Principal's News

What a busy and exciting fortnight around our school, with plenty happening in our classrooms and around the school. I hope your fortnight was positive and you are managing the cold snap that has well and truly hit over recent weeks. Thanks for sharing in the final weeks of Term 2 with us, we have some details from around the school detailed in our newsletter. Thank you for taking some time to engage with this. 

Fundraising: 

Thank you for the continued fundraising support throughout the school over the last few weeks, this has involved:

• Open Day Cake Stall/Sausage Sizzle: Total funds received included $1764, thank you for supporting this event on Saturday.
• CPS Readathon: The CPS Readathon is off to a great start with $800 of fundraising and more importantly, the promotion of reading and literacy. Thank you for supporting this PFC initiative. More details are shared in the PFC report. 
• Building and Library Fund: We have had $2900 contributed to the school building fund and $800 donated to the school library fund. This continues to be an option for families in the lead up to the end of financial year. Any donations to the building and library fund are receipted by the office. 

My thanks to our Parents and Friends Club and our school community who have either financially supported these initiatives or volunteered their time and efforts (or in some cases – have done both). 

School Review: 

This week we have entered into the first two days on Monday and Tuesday of our school review and it was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our school and the work undertaken over the last 4 years with a view to also establishing a firm direction for the years ahead. I look forward to sharing this work with our school community and at the conclusion of our school review and the completion of this work, I look forward to hosting some parent forums to take families along the journey with us. Some details around our review are shared below: 

What is a school review: School reviews are independent processes undertaken every 4 years in every Victorian Government school. Our school review is a total of three days with our final day to occur to next Tuesday. 

Day 1: The first day of the school review involves an outline of the structure of the review process and the opportunity to welcome and engage panel members in that work. At CPS, this review has involved our Senior Education Improvement Leader, our reviewer, two challenge partners, a school performance partner, school council members and our school improvement team. 

The first day got off to a wonderful start with a school tour provided by our student leaders, before they welcomed our guests and provided a summary of the school and their perspective in both English and Japanese, all panel members were suitably impressed by our students. Day 1 then involved an overview of the pre-review self-evaluation and a summary of highlights, the reviewer facilitates discussion around key learning and wellbeing data from the Pre-Review Self Evaluation. The highlight of the day is sharing our classroom practice, on Monday we worked in 3 small groups and had a chance to spend over two hours in classrooms with each group visiting junior (Prep – 2), Middle (Year ¾) and senior (Year 5/6) classrooms, taking notes, evaluating teaching and learning, student engagement and consistency. The session ended with a comprehensive discussion around what was learnt, what was seen, what can be celebrated and what might be an area of improvement. Importantly, every classroom in the school was available over this session and feedback and discussion was incredibly rich and valuable. These observations then frame discussion for the remainder of the day and set a direction for day 2. We reviewed school practice against elements of the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO 2.0) and also discussed learning and wellbeing enablers and barriers which then sets the agenda for day 2. 

Day 2: The second day of the school review is identified as a ‘Fieldwork Day’, it detaches the school improvement team from the review and the reviewer, senior education improvement leader and challenge partners work together to run a number of focus groups over the course of the day. These included small focus groups with every teacher, a parent focus group, team leaders, PLC leaders, Education Support staff and most importantly, our students. Our student focus groups comprised a selection 16 student leaders and 20 students selected from year 3-6. 

The day also includes another set of classroom observations where the review panel seek to identify their area of focus. The school improvement team is once again engaged in the process in the afternoon where we have a comprehensive summary of the day, the feedback and assessments of what was discussed and offered in the focus group sessions and how this can guide the final day of the review. As an end point to the day, the reviewer observed our teaching staff participate in a professional learning communities meeting, a weekly meeting where teachers and the leadership team explore best practice, evidence, data and peer observations. 

It is a very thorough and extensive process, over the course of one day over 80 staff, parents and students were encouraged to provide their input. I cannot wait to share that feedback with our staff and with each of you, importantly it also drives the final day (day 3) of our review and provides the school review panel with a very extensive understanding of the school and helps establish a very clear direction for the next iteration of our strategic plan. I look forward to sharing this work with each of you over coming weeks. 

A Special Visit: 

Our school leaders hosted the local member for Caulfield, Mr. David Southwick at our school last Thursday and had a great opportunity to speak with him. David was visiting local schools in the area carrying the Maccabiah Olympic torch and sharing the excitement and values of the Games with local students. Our school leaders were quizzed on their sporting interests, responding to the question; 

"If you had the chance to compete in the Olympics, which sport would you choose and why?"

This was a fun and meaningful opportunity for students to reflect on the Olympic spirit and the importance of unity and mutual respect in our society. They also got to show off their netball skills with a shooting competition. 

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support: 

Morioka sensei and our wellbeing team are continuing to work through gradual steps of our School Wide Positive Behaviour Support, this project is a 3-4 year implementation piece that the school initiated as a means of consolidating a whole school approach and framework to supporting students in our school. One of the initial elements of this is community and stakeholder input, seeking the input from staff, students and our school community to reflect on our current school values and review these. Our school values guide our work and our expectations, one of the important aspects of our SWPBS work is a review and audit to ensure these values reflect what the input from our school community and espouse the expectations of what it means to be a student at Caulfield Primary School. Please refer to Morioka sensei’s newsletter post and also the additional schoolstream post to provide your input on this. 

There are some great case studies and a research summary of the benefits of School Wide Positive Behaviour Support and the efficacy of a deliberate and planned implementation journey. You can find out more about this work by visiting School Wide Positive Behaviour Support. In addition to this, as a school initiative throughout this term we have married up this work with a cycle of inquiry with a department of education inclusion outreach coach. This has provided Morioka sensei and I with the opportunity to explore best practice and continue to build in improvement actions into our work. 

Classroom Cuisine: 

When reviewing our current arrangements with Classroom Cuisine and expanding our service to offer an additional day (Friday), we were also able to offer a fundraising element to their services. On one day each term (not allowed to be a Friday or the final week of term), classroom cuisine offer a $1 donation to the school for every order made. That fundraising day is next Wednesday, so whilst lunch orders are very popular, if there was ever a day to really invest in a lunch order for your child then Wednesday next week (25th June) might be that day. 

Tanabata Festival: 

Our very dedicated Parents and Friends Club have devised another way of helping our students learn and celebrate culture. Hosting the Tanabata Festival event for students on the 26th and 27th June in the library for a $2 donation. Colourful Tanabata festivals are held across Japan in early July and August and it is wonderful that we are able to host our own CPS event. 

Principal Forums: 

Thank you to families that made the effort to join me last week in three parent forums, we combine this with our school review parent forum on Tuesday morning and families have engaged with the school very positively over 4 occasions over the last two weeks. I appreciate your time and commitment to this. I would certainly like to continue these forums with a focus on varying elements of the school and look forward to hosting some sessions next term with a view to disseminating our school review and sharing our strategic plan and direction to families. 

Importantly, the sessions I held last week provided a great opportunity to listen and share, one of the through lines to these sessions were communication approaches. This was a great chance to explore how this looks from a family end and what we can do to improve this work as a whole school approach. 

Initial items that the school will look to work towards include: 

• Revising our website with a focus on more specific learning and wellbeing information 
• Updating our communications flowchart and circulating this consistently through the school communication avenues

We look forward to working on this approach, addressing and responding to the feedback provided, I also look forward to engaging with you to share the evaluation from our school review and continuing to establish pathways for our school community to remain informed of our work. 

School Savings Bonus: 

A reminder that families can continue to use School Savings Bonus (SSB) funds until Monday 30 June 2025 to buy textbooks or uniforms, or to allocate funds to school activities using the parent/carer online system.

The parent/carer online system will close at 11:59 pm on 30 June 2025. Any unused online supplier vouchers will expire, and all unspent SSB funds will revert to a school activities credit held against the family account for each student. These balances are expected to flow into our finance management system in early August 2025.

Teacher Wellbeing: 

With more than half of all Australian teachers experiencing high levels of anxiety, the school has looked to front end some support this year by engaging with wellbeing consultant Meg Durham throughout three sessions of practical, professional learning. Meg has led us through conversations that crack open the myths about wellbeing and gets to the bottom of what teachers may need to avoid burnout. She joined us last Wednesday afternoon delivering a session focusing on embracing the magic and mess of school life. Meg hosts a very successful podcast ‘The School of Wellbeing’ and has worked with schools and systems, we have appreciated her time and expertise with us.

Open Day:

We had such a fantastic day last Saturday, celebrating our school at our final Open Day of 2025, the weather was kind and our student leaders once again presented themselves and our school in such an engaging manner. Thank you to Murray sensei, Mrs Curlewis, Morioka sensei and our families that supported our student leaders and their attendance. We continue to have great interest in our school and are hosting well attended school tours fortnightly. 

Policy Updates:

The Education and Policy sub-committee presented two policy updates that were approved by our school council last Tuesday evening, these include: 

• Asthma Policy 
• Cash Handling Policy 

Both policies are authored with reference to the Department of Education Policy Advisory Library (PAL) and based on template that schools are required to use. 

Recruitment:   

We are thrilled to make a provisional appointment of a wellbeing and inclusion leader at our school beginning in Term 3, whilst that teacher updates her current school community, I will respect timelines and share further details in coming weeks. This position provides the school with an experienced leader and teacher in the school working alongside Morioka sensei, our teaching staff and I to support our wellbeing and inclusive practice. We are able to then prioritise our implementation work of School Wide Positive Behaviour, Disability Inclusion and wellbeing. We can’t wait to begin Term 3 and get into that work. 

Maintenance Update: 

Over the coming holidays, planned maintenance will resume, this maintenance work is managed by the Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA) and is based off the independent Condition Assessment Report (CAR) that the school has completed. This work was paused to ensure it did not disrupt our teaching and learning programs over the remainder of this term. 

A reminder that we are scheduled to hold a working bee next Saturday morning, no experience is required and children are welcome to attend and help or play during this time. 

School council and the Buildings and Grounds sub-committee are in the process of submitting a minor works grant application, this grant submitting is looking to address a toilets and bathrooms refurbishment. These applications are considered and reviewed by the VSBA.  

Planning Week: 

Please note, teachers are undertaking a planning week next week, this provides the necessary time for teachers to plan curriculum, incursions/excursions and events that will be held throughout Term 3. This time is so important as it provides our teaching teams the day to be together, to consistently implement teaching strategies, to discuss assessment, moderation and communicate the priorities for the coming term. It does also mean that our teachers work with a different timetable over that week which will mean that students will have their specialist lessons on different days. 

The final weeks of term look to be exciting with many events happening around the school, where I can, I am looking forward to attending the Tom Lahiff Cup with Miss Molloy and our students on Thursday, we have parent-teacher interviews scheduled, a working bee (next Saturday) and many events occurring in our classrooms and around the school. As always, I appreciate your support that you provide our school and our staff. I look forward to finishing Term 2 on a high with our school  community. 

Enjoy the weekend, 

Edward Strain

Principal