Principal's Perspective
Dear Parents and Carers,
Winter has arrived and I think we can all acknowledge the change in the weather with the temperature drop. However, while it may be cold outside, there is plenty of warmth and heat happening in our learning zones. Our students, teachers and support staff have been working away busily. Here are just some of the many highlights from over the past two weeks.
Learning at ASPS
It was wonderful to hear the excitement of our year two students who went to the aquarium this week. They absolutely loved the activities, with a high level of engagement and enthusiasm. Thank you to our year two team for organising the excursion and our parent helpers who came along to assist on the day. It made for a great day out.
Our year 4 students had a fabulous time at CERES in Brunswick last week. They enjoyed learning all about our connection to the earth, our resources and how to be sustainable.
Thank you to our year 6 teachers (Beth Corrigan, Darien Hunte, Tessa Rinaldi), Rhian ap Ress (AP) and our parent helpers, Mary Tossoun, Minsun Kim and Ingyu Song, for the wonderful camp experience that occurred at Camp Forest Edge recently. The campers enjoyed a range of wonderful camp experiences and while it was a little damp, they all demonstrated resilience, a willingness to try and a focus on doing their best. Everyone returned looking forward to a good night’s rest in their own bed after a very busy and exciting time away.
Our year five and six Maths Olympiad students have been working very hard before school every Thursday morning, stretching themselves to work out new problem-solving skills and techniques to find creative solutions to mathematical problems. Under the guidance of year five teacher Ms Endersby, students have been engaging in a range of tasks as a team to practice and improver their problem solving skills. Thanks to Ms Endersby for providing the opportunity for our students to participate in this years’ Maths Olympiad.
Teachers from across the school have been working in their teams looking at samples of student writing pieces for marking moderation. This has been a wonderful opportunity to see work samples of students from prep to year six, while noticing the students’ skill levels across the different year levels. This writing moderation process allows all classroom teachers to review students at other year levels and ensure that the marking approach is standardised across the school. i.e. that a piece of work is marked similarly no matter which teacher corrects it. This is part of the professional practice that teachers undertake regularly to hone their skills and knowledge.
2027 Prep Enrolments
If you have a child who will be enrolling in prep next year, please ensure that you enrol them via the Department of Education website before the 31st of July. We need to have accurate numbers in the system so that we can make informed decisions about student enrolment placements and offers. We wish to be able to offer everyone who chooses to attend our great school a place, however, if we do not have accurate information, we may not be able to do this.
Please ensure that you (and any of your friends/family that you know are planning to come to ASPS next year) do so before the cutoff date which is Friday 31 July. This will be a great help – thank you.
For further details on how to complete the enrolment process please click below:
2025 School Annual Report
Our 2025 Annual Report is now available on our school website or via this link : 2025 Annual Report. This gives everyone in our community the opportunity to see a summary of our academic results (measured by the Department of Education’s assessment tools), the financial position of the school, and a summary of all that was achieved and happened over the 2025 school year.
We are waiting on the quality assurance process to be completed before we can share the school review report. This will happen as soon as we have been advised that the report has been approved.
ICT
Thank you to school council for approving the purchase of 60 new laptops for our school. These were delivered this week and will be set up by the ICT technician in coming weeks. They were purchased as we needed additional devices to ensure students had the necessary access to ICT when required. They will be added to the pool of our current laptops and iPads as soon as possible.
Asset Stocktake
To track and record the various resources we have across the school, an asset stocktake team busily went all around the school last week looking for and checking off our assets. They were able to provide insights into items that needed to be added to the asset register (a requirement of the Department) and provide advice on items that were no longer required to be on the asset register (such as items that had been lost or become obsolete). We are now up to date with our asset register.
Buildings and Grounds
Our assets also include our buildings and grounds and while these do not get counted on the asset register, it is important that we are maintaining these resources. We have had inspections and reports about everything from exit signs, to paths of egress, and fire services. When we get reports that require items to be repaired/replaced or rectified, we will be actioning these as soon as possible. You may see electricians, plumbers or other services attending the school, often it will be for these types of works.
Undertaking regular maintenance usually results in a reduced cost for repairs, and an increased extended lifespan of the facility and accompanying services. However, unexpected issues can occur. This week it has been locks jamming – requiring a locksmith, our automatic doors failing – requiring a callout service, flexi pipe leaking and a blocked stormwater drain – requiring plumbers. We continue to work for the benefit of our students so that they have a safe, fully functioning and comfortable environment in which to learn.
Have a lovely long weekend everyone. We look forward to seeing students on Tuesday 9th June.
Warm regards,
Travis