As always there has been a lot happening at our school and DPS is a busy and vibrant place. It's hard to believe we are almost half way through the final term of 2024. Planning for 2025 is well uderway but there is still much to do this year!

We have organised a range of events, including a Bunnings barbecue, a soccer clinic, and the beginning of our transition activities. The Dance curriculum program was a success, and the Art exhibition, particularly the glow room, was a standout feature that was well received and drew quite a crowd.

Levels 4 and 6 have completed their water safety programs, while Healthy Harold from Life Education has been at DPS, contributing to our wellbeing initiatives. Additionally, our senior students participated in workshops led by local Police educators on cyber safety, reinforcing the importance of online safety.

Our school captains continue to impress with their leadership, running our Monday assemblies efficiently, and it’s great to see parents joining these assemblies virtually. As we approach the middle of term 4, it is time to call for expressions of interest for captaincy in 2025. The current captains are really looking forward to being part of the selection process and being on the other side of the interview table.

Our teachers remain dedicated to creating an inclusive, supportive, and challenging curriculum for all students. They engage in professional learning and development sessions every Wednesday after school, as well as collaborate in professional learning committees to analyse student data and enhance our educational approaches. We have some teachers moving on in 2025 for different reasons and have advertised vacancies accordingly. We are confident that we will attract high calibre teachers to DPS as a destination of choice school.

We continue to have difficulty in finding relief teachers, fortunately we have a few who only work at DPS, but this is going to become a greater challenge in 2025.

Fortunately, we are in a very secure financial position at DPS. The department have started encouraging schools to use surplus funding for targeted projects. Each year we have to explain what our surplus funds are being saved for. We have always stated clearly that we aim to continually improve our buildings and grounds as well as maintaining a good supply of computers, iPad etc.

In recent months we have started upgrading areas within the school which have been part of our long term goals but as DET are encouraging upgrades to happen sooner than later we have brought some projects forward which is exciting.

We might as well spend available funds on students at DPS now rather than saving for a rainy day.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of our staff, who continuously strive to provide the best learning environment for our students. I also want to thank our active parent group for their ongoing involvement and support, special mention to Mal Debab who has lead our parent group for a number of years. It is the combined efforts of our entire community that make DPS a great school.

We were recently informed that we will be serviced by a new cleaning company. On December 26th “Tradeflex” will take over from Spotless. This is a decision made by the department which was announced earlier this term.

I would also like to individually mention the members of our school leadership team who posses a depth of knowledge and more importantly a commitment to providing the best environment in which students can learn and grow.

Julia Bay - Assistant Principal

Niky Corfios - Assistant Principal

Andrew Johnson – Well Being Leading Teacher

Diane Meilak - Junior School Literacy Learning Specialist

Lillie Powell – Senior School Literacy Learning Specialist

Brent Granger – Junior School Numeracy Learning Specialist

School attendance and punctuality

I am concerned about the amount of time some students miss when they are late to school or take long holidays during term. Every day counts at school and regular attendance is one of the most important parts of your child’s education.

Students learn new things at school every day – missing school puts them behind. School is better when your child is there, we want our students to have a great education, and the building blocks begin with regular attendance each and every day. Please, of course, do not send your child to school when they are unwell.

If students are away from school regularly, they miss out on learning the fundamental skills that will set them up for success in the later years of school.

The main reasons for absence are: Sickness – There are always times when students need to miss school, when they’re ill. It’s vital that they’re only away on the days they are genuinely sick, and developing good sleep patterns, eating well and exercising regularly can make a big difference. Family holidays should be planned during school holidays where possible, and not during the term. If you are planning to go on holiday during term, make sure that you talk to your child’s school in advance, and work with them to develop an absence learning plan.

Please think twice before letting your child have a day off as they could fall behind their classmates – every day counts. Truancy is when students choose not to go to school without their parent’s/carer’s permission. There can be many reasons for truancy. The best way to address this is for schools and parents/carers to work together.

Being away from school for one day a fortnight equals missing 1.5 years over 13 years of school. If you’re having attendance issues with your child, please let your classroom teacher know so we can work together to get your child to school every day.

We have an attendance data wall where we track attendance, and when children are away and it is unexplained, or for lengthy or pattern forming, we will contact parents and request a meeting to discuss how we can support getting children to school more regularly.

Planning for 2025

This term we are making plans for teacher and student placements/classes in 2025. Class placement is a complex process involving a range of factors and allocations will not be finalised until later this term. At this stage, we will have 26 classes next year.

I invite parents to put in writing any information about their child/ren that they want considered by our staff as they go about forming our classrooms for 2025 by 4pm on November 15th. The information you provide should focus on your child’s needs (whether they be academic, medical, physical, emotional or social). Please note, requests for particular teachers will not be considered as the best interests of all of the students and the effective management of the school must be taken into account.

As you may understand, the allocation of children to new classes is a very complex task and one that requires patience and a great deal of consideration, discussion and thought. During this process, changes and adjustments are made over several weeks. Each change may trigger a chain reaction of other changes. When classes are formed and staffing finalised, teachers are then allocated to classes.

Factors influencing class structure include:

Funding
Educational needs of the students;
Projected number of students in each year level;
Ratio of girls to boys;
The number of teachers employed at the school
Resources and facilities.

Factors which are considered in the placement of students include:

Work habits e.g. ability to work independently and cooperatively
Behaviour
Gender
Social network /friendships
Social maturity
Special needs e.g. twins, siblings
Language

The process for placing students into classes is based on the considerations above, teaching and leadership teams meet through the term to establish classes for the following school year.

Teachers ensure classes have:

A balance of academic ability
Gender balance
Socially balanced groups

I thankyou for your trust, patience and understanding of this complex process.

Parent Group

We are very fortunate to have a small parent group who support DPS. They run uniform second hand sales, mothers and fathers Day stalls and fund raising activities. If you would like to be involved you would be most welcome.

As we approach the end of this school year the parent group are losing one amazing Mum!

A special heartfelt THANK YOU to Monica who has been a very active member of the PFG team and DPS community for over 10 years. Monica has volunteered at DPS as part of the PFG team, Mothers/Fathers Day coordinator, Banking team, Classroom volunteer, Book Club team, Library volunteer and the list goes on. Monica has volunteered since her eldest started in prep and leaves us at the end of the year with her second child finishing primary school this year. Monica, you are a valued member of the DPS community and you will truly be missed.

Mrs. Kelly Soccio

Last week we were infomred that Mrs. Kelly Soccio has been promoted to Assistant Principal at another school. The selection process took place in recent weeks and we were only informed of the outcome last Thursday night. The appointment started this week.

Kelly commenced teaching at DPS 18 years ago! In her time at DPS she has fulfilled numerous roles and taught most grade levels across the school.

In recent years Kelly has lead Numeracy as a Learning Specialist which involved creating scope and sequence charts, assessment procedures, data analysis and created learning goals and targets for the senior school. She has been a valued member of our Schoolwide Leadership and Improvement Team and it is her experience, knowledge and commitment to education that has prepared her to take the next step in her career.

Kelly will be a big loss to DPS and while we wish her well, and know she will be an asset to her new school we will miss her!

Congratulations, thankyou for everything you have done at DPS, and go well Mrs. Soccio.

Determination Pride Success

Regards

Jim

Reading Eggs