School Council

Well, we’re already in the second week of Term Three with only seven more weeks of school left for this term! Does that surprise anyone else - time is absolutely flying by. There’s one more month of winter left, and the days are starting to show more sunshine, which means projects around the school are getting started and plenty of updates are on the to-do list to complete.

At our last School Council meeting, we had a full agenda to run through, and we are thrilled to be bringing you so many positive and engaging updates. From works happening on the school grounds, to exciting upcoming events and future works in the making.

Learning Environments Projects

Gillies Street Gate

We have a new entrance on the Gillies Street side of the school, and it looks fabulous! Over the winter holidays the entry access was relocated from the smaller gate (by the Performing Arts Hall) to a larger double gate only a few metres away. This new location provides our community with much more space to comfortably enter and exit the school grounds; especially for those with bikes, scooters, prams and wheelchairs. A new path was created specifically for this purpose with a focus on safety and accessibility. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a little journey to the Gillies Street side and check out just how much room there is and how wonderful the new pathway looks.

Bike Racks

Along with the relocation of the entry gate on Gillies Street; the bike racks have also been moved to be on the other side of the double gates, behind the Year Six classrooms. This new dedicated space allows for the planning of an upcoming and improved storage system for bikes and scooters. The old bike rack area now provides our students with more seating, play zones and room to move around. The new bike rack area also has a dedicated storage space specifically allocated to the junior students at our school; Foundation, Year One and Year Two students. This dedicated rack is the first one as you enter the space and it has a sign on it. This helps to keep the space organised and safe, with more accessibility for our littlest learners. If you have a child that stores their bike or scooter here, especially one that is in the senior year levels, be sure to let them know about the new signage and to take note of the space that is allocated to our junior students.

High-Vis Accessibility

Have you noticed the high-vis yellow painted poles, stairs and slopes around the school grounds? This was another exciting project that was completed over the winter holidays. A wonderful upgrade that provides the whole community with a safer environment, focussing on inclusivity and accessibility for students with any form of vision impairment. It looks great!

McCulloch Street Crossing

This crossing just gets better and better! More works that were completed over the school holidays was the resurfacing of the McCulloch Street crossing pedestrian path area on the school side. If you don’t remember what it looked like before, then good! Because it’s beautiful now and much safer. No more potholes, cracks or large chunks of asphalt. The concreted section at the end of the crossing has been completely resurfaced and is now level and even. The black barriers have also been repositioned to help guide foot traffic off the crossing more safely. What an improvement it has made.

Playground Upgrades

A very exciting and eagerly anticipated upcoming project is the upgrade and refurbishments to the Year Three/Four and Five/Six playgrounds. The Junior School Council have been working closely with Mr Smith in getting these playgrounds upgraded with works hoping to start this term. Watch this space, there will be more updates on this great outdoor learning environments project to come.

Community Engagement

Library Makeover

Did you know that the school library has been closed for the past two weeks! This is because the library has undergone a makeover with some exciting changes. Students will be able to see plenty of upgrades from new shelving, new furniture, updated posters and new modern signage. This mammoth library project could not have happened without the amazing volunteers within our community to help Miss Julie get through the huge amount of work required. Parents, grandparents and carers turned up over the 14-day span to help clean, move, shift, scrub, carry, count and lift - all done with lots of laughs and great conversation. Thank you to everyone that volunteered and helped in the library. It’s truly humbling to see so many hands come together. Miss Julie is very excited to reopen the library doors on Monday 4th August and welcome the students back into the newly upgraded ENPS library.

Community Events

VIP Day

Our next upcoming community event will be our VIP Day celebrating fathers, grandfathers, father figures and all the other special VIPs in our lives. Friday 5th September 8:55am to 9:35am - be sure to keep your schedules clear for this in-school event. You’ll be able to spend the morning in the classrooms engaging in fun activities and sharing the experience in recognising all the VIPs in this community.

Movie Night – Get Ready to Step Up and Step In!

Our highly successful and eagerly anticipated ENPS Movie Night event will be coming up at the end of November, and it will be run a little differently this time around. This year we want the amazing parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, sisters, brothers, carers and friends of this community to step up and step in by helping to run this event. We want this to be a volunteer-led event where we finally get to say ‘”no teachers allowed!”. Keep an eye out for some important upcoming Compass messages where you will have the opportunity to put your name down to officially be a part of the volunteer team, with training included. And, there are some pretty good freebies up for grabs for those that commit to the task. Stay tuned - there’s more information to come on this.

Next School Council Meeting

Our next School Council meeting is scheduled for Monday 18th August from 6:30pm.

As a council we would like to remind our community that we are here for any questions or concerns you may have, and that we will continue to represent the community, including parents, carers and students to the best of our ability. If there are any matters, suggestions or general information that you wish to be brought up at the next school council meeting please contact the school office on 9379 3979 or email essendon.north.ps@education.vic.gov.au so your request can be added to the agenda.

We look forward to staying connected and keeping you all updated.

ENPS School Council