From the Principal ...

Dear students, families and staff of Cheltenham Primary School,

A warm welcome to all our students and families for the new school year. Particularly our new Foundation students and their families and all other new students and families joining Cheltenham Primary School this year.  We hope that this will be the start of a very positive journey in learning for all. 

The children have returned to school and settled into their new classes brilliantly. I have enjoyed learning about their holiday highlights and seeing their happy, smiling faces. 

Our smooth commencement owes much to the efforts of our incredible staff who took time during the holidays to set up their classrooms, learning spaces and work areas to organise everything that our students required for their return. 

Despite some staffing and recruitment challenges faced across the state, I am proud that we have commenced the year with a full complement of wonderful classroom and specialist teachers.

New staff

I would like to extend a warm welcome to the following staff members who are joining us this year:

Amy Midson(1B)

Kerrie Gentner (2B)

Rhiannon Dalman (3/4A)

Matt Littlechild (5B)

Aleks Pandurevic (6B)

Exciting News!

Congratulations to our PE and Sports teacher, Shaun Penny on the birth of his daughter, Sienna Grace Penny.  Shaun has been on partner leave supporting his wife, Caitlin and baby Sienna for the last few weeks and has returned to duty today. 

Congratulations also to Andrew Culvenor on the birth of his daughter, Ava Ann Culvenor.  Andy will also be taking partner leave to support his wife Sheridan and daugher Ava, prior to the end of this term. 

Wishing Shaun and his wife Caitlin, Andy and his wife Sheridan, joy and precious moments together as new families of 3!

Parent Payment Arrangements 2025 

Thank you to all families who have contributed or committed to supporting our school through Parent Payment Arrangements on Compass (formerly known as school fees). Your contributions play a vital role in enhancing learning opportunities for all students at Cheltenham Primary School.

If you have not yet had a chance to do so, please visit Compass to make a contribution online or via the office.  The School Council letter attached to the schedule of parent payments outlines how your contributions directly support your child at Cheltenham.

If you have any questions or require a more flexible payment plan, please don’t hesitate to contact the school office at cheltenham.ps@education.vic.gov.au

Your support is greatly appreciated!

Garden program

Term 1 is such a busy term with the start up to the school year, the children transitioning to their new classes and the National testing schedule for Literacy and Numeracy that in recent years we have not commenced our Kitchen program until Term 2, allowing Jennifer Leason our high energy instructor, some well deserved down time.  In Jennifer's absence this year and with the upgrade of our Kitchen Garden and Community Gardens we have introduced a fortnightly garden program in Term 1 to support our Kitchen program.  The Gardens at the rear of the school has been transformed after a good clean up and the installation of vegie pods, fruit trees, bamboo trees with a sand garden. 

Each class from Years 1 to 6 has a designated area. They are each growing different fruits, vegetables or herbs. Students have been busy planting in the last 2 weeks.  Over the term each class will be responsible for looking after their area, checking on the plants, weeding and observing how the plants are growing. 

The aim of the Garden program is for students to gain an appreciation and enjoyment in watching their plants grow and produce food. 

At the end of the term we hope to be able to make something with the produce and promote healthy eating among the students. So far the students have enjoyed their time in the Garden with many already well experienced from their own gardening at home.

The Garden program will also be supported by Garden Club at lunchtimes twice per week and facilitated by Denise Rejda, Bernard Hickey and our middle school Environmental Leaders.   

NAPLAN 

The National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) are a nation-wide, standardised series of tests for children in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 which cover writing, spelling, grammar, reading and numeracy skills. NAPLAN is now held in March of each year.  The testing schedule this year commences Wednesday 12 March and concludes the following week, Friday 21 March. 

A NAPLAN update for families with children in Years 3 and 5 is in today's newsletter.  Our Learning Tutors and Intervention staff are currently working strategically with students and classroom teachers in Years 3 and 5, to ensure that the children are comfortable with the technology they will be using, the testing format and the time requirements, to give their Personal Best. 

Building and Ground Works

During the holidays ground works to the oval continued...  While a watering program was implemented during the hot conditions not all of the grass 'took'.  Supplementary reseeding and watering is scheduled once we move past the forthcoming hot spell.  It is expected that the oval will be unavailable at least for the remainder of this term and into next term.  As a result Shaun Penny is already working on relocating our Cross Country trials off site to Cheltenham Park this year. 

Meet and Greet Meetings 

Over the last 2 weeks our teachers in Years 1-6 have been meeting with parents and caregivers of students' with specific wellbeing and academic needs. Our usual Meet and Greet meetings will be conducted Tuesday 4 March and Wednesday 5 March 3.30pm to 5.30pm. Please note: Year 1 will be commencing at 2.30pm on Wednesday and conducting their interviews on Wednesday only due to their small class sizes. 

These short 'in person'10 minute meetings are an opportunity for parents that have not yet met their child's teacher to put a face to a name and vice versa.  It is also a time during which you can communicate confidentially about your child's well-being or learning needs.  If meeting in person is difficult at this time, please communicate with your child's teacher so they can make a personal arrangement with you. 

Teachers are unable to report on your child's progress (yet) as they are just in the early stages of relationship building and developing their understanding of each child's academic and social and emotional needs. If you have already met with your child’s teacher, there is no expectation that you need make an appointment. 

Bookings for Meet and Greet Meetings will be scheduled through Compass and go 'live' from today, Tuesday 18 February at 3.00pm, for you to book in. 

Foundation will be holding an Information session for families in each of the Foundations classrooms on Thursday 6 March from 3.45 to 4.45pm. 

Curriculum Overviews for Term 1

To support families to understand what is happening with learning and events in each Year Level PLC (professional learning community), we will continue to provide termly Curriculum overviews and learning reflections. These summaries give a snapshot of what is happening in learning - Literacy, Mathematics, STEAM and specialist disciplines- in addition to relevant year level information.  They also provide an opportunity for families to understand how the challenge extends as children progress from Foundation to Year 6. Today's newsletter has all the class overviews and our next one, will have the specialist overviews. If you would like to develop a sense of how learning progresses,  please do review all of these in today's newsletter.

School Photographs

School photographs are scheduled for 25 March.  We have changed providers this year and flyers outlining the various photograph options and the online ordering system will be disseminated through the newsletter and Compass as soon as available.  

DET Schools' privacy policy

In accordance with privacy legislation our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Please take time to remind yourself of our School’s Collection Notice, found on our website For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages.

* Amharic

* Arabic

* Dari

* Gujarati

* Mandarin

* Somali

* Sudanese

* Turkish

* Urdu

* Vietnamese

We look forward to working in partnership with all our parents and carers this year to ensure high levels of engagement and learning for all our students!

Kind Regards,

Bronwyn