Newport Lakes Primary School

Principal Report

Hello parents and families!

 

Not sure how you are all feeling at home, but we here at NLPS feel like we have raced through February, even with its extra day!  We have also passed the halfway mark of the initial school term of 2024, as we continue to establish our routines and expectations for learning in our classrooms and across the school.

 

Building Works Begin!

The temporary fencing has gone up and the matting has gone down, which signals that things are finally moving for our exciting new additional learning spaces. The planned date for completion is mid-late April. In the meantime, it's been fantastic to see the flexibility of many of our Year 5/6 cohort, their teachers and our Drama and Library specialist teachers, despite the impact of the current situation. They are certainly all showing our school value of resilience! 

 

The rest of our school is also being impacted by the reduction in yard space, which the school is alleviating through a new Yard Duty Timetable, involving students in Year 3-6 utilising Leo Hoffman Reserve during lunch breaks on a rotating basis. 

 

Parent Information Sessions, Parent Teacher Interviews and Open Afternoon

We held our Parent Information Sessions online over the last week, helping to give parents an overview of their child/ren’s curriculum as well as a summary of other activities and year level considerations such as homework, significant events, school camps, etc. The sessions were well attended - thank you to the parents that were able to log in live via Webex. If you were unable to log on during the specific evening, a recording of the session or the accompanied slides are available on the Compass Newsfeed.

 

Following on from these sessions are the ‘Meet the Teacher’ Parent-Teacher interviews to be conducted next Tuesday, 5th March between 2:00-7:00 pm. Information on how to book your P-T interview with your child’s teacher and specialist teacher was sent out on Compass on Tuesday afternoon.

 

Later in the term, all the school’s classrooms will be open for parents and carers to come along to school and visit. Teachers will be on hand, but the expectation is that the children will be able to give parents a guided tour of their classroom and a rundown of the wonderful work they have been doing in their class so far this year.  The open classroom sessions will be conducted between 3.15-4.00pm on Thursday, 14th March. For our foundation students and their families, their classrooms will be open tonight, in conjunction with our Foundation Family Picnic.

 

Pupil Free Days 2024

After already conducting our first two curriculum days at the beginning of year, the following Pupil Free Days have been proposed for the rest of the 2024 school year.

  • Term 2:    Monday 27th May – Whole School Professional Practice Day (Focus - teacher planning)
  • Term 3:    Friday 13th September* - Focus - Neuroaffirming Practices (*NB - this will be the day after our biannual production and will also allow for our Time in Lieu commitments to be met)
  • Term 4:    Monday 4th November - Student Report Writing

Please note that there will be no school for students on these days. If there is sufficient interest, childcare will be available for the Newport Lakes PS families on these days by the school’s OSHC provider, Quantin Binnah.

 

District Swim Team

Congratulations to the school swim team that competed in the regional trials at the Werribee outdoor pool this week. The children and staff had a wonderful day, resulting in a very credible third place and many of our students going onto the next stage. A big thank you to the parents that were able to come along on the day and support the children. 

 

Thank You for Supporting our Parents Club

It was very pleasing to note the large numbers of parents that were able to attend the very important parents club meeting on Tuesday evening to elect the office bearers for 2024 – without the support of these parents the club could not continue to be an important element of our school community. It’s these types of entities that makes NLPS an extra special place. 

 

Please reach out to the Parents Club and offer your support in any way you can - be it volunteering once to operate a BBQ, or help run an Icy Pole Day, or even help plan a fundraising event.

 

School Council 2024

The new NLPS School Council met for the first time this past Monday. More information about this year’s members will be in the next school newsletter. As part of their discussions, the group decided on the four office bearers, the 2024 meeting dates and subcommittees for the year (please see further details in this newsletter).These have been, and will continue to be, communicated through Compass. The school council welcomes any interested parties to be part of the subcommittees and to attend school council meetings.

 

Principal Position Update

As part of the school council meeting, a representative from Regional Office attended to speak to the members about the process for finding the new NLPS principal. 

 

The selection of a new school principal is conducted as per Ministerial Order 1006.

 

Note that the new principal will be employed to begin on the first day of Term 3. In the meantime, I undertook the Expression of Interest process recently and have been successful in remaining in the Acting Principal role for Term 2. I am very grateful for the opportunity to continue in the role, and provide an element of consistency, in a period of significant change and growth here at NLPS and truly value the support that the staff and school community has given me so far. 

 

Have a wonderful fortnight as we head into the new season.

 

Carly Bannon

Acting Principal

 

School Council Dates 2024

Meetings to run from 6:30-8:00 pm unless otherwise stated.

 

Term 1  

Monday 26th February (face to face, at 5:45pm)

Monday 25th March (face to face - at 6pm) 2023 Annual Report Presented

 

Term 2

Monday 6th May (face to face)

Monday 17th June (online)

 

Term 3

Monday 29th July (online)

Monday 9th September (online)

 

Term 4

Monday 21st October (face to face)

Monday 25th November (face to face)

2024 School Council Subcommittees

  1. Finance
  2. Facilities Management
  3. Out of School Hours Care (OSCH)
  4. Community Engagement & Fundraising (working with Parents Club)
  5. Policy

Note that subcommittees generally meet one to two weeks prior to the school council date at a time/place convenient to its members. 

 

Please keep a look out for meeting times that will be advertised in the newsletter and/or via Compass.