From the Principal ...

Dear students, families and staff of Cheltenham Primary School,

A warm welcome to all our students and families for the new school year. Particularly our new Foundation students and their families and all other new students and families joining Cheltenham Primary School this year.  We hope that this will be the start of a very positive journey in learning for all. 

The children have returned to school and settled into their new classes brilliantly. 

Our smooth commencement owes much to the efforts of our wonderful staff who took time during the holidays to set up their classrooms, learning spaces and work areas to organise everything that our students required for their return. 

New staff

I would like to welcome the following staff members who are joining us this year:

Wendy Savage (Assistant Principal) - Wellbeing & Engagement in Learning

Samuel Groves (5A)

Samantha Van Zyl (5C)

Michelle Hare - Education Support Officer

Sylvia Torner-Bertacco - Education Support Officer 

Parent Payment Arrangements 2026 

Thank you to all families who have contributed or committed to supporting our school through Parent Payment Arrangements on Compass (formerly known as school fees). Your contributions play a vital role in enhancing learning opportunities for all students at Cheltenham Primary School.

If you have not yet had a chance to do so, please visit Compass to make a contribution online or via the office.  The School Council letter attached to the schedule of parent payments outlines how your contributions directly support your child at Cheltenham.

If you have any questions or require a more flexible payment plan, please don’t hesitate to contact the school office at cheltenham.ps@education.vic.gov.au

Your support is greatly appreciated!

NAPLAN 

The National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) are a nation-wide, standardised series of tests for children in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 which cover writing, spelling, grammar, reading and numeracy skills. NAPLAN is now held in March of each year.  The testing schedule this year commences Wednesday 11 March and concludes the following week, Friday 20 March. 

A NAPLAN update for families with children in Years 3 and 5 is in today's newsletter.  Our Learning Tutors and Intervention staff are currently working strategically with students and classroom teachers in Years 3 and 5, to ensure that the children are comfortable with the technology they will be using, the testing format and the time requirements, to give their Personal Best. 

Meet and Greet Meetings 

Over the last 2 weeks our teachers in Years 1-6 have been meeting with parents and caregivers of students' with specific wellbeing and academic needs. Our usual Meet and Greet meetings will be conducted Tuesday 24 February and Wednesday 25 February 3.40pm to 5.30pm. Please note: Year 6 will be commencing 3.40pm on Tuesday and 2.40pm on Wednesday to accomodate their larger class sizes. 

These short 'in person'10 minute meetings are an opportunity for parents that have not yet met their child's teacher to put a face to a name and vice versa.  It is also a time during which you can communicate confidentially about your child's well-being or learning needs.  If meeting in person is difficult at this time, please communicate with your child's teacher so they can make a personal arrangement with you. 

Teachers are unable to report on your child's progress (yet) as they are just in the early stages of relationship building and developing their understanding of each child's academic and social and emotional needs. If you have already met with your child’s teacher, there is no expectation that you need make an appointment. 

Bookings for Meet and Greet Meetings will be scheduled through Compass and go 'live' from tomorrow for you to book in. 

Foundation will be holding an Information session for families in each of the Foundations classrooms. Check Compass for details. 

Curriculum Overviews for Term 1

To support families to understand what is happening with learning and events in each Year Level PLC (professional learning community), we will continue to provide termly Curriculum overviews and learning reflections. These summaries give a snapshot of what is happening in learning - Literacy, Mathematics, STEAM and specialist disciplines- in addition to relevant year level information.  They also provide an opportunity for families to understand how the challenge extends as children progress from Foundation to Year 6. Today's newsletter has all the class overviews and our next one, will have the specialist overviews. If you would like to develop a sense of how learning progresses,  please do review all of these in today's newsletter.

Department of Education  Schools' privacy policy

In accordance with privacy legislation our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Please take time to remind yourself of our School’s Collection Notice, found on our website For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages.

* Amharic

* Arabic

* Dari

* Gujarati

* Mandarin

* Somali

* Sudanese

* Turkish

* Urdu

* Vietnamese

We look forward to working in partnership with you this year to ensure high levels of engagement and learning for all our students!

Kind Regards,

Bronwyn