Dear Families,

Welcome to the 2026 school year!

The summer break seems like it was so long ago, especially as we are now at the end of Week 3 of Term 1, but I trust you all had a chance to rest up and enjoy some extra time with your families. After such a busy 2025, the break was a great way to recharge and prepare for an incredible 2026.

I wasn't the only one coming back raring to go, with all our staff arriving for our first day back, a day earlier than the students, with energy and excitement for what the year holds. Our Curriculum Day, which is mandated by the Department of Education across the state of Victoria, is always a busy day for us. I'm sure you can remember it was a scorching hot day - but our teams got to work to make sure 2026 will be our best year yet. Our year-level teams set their intentions for the year to make sure each child in their care is set up for success. All staff also completed or renewed their First Aid and CPR certifications, ensuring we are offering the safest environment for our community.

As a result of everyone's hard work (not just on the Curriculum Day, but over the summer break) our students were able to get back to the fun of learning from the moment they entered the classroom, with each student working through the 'Big 10', ensuring every student is set up for success in their new class.

Our newest members to the Albanvale PS Community

On behalf of the Albanvale Community, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of our new students, including our Prep Class of 2026. The trust you put in us by choosing to enrol your child at Albanvale PS is not lost on any of us at the school, and we feel privileged to be part of their education journey.

Our Prep students in particular have settled in remarkably on the back of our fantastic Prep Readiness Program, including Head Start. The benefits of our students working through this is already obvious as you can see our youngest community members ready and excited to learn from the very first day.

Compass and reminders

The start of the school year is a great time to make sure you have the Compass App set up on your phone, preferably with notifications on, to ensure you are receiving all the important information from school. Compass is our primary means of communication with our families and it is essential you have access to it. Through the Compass App you can view messages from school, see excursions and upcoming events, access student reports, log absences, place lunch orders and book Parent Teacher Interviews. If you are having any problems logging in our Office Team can help you.

New staff and classrooms

You may have noticed, particularly in the younger year levels, a change in some of the year level make-ups and locations. This year we have a straight Grade 1 cohort, and a straight Grade 2 cohort. This is part of roll out of moving toward straight grades across all year level in 2027. Furthermore, this year we have reintroduced Science as a Specialist Subject which will alternate year level each semester with Italian. This is part of our design of our whole school curriculum as we continue to build our intentional knowledge building sequence across year levels and subject areas.

School Council Nominations and Election

This year, we are looking for parent nominations to join our School Council. All government schools in Victoria have a school council. School councils are legal entities that are given powers to set the broad directions of a school in accordance with Ministerial Order 1280 Constitution of Government School Councils and the Education and Training Reform Act 2006. In doing this, a school council is able to directly influence the quality of education that the school provides for its students.

If you are interested, please contact the office for further information and pick up a nomination form.

A bit longer than usual for my welcome to the newsletter, but thank you for getting this far! I'm looking forward to working with you in making 2026 Albanvale Primary School's best year yet!

Achieve Excellence, Together.

Michael Uzunovski

Principal

Elmer in Visual Arts