Dear parents, carers and friends of EEPS,

We are rapidly moving towards the end of the year! Despite this, we have noticed that there has been an increase in illness over the last couple of weeks so please continue to look after yourselves in the lead up to Christmas.

Year 3 Camp

The Year 3 camp last week was a great success ….and the weather was fantastic! A massive thank you to the Year 3 teachers, and especially Mrs Hopper, for her ever-efficient smooth organisation of the camp. A special thank you to our parent helpers who attended last week at Healesville.

Staff news

On Monday at Assembly, we thanked Ellie Wardle, our Percussion Director, who is leaving us to focus more completely on her studies next year. Ellie, is a past student of the school and has been involved with us again for the last two years. A memorable highlight was the magnificent school concert last year when the Percussion Ensemble, with Ellie, included performed as part of our very special rendition of ‘True Colours’. All the best Ellie.

Changing curriculum

I have mentioned before that there will be some slight changes to the Victorian Curriculum over the next two years. Eltham East is both excited and well prepared to implement these changes. The Victorian Curriculum is a very dynamic and robust curriculum, it is unfortunate that it has, yet again, been under attack in the media over the last fortnight. We will continue to build on our strengths as we adjust to these changes over the next few years.

Assembly message

Over the last couple of weeks in assembly I have highlighted again the importance of using kind words and the fact that words have the power to uplift or to put us down. Once again in our school community, the overwhelmingly majority of our students live and breathe the values of respect and kindness. As we head towards the end of the year, and students get tired, it was appropriate to remind everyone, about the facts that ‘words matter’.

Carparks and safety

Just a reminder that the school car parks, unfortunately, are not large enough to accommodate parent parking. In fact, like most schools our staff parking isn’t really sufficient for our increasing staff numbers. Please also remember to use the designated pathways and do not walk through the car parks. Safety is always our number one priority so please take an extra minute to walk on the pathways- cars and people don’t mix.

Respect in our community

As the EEPS school community knows the school values respect highly and seeks to model this through different levels. As Principal, I know and value, the extremely high level of respect that the overwhelming majority of parents consistently display to each other and to the school staff. However, in any organisation as large as ours, from time to time, we have had incidences of disrespectful and abusive behaviour towards staff, including our highly valued Casual Replacement Teachers. I would like to take the opportunity to reinforce unequivocally that any aggression, violence or any other behaviour that poses a risk to the health, safety and wellbeing of school staff is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Please see attached a new, updated poster, that is line with the Department’s newly revised Respectful Behaviours within the School Community policy.

School Improvement and the Review

The school’s Leadership Team have been able to complete our end of year reflection on our Annual Implementation Plan (AIP). Following on from this we are in the early stages of drafting the 2024 AIP. Later this week we will have a meeting with our Senior Education Improvement Leader, Clare Read, around our goals and targets for 2024.

In 2024 we will have our School Review. The system has changed slightly since last time and the Department have separated the curriculum / student outcome part of the review from the minimum standards as part of VRQA registration. The minimum standards review relates to checking our compliance with various policies, the Child Safe Standards and things like our procedures around first aid and students with medical conditions. This is now completed two terms before the review, and has just been signed off this week. I would like to thank, Chris Hill, Melissa McCarthy and Lisa Joseph for their contributions to helping this check run so smoothly.

In Term 1 next year the school will undertake our Prereview Self Evaluation and engage with parents, students and staff in this process. This will lead into the Validation day and field work days in Term 2. More details will follow next year.

Family picnic

The excitement is building for the annual family picnic next Thursday 7th December, 5.00-7.00 pm. This is a low key, relaxed event however we will also some musical performances. Please make every effort to come along and bring a picnic. We are investigating whether if it is practical to have a sausage sizzle and we will let everyone know!

Curriculum Day

Reminder that we have a whole school curriculum day this Friday December 1st.

Gratitude

Thanks to the generous support of the EEPS school community again the recent Pyjama Day raised $783 for the Starlight Children’s Foundation. This generosity is acknowledged, appreciate and not taken for granted- thank you.

I look froward to our Strings Concert this evening at 6.00 pm.

Have a great week of ‘Learning and Growing Together’.

Warren Lloyd

Principal

Safety at Work