-6 class, with a limited number of written applications also accepted. Please see your class teacher for more information.

Quality Beginnings We know that a sense of connectedness, safety and belonging to school improves student wellbeing, as well as academic outcomes. Today at lunchtime, students and teachers together celebrated this connection and shared expectations through the Quality Beginnings celebration of successfully setting up our routines and expectations for success. Predictable routines and shared expectations also reduces extraneous factors that might distract students, aiming to ensure that students are able to exclusively focus on the learning.

Our school values of Respect, Responsibility and Resilience were explicitly taught, showing what these values look like every day.

Pure joy and delight was obvious on the faces of all involved – particularly when at the parachute and bubble activity. We look forward to a fabulous year of learning, connection and fun!

Thank you to a generous parent! We would like to thank a very generous parent in our community, who has noticed we needed a new volleyball net and, without any fuss, dropped one off at the office, requesting to remain anonymous. We are so lucky to have a parent community who, even without asking, jumps in to help when they see something is needed, and wants nothing in return – not even an acknowledgement. What a great school community! Thank you - we appreciate you!

John Monash Science School (JMSS)This year, thanks to Ms T, some of our student will be attending the John Monash Science School to develop their STEM and Maths capabilities.

Wednesday 11th Feb, saw four of our grade 5/6 students attend the John Monash Science School for the first in a series of four sessions designed to extend their knowledge and understanding in Robotics and Programming.

Each pair of students has a JMSS year 10 or year 11 mentor to assist and discuss their ideas with. Students were walked through using the Lego Spike, and were shown how to apply force, colour, echo location sensors along with motors to their robots, before programming its movements and hitting play!

The boys build a fast-moving breakdancing robot, while the girls, in conjunction with another school, built and programmed a frog-like jumping robot.

Next week students will begin to design and program their own robots.

Students are selected for this activity based on their learning outcomes data and their ability to display our school values. Thanks Mr M for signing us up!

Victorian State Schools Spectacular

Moving forward, Albany Rise Primary School will be participating every second year in the Mass Choir for the Victorian Staten School Spectacular (VSSS), and has once again been accepted for participation in 2026. We have been allocated 25 places.

The annual Victorian State Schools Spectacular program is an invaluable performing arts opportunity for Victoria’s government primary and secondary school students.

The program showcases and unites government school communities through working towards a common goal of more students reaching the highest level of achievement in the arts, ensuring kids are happy, healthy and resilient, and building pride in our schools. Expression of interest notices were due yesterday. Stay tuned for further details i should we have more applications than positions available.

Fundraising for 2026 What a great turn out, with some new faces attending. Thank you to the amazing parents who gave their voice to our fundraising meeting last week. We had 11 parents attend, with a further four emailing me to register their interest and ideas. In that discussion, we had some great new fundraising ideas and decided to rest some old ones. If you would like to have input into our fundraising ideas and/or offer some help, we would love to hear from you!

Icy pole Fridays in Term 1As part of our new school fundraising calendar, we will be selling icy pole sticks on Fridays at afternoon recess from Friday 20th February. If anyone is able to donate a packed of Zooper Doopers or similar for this fundraising activity, please drop off at the office. Thank you!

Cupcake Fundraiser Sick of the time and expense of making lolly bags for your child’s birthday? One of our fabulous parents, Kelly, has generously offered to provide a birthday service to parents on their child’s birthday, by making and delivering cupcakes to the school on your child’s birthday. Simply call the school, pay for the cupcakes and Kelly will do the rest, donating profits to our school. Please see Kelly’s flyer for mor information.

Meet & Greet Interviews Bookings are now open on Compass for our Meet & Greet interviews on Tuesday 24th & Wednesday 25th February. If you are having any issues with booking, please check with your child’s teacher or contact the office.

School Council: Nominations Now OpenWe cannot run a school without parent support! The Albany Rise Primary School School Council elections has now commenced.

Albany Rise Primary School Council is calling for nominations for four parent member positions available on our School Council. Parent members on School Council are required to have a Working with Children Clearance (WWCC).

Nomination close at 4pm on Friday 20th February 2026. Information and nomination forms available below, or can be collected in hard copy from the office.

Road Closure – Thursday 19th February Please be advised that power works will be conducted in our area for a power pole replacement which may affect access to and from school. These works will take place on Thursday, 19 February 2026 between the hours of 9:30AM & 3:30PM. The area affected will be on Albany Drive, between Matlock Ave and Tiverton Drive.

Newsletters & Assemblies for 2026 (Repeat)This year, we will be moving to fortnightly newsletters and fortnightly assemblies. Newsletters will go out on odd weeks of the term (Weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9) and assemblies will be held on Fridays on even weeks (Weeks 2, 4, 6, 8, 10) during each term. Please check the calendar, where we have listed specific dates for assemblies. We will also be changing some of the content of our assembly, and looking forward to some opportunities for students to perform, too! We hope to see you there!

Outside of School: sport or other activity - Achievement of the Week (Repeat)We know how important physical activity and sport is for our students and to our school community, which is why we privilege time at school for PE and sport. We also know that we have some very talented students who participate in sports and activities outside of school. We would love to celebrate their achievements! If your child has received an award or progressed to the next level of their activity outside of school (be it sporting or otherwise) , please let us know and we would love to celebrate their achievements in our newsletter. Please contact Mr Mottershead with information and a photo, or email through to our school office on Albany.rise.ps@education.vic.gov.au

REMINDER: At school, students must wear hats when outside (Repeat)All students at all government schools in Victoria are required to wear hats outside at school when the UV rating is 3 or above. Typically, this is every day in Terms 1 & 4 but sometimes happens in Terms 2 & 3. The UV rating is now high enough to cause skin damage every day. Please ensure that your child brings their SunSmart school hat to school every day. Students without a SunSmart school hat will be required to sit under the shade sails between the oval and basketball courts, near the sandpit. We also encourage students to wear sunglasses and bring & apply sunscreen before going outside.

NAPLAN 2026 (Repeat)NAPLAN is a national literacy and numeracy assessment that students in Year 3, 5, 7 & 0 sit each year. It is the only national assessment that all Australian students have the opportunity to undertake. As students progress through their school years, its important to check how well they are learning the essential skills of reading, writing and numeracy. Whilst is does not replace a child’s report, which is a comprehensive assessment of the child’s progress over a full semester (two terms) of learnin, it does allow parents to see how their child is progressing against national standards over time.

This year, NAPLAN testing for Year 3 and Year 5 students will be held between 11th March and 23rd March 2026. Specific dates for our school testing within this time frame will be announced soon.

Birthday Free Dress (Repeat)We know that every single day at school is important for learning and connection. Of course, we want to celebrate with our students when they have a birthday! Late last year, we introduced the practice of students coming to school in free dress on their birthday. This seems to be working very well and will be continuing this year. Students are looking forward to being at school on their birthday, and also, it is easy to spot who has a birthday to make sure they have a great day!

Student’s Mobile Phones and Smart Watches (Repeat)A reminder that the Department of Education has in place a mobile phone ban that requires students who bring mobiles phones to school to have them switched off and securely put away during school hours.

The ban applies equally to all government schools across the state.

This also applies to ‘smart’ watches that some of our students have. ‘Smart’ watches have similar capabilities to mobile phones, including the ability to send and receive messages, make phone calls and play games. As such, these watches will also need to be locked up at school.

If your child brings a phone or smart watch to school, they will need to lock it up during school hours and then collect it back from the safe at the end of the day. At Albany Rise, students are required to deposit their phone or watch at the office for the school day, and collect it at the end of the day.

Exceptions: For a small number of students with particular health needs, an exception to the policy may be granted. Please contact Jane Capon or Michael Mottershead if you would like to discuss this.

School mobile phone policy: A copy of our school’s local mobile phone policy, which implements the government’s mobile policy in line with our local context, is available here: https://albanyrise-ps.vic.edu.au/about-us/policies/

Parent support: The Mobile phones in schools webpage provides links to resources for families to help them balance their children’s time using mobile phones.If you have further questions, please contact the administration office.

Thank you!

Jane Capon

Mental Health in Primary Schools