Principal's Report
SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM CELEBRATION EVENING
Last Thursday, we held a celebration event for all students involved in the scholarship program throughout this year. Students from all five programs shared their learning experiences from across the year with their families which included artwork, photography and STEM projects to name a few.
We were also entertained by the Music Scholarship students and the Masterchef students provided an array of delicious finger food for all the guests.
It was a terrific showcase of all of the scholarship programs, and we thank all those that attended, we appreciate your interest. It’s fair to say that everyone was blown away by the standard of work displayed by students.
As mentioned on Thursday night, we are seeing a significant jump in students wanting to be part of scholarship programs. Later this week we are sorting through the large number of applications and will be deciding who will be part of scholarship programs in 2026.
GRANDPARENTS AND SPECIAL FRIENDS DAY
Last Friday was another very successful Grandparents and Special Friends Day event at both campuses. It was fantastic to see how many visitors joined us on the day and how much the occasion was enjoyed by both the students and with grandparents and special friends. Please pass on our thanks to your family members that made the effort to come along and get involved.
A big thank you to the many parents that sent in some morning tea. As a result, we had brilliant spreads for our grandparents and special friends to enjoy. Thanks also to the team of parents who helped to organise and serve the morning tea and tidy up afterwards.
CLASSES FOR 2026
We are now in a position to share more details regarding organisation for 2026, including the class structure and the allocation of staff roles (see table below). As you can see the class structure for 2026 is identical to 2025.
Buninyong Campus | ||
Year Level | Number of Classes | TeachersLacL |
Prep | X3 | Lauren RiordonEla Bourke-Finn and Paula Dekok |
Grade 1 | X3 | Renee McCormack, Nicole Healy (sharing with Kirsty Robinson) and Belinda Hargreaves (sharing with Sarah Tuddenham) |
Grade 2 | X3 | Ana Anderson (sharing with Michelle Noyce), Celeste Vermeend and Kelly Geddes |
Grade 3 | X3 | Georgina Richardson, Bec Wood and Dani Eddy |
Grade 4 | X4 | Daniel Spalding, Abby Cummins, Kate Miller (sharing with Will Georgiou) and Abra Gould |
Grade 5/6 | X6 | Mark Muldoon, John Oellering, Barb Brokenshire, Maggie Cooper (sharing with Jarrod Rodgers), Tarryn Connor and Bryan White |
Scotsburn Campus | ||
Year Level | Number of Classes | Teachers |
Junior Class | 1 | Chelsea Connor (sharing with Beth Murphy) |
Senior Class | 1 | Jarrod Morgan (sharing with Kirsty Robinson) |
Other Roles & Staff | ||
Specialist Staff Buninyong Campus | Music – Steve Skilbeck Art – Michelle Noyce and Liz Morgan PE – Claire Morris Japanese – Leah Cray STEM – Jordon Smith | |
Specialist Staff Scotsburn Campus | Liz Morgan and Steve Skilbeck | |
Disability & Inclusion Leader | Jarrod Rodgers | |
Mental Health & Wellbeing Coordinator | Will Georgiou | |
Our staff are now working through the process of sorting students into class groupings, in readiness for the Meet Your Teacher session on Friday of next week.
For 2026 we are moving to one-hour blocks of instruction across the school day, a model that has already been adopted by most other schools. We think this will facilitate better use of class time across the day.
Moving to one-hour blocks will look quite different and a lot of thought has gone into where breaks and eating times will fit in the school day. An overview of the school day appears below. You’ll see we have reversed the snack and lunch eating times and have two breaks of a similar length, rather than a short break and a long break. As you can see, school start and finish times won’t change, nor will the total amount of instruction time or time for breaks. We’re confident this will work really well, but if we feel the need, adjustments to this model can be made for 2027.
9.00 – 11.00am Session 1 & 2 *inc fruit snack at 10am
11:00am - 11:40am Morning break (40 mins) 11:40am - 11:50am Eat lunch inside (10 mins)
11:50am - 1:50pm Session 3 and Session 4
1:50pm - 1:55pm Snack eating inside (5 mins) 1:55pm - 2:30pm Afternoon break (35 mins)
2:30pm - 3:30pm Session 5
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Moving to one-hour blocks will mean some tweaking of the specialist timetable. We will retain the five specialist subjects (PE, Art, STEM, Music and Japanese), giving students access to a broad range of learning experiences in line with the curriculum. All students will have a weekly 60-minute session of PE, STEM & Japanese across the year. Music and Art will be taught as semester subjects, giving students two terms of each. We are currently in the process of developing a specialist timetable for both campuses.