Principal's News

As we enter the final week of the Term 2 and bring to an end a very busy and exciting first semester of learning throughout the school, I wanted to offer a very sincere thank you to our parents, carers and families for the collective efforts and support offered throughout the school. Our teaching staff, education support team and administrative team have greatly appreciated the support offered in their roles over the last few months. It is exciting to think that our preps have nearly finished their first semester of schooling and our Year 6’s will return in Term 3 with their final semester of primary schooling to look forward to. I am sure you appreciate that there comes a time when the year begins to move quickly and whilst the days are shorter and the air a little crisper at the moment it is daunting to think that we are nearly more than halfway through the school year. 

I am but like many of you, fully engrossed in the World Cup at the moment and find myself watching the world game with full appreciation for how effort and application can rise above sheer talent. As Australia trumped Turkey on Sunday, the team assembled had a collective market value of 70m Euro compared to the market value of the Turkish team of 600m Euro, a reminder that talent and reputation may always face fierce competition from structure, cohesion and endeavour.  

Thank you for all your support throughout Term 2 and for taking a moment to share in the news around the school via our final newsletter of the term. 

School Council 

School governance is an important function that often happens behind the scenes, providing oversight of Out of School Hours Care, contracts with external providers, finances, policies, facilities, and compliance with the Child Safe Standards.

Our School Council plays a vital role in ensuring the school operates in accordance with the Education and Training Reform Act, noting that they enthusiastically and voluntarily engage in these responsibilities to support the students and our school. I extend my sincere thanks to all School Councillors who generously give their time and expertise to support effective school governance. They facilitate our sub-committees (Joel R, Libby H and Daniel S) and coordinate as an executive in the role of president, vice president, treasurer and secretary (Sarah B, Warwick K, Libby H, Daniel S). We have such an engaged and committed school council team, they continue to support the school and ensure that it is operating in accordance with policy and guidelines whilst also exploring ways to advocate for our students and find ways to improve and support all of what we do around the school. 

Items or policies that were discussed and shared at our final school council meeting of the term include: 

• Cash Handling Policy

• Electronic Fund Management Policy

• Petty Cash Policy

• Student Dress Code Policy

• Fundraising Policy

• 2026 Japan Trip Itinerary 

• 2026 Japan Trip Risk Register and Emergency Management Plan

• Sub-Committee Reports and subsequent discussion including buildings and grounds, school engagement and finance. 

Leadership Review Day

Thank you to our leadership team who engaged in a very engaging leadership review day last week, this provided our School Improvement Team, our Middle Leaders and Professional Learning Community (PLC) Leaders a chance to review progress against our Annual Implementation Plan and look to review what actions we can target over the remainder of the year.  

AtoSS Survey

A big thank you to our Year 4-6 students who have recently participated in the annual Attitudes to School Survey (AtoSS), this is an annual survey that provides students with the opportunity to have a voice and agency in the school. 

Acknowledgement of Country 

A huge congratulations to both of our school captains, Alex B and Ada W who were invited to open our SaGE Principal Network meeting on Thursday morning at Yarra Yarra Golf Club, this invitation to our school leaders was provided as a means of acknowledging country and also demonstrating the way the school celebrates this important initiative in both English and Japanese. Stepping in to this public speaking activity, Alex and Ada represented themselves and our school with aplomb and had a very proud principal, assistant principal and two proud mums watching on. A huge thank you to Kate W and Nicole (Ada and Alex’s mothers) for coordinating this and supporting their attendance.  

SaGE Principal Network

Our SaGE Principal Network meeting is a great opportunity to network and share in collegiate knowledge and build shared understanding throughout the network. It is also an expected level of system engagement for school leaders. The meeting held yesterday allowed Morioka sensei and I to engage in professional learning from the Principal Support Unit, WorkSafe, and lead system level discussion around the Insight enrolment platform, Naplan data, Annual Implementation Plans and establishing coaching cultures in schools underpinned by the work of Josh Goodrich and literature on ‘Responsive Coaching’.

Holiday Work

We have a busy fortnight ahead over the school holiday break with various exciting and more routine maintenance items and work scheduled for the two week break. 

• Playground: We have the team from SafePlay installing our junior playground over the school holiday break. SafePlay are a renowned Playground company and have worked over many months with the school to provide a concept piece that our students will be able to play with. This is really exciting for our students to return to school in Term 3 with a new playground module. A huge thanks to our whole school community and our PFC who have successfully fundraised to provide this piece of equipment to our students. In addition to this, a big thank you to school council member, Joel R who has worked back and forth with the school and SafePlay to bring the design to life.
• Prep Building: Our prep building continues to undertake some care and attention, this is in follow up to many substantial refurbishment projects led by the VSBA, the latest work will addressing roofing requirements and this is managed by Programmed maintenance and a MakeSafe scope of work following significant rain and weather impacting on the building.
• Carpets: We continue to have our carpets upgraded throughout the school, with one of the remaining classrooms, our downstairs 1/2E classroom set to replaced over the holiday break.
• Shade Sail and Playground Inspection: Annual inspections undertaken over recent weeks include structural engineers and inspectors undertaking safety audits on our shade sail and playground equipment. These reports were well received with some minor maintenance repairs that can be addressed without any relative urgency to the work required.

Cross Country

Congratulations to Hudson S (Year 6) and Leo F (Year 4) for participating in the Regional Cross Country competition on Wednesday, it is a wonderful achievement to have two students reach such a high standard of competition and for them to participate in an event that they have trained for and worked towards. Congratulations to both Hudson and Leo.

EOFY donations

Our School Council recognises the critical role our Parents’ Club play in creating events and fundraising for the school. Cost of living has impacted our Parent Payment collections which is understandable. 

As we approach the end of the financial year, we invite families to consider supporting Caulfield Primary School through a general donation or a tax-deductible donation to our Building or Library Fund. While government funding provides the foundation for public education, the generous support of our families enables us to deliver the high-quality learning environment and opportunities that our community values. Donations received before 30 June will contribute to improvements over the coming months and creating a welcoming and respectful space for students in the school.

Any contribution, regardless of size, is greatly appreciated. Donations will be confidential and can be made at the office or over the phone via card. Alternatively contact our Business Manager, Therese Meiers for direct deposit details. For tax purposes, a receipt can be provided upon request. 

Grand Parents Day

Thank you to our families, grandparents and special persons who helped up celebrate Grand Parents Day last Thursday afternoon, a special thanks to our PFC who coordinated afternoon tea. Opening up our classrooms is a great pleasure for all of us to celebrate what is happening in the school and to bring a sense of joy to our students and families. Thank you to our teaching staff for planning and catering for such a large number of visitors in the school on the afternoon and for our whole school community for creating such a joyful afternoon for our students. 

Junior School Council Fundraising

Congratulations to our Junior School Council that have worked throughout 2025 and 2026 to fundraise for an additional drinking fountain for the school, this culminated in our last fundraising effort organised by them as JSC Canteen that provided them with adequate fundraising to purchase a new drinking tap. This will be installed near the weatherboard building and offer up an additional location for students to fill up drink bottles and seek a drink over the course of the day. What a great achievement and a great piece of leadership by our Junior School Council team. Well Done! 

Student Toilets and Child Safety 

We’ve had some concerning toileting behaviour from a small number of students, including not flushing, blocking toilets with paper, and making a mess. 

While staff are monitoring use as best we can, privacy limits our supervision of this space. Please speak with your child about using the toilets respectfully and letting a teacher know, in confidence, if they see any misuse … “if you see something, say something”. We acknowledge that overall, the majority of our students are very proud of our school and do the right thing and are disappointed by this ongoing disrespect by some.

In recent times we have become aware that parents and other adults sometimes use our student toilets at drop off or collection times. For obvious reasons this cannot happen. It is critical that our students feel safe to use our toilets and it is inappropriate for adults to be entering them at any time of the day. If you desperately need to use toilets when visiting the school, parents and carers may use the staff toilets near the office if needed. Please be assured that this request is not in response to any particular incident but is rather, a broad reminder to everyone to ensure that our student bathrooms are used by students only and such usage then strongly supports the safety and wellbeing of all students in our school. 

World Cup

Events such as the Olympics and World Cups are great learning opportunities for students and provide us with a greater understanding and sense of perspective of the sheer size of the world. It is great to see our country embrace the World Cup and I am sure many of you took the time to watch the Socceroos game last Sunday and are gearing up to get up early to watch the game against the United States in the morning. The final group game for both Australia and Japan falls on the final day of term and we thought it would be a great opportunity to celebrate this with a CPS World Cup Day next Friday, we look forward to seeing plenty of colours throughout the school and hopefully celebrating two afternoon victories for both Australia and Japan. 

Tom Lahiff AFLW Cup

Congratulations to our girls who this afternoon became our first CPS Footy Team representing the school at the Girls Tom Lahiff Cup, there was plenty of skill, teamwork and passion on display and I extend my huge congratulations to all of our team for their ability to work together and represent our school. Thank you to Miss Molloy for putting together such an exciting opportunity. 

Congratulations

A huge congratulations to Carolina and her husband Ari who last month welcomed their little baby girl, Eva into the world. Eva was born on the 17th May and mum and bub are doing well, we have welcomed three little additions to the school over recent months which is really exciting. We recently had Miss Ryan and her baby boy, Louis come in and visit. Miss Ryan dropped in to see her former Year 1/2 class and I am happy to report that Louis received plenty of cuddles from staff who were delighted to see Miss Ryan and her little boy.   

Camp

Blessed with some unseasonally warm winter weather, our Year 5/6s have returned from a wonderful 3 day camp at Lake Dewar. A huge opportunity for them to work alongside one another in different settings and engage in a busy 3 day itinerary. A huge thank you to our team of staff who provided such a wonderful event for our students. I was really proud of our students, upon receiving some feedback from Lake Dewar staff, commented on how well behaved, respectful and responsible our students were throughout their 3 days. Such lovely feedback to receive and a great reflection of their maturity and ability to work with one another and take up a challenge. I am certain that we will have a few weary legs and heads leading into the weekend. 

Open Day

We have our final Open Day for the year scheduled for tomorrow morning, we are looking forward to celebrating our school and engaging prospective parents. We are also once again, incredibly appreciative of our school community supporting this event with our CPS/PFC Sausage Sizzle and Cake Stall on Glen Huntly Road. We have school tours scheduled for 9:30 and 11:00am. 

Records Broken

Congratulations to Baxter, Mathias and Ari who are very convincing in assuring me that they have broken a school record for the longest ever recorded down ball game. An achievement that they have referenced with excitement in various conversations with me this week, well done boys! 

What a huge fortnight around the school, so much happening and we lean into the final week of Term 2, Sunday also presents us with the winter solstice which (optimistically) means we are one step closer to summer and through the shortest day of the year. Enjoy a great weekend ahead, I will be cheering Australia on in the morning against the United States before our Open Day. 

Take Care, 

Edward Strain