Principal's Report

Dear EHPS Parents and Carers,

2025 Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey

WE WANT OUR PARENTS / CAREGIVERS / GUARDIANS TO TELL US WHAT THEY THINK! 

Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. 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.

A random sample of parents / caregivers / guardians have been selected to participate in this year’s survey. 

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 English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Resources are also available in additional languages to assist parents / caregivers / guardians who speak a language other than English at home. Please reach out to your child’s teacher, or the school directly for survey guides in your language.

The survey results will be communicated to parents / caregivers / guardians through annual reporting and at School Council. Last year we used the survey results to plan parent forums, improved communication with families and general improvements to our school environment for the children. 

Please speak to your child’s teacher if you would like more information.

NAPLAN 2025

Recently, the State Government and the Department of Education announced that the overall 2025 NAPLAN results were very pleasing, especially at the primary level.

In 2025, Victorian students achieved top NAPLAN results nationally, with 70% of students performing in the "strong" or "exceeding" bands on average. Victoria ranked first or second in 18 out of 20 NAPLAN categories.

Our EHPS results were excellent and again showed how well our children are progressing.

Book Week

This week we had so many wonderful activities in our Essex Heights celebration of reading!! The children looked spectacular at the Book Parade on Wednesday. It was also very pleasing to see so many families at the parade supporting the children. Throughout the week there have been many reading activities in classes and at lunchtime in the Library. At Essex Heights, we aim for all children to enjoy reading and for it to be a regular part of their lives.

A few families have enquired why we are celebrating Book Week earlier than other schools. The reason is that next week we have our annual Indonesian Day/Hari Indonesia on Wednesday. We did not want to overlap the two events. So our Book Week celebrations were brought forward to this week.

In our community we are fortunate to provide books for our children to read and enjoy. Sadly not all children have the same access to quality reading material. 40% of children from low-income homes struggle with their reading and literacy. In some of the most disadvantaged suburbs 61% of children DO NOT own a single book.

This year we are raising money to support an organisation called ‘Reading Out Of Poverty (ROOP)’ that provides books to children to nurture a love and the habit of reading every day. I urge you to support this very worthy cause and make a difference for disadvantaged children by donating to the EHPS fundraiser for ROOP. To donate, scan the QR code on the information provided on the Principal’s Reading Challenge and Book Week page in this newsletter, and it will take you to the appropriate page.

A huge thank you to the staff Book Week committee for organising all aspects of the week including the Book Week Parade. Also, congratulations to the Library Captains for hosting the Book Week Parade. Well done to you all. 

Classes for 2026

In Term 3 the school begins planning for next year. Two important factors that are considered are the number of Foundation (Prep) students that will be starting in the following year and then the number of classes that will be run at each year level. 

Our Foundation (Prep) 2026 intake is currently 76 offered and accepted places, from the just under 120 applications submitted. Because our school is at capacity, in all other year levels, entry into Essex Heights will be limited to only in-zone or sibling families.

Next year there will not be any composite classes. Our 24 classrooms will be as follows:

Farewell

We farewell the following student and their family from the EHPS community:

• Lily O (2F) - moved out of the area

I look forward to seeing you around the school.

Kindest regards,

George Perini

Principal