Principal's Report

Welcome back to school for 2025 and to our first newsletter for the year. I hope everyone had a safe, healthy and happy New Year and is ready for a great year of learning and wellbeing at Caulfield South Primary School. 

Whilst our students started just yesterday, our school has remained a busy place over much of the holidays. We have had a variety of trades on site, installing air conditioners, gates and new hot water systems. Cleaners have been on-site deep cleaning high-usage areas, cleaning windows and steam-cleaning carpets. Our technical staff have been onsite preparing Chromebooks for our students, installing new photocopiers and updating network capabilities, whilst our maintenance manager has ensured our buildings and grounds were well-prepared after a warm summer break. 

Thank you to our office team, who were back onsite from Monday last week, ensuring our school was best prepared for the return of our students. It was wonderful to see our school leaders and the vast majority of our teachers onsite during the week as well, preparing their classrooms and their learning programs in advance of the official return to school this week. 

Our return to school program was comprehensive and ensured our teachers are best prepared for the year of learning ahead. The program included:

• A focus on ‘the big 6’ areas of literacy instruction, consisting of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and oral language. 
• Quality mathematics instruction, within our school’s ‘REED’ instructional model, including a focus on explicit teaching strategies. 
• High-impact wellbeing strategies, including mindfulness, ‘circle time’ practices and an ongoing focus on the ‘school-wide positive behaviour support’ program. 
• Catering for students through individual education plans. 
• Building learning partnerships between home and school. 
• Anaphylaxis, Asthma and First Aid briefing.
• Child Safe briefing. 
• School routines and expectations. 

This thorough program, supported by a strong transition and induction program through December 2024, has ensured both our students and our staff are best prepared for an outstanding year of learning and wellbeing this year. 

Again, I extend a warm welcome to the new school year to all students, staff and families, and I look forward to ‘achieving together’ in 2025.

Thanks for your ongoing support and keep doing your best.

Rohan Cooper

Principal