Principal's Report
Dear families and friends of MPW,
Congratulations to our students for their participation in our 3-way conferences last week. It was a great week to celebrate and acknowledge the learning of the first half of the year. I have been receiving great feedback from teachers, parents and even some students on how they have enjoyed talking about their learning this year with their families and had the chance to show their parents some work and achievements in the specialist areas as well. Thank you to Sue, Helen, Cindy and Bree for their support in organising the Art Show and Japanese open classroom sessions last week to allow parents and students to talk about and see the fantastic learning across the school.
The Art Show will remain up this week to allow for families to continue having a look at the amazing artwork of our students.
It was also great to see many students coming in to purchase books from the Book Fair. We have a strong focus on fostering reading for enjoyment and exposing children to rich literature at MPW, and seeing students actively wanting to use our Library and purchase books from the Book Fair highlights this. Thank you to Michele, Sandra and Sharyn for their support organising and running the Book Fair last week. The school will be able to invest into some more books and resources to support our students reading as a result.
MVIMP Music Camp
Last week some of our senior students attended the Moonee Vale Instrumental Music Program (MVIMP) Camp alongside students from the other participating schools: Ascot Vale, Ascot Vale West and Moonee Ponds Primary Schools. This year nominated students again headed to Urban Camp in Parkville. The camp provides the opportunity for intensive instrumental lessons with the music tutors that culminated in a Thursday evening concert for the students’ families. It was again great to see the fantastic effort and performances of the instrumental groups and combined band. As always, it was a remarkable evening and performance. Thank you to Daniel for attending with our students and to Sandra for her work behind the scenes organising the camp alongside the MVIMP schools.
Parent/Carer Opinion Survey
Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is open to all families. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behavior, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.
Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies.
The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey will be open online from Monday 18 August to Friday 19 September 2025. All families are invited to participate in this year’s survey and will receive a link to the survey and a personalised PIN.
The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones.
The online survey will be available in a variety of languages to assist parents / caregivers / guardians who speak a language other than English at home. Please reach out to the school directly for survey guides in your language should you need them.
Book Week is Coming
Book week commences the week of the 18th August. The theme this year is “Book an Adventure”. On Monday 18th August, this coming Monday, we kick off Book Week celebrations with our usual Dress Up Day.
Students are encouraged to come to school dressed as a book character. There will be a special parade held at Assembly where classes will get a chance to come on the stage to share their costumes.
Book Week continues the school’s highlighting of rich literature and love of reading. Students will be able to connect with their favourite book, read it again and recommend it to others. We look forward to students and staff dressing up as their favourite book characters on Monday.
For more information about Book Week, please visit the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s website here: https://cbca.org.au/
NAPLAN
The national and state NAPLAN data has now been released, and comparisons are available for the school to evaluate our performance.
I am pleased to share that MPW has continued to achieved results above the state in all areas of NAPLAN for both Year 3 and 5. We received strong results of student performance in the Exceeding and Strong proficiency levels for Year 3 and 5 Reading and Writing, ranging 82 to 89% of our students.
We also performed similar to schools like us and generally higher than schools in our network.
We are continuing to analyse these results, celebrate these achievements and look for areas of future focus based on this current year’s data and trends over the past couple of years.
SEDA Basketball Clinics
It was great to see students from SEDA College come out to the school again this year (over the last 3 weeks) to run basketball clinics with students in all year levels. Students enjoyed the additional time having fun outside developing their basketball skills. Thanks to Bree for her organisation of this opportunity for our students as part of our Physical Education program.
School Planning for 2026
It is that time of the year where we will begin to plan for the 2026 school year, offers to our future foundation families have been distributed and acceptances are coming in, many very excited to be joining the MPW school community and many siblings from our existing families.
We do ask that if you are planning on your child(ren) not being at Moonee Ponds West in 2026 that you please complete the form below and return to the office or email to: moonee.ponds.west.ps@education.vic.gov.au
Update on suspension and expulsion powers in Government schools
Our school is committed to providing a safe, respectful and inclusive environment for all students and staff. You may be aware of recent changes announced to the suspension and expulsion powers that are available to Victorian principals from Term 3 2025.
We know that students’ behaviour outside of school, particularly online, can sometimes impact the safety of students and staff at school.
In exceptional circumstances, principals of Victorian government schools will be able suspend or expel students for behaviour that occurs outside of school grounds and/or hours including online, if it poses a significant danger to the safety and wellbeing of students or staff.
These powers apply only to serious incidents where there is a clear and close connection to the school and the behaviour of a student outside of school unreasonably impacts the safety and wellbeing of students or staff at school, and their ability to learn or work. Please note:
- They do not apply to behaviours unrelated to the school or school community.
- They only apply to behaviour which occurs from Monday 21 July 2025 onwards.
Suspensions and expulsions will remain measures of last resort – our primary approach continues to focus on proactive and positive behaviour support, including working with families to teach students the behaviours we expect of them, in school and in life.
Thank you for your continued support as we work in partnership to educate and support our young people.
What’s coming up?
Curriculum Day Thursday 21st August
A reminder we have our Term 3 Curriculum Day on Thursday 21st August, this is a student free day. Staff will be participating in some professional learning on this day to continuously focus on improvement in our approaches to teaching and learning.
Camp Australia will be available should you need their services on the day.
Father’s Day Open Morning
Father’s Day is coming up in a couple of week and to acknowledge, we will be opening classrooms for our dads, granddads or a special person on Friday 5th September. This will be held in the morning, to allow engagement in some activities, shared experiences with your child(ren) in the first session of the day.
Regards,
Jarrod
Principal