Principal Report
Good afternoon parents and families,
It's been a busy (and quick!) two weeks since our last newsletter and our students and teachers are all extremely focused and working hard to finish off assessments. End of Semester Reports will be out later this term (in Week 10), and we will be holding our second session of Parent-Teacher Interviews on our upcoming Term 3 Curriculum Day, recently confirmed to be Wednesday 22nd July with our senior students taking part in 3-way (i.e. student led) conferences instead. More details about our revised PTI format will be in next fortnight's newsletter.
Student Interaction Online
Did you know that the school is legally obligated to follow up instances of inappropriate behaviour online when it involves our students, even when it has occurred outside of school hours and not on school devices? What that follow up looks like depends on the specific situation, however, it can involve contacting the police, as well as informing the department and Child Protection. Although your child may seem 'too young' for such things it is important to closely monitor what your child is doing on their devices as they are not mature enough to understand the consequences for their actions online.
Over the coming term, we will look to reinforce the message to our students around online safety, including the need to tell a trusted adult (parent, relative or teacher) if they see something they know is not right and/or makes them feel uncomfortable. This already forms part of our comprehensive Health Scope and Sequence but we will highlight this important learning again. Of course, this learning is complemented when students are closely monitored at home and parental controls have been placed on their devices.
Parental controls can help keep children and young people safer online by preventing access to harmful content, managing time spent online and limiting who they communicate with. To be most effective, parental controls need to be set up on all devices your child accesses connected to the internet, such as phones, laptops, tablets, gaming consoles and smart TVs and they should be reviewed and updated regularly. Parental controls are most effective when used alongside supervision and other online safety strategies.
The eSafety Commissioner has a great range of age-specific resources for schools and parents alike, and I encourage our families to review them as soon as possible — https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents.
If you are made aware of such behaviour occurring online, please let the school know so we can fulfil our legal obligations and put supports in place for the children involved.
Industrial Action Update
With the new EBA being agreed to in principle, there will be no half day strike that was pencilled in for June 4. Other proposed action has also ceased for this period, however, the AEU had included a 'ban on all aspects of work related to the provision of written comments on student reports that will be provided to parents' in the industrial action.
While this ban has now been lifted, the department recognises that it may now be difficult for schools to provide full written comments for Semester 1. The reports will continue to provide important details about student learning attainment, but full descriptive comments may not be included in the majority of our students’ reports as a result of industrial action taken earlier this term by the Australian Education Union. For those students that have a teacher that is not an AEU member, written comments will still be provided - both the ‘General Comment’ and the ‘Where to Next?’.
We will of course be pleased to discuss with you your child's progress at our next parent-teacher interviews scheduled for July 22nd, or, as always, you can contact the school to arrange a meeting with your child's teacher.
School Review Update
The 10-member review panel held its Field Day on Tuesday 27th May. We celebrated school highlights over the past 4 years, assisted by our school captains, reviewed current data and then gathered evidence through classroom and PLT (teaching team) observations and various focus groups, including ES staff, students, middle leaders, parents and students. There will be a bit more evidence gathering first thing next Tuesday, before the panel sits down to define the new School Strategic Plan (SSP) through the creation of goals, their specific improvement strategies and related targets. I will share these with you in our next newsletter. Thank you to the parents that made themselves available for the focus group.
2025 Annual Report
It is a legislative requirement that all Victorian government schools prepare an Annual Report by 30 April each year, and that this includes school specific information on student outcomes, attendance and financial activities. The Annual Report must be endorsed at a meeting of the school council and attested to by the principal and school council president. This was done in late Term 1, 2026.
The 2025 NLPS Annual Report has now passed departmental quality assurance and will be presented to the school community prior to our next school council meeting on Monday 22nd June from 6:30pm (online). It will also be made available online to read prior - more information will be given in our next newsletter.
Foundation 2027
With enrolments due in late July, we are able to offer one more, full-length school tour to our local community, to take place on Thursday, June 4th at 9:30am. If you are interested in attending, please make a booking via our website’s enrolment page - https://newportlakesps.vic.edu.au/enrolments/ or contact the front office.
Enjoy the last few days of what’s been a beautiful autumn!
Carly Bannon
NLPS Principal