From the Principal
We are halfway through the term, and the past fortnight has been a busy and exciting time across the school
Our Foundation students proudly celebrated their 100 Days of School, marking an exciting milestone in their learning journey. It was wonderful to see the children enthusiastically participate in the festivities, dressing up and taking part in a special parade, singing performance, and a disco to finish the day. The foundation students also went on their first excursion to the library this week.
Our Grade 5 students and teachers have returned from their Mt Martha Camp after a memorable and rewarding experience. Students enjoyed exciting days filled with fun, challenge, teamwork and the opportunity to spend quality time with their friends. Camps provide valuable opportunities for students to build independence, resilience and confidence while creating lasting memories. A sincere thank you to the staff and parent volunteers who generously gave their time to attend and support the camp.
AMC
Congratulations to all students who participated in the Australian Mathematics Competition (AMC). Once again, we had a strong number of participants this year, with many students embracing the challenge and testing their mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Well done to every student who participated in the competition and their willingness to challenge themselves. Thank you to Mr Blacklaw for coordinating this opportunity.
Years 3-6 Athletics
On Tuesday, our Years 3-6 students participated in the Athletics Trials. It was wonderful to see students striving to do their best, encouraging one another and demonstrating great sportsmanship throughout the day. Thank you to Mr A, our staff and the parent volunteers for their support in making the event such a success.
Book Week Celebrations
We enjoyed a fantastic week celebrating Book Week. Students participated in an engaging incursion with Kaboom Percussion, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all. There was also plenty of excitement as students tried to guess the identities of our mystery “Masked Readers.”
Students took part in the Great Book Swap, exchanging books they had already enjoyed for new stories to discover. Gold coin donations from the event will support the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, helping to provide quality reading materials to children in remote communities across Australia. We concluded the week with our much-anticipated Book Week Dress Up Day, where students and staff brought their favourite book characters to life with a wonderful display of creativity and enthusiasm.
A special thank you to the PPA for covering the cost of the incursion, to Ms Davies for creating the entertaining Masked Reader videos, our masked readers and to our Literacy Committee for organising a fun-filled week.
2027 School Year
If you have a child in Foundation to Year 5 who will not be returning to PPS next year, could you please inform the office or the class teacher via email ASAP. This will assist with planning for class structures and staffing for 2027.
Donations
We will be hosting a Colour Run/Walk-a-Thon fundraiser in Term 4 and are seeking support from our wonderful community. As part of the event, we would love to offer prizes to our participants. If you, your family, friends, or any local businesses can donate vouchers or prizes, we would greatly appreciate your contribution. No voucher or prize is too small; every donation helps make this event exciting and rewarding for our students!
If you’re able to help, please get in touch. Thank you so much for your support.
Parking around the school for drop-off/pick up
As we approach drop-off and pick-up times, we kindly remind all families to be thoughtful and considerate when parking around our school. Please ensure that neighbours’ driveways, entrances and access points are never blocked, even for a short time. We also ask families not to use local business car parks unless they are customers and parking is permitted. Taking a few extra moments to park safely and legally helps keep our community safe, respectful and positive for everyone. Thank you for your cooperation and for helping us be considerate neighbours while ensuring a smooth and safe start and end to the school day.
Parent/Carer 2026 Opinion Survey
The 2026 The Parent / Carer Opinion Survey will be open online from Monday 17 August to Friday 18 September 2026. All families will be invited to participate in the survey. The survey is conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones.
Working Together to Address Concerns
We encourage families to bring concerns directly to the school as soon as they arise so that they can be investigated promptly and fairly. While we understand that parents naturally seek to support and advocate for their own child, information shared between families can sometimes be based on differing perspectives, partial accounts, or events that have not been directly witnessed by all parties involved.
For this reason, it is important that concerns are raised with school staff, who can investigate matters objectively by speaking with the students involved, gathering information from supervising staff, and reviewing any relevant records. This enables us to respond appropriately and ensure that decisions are based on the information available firsthand.
We also ask families to be mindful of discussions occurring between groups of parents regarding individual students or classroom matters. While such conversations are often well-intentioned, they can sometimes unintentionally escalate concerns, create misunderstandings, or influence children's relationships and interactions at school.
Our shared goal is to work together in a way that supports positive relationships within the school community and ensures that concerns are addressed through the appropriate school processes.
Positive School Culture
The Victorian Department of Education (DET) Respectful Behaviours within the School Community Policy outlines shared expectations for parents, carers, and staff.
Parents/carers and school staff have a relationship that can last many years. This is an opportunity to work together to create a positive relationship in the best interests of the child.
When this relationship is built on respect and trust, students learn better and feel like they belong in the school. The foundation of a good collaborative relationship is based on:
open and honest communication
trust and respect
working together
fair and reasonable expectations by all.
Shared responsibility of members of the school community to behave respectfully
Positive school environments are important because everyone has the right to be safe and play a shared role in being respectful. Everyone at school, particularly staff and parents/carers, play a role in making school a better place for learning and work.
Respectful behaviours are important in building strong, healthy and thriving school communities.
School staff in Victorian Government schools have to follow the Respectful Workplaces Policy to build and maintain a respectful workplace, including:
treating each other with respect and consideration
being inclusive, valuing others and accepting their differences
recognising the efforts and achievements of others
considering our impact on others
calling out and addressing behaviour that can lead to bullying, harassment and discrimination.
Parents/carers can create a positive environment for learning and work by:
modelling positive behaviour to their child/children and to the school community
communicating politely and respectfully with all members of the school community
working with the school to achieve the best outcomes for their child/children
communicating constructively with the school
making use of the expected processes and protocols when raising concerns
following the school's processes for communication with staff and making complaints
treating all school staff, students, and other members of the school community with respect.
By treating everyone with respect, parents/carers and schools can make sure students feel supported and cared for.
Unacceptable behaviours and consequences
Schools are positive places of learning where everyone has a right to a safe and healthy learning environment. Schools are also workplaces, and school staff deserve to work in an environment where they don’t feel threatened or unsafe.
When a small number of parents and carers behave unacceptably towards a staff member or another member of the school community, this can affect their health, safety and wellbeing. The impact can also be felt by the wider school community.
Unacceptable or unreasonable behaviours include, but are not limited to:
being violent or threatening violence of any kind, including being physically intimidating, aggressive hand gestures or invading another person's personal space
speaking or behaving in a rude, aggressive or threatening way, either in person, via email, social media, or over the telephone
sending demanding, rude, confronting or threatening letters, emails or text messages
discriminatory or derogatory comments
the use of social media or public forums to make inappropriate or threatening remarks about the school, staff or students.
If a parent or carer behaves in an unacceptable way, the school principal may contact them to talk about this further and there may be consequences. This may include making a School Community Safety Order to prohibit or limit harmful, threatening or abusive behaviour from a parent, carer or other adult to members of the school community.
Unacceptable or unreasonable behaviour may be escalated to the Department, where it will be assessed and managed by:
requesting that the parties attend a mediation or counselling sessions
requesting all communications be in writing
written warnings
conditions of entry to school grounds or school activities
exclusion from school grounds or attendance at school activities
reports to Victoria Police
legal action.
A Reminder: Mobile Phones
All schools are required to implement the Department mobile phone policy. For the purpose of this policy, “mobile phone” refers to mobile phones and any device that may connect to or have a similar functionality to a mobile phone such as smart watches.”
Students are encouraged NOT to bring a mobile phone to school unless there is a compelling reason to do so.
We ask parents to reinforce with their child that if they bring a mobile phone to school, it must not be used at any time while on school grounds. If a student is found using their phone, parents will be contacted and the student may lose the privilege of bringing their phone to school.
Students with Smart Watches – these need to be disabled during school times. As per a mobile phone, students are not to use their smart watches during school times.
Kind regards
Leanne Bradney