Principal's Message 

Welcome back to school for 2026 and what a marvellous start to the year it has been! Everyone has returned ready for great things ahead. It has been so wonderful to have our students back, watch all our Foundation students settle into school and see our Year Sixes off to camp! 

It is hard to believe almost two weeks have flown past already and everyone is now settled into their new year levels and classrooms. A huge shout out to our incredible staff for having everything set and ready to go. I am always blown away by how hard our staff work preparing and setting everything up in their rooms, ready for day one. 

I had the privilege this week to spend the three days on camp with our Year Sixes, and what a remarkable bunch of young people they are! The two night camp at Peninsula Outdoors in Merricks was absolutely wonderful. Designed as a leadership and adventure camp, everyone showed courage and got out of their comfort zones. We went surfing, snorkelling and sea kayaking! And that was just the beach activities! Not sure how much Gabriel enjoyed being my kayak buddy, but I had plenty of fun! I also thoroughly enjoyed taking on my ‘Trunchball’ persona and conducting cabin inspections. Camps really are so much fun!

It has been an exciting start to the year too for our new School and House Captains for 2026. Already Georgia and Ethan have taken to their roles with confidence and excitement, while our House Captains are already looking forward to next week’s Year Four to Six Swimming Carnival! Even though they have all been on camp this week, they were still excited to begin their newsletter articles this edition. This year, our House Captain team will also have a regular update in our newsletter each fortnight. Make sure you check out their updates!

A big welcome to our new families, students and staff this year. Our community at ENPS is really something very special, so we hope you all make the most of opportunities to create connections and sense of belonging too. Our VIP open classroom for Year One to Five families was a huge success on Wednesday and I know the teachers are very much looking forward to their Home and School Partnership meetings coming up on Monday 23rd February too. Keep an eye out also for our Start of Year Community Picnic coming up on Friday 20th February at Woodlands Park. The picnic is a great way to meet other families, school councillors and to celebrate the start to the school year together.

Parent Payment Reminder

During our VIP afternoon you would have seen how wonderful our classrooms are looking! Our curriculum consumables and learning resources are all stocked up; pencil caddies are full of vibrant colouring pencils, textas, new glue sticks, mini white boards and markers, erasers and grey leads! All new subject books and materials have been distributed, and everyone has the supplies to start the year productively and with success. A reminder that this is what your annual parent payment (often referred to by many as school fees) pays for! Our 2026 Parent Payment Arrangements contribute directly to your child’s resources for learning. Without these once off payments, as a government school, we simply do not have the financial resources to support our programs effectively. Over the past years, the rate of financial support has significantly decreased across Victorian Government Schools, and it really does have an impact. If you are still to contribute, we urge you to please consider. More information on the 2026 Parent Payment Arrangements is available on your Compass platform (Payments Centre).

Staffing Update

We have had a number of new faces join our staff team in 2026. We welcome Jessica Carter (Foundation), Mahli Hill (Year One), Fiona O’Reilly and Skye Bailey (Year Two), Victoria May (Year Three), Hannah Bevins (Year Six), and Megan Antonini (Facilities Manager) to ENPS.  We have also welcomed back from Family Leave Melanie Stefanou, Emma Gallagher and Shannon Garner.

We have also had our first baby for the year with Lana Thomas and her husband Robin welcoming their baby boy, Ashton, on the 18th January. Congratulations Lana and Robin! We have two more ENPS babies on their way in the first half of the year, with Ayesha Katz and her partner (and new fiancé!) Jonas, due to have their first baby in April (congratulations on their engagement too!) and Serena Walker and her fiancé Wade are due to welcome their second child in mid-June!

Julie Schenk will return from leave next week, after returning to the UK following the death of her father. Julie had just returned from six months in the UK with her family, however her father passed not long after her return. Our thoughts are with Julie and her family at this time.

This semester, we also have Jon Kent on extended Long Service Leave. Jon will return to ENPS from Term Three.

For your information we have again attached the 2026 Staff List below for you - this way you get to know who is who, and what we all do! 

2026 Community Engagement and Start of School Picnic

Make sure you print a copy of our 2026 Community Engagement Calendar of Events (found in this newsletter) for your fridge at home and save the date for a great variety of events that will happen throughout the year. 

Our first great community event took place this week with our VIP (Very Important Person) and open classroom afternoon. It was fabulous to see lots of family members coming along to meet our teaching staff, see our learning spaces across the school and engage with our learning and teaching from Year One to Year Five. 

Next up is our Start of School Year Community Picnic on Friday 20th February from 3:30pm in Woodlands Park. Our ENPS School Council host this event, and everyone is welcome. Bring a picnic dinner, a picnic blanket, chairs and enjoy an afternoon chatting to other parents and staff, while the kids play together. There is no cost involved, and you can stay for as long or little amount of time as you like! 

We are also seeking family members to volunteer for our annual Countries of ENPS day later this term! Check out Compass and the Community Engagement page for more information.

More information is to come for all of these events, however if you are keen to be a part of this (or any community engagement event) planning, please contact the office, Tanya Ward or myself directly. Our first Community Engagement Team meeting with our parent volunteers will be coming up soon so we would love to see lots of parents/carers come along! We need everyone’s help to keep our community events happening. See the Community Engagement page in the newsletter for more information. 

Planning Week

Next week, our teaching teams will have their allocated planning day, as a part of Planning Week. Across the week, each year level team will have one day to work collaboratively together planning and preparing for their upcoming units of learning. This means that your child will have all their specialist lessons on the one day, as a way to release the home group teachers. Our planning days happen once a term to support teaching teams with planning time. 

Have a wonderful weekend. It has been a tremendously smooth and positive start to 2026 and we all look forward to a great year ahead! 

Kate Barletta

Principal