Messages from School Council
Messages from the school council
• School council meeting update from this week
This Wednesday we had our first meeting as the new 2024 school council, and it was a very informative meeting indeed. I will endeavour to give a brief overview but if you would like further details on anything then please do not hesitate to reach out to either a parent or department member of the council.
We endorsed the very comprehensive 2024 Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) which lays the foundations of the current four-year strategic plan. This was supported by our most recent NAPLAN results and the 2023 Annual report (which is now published on our school website for those that wish to read it).
At very top level the two main goals for year one:
1) Learning. To optimise learning growth for every student in literacy and numeracy.
2) Engagement. To develop a positive culture with high levels of engagement and wellbeing.
NPS has been selected to receive some additional funding from the department -School focused youth services. This is a two-year project which has quite specific requirements, but essentially it will give the school an opportunity to give a focused group that has been highlighted as potentially ‘vulnerable’ some additional guidance in social and emotional wellbeing. The programme that is being carefully crafted by ‘The Big Sister Experience’ is hopefully going to be delivered to our grade 3-6 girls starting later this year. Please feel free to ask more questions and for those pupils involved parents will learn more closer to the learning experience.
Our exciting landscaping project is progressing nicely! We have now passed the financial and geotechnical components and pleased to report we are able to continue to work with Urban Initiatives (the landscape architects) to move from a concept design to a complete design ready for tender. Some soil samples mean we will incur some additional unexpected costs, but this is being managed and we are hoping that works can begin later this year.
The last main point of interest is that the 2024 fete has returned a huge $82,956 of profit to the school!! This is a massive achievement of our community, but it wouldn’t have been achieved without a huge effort from a small handful of very dedicated parents that took on many coordinating roles but unfortunately, it has been expressed that they won’t be able to do it again for another year without more coordinators to share the load. Therefore, please look back to last month’s newsletter for the roles we have identified as required to run next year’s fete in a more sustainable way and reach out to help us make it manageable with more hands onboard and more fun too!
School Council members introduction
My name is Jo, and I am the mother of Chloe in 1/2C (Izzy). With my best intentions I got involved with School council last year when Chloe joined NPS as a preppy. I was keen to support the school and learn how state schools run in Australia (I’m from the UK originally). However, unintentionally, at a blink of an eye I found myself as the new school council president within the first few months and on a very steep learning curve! I’m pleased to say that I survived that learning and in fact put myself forward for another year as president this year as I didn’t want that learning to go to waste! State schools in Victoria run very differently to the corporate world that I know, and I have a newfound appreciation of the hoops that have to be jumped and the balance that has to be found to make a Victorian state primary school successful in producing happy and smart kids! However, this is a challenge that I feel is worth being a part of for the benefit of all our children and community, and NPS seem to very much support this. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or need support. This is my mug shot with our dog Daisy so you can recognise me in the playground. And who doesn’t like a picture of a puppy at the end of a busy week!
