What a fabulous and action packed fortnight at ENPS!

ENPS Trivia Night

Our community trivia night two weeks ago was such a fantastic event and a genuine showcase of how amazing our staff and community are. Such a great atmosphere and opportunity to connect with each other. If you have never seen the human game version of Hungry Hippo, make sure you ask someone who attended all about it, or check out the photos on our School Council page! It was hilarious!

A huge thank you to Tanya Ward, Teresa Heale, Ben Suter and our whole office and community engagement teams for their endless organisation and planning. We are incredibly grateful also to Tony and Gabby Cogur (ENPS parents) and all at Laila Reception for hosting our event. The venue was amazing and thanks also to Grant Fenton for a fabulous job as our MC and Trivia host. Thank you also for all the generous donations and contributions to such a great night. While we are still waiting on the payment and collection of a few items, we can now confirm that we have raised in excess of $12,000!

100 Days of School

The trivia night was hard to top, however the cuteness of the Foundation students celebrating their 100 days of school had us all in smiles two weeks ago! Such a special milestone and memorable day for all involved. Thank you enormously to our Foundation Team for making the day so incredibly special.

Green and Gold Day

Last Friday was a massive day at ENPS! Our Green and Gold Day recognising and celebrating our Australian Olympic Team was just wonderful. There has been a buzz every day since the Opening Ceremony as classes have kept their eye on the medal tally count, relived amazing sporting moments and achievements and celebrated our tremendous athletes! I can’t forget to mention the ENPS Pot-athletes completing in their very own ENPS Olympics across year levels! What a sight that has been!

The Olympics have been a fabulous opportunity to celebrate our Aussie athletes however we also know that for many ENPS families, they are also cheering on their own home countries. We also can’t wait for the coming start to the Paralympics too, to recognise and celebrate our Australian Paralympic team.

Principals’ Day

On behalf of our Assistant Principals; Alice, Alice and Connor, we sincerely thank everyone for making today such a special day for us celebrating and recognising Principals' Day last Friday. We truly have the best jobs in the world and are so blessed to work alongside our fabulous ENPS students, staff and families. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. It really means the world to us. Our Gratitude Galleries are remarkable and such a heartfelt and special gift that we are all incredibly grateful for!

Education Minister Visits ENPS

Last Friday we also welcomed the Victorian Minister for Education, the Hon. Ben Carroll, to ENPS as Principal for the day! It was a great opportunity for us to share with the Minister and the DET South Western Regional Director, Chris Thompson, our school. The Minister had the opportunity during his time with us to meet with some student leaders (Saanvi and Astin) and Daen Sansbury-Smith to share our house team shirt design project; they talked with some Foundation students about their play investigations; met with our School Improvement Team (SIT) who were reviewing our school performance data to drive planning for Semester Two; had a tour of our outdoor learning areas including the new student toilets and the Nature Play Space; and finished off with a morning tea with staff to celebrate Principals’ Day.

Danny Pearson Visit

Later in the day last Friday, we also had a visit from our local member of Parliament, Danny Pearson. Danny was very keen to come and see the new student facilities. Danny was instrumental in supporting our submission for the capital works project and he was very happy to see the facilities finally open and operational.

You will notice that we have also had some artwork installed on the outer wall of the facilities, which looks fantastic. I know Ms Myszka is already planning some further artwork ideas!

Year Five and Year Three Swimming

It’s been a big two weeks for our Year Fives, participating in their two week intensive swimming program. The swimming program is funded by the Victorian Government, supporting students with water safety and swimming skills. The swimming program is a two week intensive format, running every day for the two weeks. Year Threes will begin their program next week.

Staffing

We are very eagerly awaiting the arrival of an ENPS staff baby. Josh D’Souza and his wife Bronte are expecting their baby girl any day now. Josh will be taking the next four weeks as family leave, adjusting to life as a new dad! We can’t wait for the arrival announcement. This will be the start of a few ENPS staff babies this year, with Mina Stephens due very soon too, along with Sian Wilson and Shannon Garner both expecting their first babies later in the year.

Opinion Surveys

The Department of Education currently have two survey sets open for feedback which is also highly valued by us in terms of continuous improvement and future strategic directions. Earlier this year, our Year Four to Six students completed the Attitudes to School Survey. Last week all ENPS families (494 families!) have been contacted via email to participate in the Parent/Carer/Guardian Opinion Survey. Last week, all staff also had their say in our Staff Opinion Survey.

All surveys are confidential and anonymous, yet provide us with incredible rich insights and perspectives which we value enormously.

To date we have had 55 of our 494 families respond to the Parent survey. We thank them for their feedback and sincerely hope to hear from many more before the survey closes on Friday 30th August.

2025 Planning

It is hard to believe but it is also the time of the year that we begin planning for the next year ahead! We ask that if you and your family are planning on leaving ENPS at the end of 2024, please let the school office know as soon as you are in a position to do so. (This excludes Year Six students.)

CIS Visit

During the week of Tuesday 20th - Friday 23rd August, we are very excited to be hosting a visit from the Council of International Schools (CIS). This upcoming visit is our Preparatory Visit, leading up to our next accreditation evaluation visit in 2026. We will have two visiting team members attend ENPS throughout the week; Dr Helena Sobulis (CIS School Support and Evaluation Officer) and Wilma Culton (Principal of Serpell Primary School). We look forward to welcoming Helena and Wilma to our school and community.

Thank you again to all for a wonderful couple of weeks at ENPS! I share with you another favourite moment from our week, with a selfie from a very special picnic with Maria from Year Five. Maria reads to me each week on her days at ENPS. She attends ENPS two days a week and spends three days at Ascot Vale Heights School. At the end of Term Two Maria read me a story about a picnic. We thought it was a great idea to have our own picnic too. Over the past weeks, with the support of Jan Clarke (Education Support), Maria has written invitations to our picnic guests and we planned out the menu. On Monday we had a wonderful picnic together, eating jam rolls, watermelon and having fizzy lemon drink. It was such a beautiful moment for all involved! I truly love what we do at ENPS!

Have a tremendous weekend.

Kate Barletta

Principal

Buckley Park Cricket Club - Pop Up Blast Cricket