Principal's Report

Dear SEPS Families, 

It is difficult to believe that next week is the halfway mark for the term! 

Ways to engage in school life 

We had our first school tour for the year on Tuesday. One question I always get is ‘are parents able to get involved in the school?’ My answer is always a resounding YES! 

Last night we had our first SEPS Social gathering for 2026. Our wonderful mum Katie Tukker has been the brains behind getting this group off the ground and now we have a wonderful team of parents who come gather once or twice a term. Katie has done wonders to revamp what used to be known as the PTF, to make this group a friendly, engaging, and less formal opportunity to pitch in with ideas that not only raise much-needed funds for our school, but also provide fun events for our children and community. As we know, many hands make light work so it was great to hear that we had a number of new faces last night. Everyone is welcome, whether you can attend one or all of the meetings, we would love to see you. 

We are also seeking parents to nominate for the school council. This is a more formal way that you can make a difference at our school. 

And then we have parent helpers, who provide practical on-the-ground support to our students for their learning and wellbeing. Please look out for any training opportunities, should you be interested in supporting our literacy and numeracy intervention programs. 

I am currently seeking parents to support my reading program on a Friday between 12 pm and 1 pm. If you have 30 minutes or an hour that you could provide on Fridays (2 out of 3 Fridays even),  I would love to hear from you. It will involve being part of a book club with our senior students. You will not have to prepare anything. You will just need to read a book and support the group to engage in discussions about the text.  I currently only have one Yr 6 mum on my list (a huge thank you to her). Some of the titles are fantastic reading, so if you love books and have time on a Friday, I would LOVE to hear from you!!

Curriculum Day 

On Monday staff worked with our consultant Dr Ange Rogers to learn more about fluency and retrieval practice in numeracy. We are focussing much of our professional learning on understanding how the brain moves new learning from working memory to long-term memory. Our brains all work differently, but all have the capacity to learn... it is understanding how we learn differently and why learners forget ‘stuff’ that assists us, as the educators, in ensuring that we provide high-level academic opportunities for our students at SEPS. What we also know is that student engagement and well-being is the other piece to the puzzle. This year we are focussing much of our Annual Improvement Plan on building learner agency to ensure engagement is maximised for all students. We look forward to sharing this with you throughout the year. Please find more information in the Teaching & Learning section of this newsletter. 

School Tours

Please let friends and neighbours know that tours have commenced for 2027 enrolements. Information is on the website. Our next tour is on Monday 2 March. If exisitng parents would ever like to pop in for a tour during the morning, please don't hesistate to let me know. We would love to show your around so that you can see learning in action. 

Have a great fortnight ahead. 

Jane Briffa