Principal Report

Good afternoon parents and families,

It's been a busy (and quick!) two weeks since our last newsletter and our students and teachers are all extremely focused and working hard to finish off assessments. End of Semester Reports will be out later this term (late Week 10), and we will be holding our second session of Parent-Teacher Interviews in Week 11, with Year 5/6 students taking part in 3 way (i.e. student led) conferences instead. More details to follow in next fortnight’s newsletter. 

School Athletics and Tabloid Sports Day

Last Friday we held our very popular sports days for all year levels across the school. Our Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 students worked their way through 12 fun activities in mixed groups, and our Year 3 to 6 students all competed in more traditional events at the Newport Park Athletics track, including high jump, long jump, hurdles, sprints, and discus.

It was great to see so many of our students demonstrate our school value of resilience and give new activities and sports a go! I loved seeing everyone dressed up in school house colours and getting into the spirit of the day. It was also wonderful to see so many families come and watch proceedings - there were around 120 that saw the F-2 events alone. The winning team will be announced at assembly later this week (May 30th). I wonder who it will be this year?

A big thank you to Mr A. for organising the events down at the track and also organising the Bayside College student helpers at both places, who were fantastic, as were the wonderful parent helpers (thank you for volunteering your time!). Thank you to Erin and Ashlee for coordinating the wonderful F-2 event as well.

Communication and Related Expectations

As I sent out on Compass last week, NLPS understands the importance of providing helpful and timely responses to common enquiries from parents and carers and the need to set clear expectations. To ensure that members of our school community are directed to the most appropriate person to assist them, the information below outlines key contacts for common queries:

• to report a student absence, please do so via Compass or contact the office directly on 03 9391 8942 or newport.lakes.ps@education.vic.gov.au
• to report any urgent issues relating to your child on a particular day, please contact their teacher via the school phone, email address (see above), or Compass - or let them know at drop off time. Please make an appointment at a mutually suitable time if you need to speak with staff about anything longer than a couple of sentences at the beginning or end of the day, as teachers often have tasks and meetings to attend to directly before and after the school bell (e.g. coming in to share that your child has had a terrible sleep or is a bit worried about something at the beginning of the day is very helpful but wanting a full daily briefing/debriefing is not sustainable).
• to discuss a student’s academic progress, health, or wellbeing, please contact your child’s teacher via the school phone, school email, or Compass to discuss and/or make an appointment at a suitable time. For wellbeing issues that need to be escalated to the Wellbeing Leader, your class teacher will facilitate this.
• for enquiries regarding camps and excursions, please contact your child’s teacher or Year Level Coordinator via the school phone, school email, or Compass.
• to make a complaint about students, staff, or other families, please contact the Principal or Assistant Principal via the school phone, the school email, or Compass. Please also refer to our Complaints policy, available here. In the case of issues between students, please do not use informal communication channels to contact unknown parents directly, or speak with a student in the yard directly – please contact the class teacher or Year Level Coordinator as first port of call.
• to report a potential hazard or incident on the school site, or all other enquires please contact the office on 03 9391 8942  or newport.lakes.ps@education.vic.gov.au

We will do our best to respond to general queries as soon as possible. The right to disconnect legislation makes explicit that all employees have the right to refuse to monitor, read, listen to, or respond to contact that occurs outside their working hours from their employer or a third party (such as a student or a parent), unless that refusal is unreasonable.

We ask that you allow us 1-3 working days to provide you with a detailed response to general queries as we are often needing to get back to multiple parents at any one time. We will endeavour to respond to urgent matters within 24 hours where possible.

It is also important to note that, in line with DET expectations and Child Safety Standards, parents are not to come into classrooms during learning time (unless there is a short-term agreement with the class teacher and the leadership team are also aware).

Importantly, as per our NLPS School Values Matrix, we expect all members of our school community, students, staff, and families, to demonstrate our values in their communications each day, in person, and online. 

We thank you for your understanding and support.

Staff and Student Illness          

As the weather cools down significantly, similar to almost all sectors of the community, we are presently experiencing a considerable amount of illness amongst our students and staff, including gastro, colds, and influenza.

We have been endeavouring to replace teachers when absent with CRTs (casual relief teachers) but due to CRT shortages this is not always possible. At times we are required to utilise our leadership team and specialist teachers to fill in, or, in some cases, we need to split classes amongst other grades, to ensure operation of the school. We thank families for their understanding and support in this matter and remind you to keep your child at home if they are not well, to stop the risk of spreading anything to their teacher and/or classmates.

Mobile Phones & Devices (Including Smart Watches)

A friendly reminder that, In accordance with the Education Department’s ‘Mobile Phones – Use by Students Policy’ issued by the Minister for Education, personal mobile phones are not permitted to be used at NLPS during school hours unless an exception has been granted - usually around medical necessity. 

For the purpose of any government school’s mobile phone policy (found on our website), it includes any device that has access to a cellular (telecommunication) system, with or without a physical connection to a network - therefore, any device that may connect to or have a similar functionality to a mobile phone, including tablets or smart watches. We recognise that a number of parents have supplied their children with a mobile phone for safety reasons for when they travel to and from school. In these cases, the students must turn off their phones, or smart watch internet connectivity, whilst they are at school (including the school grounds) and store them in a safe place for the full school day.  

Students should not access or turn their phones on until after they leave the school grounds. At this stage, we are not wanting to get to a position where we keep phones / smart devices away from students during the school day as many other schools already do.

Please also note that mobile phones, tablets, and smart watches owned by students, are considered as valuable items and are brought to school at the owner’s (or student’s) own risk. Students are encouraged NOT to bring a mobile phone or smart watch to school unless they have a compelling reason to do so. Please note that NLPS does not have accident insurance for accidental property damage or theft and any item brought to school is done so at the owner’s risk. 

If you wish to communicate with your child during school hours, it is important you use the official channels, in line with the DET policy of no mobile/device use by students during school hours. Please call or email the office so they can pass on any important message to your child instead. Thank you for your cooperation.

2026 Foundation Tours 

These tours began in Week 1 and will continue until late May, including an information session on the evening of 27th May. We have had strong response from the community again and would like to remind families that enrolment is required to be done by July 25th, so we can plan for 2026 with confidence - of course, enrolment can also be done earlier. If you have a sibling of a student that attends here already, please do not forget to get this done by the due date.

Pupil Free Day

A reminder that on Wednesday 28th May, no student is required to be at school, as all staff members are participating in a Professional Practice Day (PPD). The current EBA requires that all teaching staff get one PPD a year and, rather than rely on CRTs, schools can select to have them all on one day instead, which the NLPS Consultative Committee has agreed to do, just like last year. This year, we decided to hold this on a Wednesday, as this is the day that the majority of our staff are here, and we already have classes missing two Monday specialists with the Easter Monday and King's Birthday public holidays.

There will be no school for children on this day. Childcare is available and further information and bookings can be made by contacting the school’s OSHC provider Quantin Binnah on 9742 5040 or via email admin@qbcc.org.au.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of autumn!

Carly Bannon 

Proud NLPS Principal