Nigel's Natter

Hi HBPS Community, 

Week 4 and the term is humming along. A few updates and some news to share. 

STUDENT LED CONFERENCES

Looking forward to seeing you all and listening to our kids talk about their learning tomorrow during student led conferences. I've seen some of the preparation and they are set to be a fab celebration of learning. 

VISION AND VALUES COMMUNITY INPUT

BIG thanks to families that responded to our VISION community input survey. Here is a summary of what you told us are your aspirations for your children. 

Emotional and Social Growth

• Children feeling emotionally safe, confident, kind, and resilient.
• Development of empathy, respect for others, and strong social skills.
• Cultivating a positive self-image and self-belief.

Academic Growth and Love of Learning

• A desire for children to love learning, stay curious, and reach their full academic potential.
• Building foundational skills in literacy and numeracy, alongside personalised support for individual learning styles.
• Encouragement to take risks, persist through challenges, and develop a growth mindset.

Preparation for Life Beyond Primary School

• Parents want their children to be ready academically and socially for the transition to high school.
• Emphasis on independence, responsibility, leadership, and problem-solving skills.
• Fostering a sense of belonging and connectedness to community and the world.

BUILDING KNOWLEDGE 

Below is a very small selection of slides from Prep to Year 6 taken from their Knowledge Units. There is so much deep thinking happening across the school. Lots of knowledge being developed.  

UNLOCKING POTENTIAL - Principal Preparation Program. 

I'm thrilled to announce that our school was selected to host an intern as part of the Unlocking Potential program, run by the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership. This is a Principal Preparation Program. Jordan Moran from Lara Primary School is currently shadowing myself and the extended leadership group to reflect on and develop his own leadership capacity. It's great to be contributing to the development of future school principals!

BARWON NORTH CENTRAL Network Chair

On a personal note of celebration, I'm happy to share with you all that I was recently appointed as the Network Chair for our local network of principals. Essentially this means I work closely with the Network Senior Leader and a small team of Principals to lead ongoing improvement across our network of schools. The benefit to HBPS is that I'll have early access to 'what's coming' for school improvement from the Department of Education! 

NAPLAN

The school team have looked at the 2025 NAPLAN results - and the good news is there are no surprises. Our results are what we expected. Our performance is closely aligned with 'similar schools' and reflect where we are up to in our improvement journey.  I am especially proud of the fact our school continues to have a PARTICIPATION rate of over 96%. This means our data is representative of almost ALL our students! 

EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION

You may have read or seen that the Department of Education announced that all schools are to use an evidence-based approach to teaching called Explicit Instruction. This is the work we've been doing for several years now. I've included a short video below that explains what it is. It seems like common sense, which I have to say, it is!  

Have a great week and see you at the front gate!

Nigel