Our start to the school year has been a smooth transition for our school this year! Teachers are working to create predictability through teaching routines and procedures. I’m particularly proud of our Prep cohort who have started the school year with parents/carers encouraging their Preppies to carry their own backpacks and put away their own backpacks before a swift cuddle and good-bye.

The drop-off routine can be tricky for a few of our kids and the more predictability and consistency you create around this routine, the easier it is for them to transition. Have a routine about how they enter the school, how they carry their own bag, how they say good-bye and how you tell them when you will pick them up, (after school or at TheirCare, etc.). Please don’t sneak away as the next time they believe you will sneak and they, in turn, become more anxious about the situation.

If you need to help your child with this transition, a timer works well with a predictable time of how long you’ll stay while they settle in the classroom, (approximately 5 minutes with a plan to decrease by 1 minute each day), and what happens when the timer goes, (ie., timer rings, dad says, ‘I’ll see you at pickup’, gives 1 cuddle and goes). Multiple cuddles or restarts of this routine increase the chances your child will continue to struggle with this transition when they think the routine is flexible or don’t understand the routine. Your child’s teacher can assist you if you feel that this transition may need a bit more attention to start your child off right for 2026, so please reach out.

Volunteer Induction

Many thanks to the volunteers who attended the induction last Friday, as well as the parents who have assisted me to ensure our technology is doing what it is supposed to do, (which includes the Interview Bookings). We are now using Compasscheck to ensure all volunteers and visitors to our school have a Working with Children’s Check. Please see the Compass post for further details. If you are keen to volunteer for the AGP excursion on Thursday, 5 March, and you don’t yet have your Working with Children’s Check, you will need to hop on https://service.vic.gov.au/services/working-with-children as soon as possible in the hopes that the turnaround time will enable you to then be compliant through Compasscheck. Thank you for continuing to support us to keep kids at the heart.

Koorie Morning Tea

Our first Koorie Morning Tea will be Friday, 27 February. This is an invitation for all parents/carers, both Koorie and non-Koorie, to attend and hear about how we can work together as a community to create a safer school for our Koorie students. Our Koorie Education Support Officer, Steph Briggs, will be in attendance. If I have any lovely parents who would be happy to bake a little something, assist with setup on the morning, or join our group, please feel free to reach out directly to me in an email.

School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS)

Our 2026 school SWPBS leaders this year include: myself, Johanne Abbott, Vic Fear, Caroline Macdonald and Kate Cooper. We will attempt to also have an Education Support team member join us. I thank Kara Merrin, Toni Canto Castello and Mae McMahon for their teamwork leading this initiative with us last year. The team meets fortnightly to discuss all things SWPBS in order to support our wellbeing annual implementation goal. We will work this year to ensure our systems are starting to align with our current values and are consistent. We will also work to collect data and evaluate how well our systems support kids at the heart. We’re very excited to see how this continues to enable calmer classrooms and safer play choices throughout the school.

Last week Johanne Abbott led a staff meeting about using our School-Wide Classroom Matrix when discussing behavioural choices with our students. This language is purposefully framed using the acronym OMPUA for: Observable, Measurable, Positive, Understandable and Always applicable and was developed based on the behaviours we were already seeing at our school across multiple areas and how to positively reframe them. These behaviours will require some unpacking, such as with Upstander, and will be addressed in regular Wellbeing lessons in the classroom.

We began putting this document together in term 2, 2025 and have consulted across multiple demographics, (SWPBS team, multiple staff meetings, Wellbeing Subcommittee, Student Representative Council), in our community to ensure this current version is just right for right now. You will start to see this up and around our school to help us all remember how to live being Kind, Responsible and an Active Learner.

Lunchtime Clubs

Lunch 11.40-12pm –

Library space will be open with Ms. Breen

Lunch 12-12.30pm –

Mondays – Drawing with Ms. Abbott,

Wednesdays – Choir with Ms. Paech (11.40-12.30pm),

Thursdays – Art Club with Ms. Michael,

Fridays – Zen Den (drawing and quiet board games) with Ms. Loader.

2nd Hand Uniform Stall

Mel Jones has been successfully running our 2nd Hand Uniform Stall for quite a few years. With her daughters both in year 6 this year, we need a legacy plan! If you have a fellow parent you’d like to spend a bit more time with, sometimes sharing these jobs allows for greater flexibility as well as an opportunity for busy friends to spend time together while supporting our school. If you are interested, please email the school at south.melbourne.park.ps@education.vic.gov.au with the subject: 2nd Hand Uniform.

Schools State Relief

For our families who qualify for CSEF funding, have a student in Out-of-Home-Care, or are in a vulnerable place, Schools’ State Relief can provide uniform assistance. Sometimes this looks like generic uniform items, (gray shorts, black school shoes, etc.) and sometimes this looks like a uniform voucher for PSW. Please email Johanne Abbott directly if you are interested and believe you may qualify.

Wellbeing Subcommittee

While all of our school council subcommittees will be after interested parents/carers, we will start our 2026 Wellbeing Subcommittee in March. I am particularly passionate in this area and would welcome additional parents who would like to join us. This committee meets approximately 8 times per year and discusses some of the items you see here in the newsletter, but also discusses areas, such as inclusivity, consultation on school wellbeing policies and/or SWPBS. If you are interested in joining us this year, please email the school at south.melbourne.park.ps@education.vic.gov.au with the subject Wellbeing Subcommittee as we would appreciate having a broad cohort of diverse voices.

Family Food Trolley

You may have noticed Leila Greenfield with our Family Food Trolley at the end of assemblies. With our weekly Food Bank deliveries, we have some long-life items, such as soups, cereals, pastas, etc., available for families, (adults only please), to have. Additionally, we are looking for some extra hands to man the trolley here and there. If you would like to support in trolley duty, please email the school for us to forward you to Leila to assist. If you require extra support with food, we can have Foodbank deliver food parcels, so please reach out to me directly via email.

Parenting Resource

This is a great site which has resources for families with a particular focus on students in years 4-6: Easing into Adolescence: https://www.vic.gov.au/share_link/b2907809-467d-4750-8e17-bd0358d382a0/50344?section=780

Wishing you a wonderful week of Getting to Know You Interviews!

Sam Smrekar Thompson

Assistant Principal

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