Principal's Message
Our children are our future...
Principal's Message
Welcome to the end of the 2025 academic year. I hope, as you reflect, you deem it a success as a parent of SMPS. Of course, the most important 'client' is your child. All roads lead to Rome as far as our efforts as adults are concerned.
Success can be amorphous depending on who you speak to. I've lived lone enough to know that not every parent will be happy with everything all the time - no matter what statistics I might spruik. Our mission, each day, week, month and year remains the same: To care for and educate children. Simple, right? Well, not so much.
Blood, sweat and tears go into the mission and sometimes you take two steps forward and one step back. But, by most measures, SMPS is wildly successful as a school. Our key indicators of student satisfaction, parent and staff opinion, Department of Education Learning and Wellbeing rankings and NAPLAN show extraordinarily high outcomes. These are 'off the charts' stuff that are the envy of any principal that I know. I attribute the statistical successes to the work of the leaders, staff and families in their collective support of our wonderful students. I've never experienced anything like it in over 40 years in education.
Our Assistant Principal, Maddy Morrison, published some compelling data that is worth the double-click.
- When compared to Victorian government schools with 10 or more students participating in NAPLAN, SMPS scored:
- Year 3: 1st in Reading; 1st average score across all subjects
- Year 5: 11th average score across all subjects. All schools ahead of SMPS have been opened for decades.
- Our participation rates were higher than the national average.
Importantly, Maddy mentioned that NAPLAN is not the sole measure of a child’s growth or a school’s success. We are proud to offer a rich and balanced education that values academic excellence alongside wellbeing, engagement and personal growth.
Maddy Morrison is the author of our curriculum and NAPLAN preparation, Jo May is the leader of the Wellbeing space, Callum Freel is the orchestra conductor of whole school operations, Orlaith Kenny is the leader of pedagogical and program excellence, Jen Davies is the leader of family and community wellbeing connections. I sit back and watch these leaders do great things and smile occasionally before telling them all, "...but we are not there yet."
We simply love your children. They are truly incredible. But, deep down, we know that they are incredible because you are incredible.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Gratitude to you all. Best of luck to those departing SMPS including our wonderful Year 6 cohort who did us so proud for 7 years.
Zooper Dooper Day 2025
The Junior School Council Zooper Dooper Day, held on Thursday, December 11th was a huge success! Together, we raised an incredible $630.31 for Earthcare St Kilda.
A massive thank you to everyone who donated to the cause or provided Zooper Doopers to the school for the event. Your generous support is helping Earthcare St Kilda do wonderful work protecting our local environment and the adorable Little Penguins at the St Kilda breakwater by caring for our wildlife and restoring habitats.
Well done to all JSC members for your efforts in this event. You're all superstars! ⭐
New and Exiting Staff 2025-2026
The following pages are filled with welcomes and farewells - as is always the case towards the end of any year. There is also information around which teachers are in which classes in 2026. Last week, we operated a very successful "meet your new teacher" session and lots of smiles came back as the children finished these sessions. We are very excited about our new staff team as we seek to get even better in 2026 and beyond.
I wish all departing staff the very best and thank them for their passion and dedication during their time at SMPS. We hope they always feel part of our family and consider our doors open.
There have been some questions around our specialists for 2026. Mr Paul returns full time to Music in 2026. His split timings over the last two years in two schools has allowed us to run Performing Arts with Miss Daniella. With Paul returning full time, that gap for Miss D and the program no longer exists so she will be leaving to undertake other roles in another school. Basically, the money we receive from the government means we can only ever run 4 full time positions in specialists - so sometimes our hand is forced - as it is in 2026. We will be bringing back Mandarin as a specialist subject in 2026 and this will be run by Miss Sam Kong who is a long-time member of SMPS. We are thrilled and so is she! Other specialist remain the same, with Environmental Education making way for Mandarin. The normal classroom program will cover the concepts left behind by EE no longer being a specialist subject.
Whilst it is always sad to say goodbye, it is also wonderful to recognise and be grateful for the connection made to students and our community along the way. Take the time to read the stories of these wonderful people. They will all be missed. How lovely to have met them along the way. At our final assembly on Wednesday, we farewelled these wonderful people in person.
Please check out all pages for welcomes and farewell messages.
New Year Link
It may be a good idea to save the link below which is a "Return to School in 2026" resource. It may assist those starting as new parents or those new to the system in understanding how schooling works in Victoria in 2026.