Assistant Principal Update

Hello everyone,

Welcome to Term 4 Week 7. It’s hard to believe there are just 21 school days left for 2025. 

The energy across the school is extremely high as the busyness of school ramps up.    

We are looking forward to the Year 5 Camp in a couple of weeks. The Year 1/2 swimming lessons will commence on Monday. The Year 4 students went to do a Podcasting activity this week, and Prep students went on an excursion to Bundoora Park today. The Year 6 students are working on their legacy item and preparing for graduation. The Year 5 students will deliver their leadership speeches next week and preparation is underway for their upcoming Maker’s Market.

While it is exciting to have all these amazing things going on it does mean we need to continually be aware of the impacts this has on students’ wellbeing and that of staff and ourselves. So, this week as we head full steam to the end of the year, my goal is to take moments to be grateful and enjoy the experiences that are being afforded to us.  I hope you can also find some moments throughout your week to be mindful and note what you are grateful for.

APS Writers Festival and Art Show 

Preparations for next week’s Art show and Writers Festival are well underway. The first floor of the main administration is taking shape as an art gallery as Michael begins displaying the various artworks students have created throughout the year. 

Meanwhile, classes are finalising the pieces of writing which they will go on display in classrooms. 

This year staff have been asked to nominate and select their favourite pieces of art from those student works on display. Of these we are going to frame some pieces to be displayed in the stairwells of the school, so keep your eyes open for these in the coming weeks. 

A big thank you to all the students and teachers in preparing for the evening. A special mention to Michael for their efforts in coordinating the event. We can’t wait to welcome families into the school next week for the show. 

2026 Planning

We are in the final stages of preparing classes for 2026. As we finalise the teachers, student classes and classrooms, staff will begin commencing the important job of planning for next year. 

We will allocate time in the coming weeks for staff to meet, share and discuss student transition data. This will ensure that students learning, and wellbeing needs are shared between their 2025 and 2026 teachers, and that year level teams can begin planning differentiated teaching, learning and wellbeing programs to ensure students’ needs are catered to at their individual point of need.

2025 Semester Two Reports

Teachers are finalising reports over the next week, and these will be published on Compass on Friday 12 December. Teachers spend a lot of time ensuring reports are accurate and reflect a student’s achievement for the semester. Both student achievement and progress are included in the report. This includes providing a teacher judgement against the achievement standards, assigned as a score, that accurately reflects where each student is along the relevant learning continuum for curriculum areas taught during the reporting period. 

Following the updates to our reporting to parents in semester one, we received several positive comments from families about how informative the new format was. Teachers also have articulated that they find the process much more aligned to the curriculum goals covered throughout the semester. The updated format, which now includes a series of content descriptions linked to the achievement standards, and a continuum which displays where a student is currently achieving, allows teachers and families to see what students can do and where next steps for learning may be.

We encourage families to share and discuss the report with their child to develop an understanding of the learning and celebrate the achievements. If you wish to discuss your child’s report with their teacher, you can make an appointment to do so during week 11 of Term 4.

Student Leadership at APS

Next Tuesday Year 5 students who have nominated for 2026 Official Student Leadership positions will deliver their speeches. Below is the exert from the Student Leadership at APS document which outline the procedures for selection of the Official Leadership positions.

Official Leadership Position Selection Procedures:

Speeches:

During week 8 of term 4 students who have nominated for Official Leadership Positions are required to deliver their speech outlining which positions they have nominated for and why they feel they are the best candidate for the position. The audience is the Year 4s, 5s and Year 6 current leaders, the teachers of these students, the Assistant Principal and Principal. 

 Voting:

All students and staff listening to the speeches will be asked to cast some votes. The Principal team and teachers will discuss the importance of selecting the student they believe will carry out the position the best. The ballot paper will list the positions as:  School Leaders; House Leaders; other Official Leadership positions. Each ballot paper requires three names to be written, one under each category, to cast a vote. All candidates' names will be displayed on a central board. 

Ballot Paper:

The votes are counted and tallied by the Year 5 teachers. The students with the highest votes are given an opportunity for an interview with Melissa, Shane and a Year 5 teacher. 

The number of interviewees is dependent on the cohort number, teacher judgement, leadership potential and the preferences the students have nominated. 

Interviews: 

Student Leadership Interviews are held following the speeches and official voting. The interviews are intended to be relaxed and informal in nature lasting about 5 minutes. A predetermined list of questions relevant to the nominated positions is developed by the interview panel prior to the interview. Selected students are given the questions 5 minutes prior to their interview time so they can prepare some brief notes.

Official Student Leadership Positions Announcement

The leaders are selected and announced to the school in the second last week of term 4. An official induction ceremony takes place early in Term 1 of the following year. All official student leadership positions will be issued with:

• A School Leader Badge and/or a School Leader patch       
• Official Leadership Position Certificate

Student Free Day

Tomorrow, Thursday 20 November, is a Student Free Day. Staff will be onsite and our agenda for the day is a combination of 2025 professional learning and commencing some of our 2026 priority development.

Leading Literacy Professional Development

Alan Gallagher, Sarah Maskell, Cass Payne and I have undertaken a literacy professional learning course through the Victorian Teaching and Learning Academy this year. Our 5-month course finished on Monday and this Thursday we will be delivering the first of many professional development sessions to the staff as part of our School Literacy Improvement Plan.

We have identified three key strategies for 2026:

1. Build all staff capacity to critically analyse multiple data sources to identify point of need teaching of reading.
2. Strengthen staff capabilities in teaching reading using the Big 6 reading domains within an updated instructional model.
3. Implement a whole school coaching process to build expertise and consistency in the teaching of reading.

Our focus on Thursday will be sharing the plan with staff, introducing them to some of the current research around literacy pedagogical practices, and supporting them to analyse current data sets to best prepare 2026 teams to set up their 2026 reading literacy programs. 

For families, it is important to know that high quality reading instruction prioritises the teaching of the Big 6 Reading domains. (Listed below). 

The domains of phonemic awareness and phonics are considered constrained skills – once these have been taught and understood in a systematic way, then learners have these in place. In a sense, these skills have an end point. Oral language, vocabulary and comprehension are unconstrained – they can continue to be added to and are constantly able to be improved. Fluency requires a combination of both and requires a learner to read with fluency both as a constrained and unconstrained skill depending on the complexity of a text. 

Enjoy your week.

Shane Wilkie

Assistant Principal