School Council President Report

School council met for the last time as a formal governing body for 2025 on 26 November. As the final meeting of the year, a significant portion of the discussion focused on looking forward to 2026, including:

- Approval of the indicative budget for 2026. The School continues to manage its budget in an efficient and professional manner and the proposed 2026 budget is no exception. From a governance perspective, we note that the Leadership team have included initiatives in the budget that have a clear link to the strategic plan and the School achieving its goals.

- Key dates for 2026 including working bees, meeting schedules and camp dates have been agreed and approved and will be communicated to the school community through regular channels.

- While not a matter for Council approval, the structure of the teaching staff and student numbers has been completed for 2026 and relayed to council. It is great to see the retention of strong teaching staff and class numbers across the grades.

- The Council spent considerable time thinking about how to engage the community in the parent survey in 2026 and will ensure that this is communicated to a wider audience with the aim to incorporate feedback from parents into our School.

The School Council finished on a high - expressed gratitude to Adrian Biassi and the Fair Committee for the terrific Fair last weekend. It was a fabulous community event that was well attended with proceeds supporting infrastructure in our School that would otherwise not be possible to procure.

A huge thank you from me to all our School Council Members for 2025 for their commitment and input to meetings.

On that note, at the end of each year, approximately half of the parent members on School Council complete their two-year term and rotate off. That means, for 2026, we have six vacancies for parent members. I encourage anyone thinking about joining the council to nominate. Personally, I have enjoyed the opportunity to get to know our teachers, staff and leaders better and appreciate the commitment and complexity of their work. A lot of the work of a parent member is expressed through the various sub-committees (Finance, Education, OSHC and Facilities) and all that is needed is some enthusiasm and an hour or two of time once a month to be involved. If you have any questions about joining Council for 2026, feel free to get in touch (hamish.wood@education.vic.gov.au).

Hamish Wood

School Council President